Montclair Farmer's Market

I didn't get to the Farmer's market this weekend, but I've enjoyed going there earlier in the summer. I hope to get apples there too as we head into the fall. But I was there earlier this month when the first of the tomatoes were appearing, and had to take a few pictures of them.

One of my goals for Labor Day weekend was to paint at least one picture - and this juicy tomato reference photo from earlier this month just seemed like something I wanted to try.

Purple Heart

Wednesday night I got back to art class! I did miss it on vacation. Sadly this was the last session for the summer. But it was great to see Christina again and everyone else in the class. I'm hoping to take a class with her at her home studio this fall. But in the meantime she had this wonderful yellow jug and floral arrangement to attempt. I had a great time doing it.

Window Glass

This was my last picture from my farm vacation. We have several interesting glass bottles that line the windowsill in the dining room, so I decided to try to capture a few of them.

Admittedly the bottles look a bit wonky - but we'll just call them hand-blown glass and let it go at that, LOL.

The Hummingbird Feeder

While I was cleaning stuff up at the farm I discovered a little hummingbird feeder that had belonged to my mom years ago, and I could not resist making up a sugar-water solution and hanging it from the front porch. Within a day we had hummers! I was happy to watch them on and off all day long, so finally had to paint them as well.

I did take a little artistic license here, as I only ever saw females and/or juveniles - who don't have the red throat of the male. But I gave this hummer a red throat as I thought it tied in nicely with the red from the feeder.

Beach Treasures

One of the things we love to do at the farm is stroll along the beach at low tide. There are lots of sandbars that appear, rippled in long lines, and lots of shells and driftwood and interesting beach artifacts. We enjoy collecting some of the nice specimens to bring home to the farmhouse.We have so many around that it seemed like a good time to give them a painting of their own!

The Kitchen Desk

The kitchen desk is such a hub at the farm. It's painted bright red so pretty unmistakable, and it's the first thing there by the door as you come in. That's where the phone sits, and where we do all our paperwork. So I finally decided that I needed to try to do a picture of the kitchen desk. No series of farm paintings would be complete without it!

August Wildflowers

One thing I love about the farm is being able to just go out into the fields and pick wonderful bouquets of wildflowers! Usually August is past the height of the best of the wildflowers, but you can still find plenty. I used to have a great book that helped me ID them - but I could not find it this year so was clueless about most of the flowers.

I had a fairly sunny day so decided to pick some flowers to paint. The only ones in this bunch that I could ID were red clover and goldenrod. No idea about the others and this picture does not really give you that great a clue, LOL.

Evening Glow at the farm

I'm on my way home from two weeks up in New Brunswick, Canada at the old farmhouse my family owns. I was there all alone my first week (with three dogs) but my son, daughter-in-law, and her sister came and joined me my second week.

I'd made a vow to do a pastel painting at least every other day, and I managed to do it! Not that they are all masterpieces (LOL, not that *any* of them are). But I did it, and hope to be posting them now that I'm back to the world of broadband. It rained every day my first week there, and so this first painting is more a "wish" - but we did end up having some nice days and evenings the second week.