Summer in My Backyard

I thought I'd share some pictures of my garden in full bloom. This is the "border" at the back and we back up to green space. It's a riot of color and I'm not sure the iPhone camera is doing it justice. This is my hobby. I love all the birds that come to my feeders. I have seed, suet, and mealworms for their dining pleasure. Sometimes I put out fruit but haven't seen any takers on it. Watching the birds is so much fun. 

The garden is perhaps representative of how I wish to paint. Spontaneous, eclectic, a bit wild and messy. :)

You can just see a corner of the treehouse my husband built our daughter last fall. It's very cool! And built to last a hundred years I think!

Lots of salvias, Mexican petunia and rampant plumbago. They all spread wherever they like and I let them.

The rock rose and lantana are such great colors together. A happy accident!

We had an unusual amount of rain in July and it really brought the flowers out. It's getting intensely hot now though. The plants seem to like it. 

I'd be remiss not to plug v....Vaughan's wonderful Birdseed Project! Birds make life happy.

Farm to Market

12x9 oil on canvas panel

Gallery info to come.

Another look at this lady harvesting lettuce at Boggy Creek Farm. She would pick them and take them up to the market stand to sell. Can't get much more fresh than that. I bought some, and it was delicious. Boggy Creek has market days Wed. and Sat. mornings in East Austin.

The title refers to many of our road names here in Central Texas. FM1431 or some such is a road that led from the outlying rural areas into town.

I'm adding "pages" to my blog so you can see what is available at each of my galleries and contact them if you are interested in any of my artwork. Its taking me a little time to update, but its on the right column.

Last of the Lettuce

6x8 oil on panel

Ask Castle Gallery about this painting.

I totally forgot about this painting! I did a couple of new things to send off for a summer show opening in Indiana earlier in the month. This was one. These are a couple of ladies working at Boggy Creek Farm cutting some of the last of the red leaf lettuce. I bought some that day. Along with fresh beets and a couple of other things. No one here likes beets except for me. They were yummy. The contrast of that brilliant purpley-red and bright spring green in this scene was too good to pass up.