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.

Colorful Corner

6x6 oil on panel
$100 + s/h - sold

This flower vendor certainly brightens up her corner, as well as people's homes, I'm sure.

Moses Botkin Monthly Challenge

This month's challenge was a yellow flower and blue vase. Though at the beginning I wasn't sure if it was that or just a yellow and blue limited palette. So I chose the flowers, and did it with only yellow, blue and white. I also aimed for the most intense colors I could get, pretty much straight out of the tube. I wish I had gone more abstracted though.

Once again, beautiful images created by my fellow painters. I can't believe the detail that Jeanne gets. I would go crazy! Suzanne's painting makes me feel like I am sitting at the edge of a pool, its so refreshing.


"Yellow Flower, Blue Vase"
6x6 oil on panel
© 2010 Robin Cheers

"Blue and Yellow"

12x9 oil on panel
© 2010 Vicki Ross

"Yellow Columbine"
6x4 oil on hardboard

© 2010 Diana Moses Botkin

"Yellow Lily on Spode Blue Italian Plate"
6x6 oil on panel
© 2010 Jeanne Illenye

"Amber Waves"
16x20 oil on canvas
© 2010 Suzanne Berry

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.