I've been trying to finish up the last few paintings around here but am not feeling inspired by anything but an urge to get this stuff out of my way. I'm afraid it shows but here they are anyway.

This is the 3rd or 4th different background I've put on this vase of flowers and I'm still not happy with it. Maybe I should add more flowers.

This is a Birthday present for the sister that keeps bringing me garden gnomes for my yard.

This started out to be just yellow tulips but I thought it needed something for contrast so I turned some of them into Iris but still wasn't happy with it.

Each color I add seems to help add a little life to this painting.

Here I'm just playing with color and shape while designing wrapping papers and fabric.

One thing came of all of this and that was to remind me how versitile paints are and how much I enjoy them whether inspiration strikes or not.

The important thing is to smile and keep doing the thigs that bring you joy.

Red Tulip Project

After 15 years the bed of bright red tulips has dwindeld to just 3 or 4 blossoms and since I don't have the money to buy more and replant I've opted to round up all of the pictures that I've taken over those years and start a new collection of paintings of them.

Here's the first of the paintings to come from this series of photos.

And here it is again as I added more leaves to it.

This is the first of this series which I will be putting up on products for sale on Zazzle. After spending some time "playing" with this image I couldn't resist adding a few more leaves.

I'm really happy with it now.

This was my next attempt at doing something interesting with those tulips.

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It's certainly brightening up the living room as I'm making just one more attempt at painting those tulips.

I decided to do a few drawings while I was writing a few people about the new paintings. I did them on the envelopes to brighten up the mail for all of us.

Here are the envelopes all together.

After a few drawings I went back to my paints.

I wasn't quite sure what to do with the background on this one so I tried just about every color in my paintbox.

I suppose this painting would be fine as it was at this point so I lived with it for a couple of days before deciding to make it part of a set with the last painting.

All it took to make it work was to change the background.

I will be using these paintings as part of a set of note cards on Zazzle.

HERE ARE PHOTOS OF SOME OF MY PREVIOUS EFFORTS:

Painting Flowers on Spindles from Deck or Wheelchair Ramp Railings

My design for this piece starts with Hosta Leaves on the bottom. Above that I'll add some tulips and daisies.

The inspiration for this is my garden where I grow all of those things and many more each year.

I abandoned the idea of tulips because this just isn't wide enough to support them so I've stuck to tiny roses which fit better.

Art hits the deck

I plan to keep adding the flowers that grow here until I run out of space. The next things to add will be the tulips and lilacs.

Painting fresh Tulips as they bloom

I often like to hold the real flowers up to the one's I'm painting to make sure I'm capturing them in the way that I want to.

I find that it can help me avoid overworking the painting.

Painting a few tulips