This is a view on my way to work (for my day job) in the morning. I hate the cold weather, but I do love the gorgeous sunrises we get. There was a kind of orangy (orangey?) haze hovering above the trees that I have tried to recreate - not entirely successfully, but I think some of it comes through, don't you?

This painting is currently in ArtSpace/Lima's 70th Annual Spring Show. I have the particulars in my events sections. If you are anywhere near there, go check it out. I have four works in the show and they are all for sale - just ask.

Do you remember the song "I can see clearly now the rain is gone?" That's how I feel about painting clouds like this. It is such an upbeat optimistic song and seeing big, fluffy clouds make me happy in the same way.

I live in the flat lands and you can't help but see clearly because there are literally no obstacles in your way. And unlike a lot of people, I like it flat. I find hills and mountains claustrophobic. (I'm not too fond of heights either!). Nice places to visit, the mountains, but I always want to come home. So this is a slice of my world in all of its big sky glory.

This is an 8 x 10 oil painting on panel of a street in Vienna and is now available. My favorite thing to do in a new town is just to walk around. Seeing these narrow streets with the old buildings blocking most of the light really lets you know that you are in Europe.

I hope you enjoy the light and mystery of it as much as I do. I have plans for some traveling in the not so distant future and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will happen. If so, I will have even more memories to paint and to share with you all.

Between Christmas and New Year's Day is a good time to step back and reflect on the past year and to anticipate and plan for the coming year. We don't have snow this year, but this painting symbolizes the hope that there is a dawn after a cold winter's night. In a lot of ways, it has been a tough year. But, at least as far as my artwork is concerned, thanks to you all, it has been a very good year. I have hope that 2022 will be good in every respect for all of us.

Let the dawn of the new day in this painting give you hope and help to carry that into a shining 2022. I hope your days are merry and bright, and have faith that good things can and will come.

Who doesn't like fries at the county fair? I walked around our fair this summer and loved the flags on top of the french fry stand fluttering in the breeze and the stark shadows from the hot afternoon sun. Can't you just smell the fry oil and malt vinegar? Lettering in a print is especially difficult because you have to carve it out in reverse to get it to read correctly. Even so, I kept coming back to it in my mind and just had to try to make a linocut from it.

This is the result. Go to the print section of my works and check it out. Then let me know what your favorite food at the fair is!

This print is based upon a photo I took of a Shinto Dancer in Japan when I went with our sister city delegation to the dedication way back in the 90's. This is a multi-block print. This means that I carved two separate blocks and inked them separately and then printed them separately. So the black was printed and had to dry. Then I printed the red and gold.

I entered this print into the Findlay Art League Fall show and it received an honorable mention! I really appreciated being accepted and and am super happy to receive any special notice.

If you like reading about my work and the inspirations for my work, please join my email list! I send out a weekly update on what is going on and it is where I release new work first. So get in on the ground floor for the new stuff. Thanks!

I have written about this before, but I love manmade objects and scenery just as much as I do the natural world. I remember as a kid being fascinated by the train tracks of the switching yard as Dad drove over the overpass, and the steam and smoke rising over the refinery in my old home town. (I am going to get back over there and paint those someday!). 

This is a linocut print I did of my nephew silhouetted against the huge clock in the Orsay Museum in Paris. I loved the starkness of the black and white and of course, the clock mechanism. This print is available on this website or just DM me.

What is it about machinery, powerlines, wind turbines, and tractors that gets to me? I'm not sure, but I hope I have the skill to translate that something into art everyone can enjoy.

I love an intense mango yellow sunrise over the fields on a cold dark morning. And since this is northwest Ohio and part of what was the Great Black Swamp, many times there is water standing in the fields to reflect the light. The fields are mostly tiled and drained, but the soil is mostly clay and doesn't drain very well on its own, especially after a fast, heavy rain. So the water will stand in the fields and sometimes look like a pond or lake, just like in this painting. I call it "Sunrise Reflection". It is 5" x 7", oil on panel. 

Too often, winter in Ohio is long and dull and gray. But get up early and if you are lucky, you get to see that blaze of brilliant color along the eastern horizon. This painting is one of a series of sunrises and sunsets I have been doing over the last few months and that are available.

Check out my works and if you have any questions, please email me. And if you would like to have updates sent, sign up for my email newsletter. Thanks.

Eva

Sunsets in the flatlands of Northwest Ohio can be spectacular. Rain or shine, the light is gorgeous. I saw this sunset coming home from my day job and hopped out of my car to get a shot of it. Thank goodness for cell phone cameras because the light changed so rapidly that I couldn't capture it in time without one.

I posted this painting on Instagram and asked what I should call it and one commenter told me that the clouds look like cow hide - so I called this painting "When the Cows Come Home". Since it is of a sunset, I thought it fit in two ways.

Don't be so busy making a living that you forget to enjoy your life. Take the time to look at sunsets.

P.S. Sign up for my email newsletter and you can get updates on new paintings and events directly. I typically only email once per week and I will never share your email address. Thanks!

Eva

I love museums. I especially love art museums, but I am a big fan of almost any kind of museum. Trudging over miles and miles of hard marble floors to look at dinosaur bones, Egyptian relics, gemstones, fossils, pottery, china, jewelry, carriages, etc., etc., makes me a happy camper. And if there is a special exhibit? I am there! One of my biggest disappointments was that I was too young to go to Chicago to see the King Tut tour in '77.  (This is also why Cairo is on my bucket list).

This painting is of the Egyptian wing of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. This is a truly great art museum. The name translates to "Museum of Art History" and contains artworks from 7 millennia. It also has a Vermeer, one of my favorite artists, and which is always a reason to hit a museum. My best travel buddy and I were in Austria in 2019 and while she took at break, I hit the Albertina Museum and the Kunsthistorisches. I got to see the Vermeer and had to see the Egyptian wing.  I loved the great reflections on the floors and how the light came through the windows and snapped a dozen photos so that I could paint it later. I had a great time!

This is a painting of my dad's favorite chair. He was sick almost all of 2001 and died almost exactly one month after the 9/11 attacks. That year is still pretty much an unhappy blur to me. But this chair, which sits in my studio where I can see it and use it every day, and think of my dad, makes me happy.

Sometimes a painting brings back only happy memories and sometimes the sadness that comes with real life seeps in and through it. But I believe that memories are a good thing because having them reminds you to appreciate what you still have. I am hopeful that my art can sometimes bring back good memories for others as well. What do you think?

Go give someone you love a call or a hug - you won't regret it.

How did I get started painting? I have always drawn things. I can remember sitting with a pencil on the sofa in the living room in our old house in elementary school making painstaking drawings of my Breyer horse models. I did take art classes in high school and in college. But I did not take very many classes because I always thought that it was a waste of time. You couldn't earn a living from being an artist, right? Even though I had a few commissions of portraits and pets then. I gave away many of my paintings that I look back on now and realize were really good.

So instead of becoming an artist,  I spent the last 30 years working at a job that did earn money and which I did enjoy, most of the time. But as I get closer to a time where I could retire, I realize I don't want to spend the rest of my life in a stressful job that I only enjoy part of the time.

So about two years ago I got out a sketch book and began trying to make myself do a sketch a day, mostly sketching faces from photographs. Then I discovered online challenges: painting a day for 5 days; a drawing a day for 30 days. Then COVID hit and I had more time. S0 I began exploring all of the classes and offerings available online and I began to seriously paint again.

I found that some of the old magic came back and I realized how good I had been all those years ago. I have some regret that I had let my skills get rusty.  But when I did work at it, I found that with a little effort I could do what even in my own critical eyes appeared to be decent work. I am now trying to form new habits and to reach out to an audience who will appreciate my work. Hopefully, that includes all of you!

Thank you for your kind words and for signing up with me on this journey.

Whenever I can, I walk the bike path near to my house. Depending on my ambition, I can go 3.5 miles, 4 miles, or even 5. It is one of the best ways to keep my weight down and keep my sanity. It is also a never-ending source of inspiration for my painting. I see wildflowers and clouds and the morning light across the path. All of these make want to stop in my tracks and paint. 

My day job has been taking up all my time the last couple of weeks but the urge to paint is still there. The hiatus only increases the pressure. After next week, I hope to be back in the studio and creating great things!