worried about displaced pets

My friend Dixie looks concerned about all of the evacuees and whether they'll have a safe place to stay - and rightly so. So many displaced folks - so many dogs.

summer girl

I thought this sunburned girl would be an appropriate way to say goodbye to summer. She isn't my own grandchild but that of a dear painting friend, and I couldn't resist trying to capture her. I think she's telling the kid behind the concessions counter that she regrets asking for strawberry ice cream (who wouldn't?) and now needs a new chocolate cone, instead. Pink was easier to paint, though.

Beach Boy

Discovering the Atlantic ocean - even in jacket weather - opened new horizons for our water-loving boy. More rocks to throw and shells to pocket. the water was freezing cold but he wasn't deterred one bit.

Art Imitating Art

Mary Cassatt painted "The Young Girls" in about l885; the expressions she captured are unsurpassable, and I hoped by attempting to duplicate her work to sharpen my eye for the gestures which truly convey personality and emotion. I like to imagine what these two might have been thinking as they posed for the artist. Best friends, maybe cousins who delighted in one another's company. I remember feeling that way about my own cousins.

Boys on Bikes

Old family pictures fascinate me. As I study an old photo, I try to reconstruct the day the shot was taken, the moment, the photographer. This picture of three brothers was taken, probably by their dad, on a summer day in 1955. My husband (on the far left) reports that this is absolutely typical of those days for his brothers and him - shirtless, shoeless, outside dawn until dark, footloose in the yard and nearby neighborhood of those days. Their goofy expressions indicate they were likely trying to get their dad's goat as he attempted to get them to smile for the camera. He spent a lifetime trying to get his family to perform for his camera, with little success. I like the big boys riding by in the background, like to wonder where they ended up.

The Boy

My first effort to capture my grandson came after watching him on a gulf coast vacation, where he spent most of his time not on the beach but playing with the hose. He was - and is - entranced by water, though now that interest manifests itself in his playing fireman and shooting everyone with an imaginary hose. Fires everywhere.

finding a voice

I've painted forever, but only really discovered my voice (as we call it in the English teacher world) when I started painting my grandchildren. They are beautiful beyond words but their personalities are what I really hope to capture in my paintings. Their mom says I did so in this most recent one of precious miss m.