Irises. In my front yard, a warmup for the rest of SPA. Quite the challenge for me, as I don't normally paint flowers. Spring is just so beautiful.

more sonoma plein air. These four were painted on last friday. I so loved painting the combine in the hay field. I see it sitting there amongst the half shorn fields, awaiting the farmer's return. The contrast of shapes and colors just knocks me out. The cows were just fun to sketch as they walked, and the barn was a shot at making noon time look interesting. Shapes are the driver at that time of day.

Sonoma Plein Air 2009 has come and gone. I got two and a half whole days to paint, for which I am deeply grateful. These show some of the work. Beauty of it is that it raises money for arts funding in Sonoma schools, k-12. In seven years, over 258,000 has been raised for art supplies, a boon to the schools as we found out the entire art supply budget for one school was $200, and the other school, where the teacher also taught, had ZERO. A travesty.
The barn painting I named 'Darth Vader's Barn' as it looks, in silhouette, like you know who's helmet. It sold at the gala auction