Finished!

Fringe Benefits  © 2014 Karen Mathison Schmidt, Artist

24 x 12  x 2 inches • oil on archival, museum quality 2" deep cradled GessobordTM

painting will be finished with a gloss varnish for UV protection

sides painted dark umber • cradling allows for hanging flush against the wall

can be beautifully displayed with or without a frame

$625 + shipping

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE

from my eBay store

Approaching the finish line ...

A painting is never finished. 

It simply stops in an interesting place.

PAUL GARDNER

Untitled WORK-IN-PROGRESS

24 x 12 inches • oil on 2" deep cradled GessobordTM

Well, I’m still working on preparing step-by-step photos of this one to show with explanation of what I did in each one, and I’m also working on putting together a slide show with music. I haven’t ever done that before but it’s turning out to be really fun.

At least here’s the last photo so far -- only a bit more painting time needed to finish, then I’ll have to come up with a title!

Happy Valentine's Day!

It’s been a LOVELY Valentine’s Day here at Edgewood, including date night with my hubby. Both his and my love language is pizza so guess what we had for dinner.

And our other love language is chocolate chip cookies, so guess what we had for dessert.

The dogs and cats had a lovely day as well, with plenty of romping and napping in the sunshine. They’re all sacked out for the night now, but before he would go to bed Roadie wanted to finish making this valentine for his foster mom, who took him in and took the best care of him while she searched and searched for a forever home for him.
Which turned out to be here with us. And we are really happy about that.
Thank you, Kelly, for bringing us Roadie!

Ice Pics

 

I haven’t quite finished preparing and uploading all my progress photos for the cat painting yet, so instead I’m sharing these photos I took yesterday, in the aftermath of the ice storm of Tuesday night. 

Here’s the old oak tree out front. From this angle, with the branches weighed down with ice, they look almost calligraphic. Love this windswept look!

 This thorny vine on the pasture fence looks like some kind of avant grade sculpture.

The pasture gate.

Here are the spider lilies, which bloom in September. We let the leaves grow all winter to feed the bulbs before we mow them around the end of March. That way we’ll have even more blooms next fall.

By noon yesterday all the ice started to melt, and with all the water dripping from tree branches and the roof of the house it sounded like it was raining all afternoon, even though there were just a few clouds left in the sky. Today was absolutely beautiful, if a little chilly, and for the next four or five days the forecast says beautiful warm springlike days with just a bit of rain. Hard to believe that Monday and Tuesday were so wintery -- welcome to Late Winter / Early Spring in the Arklatex!

New Limited Edition prints ...

A snowy, sleety winter night here in the ArkLaTex. I haven’t quite finished with the cat painting, but will try to post the work-in-progress with the finished painting tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here are some new Limited Edition prints which are available here, 

on my website 

and in my eBay store:

Evensong II

Limited Edition Fine Art Print on heavy archival Ultrasmooth fine art paper

Signed & Numbered 
Limited to 25 in each of three sizes

 12 x 9 inches • $45

 16 x 12 inches • $70

 20 x 15 inches • $100

Looking forward

It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want – oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!

– MARK TWAIN

SOLD

Afternoon Walk  © 2014 Karen Mathison Schmidt

12 x 9 inches x 7/8 inch deep • oil on museum-quality cradled GessobordTM

private collection • Houston, Texas

Painting this one on the eve of a few more freezing days (and possibly snow on Tuesday!) was my way of looking forward to some beautiful WARM spring days in the hopefully not-too-distant future. 

Tomorrow I will be posting some step-by-step photos of the sleeping cat painting. 

Sweet dreams of spring, and happy painting!

Take the plaid challenge!

Untitled WORK-IN-PROGRESS

24 x 12 inches • oil on 2" deep cradled Gessobord

Here’s where I am on this one today. Lovin’ that plaid blanket!

I used to be really intimidated by trying to paint anything with a plaid pattern. Whenever I would paint a scene with something plaid in it I would make the plaid item solid in my picture. The first time I attempted to actually depict plaid was in this painting of the redbones napping on their favorite blanket:

At first I was just going to make the blanket solid blue. But somewhere during the process I thought, what the hey, why not give the plaid a go? (I was painting with acrylics so I knew I could always paint over it if I didn’t like it. That took a little of the pressure off.) I’m so glad I made the attempt at the plaid. Now I know how much fun it is! 

Here’s my challenge to you artists: 

This week paint something that you’ve always thought was too difficult to attempt, be it an object, a pattern, a texture, a material (wood, glass, etc.), an animal, a person, an eye … whatever. Just let it turn out however it turns out.

Who knows? You may just surprise yourself!