Fresh From the Garden

I like how the underpainting shows through on this one :-}

Dancing Feet

Many armed sunflower stars are incredibly colorful, especially when viewed up close.  They have all kinds of pokey parts to keep barnacles and algae from growing on them and the fuzzy stuff on top that makes them feel somewhat slimy is their gills.  They have thousands of tube feet, that suction them along the ocean floor.  They can actually move quite fast and are voracious predators.  A cockle (clam) will flip itself away if you put it in the same tank with a sunstar. 

Trotting Out

Some friends have built a top notch facility nearby where they will train dressage horses.  It is a gorgeous stable and large arena with state of the art footing.  Beth has just started giving lessons there and I stopped by for a photo shoot.  The only bad thing is that it's really making me want to ride again!  The open space of the arena and leading lines of wood and beams have me itching to do a large painting, but I thought I'd experiment a bit with this little one first. 

Signs of Autumn

This is a plein air painting done today at my friend Jo's on Cherry Cove, what a spot!  We are having the best Washington "indian summer" ever, warm and sunny days, cool and star filled nights. What a great place to live.  I'm so lucky.  :)