I am finally getting to post my last painting of the decade (he he!)--I met with my former art student for a paint out over the holidays, and we had a great time catching up while also getting some plein air painting done. This is a view of Lake Martha located on campus of Trinity Prep school where I've been teaching for seven years. Colors are perhaps a bit too muted for me, but I enjoyed doing this little study...and reconnecting with my student!

My painting a day project stumbled a bit over the weekend, but I was able to get back on track with this piece today...I had fun painting all the relfections on the blue teapot!

Day 10 flew by too fast, with no time to sit down for a painting...so, thinking that something is better than nothing, I did this sketch

Today was a slower day, and I took a short stroll down the Lake Burkett right after my last class ended; I painted a close up view of the water. It was great to sit in the sun and ejoy the breeze...and a few minutes to myself

My painting a day project was endangered today...no time to spare to get outside my classroom, and I am tired of looking at the student still life and out the window...well, had to settle for a 10-minute sketch of these fruit...hope tomorrow I get to go outside and paint something more exciting

Another day, another piece--since I ran out of stuff to paint from the window, I took a short trip outside my room...had only about 20 minutes to spare, so the both walk as well as the painting session were very short--and here is yet another view of Lake Burkett

Ta da! Freshly painted today--yet another view from my classroom...used an old canvas board that one of my students gave up on...some of the reds from the old painting are showing through--I love working on color backgrounds, it's less intimidating than a pristine white of a new canvas.

Here is what I’ve been up to during the last few days…
Day 3 piece…still life that I have set up for my students in the art room at school

Day 4…looking out the window in the classroom…quite an overcast day, not at all typical here, but I like the moodiness of it.

Day 5…well, I skipped this one, I have a lame excuse of hosting a Halloween party and all…that’s why I call this challenge doing a painting ALMOST every day.

Day 6—realized I didn’t have all the paints and canvases at home as it’s been a while since I actually had time to paint at the house. Well, wanted to keep up with my challenge, so I used my 2-year old daughter’s water paints and her drawing block… we worked on our paintings together on the back porch…this is what I managed while also keeping an eye on Ally; she actually contributed to this piece by adding a blob of black in the top left corner, no worries, it all worked out fine, ha ha!

I recently stumbled upon one artist’s blog that has taken a challenge of doing a painting a day…so it gave me an idea of trying it myself…so far so good…
Day 1

Day 2

Today is day 4…Let’s see how long I can last 

I had a meeting with the new book author last Friday, and we were discussing the color options for cover. We started with this sketch…

And then this one…

And this one seemed to have good light but a bit too mysterious looking…

And even though this one is my favorite one when it comes to color, it is a bit too edgy for the type of book that it is (gentle read literature).

We actually ended up choosing the original color version—well, at least we made sure to explore other options!

Last Friday night my dad, daughter, and I spent some time at the art show opening in the Historic Center in Sanford, FL. The works of 25 artists, including me, were showcased. Here’s a picture of us next to my pieces.

This piece is of a view off of Highway 50 when heading towards Titusville—do you know that area where airboat rides are?

And this one is just an interpretation of what Florida heat looks to me in color, titled “Hot Day’s End.”

For the past few days I have been finalizing my sketches for the book cover that a new author commissioned me to paint. The book is a gentle read genre about a woman who is a Christian Science practitioner who prays for patients with healing results. Now, my artwork is anything but gentle in appearance, and I had my doubts if my style would be a good fit. The author felt strongly, however, that it would be wonderful to bring the kind of colors and sense of movement that I have in my work into his book cover. Off to the drawing board I went! Here’s my first attempt…thanks to the Photoshop program that allowed me to bring my concept ideas to life quickly.

Now how about this one?

Or maybe this one?

And the winner is…

I am excited to keep refining this sketch and eventually making it an actual painting.

The time has been flying by during this past week—lots or projects with my art students, trying to catch up on my own painting and working on the cover art commission. My daily refuge has been my time spent in the pool with my family as well as tending to my vegetable garden that I planted in my back yard a little while ago. We’re about to give our first taste to the home-grown cucumbers—I can’t believe they actually grew this big!

We’re not having as much luck with tomatoes (the flowers have been wilting off—thinking it might be too hot?), but we still managed to get these few fruits on one of the plants.

I just got word that my paintings have been accepted at the “Our Central Florida” art show at the Historic Sanford Welcome Center in Sanford, FL. The exhibit will open on September 25 and will showcase the works of Central Florida artists of various mediums. This is one my paintings that will be shown there.
“Hot Day’s End”, 30x30 inches, oil on gallery wrap canvas.
I will keep you posted on the opening night details when I get them.

I am happy to report that I have started a new painting yesterday—very excited about this one. Here’s what it looks like right now—this is how I start all of my paintings—I call it underpainting: with broad, energetic strokes and thin layers of oil paint. I also never use white paint at this stage, even if there are very light objects--after all, white contains all of the colors of the spectrum. Once this layer is almost dry, I continue with thicker, more precise paint applications. I will let you know how it comes along!

I am happy to report that I bought four canvases the other day—looking forward to starting on some new oil paintings next week! I would like to do a bigger piece of the lilacs that I sketched out in acrylics this summer in Latvia. The sketch already found it's home on the wall in someone’s house here in Central Florida, and I am looking forward to creating a larger oil study now. Just take a look at this photo—the image keeps inspiring me even though a few months have passed since I’ve seen it.

While mostly working with paint, I appreciate other forms of art, including the performance of this amazing sand artist from Ukraine that I recently watched on line. I have seen a few of them, but no one is even close to this woman’s level. Her style is graceful, lyrical, but yet deeply meaningful. Here’s a link to one of her sand art performances:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzfX7hsKY3Y&feature=related

My attempts to keep a blog after my return from Latvia have been futile—well, there is nothing like another fresh start. Let’s see…New school year’s schedule is taking some time getting used to; I have great students though, and I hope to have a fun year with them. My AP art students had a summer sketchbook assignment, and one of them did an amazing job with it—check out this wild cover! This girl has some talent and no fear.

I have been having a great time with my family—trying to get some time in nearby parks (we go for an hour before they close, fewer people and much lower temperatures!). It is hard to enjoy outdoors here in Florida at this time of year. Last weekend we chanced to get out for a lunch picnic in a splash park with some friends, which went great as we were lucky to have a cloudy sky and a shady table.
I have not picked up a paint brush since my trip to Latvia (sigh!), but I have had plenty of fun painting with my daughter. Here’s she working on her latest potato stamp creation.

Today I printed some reference photos for my future paintings—going to get some canvases tomorrow, and I hope to get started soon.

Well, I’ve fallen off the blogging wagon for a few weeks. My days can be described in a few sentences—pool or splash park (this is the only kind of park that I will go to in this heat) with my daughter, small home improvement projects, gardening (my green peppers are blooming!) and cooking meals for my family. I love trying out new recipes, so black bean burgers and pork carnitas turned out scrumptious, and they’re moved to my favorite recipe folder. The no-bake peaches’n cream cheese cake made the cut too (my friends asked for seconds at a dinner get together). Great food makes life so much more enjoyable!
I am getting ready to start school next week—the students will be coming back from their summer break before too long. Ahh, it’s always both hard and great to come back to school after a long summer vacation.
We’re off to Tampa for my husband’s grandmother’s birthday this weekend—he and my daughter are so lucky to have her. It should be nice seeing my husband’s side of the family—and perhaps visit the Tampa Aquarium? May be.

I arrived back home to Orlando safely a week ago. Besides getting over my jet lag and settling in, I already planted a few tomatoes and peppers in my new vegetable garden…I was so inspired with my parents’ garden in Latvia that I started wanting my own. If you’ve been in Florida this time of year, you surely know how brutally hot it can be, especially when doing any kind of work outside. I wasn’t too put off by that though, and, with the help of my dad, we cleared a small patch of land and planted a few veggies. We decided to start off with some seeds and also purchased a few small plants at this awesome place a few miles ago, Lukas Nursery. Check it out some time, so many plants to see there!
http://www.lukasnursery.com/
And here's what we have so far

The existence of the pool in our back yard was most appreciated during this process! Now watering and waiting, weeding, watering and waiting….

We’ve been enjoying our last week in Latvia. Seeing friends, taking walks around town and spending time in my parents’ garden along with running on sandy river banks of the Daugava, the longest river in Latvia, has truly been fun. I covered every sheet of paper and every canvas board that I had taken with me with some paintings, here’s a pic of me working on the waterscape—my dad and my daughter Ally are on the background.

With sunny and warm weather everything is blooming and growing like crazy.

We are eating garden berries right off the bush or a tree, including these delicious cherries.

Every vegetable on our dinner table comes from the garden, too. Fresh potatoes, carrots, tomatoes and greens—so, so good! I can’t even think of Publix produce for a long time after tasting these wonderful veggies.

My last weekend was spent on a short trip to the neighboring country, Estonia. During our 5-hour drive we stopped in small scenic towns and saw a couple of pretty waterfalls. The soil there is very rocky, and such waterfalls are quite frequent.


We reached Tallin, the capital of Estonia in the early afternoon. The Old Town of Tallin is beautiful in its own way; it has many medieval buildings that are a bit less ornate a more fortress-like in comparison to what we can see in Riga.

I loved wondering many narrow pebble stone streets

and marveling over the skyline of old rooftops.