A Trio of Pumpkins

Many years ago I painted the top image with my cat named Heidi.  She had this one lazy eye and the good one looked menacing so when I saw her perched beside the Halloween pumpkin, I knew I had to take that photo.  I'm happier with my painting style now.  It is, as I had hoped,

a little more interesting as far as the brush strokes are concerned.

Pumpkin on Blue Gingham

Pumpkin

9" x 12"

Oil on Wood Cradled Panel

The finished version...There's something appealing about painting pumpkins.  It has colour and wonderful texture with shadows and highlights.  Having said that though, I think my favourite part was the leaf that fell onto the pumpkins.  Now I'm thinking I have to get out there and collect some beautiful leaves before they've all been raked away.

First Full Day of Fall?

NFS

I just realized how appropriate this painting is to be posting on the first full day of Fall.  The orange background really makes this little black and white cat

look like he's ready for Halloween.  He belongs with Chablis, whose portrait I posted last week.

Painted AND Sewn

A slight departure from my normal posts.  There is a fund raiser for our local Aviary called The Nichoir this weekend.  And I decided to paint and stitch some pillows for it.  

Handpainted on unprimed canvas and embellished with free form stitching.  The birds are appliqued onto the background.  This was very satisfying to do as I can expand on this many ways and I can indulge in my love for fabric and beautiful embroidery threads at the same time.

As experiments do, this lead to my stitching up some Fall leaves using wool, dupioni silk and organza.  I'll incorporate these into wool scarves, handmade bags and more pillows.