Retirement Day Ceremony

After 26 years of service in the US Army Chris had his official retirement ceremony this past Thursday morning.  While we are not leaving until the second week of June, we scheduled the ceremony this past week to allow plenty of time for family to fly in to join us .  Thanks to the band's publicity section for the wonderful photo of us at the ceremony.  After 26 years in the US Military Academy Band at West Point, of which I've been along for the whole ride, the good and bad along the way, Chris will leave in June and we'll start a whole new chapter of our lives.

This is a photo of the band during the 2007 outdoor summer concert series at Trophy Point.  There is a beautiful view from this location out to the Hudson River, it is a very pretty place to have concerts each summer.

When we head out in June we have lots of great memories and photos to take with us.

NY Botanical Garden Orchid Show - Pt 1

A few weeks ago Chris and I went to the annual orchid show at the NY Botanical Garden.  There was not a theme to the show this year, just beautiful orchids everywhere we looked and funny enough, this was my favorite show in years.

There are too many photos to share in one post so I will spread out the eye candy over a couple of weeks.

 

We even had some fun with the new digital camera with some of it's interesting features.

The displays were just stunning this year and words are not really needed to take the tour.  This event is always a visual treat for the eyes and a perfect afternoon spent celebrating spring.  ENJOY!!!

First Day Of Spring.....

My newest painting was finished this past week, my last one for a while.  My studio is being cleaned, sorted through and boxed up over the next week or so.  It is amazing how much junk I found and also located things I've been looking for as well.  Too many art supplies and too little time I guess.  I probably will not be getting back to painting until July as we'll have things to do on our new house that we want to take care of right away (to actually make sure we do them) and also, we want to spend some time driving around and doing things in our new area, to get to know everything and have a bit of fun as well.

Last week we finished all the odds and ends in the basement and I stumbled upon a bit of a surprise. 
I found our old coffee table buried under a pile of boxes that had accumulated over it through the years ( I knew about the boxes so that was no shock ) but the coffee table had quite a pile of nuts on it.....yes, nuts and nuts mean that there was a squirrel in my basement at some point enjoying a meal.  I'm so glad he left before I could run into him down there, I would have screamed my head off.  We're leaving NY for Orlando on June 12 and while most of the work is done, there are still some things to sort through.  Hopefully no more squirrel surprises though.....yuk.

Anyway, this little chickadee is 6" x 6" on gallery canvas and the bird, tree and greenery are all done with stucco for extra texture. 

Sun Drenched Irises......

"Sun Drenched Irises" is the latest piece to roll out of my studio this week.  I really love bearded irises and wanted to create another painting of sunny colored flowers this time around.  I decided on the very pretty yellow / orange shade and got to work on my canvas.  This one measures 16" h x 8" w and is 1 1/2" d.

The blooms and leaves are once again done in stucco so you can see and feel the texture, which I'm really liking these days. 

The rest of the week was spent doing a bit of work around the house , still purging junk but at this point, we are almost finished with that end of it, which is a really good feeling.  Also trying to get out there and enjoy some spring weather too, nothing like a good walk to clear the cob webs.

Cleaning The Clutter Of My Life......Plus Some Art Card Designs

 Before I get to the clutter part of my life, I did make a couple of new art cards a while back.  The "Butterfly Garden" card above was created from the original painting below (with Chris's help cropping and sizing everything).  I'm very happy with the way this one turned out.

Chris had to do a bit more work on the "Bearded Iris Garden" card because the original painting below was a big square and he was trying to change the shape while keeping as much of the main subject as possible.  I would love to get these art cards (including all that I did before this) photographed and onto ETSY but I just don't think that is going to happen at this point.  Seems like too much to get done for now and this kind of thing can wait until the upcoming months.

With just over 2 months until we leave West Point, I have some clutter and garbage to remove from my life.  For me, the worst possible thing would be to not bother with it now and have the movers pack all my trash, with me having to throw it all away when I get to Orlando.  I'm trying to avoid that so I've been working in my messy studio above to go through everything, recycle what I can, throw away what I don't need and just organize what I'm taking with me to make it easier to pack.  I tackled the messiest part of the room this week, the area to the left of my desk that is actually not in this photo.  It is all clean, organized and ready to go....I was able to get rid of a ton of junk from this area.  Going through everything I found things I hadn't seen in years, things I wondered why I didn't throw away long ago and many items that gave me the "so that is where it has been all this time" moment.

Dudley of course kept me company through the whole thing and I think was standing there in awe of my finally having done the stuff I should have done a long time ago.  He by the way offered no help with this task what so ever but did stop long enough to pose for the camera.

Spring Paintings....

There hasn't been much of a spring feeling here in NY, with more snow just dumped on us this week but I'm thinking spring anyway, creating some smaller paintings for the new season.







 

"Whispers Of The Season" is 8" h x 6" w and the little wren in the painting is enjoying the first days of spring.

 



"Spring Robin" is 12" h x 4" w tucked away in a purple tulip he is happily enjoying the blooms.

I think at this point I might be painting a tree next or perhaps an abstract or maybe, a combination of both....who knows, I think I'll decide that once I get started.

Reflections Of Spring

This week I finished "Reflections Of Spring" an English Iris painting.  I'm feeling all about spring these days, really only wanting to paint happy paintings.  I often like to pair the canvas shape with the proportions of the subject to make it look as natural as possible.  This particular piece is 12" h x 4" w and I think the canvas suits what I wanted to do with the composition of this painting nicely.

This week a new digital camera arrived in the mail for me as well.  I had my original one for only 4 years and in the last 6 months, it became harder and harder to take photos and get the camera to actually work.  I mean geez, it was a compact little digital camera for casual use, it certainly never got put through the ringer by me so I was bummed it didn't last longer, I really expected it too.  Once I got over the offensive (to me anyway) idea of shelling out money right now for another digital camera, I'm really glad that I did.  This new one is wonderful, almost just as small as the last (important to me) and wow, the detail shots I can get with it.  When Chris took these photos today, I was thrilled, the detail shots really reveal the layers and texture of the stucco along with the blend of color.  Now that the pain of having spent the money is over and done, I'm really glad I got it.

Have a creative week....think spring.