Small Art Holiday Special artworks are selling fast!

I’ve been telling more stories about the 36 artworks from the series Birds and Flora: Seasonal Garden Visitors on Instagram and my Facebook business page. I began with the stories in the previous posts, so please have a look on my page. Meanwhile, since Small Art Holiday Special artworks are selling fast I thought I’d say a bit about the ones who are leaving the studio, since they will not be placed on my website.

Last Peach Iris was one of the gouache paintings that sold at the Annual Autumn Sunwise Open Studio. These beautiful irises came from Long’s Garden in Boulder. I brought some of the bulbs with us. It is breathtaking when they start to bloom, all the more appreciated since there are not many other flowers in bloom yet. In Boulder they bloomed later than here, always at my birthday. Years ago they sold cut flower stalks for 50 cents. The variety of colors was staggering. My present to myself was a huge armload of blooms, I wish I had taken pictures of them…sigh. The title…since I leave most flowers in the garden, I picked this last one so I could paint it, which took place over several days.

Read about Brown Betty in the previous post!

A Long Look at Columbines is a gouache painting with Columbine petals and leaves, 9×6″. The mountain is Long’s Peak, a high one near where we lived in Colorado that my husband liked to climb. Columbines are the state flower, and I had to plant some in my shady north side to remind me of home. They are an annual, but they graciously self seed.

Busy Hummingbirds is a watercolor, 9×12″. We had an abundance of hummingbirds this year. It’s always exciting to spot the first one, often before flowers bloom, so we put our feeders out, call the neighbors to see if they’ve noticed so they can do the same. All summer which was dry it was important to continue with the feeders. But we also had many flowers that provided nector. Watching them was always entertaining, trying to photograph them a challenge. This piece was inspired by a greeting card by J. Jurcak my daughter sent years ago, because I never could get a good photo.

For Birds and Flora: Seasonal Garden Visitors, I painted birds and flowers as they arrived in the garden. One of the first in the spring was the sweet Mourning Dove. It announced its presence by the unmistakable cooing song, so welcome after a long silent winter. One of my favorites from the Sunwise Mourning Dove will fly to snowy Colorado soon, farewell little darlin’.

Colors Stolen from Dawn sold to a new collector out west. It is the smallest of the Small Art specials. We have many sunrises like this, though they are so ephemeral.

The collector who acquired it had a great story about what prompted her to buy Solstice Woodpecker. As the title suggests, this was spotted on the Summer Solstice, never to be seen again!

I am so happy that Sunwise Cardinals will be flying to Texas soon, to be enjoyed by such a lovely person. Sometimes it’s hard to part with a favorite piece, especially the one that best represented this whole Holiday special event, but it’s satisfying to send it off where it will be treasured.