Friday, January 20, 2012

Looking back to 2011..............

As I check back on work I've done in the past year, I realize that there are a couple of special commissioned paintings that didn't appear on this blog--  because I didn't want the recipients to see them ahead of time!




"A Refuge in the Storm"
watercolour  11"X15"

A friend wanted to give her mom a painting of a lighthouse for Christmas.  Another mutual friend had taken photos down east of a lovely old lighthouse at Cape Bear.  We agreed that it was perfect.  I love the way the lighthouse sits on a cliff, giving a sense of danger.  The title explains it all, since in spiritual terms, Jesus is our lighthouse, our place of refuge, in any storms of life!






"Up Home"
watercolour, approx. 14"X30"

This was painted for a teaching colleague, of a grandparent's home that doesn't even exist anymore! It was really interesting and challenging to put together some old photos of the house (the latest was 1964) and new photos of the landscape in the area today. It seemed to call for a different shape, a "vista", to show what the setting was like. I included a lot of texture, particularly for the house, since it was a boxy shape and needed something special to give it character.