Until a year or two ago, I hadn’t picked up a brush to paint anything artistic since I was nineteen years old. True story.

So in 2018 I bought some water colors and a watercolor book and did a couple of quick, ungood watercolors.

Then in 2019 I did some Acrylics.

The first was an image that stuck with me while watching Downton Abbey. I found this image so compelling, I took a shot of it from my TV and kept it. I had it on my phone for more than a year, probably much more, before I tried to put a similar image on canvas. 4×5″

Then I did a 2×2″ of a humpback whale breaching:

Then this 9×3″ of waves

After this, I wanted to add some background.

Then I took up a tall format, and larger.

A friend took this amazing photo of a heron on a dam of some sort:

I loved this pic, so I wanted to do something to get it on canvas:

Then I saw a photo of something that looked a bit impossibly clean, but was clearly a photo. A very calm ocean, and a breaching Orca.

I did a 9×3 of it first:Three colors: Blue, white, black.

But the original image had some pink blush in the upper water, so I did a larger one.

After this one I wanted to do an image of a shore bird, based on a photo I saw. 8×10″

And another water bird, a Gannet. This is meant to be a sketch for a larger one.

The last painting I’ve done since I just finished a few days ago:

Carol said she loved the clouds, and wants to see a large one like this on our wall, so I guess that’s going to happen soon.

Since Carol gave me two easels for Christmas, along with other paints and supplies, and Charlotte got me a HUGE set of oil colors (like 30 or more colors) I will be doing more painting. The larger easel is to set up in the garage for big pieces. The small one is a desktop and you can see it in several of these photos. They will both serve me well.