Lake Wylie Memories, a water painting by Shanti Marie

8″ by 10″ oil on wood. $ 75.00

This is still a bit wet so you can see a little gloss of reflective light hitting the left side of the painting. This will dry back tomorrow and will look great.  I stayed up till 2 am last night getting things done and today had planned on painting my larger painting which is a work in progress …(http://h20color.wordpress.com) but as life is always getting in the way of my painting, I was surprised by my husband Art who brought home an aquarium and 20 tiny tiny  tropical fish. I spend the afternoon setting it up.  Ithoughtly  enjoyedwatching the fish get aquinted in their new home.

I’ll photograph it for you tomorrw, the fish are kinda hiding at the moment.

Running River 2 – An oil landscape by Shanti Marie

8 by 10 75.00   oil on wood panel.

This is the same painting from yesterday but since it was so shiny and had so much glare on it I didn’t feel the photo did it justice.    This is a more realistic photo.    

I enjoy painting water because it has so much movement and just like most of my paintings I exaggerate the color and make it a bit more lively.  

 

 

Running river, Magic Falls

8 by 10 oil on panel 75.00

This oil painting is fresh off the easel and you can see the glare off of the oil surface.  I will have to take another picture of it tomorrow when its a bit dryer. 

Sleepy Koi

Watercolor on gessoed paper $45.00

This little guy looks tired to me so I decided he can be called “sleepy”. If you have fish you know some of them are always swimming fast and darting around then there are those that kinda hide under stuff and only come out when your not around.  This fish is just a little tired and  he is hanging out near the bottom of the pond.  

Monet series, Fantasy Pond

Acrylic on wood, 8 by 8″ $50.00  s & h $5.50 ….shantmarie@aol.com for purchase information,   Pay pal, credit cards and checks accepted.

This is another painting from my blue Monet series.  I wanted to add a little lavender color to the blue and see how I liked it.   Lavender somehow makes me think more of a fantasy world.  These paintings are a bit soft and I didn’t allow too many hard lines and I think this makes it a bit more surreal.

 

I’ve been very busy with my other projects and I have really had to plan and stay up late or wake up early to get these daily painting completed. I will up date you on those project as they are completed.

 

 

 

 

Koi pond

8 by 12 watercolor  $80.00

This is painted on gessoed masonite  & it has been sprayed with a fixative so it can be framed without glass.   I have spent a lot of time lately looking at ponds and I guess it was just a matter of time before I painted a pond.  With any good pond there has to be fish so I painted a few Koi to splash around.

I’ve had lots of fun painting the Monet series lately but I have to admit it…. one of the paintings didn’t quite turn out as well as I would have wanted.  Every one has a bad day at times and I’m not blaming my brother  BUT… I have told him numerous times “Don’t come over while I’m painting”  but  some folks including my relatives think painting for me is like eating…  They think it looks so easy and I paint so fast that I could do it in my sleep.  The think you can still paint well while having a conversation about something as insignificant or nutty as, say.. the problems of ebay or the election or even the compost heap.  You get the idea.   For me this is not true.

As an intuiative painter I have to be in my own space. but not wanting to be rude… I start in with the painting trying to get back to where I was before the compost heap became so important that he walked across the street to tell me about it.

 I’m standing at the easel looking down at my painting  trying to figure out where I was going next thinking it is almost done and as he talked and talked and talked, I kept mixing and mixing and mixing.  Now, anyone who paints knows this alone is a recipe for a major mud fest.  Even I knew when I was mixing it this can’t be good, but I kept trying, I painted and  mixed and painted and remixed, trying to make it work, while occasionally saying  “  “right”  “Yeah?”  ” really “  ”Hm”.   The only color I was really getting of course was gray and no real values… so after he left, I took the painting outside to dry and this little painting must have had 1/2 inch of paint on it.  Three days later and I’m pretty sure it isn’t dry yet.  I should have scraped it off but I didn’t have the heart.

 

 

Monet’s tribute series “Blue” oil on masonite panel

Oil  on masonite panel, 8 by 10″ $75.00

This is the Oil painting I did last night for the Monet series.   Its the first oil I have done in this series.

I decided to do it in blue. Maybe I’ll do one in lavender, I like blue and lavender together so we’ll see.

Monet’s tribute, cool waters

Acrylic on wood , 8″ by 10 ” $75.00, Cool Waters was painted as part of  my tribute to Monet series. 

It didn’t photograph well and there is a bit of glare on the photo.   I painted two of these today, you’ll have to come back tomorrow to see the other one. Their both in blue.

 

I’m writing the “Ten commandments  for the daily painter”… If you have any ideas, send  them to me as an email shantmarie@aol.com

A day like no other lll

11 by 15 watercolor on paper $175.00

Don’t laugh but I have painted this painting three times. I’m not sure why I find it intriguing but I do. Now don’t get me wrong I have changed a few things each time and they are all a bit different yet very much a like. Perhaps its like having the same dream, you don’t know why that happens either.. but it does.  I love these colors and the idea of the path and the trees…

Cherries ACEO watercolor on gessoed WC paper

2.5 by 3.5 15.00 plus 1.50 s & h

Bachelors

Watercolor on paper, 11 by 15 $150.00

 Bachelor’s Buttons, a Wood Pecker and an old stump.

This piece was inspired by the wood peckers that come to my house to eat suet.   I assume this bird is a he, its a beautiful bird with a touch of red on his head.  He is very comical, he walks up and down the tree trunk, I guess looking for bugs or whatever and when I come outside he just walks around to the other side of the tree. 

Abstract in red

11 by 14 watercolor on paper 75.00

Last night I painted three little cherries and I painted them and I painted them again and again… never quite getting the look I wanted, I painted them so much they looked overworked and tired. So I put them to bed and today I am posting this abstract in their place.  Sometimes a small little thing can get the best of you. I ‘ve painted lots of Cherries, I know their image, have it right there in my minds eye, I can see their color, shape, highlights and pretty much can paint them in my sleep. Why? why? why is it that even though you can paint something over and over again at a drop of a hat… at times you can’t. Guess it was just one of those days. I did paint a bit on my larger Koi painting which you might check into.. http:// h20color.wordpress.com  Its coming along and only needs some final tweaking.

Kitty, Kitty in South Carolina

5″ by 7″ $50.00 watercolor on Gessoed paper.

This cat seems to be saying  ” let me take a better look” or maybe its the lady bug who’s doing the talking.

I have a black and white cat and she’s not only very cute, but does a lot of funny things.  She has a smudge right on the tip of one side of her nose and sometimes she can look rather comical just sitting there.   She only weighs nine pounds but her name is Chubbs.  It’s the really long hair that makes her look so big.   I had planned to paint something else but like many days this is just what wanted to be painted.  I was drawing and there it was… the first few lines looked like a cat and I went with it.   In fact sometimes just a line or a curve of a line will look like something to me and whatever it was I was planning to draw is thrown out for the object which I see in that line and is appearing before me.

Sun, sand and the beach

Watercolor on professional grade watercolor paper.  Matted in white $150.00 7″ by 20″
Lots of talk these days of making a trek to the beach, looking for beach houses and places to go. Of course we have to take the dogs too. The dogs are all very well behaved and don’t ruin things or pee indoors, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Of course Art my husband won’t go, just me and the girls with the dogs. Hopefully we can find a house right on the beach and the beach is as deserted as this painting. The plan isn’t to go until October so I have plenty of time to find just the right place. Maybe Pauly’s island, or Edisto…. Any suggestions, I don’t really want to drive more than three hours or four at the most from Charlotte NC.

Sanshoku

$40.00    4″ by 6″ watercolor on gessoed paper, backed with foam core and ready to frame.

 Whoa, what a busy day, cleaning up my garden and working on my flower beds, it was a great day to be outside.  It was hot, but not too hot. I divided plants and moved them around and watered and fertilized, all the things gardeners do to keep their flowers producing.  Now I’m pretty tired but I will paint a painting to post for tomorrow.