Inspiration

Sometimes the inspiration you’re seeking is right in your own backyard. It’s beautiful here in Maine, especially along the coast, but even more so in summer and fall. I walk every day, and I take tons of pictures, and every once in a while I attempt to paint one of them. I combined the following two pictures into one painting:

This is the walkway down to the beach at Biddeford Pool.

And this is the walkway onto the beach here on Gerrish Island.

I like the beach roses at our beach, but I also like the walkway and fence at Biddeford Pool, so I combined the two:

I’m also still trying to learn new techniques, so once in a while I paint along with a tutorial. This Ginger Cook video taught me how to paint an old house and garden, part of it using a palette knife:

In keeping with the flower theme, I also painted these two little (8x8”) guys:

This is still a work in progress; a very busy one, I know… lots going on here! I’ve painted this barn before - it’s right around the corner from here - but this time I thought I’d add a stone wall into to the mix. And more flowers. I got tips on painting stone walls from yep, another tutorial, this time one of Angela Anderson’s. I need to work on the yard and the wall, among other things. It’s taken up a lot of my time, but hey, it’s good practice…

My sister Karen has skills that I’ll never have, and here’s just one example of what she’s done recently. She made these bunnies for me a long time ago, as a Christmas gift. They used to sit on a little green bench I had at our South Berwick house, but we’ve built a few more houses since then, and I’ve had to pack them up and move them several times, and they were looking a little shabby lately, (I wish I had a before pic!) so she took them home with her and gave them a makeover.

Awwwww…. they’re so darn cute!!