Mountain Barn Watercolor Painting

For another Christmas gift to my husband, I matted and framed one of the new watercolors that I painted last fall.  I began the painting in a workshop with Tom Jones during Art of the Carolinas.




Mountain Barn, 2011

For those of you who live in the area, I have been having my artwork framed at Michaels on Capital Boulevard in Raleigh.  I have been happy with their assistance, materials, and service.

I very much admired Tom Jones as a teacher and artist.  Charlie bought me his book,  Simplified Watercolor Landscapes, for Christmas.

                         

It is in a wonderful format which provides a working sketch, step-by-step instructions with photos, and a photo of the finished painting.  Mountains are the subject of several of the lessons, so I know I will be trying them out.

We got a good chuckle when I opened the book and read the personal inscription by the author:  "To my new friend and fellow artist Charles:  Have fun painting and remember you are better than you think you are." Charlie is many wonderful things, but have never known him to be an artist!  I take that back, he was a true artist on the trombone for many years.

There is also a nice little value sketch drawn on the inside cover under the inscription.

He also included a small colored painting on watercolor paper.  Tom is a generous artist, as I found out during his class, when he provided all paints and paper for our class, and also gave away the demo painting.

I have been procrastinating all day because I have to take the ornaments down off the Christmas tree.  We usually wait until New Year's Day, but we had a leak right before we left for our trip.  Either Charlie over-watered, or the water container has a leak.  Thankfully we mopped it up before we left, but I expect it is still damp under there, and we need to take it down before our wood floor starts to buckle.

It was a beautiful, cold morning, though, and I took Kasey to the greenway for a walk. 

She was on high alert for awhile, stopping and perking up her ears.  I thought we might see some deer moving around, but we did not.  She gets equally excited over squirrels.  I am glad to have a dog to give me a good excuse to walk on pretty mornings like this.

                     

Love having my doggy back home!  So does her daddy.