Mad for Ireland

"Mad for Ireland" - mixed media on gallery wrapped canvas, 24" x 24" x 1.75"". Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.

"Accidentally Happy" - mixed media on aquabord 11" x 14" .  Unframed.  Available here and at Artfinder.

It is snowpocalypse weekend here in PDX, where a little dusting of snow and ice has the city on holiday.  That's cool with Pongo, who would rather his humans stayed home all the time anyway. 

So it is quite surreal to be painting gorgeous seascapes from trips to Ireland while sitting landlocked in the city in a rare freeze.  But my imagination is clearly loving the strange irony, because I cannot stop painting these seascapes.  Blast you, Pauline Agnew!  I am hooked.

Mad for Ireland

Accidentally Happy

Pauline encourages her students to be brave with the paint (and with tools like squeegees).  Not only because it is a good way to feel empowered as a painter, but also because it is the best way to set the stage for happy accidents.

Which this little piece on the left was.  Entirely.  An accident.

You know I adore Ampersand Aquabord....the surface, its watercolor and water media friendliness.  But this week I fell head over heals for it again.  Because THIS, dear reader, is the simple result of my discontent.  A seascape with many layers of watercolor and charcoal and a bit of gesso-mixed acrylic once resided on this board.  But while it was still wet, I became thoroughly frustrated (it was an awful painting) and took it to the wash sink and hosed it down.  And there  this was.  An ethereal landscape, misty and soft.  Hiding under the paint.  Happy accident indeed!  Does that make me accidentally happy?