A Time For New Adventures........

We've been in Florida for a month now and just love it here.  On our road trip I got to stop in VA and meet a friend of mine, have dinner together and enjoy a wonderful evening with her, it was an amazing treat.  The dogs weren't all that thrilled about the car ride but they made it just fine to their new home here in Orlando.   I'm saying goodbye to blogging for now, for many reasons, I think it is a decision that will be good for me.  I'll be leaving my blog on line but will no longer be posting.  If anyone needs to reach me, my new email address is:  rhwelter@gmail.com   . 

Time To Hit The Road......

With just 1 1/2 weeks left until my move, I'll be hitting the road with Chris, Dudley and Orchid, heading to Orlando soon.  I'll be taking a few weeks off from blogging to get my new house in order and complete some projects we would like to work on right away (before we get lazy).  Will see you in July with a new, well organized art studio (that is the plan anyway).

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.

"Branching Out" Abstract Triptych Treescape

"Branching Out" is the newest treescape triptych to make it out of my studio, recently sprayed with a protective matt finish and currently drying in my basement. 

I wanted to do a multi-canvas painting and knew that I had something in mind that was really contemporary and abstract but I also wanted lots of texture, so I decided on a triptych treescape.

First I always play around with different shapes and sizes of canvas, orienting them different ways to try and decide how I want to lay out the painting.  Once that portion of the process is decided upon, I can than go ahead and make my sketch.

While I'm creating a sketch, I also start on my background which can take a couple of days for a painting this size as there are layers or color applied that must dry before others are added.  A heavy application of stucco gives the tree branches really thick texture.

 

The finished panels are placed together for the last time, just to make sure everything looks just right and the completed painting has emerged.





Indoor Garden With Orchids.....

Being that nothing is really growing outside right now, it is fun to fuss over and photograph my orchids that are blooming at the moment.  Right now I have 5 plants that are in bloom and I have to say, I like photographing them at their different stages of growth from spike to buds to flowers.  The orchid above is a great bloomer for me and when the plant started producing buds this time, there were 3 that initially formed.

While these 3 blooms were putting on a nice show for me, you can see from the above photo that 2 more buds formed on the spike, waiting patiently for their turn to bloom.

In this photo, only one of the original blooms remain and you can see that the 2 buds have gotten very big and will burst into bloom at any time.

I love this little red Phalaenopsis, it is the second time it has bloomed for me and this time it formed 2 buds which turned into beautiful flowers.

It was a happy surprise when the Phal above started forming a spike as it had just stopped blooming and I was amazed it started again so soon.

The above Phal I have had for years and I have not had any luck getting it to rebloom for me.  I decided that it was now or never so to speak and if it wouldn't rebloom for me it was getting left behind when I moved.  I spent a lot of time with it over the past months trying to coax it into action and imagine my happines when the spike above first started to appear.

It formed 7 buds on this particular spike and now of course, since I have gotten it to bloom for me, it will be a regular bloomer without any special effort involved and it will also be moving with me, sitting with the other orchids on the front floor of my car. 

I've had this plant for so long that I had actually forgotten what color it was and to my happy surprise, it is yellow with a red center.  Yellow is a color I have been wanting in my orchid garden so I was thrilled.

"Spring Pleasures" Completed

Yesterday I finished painting "Spring Pleasures" and just in time too as I needed some spring cheer to help deal with the blizard we got yesterday.  Shoveling out in the biting cold wind with a foot and a half to two feet of snow in some places is just one of my favorite things to do.... (not even close) .  I know I sound a bit snarky about it all and well, snow makes me very grumpy.  All I can say is....Orlando here I come, there is nothing in the NY winter that I will miss, not even a little.

Now it is revealed that my woodland creature is a happy little chipmunk nestled on one of the tulip leaves.  The tulips, leaves, chipmunk and some of the background swirls are 3D with a texture you can see and feel.  A stucco medium was used in these areas to create this texture.

This painting measures 24" h x 8" w x 1 1/2" d.   I hope the yellow, pink and magenta bring cheer and make everyone think of the color and warmth of spring ahead.