Travel Tips

I think this is my best painting

After I'd been painting in Key West, for a couple of years, and then for about 6 months in Philadelphia, I did this picture from a slide I'd taken.. The color and texture of the water was an accident. I was wiping off my brushes in that area. But I did have the sense to leave it that way.

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Conch houses in Key West

The first picture I painted was done in 1968 of the Key West lighthouse. The next one was of some old style conch houses on Truman Street - the instructor helped me with the trees. My 2nd daughter's has both of these pictures.

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Three Iris

After I did the first two landscapes, I did three still
lifes. This is the last of that group. I did three different iris which were new (in the mid 60's) named cultivars for my mom. My oldest daughter, my third daughter and my son have the of the others.

Most of my oil paintings on canvas were done between 1968 and 1972. Since then I have been painting on window screening. Mostly lighthouses on the port screens on our boat, but in the beginning, I also did some house screens.

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Westcliffe Colorado

I painted a picture for my father for Xmas from a slide I'd taken of his home town in Colorado. I sent it up unframed with my husband and daughter (we were moving from Key West to Philadelphia, and he was taking a car and trailer north). My mom put it away, and it disappeared in the house. So I painted another one. Many years later, we also found the smaller one - it had slipped down behind a chest in the store room.

This is the original pictures, which I think is the better one. My mom has both of them.

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Old house in Tyler Arboretum

After I left Key West, we moved to Philadelphia. I continued taking lessons and did more landscape painting outdoors in Tyler Arboretum. This was an old ramshackle house which was falling down, and I did it all myself without any help with the foliage. I also started (but have not finished) another painting using a pallette knife instead of brushes of a little stone house nearby to this house.

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I did this from a slide I took of my Dad's childhood home in Silver Cliff. You can see from the picture below that I did change it around a bit.

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Original slide I used to do painting

I had such success with the picture I did from a slide, that when I was in Maryland for a couple of years, I took an adult education class where all the painting was done from pictures. The slides allowed me to get the proportions on the canvas by projecting the picture and tracing the outline in charcoal (cheating a bit because I'm not a good draftsman).

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My dad

In Key West I also tried a portrait of my daughter from her school picture. I still have that one.

Then I painted a portrait of my dad's former boss. I sold it to the school where he had been a professor.

The last portrait I did was of my dad. This was done in 1970, three years before he died. He is 66 years old here (two years younger than my current age). You can see that he doesn't have much grey hair. He actually sat for me to paint him and I didn't do the portrait from a photo. This hangs in my mom's house.