Tree Frog on a Tree Trunk

I’ve been seeing quite a few tree frogs around this year and each time I see one, I am surprised and delighted.

When you see how small the panel is this is painted on (4″x4″), you can get a feeling of how tiny the frog is …but even so, I may have painted it slightly larger than life sized. I enjoying playing with some abstraction in the background but also adding some hits of turquoise to brighten this tiny green being.

Side-eye

Another mini bird painting today. This one is a female Anna’s Hummingbird. She’s in profile but you can bet she’s keeping an eye on you from her precarious perch!

Sing Your Heart Out

Another mini painting today. I am really enjoying painting birds these days. They are so full of colour and personality. This is a spotted towhee which are fairly common where I live in British Columbia. I also had some fun creating the rather abstract background with swirls of paint.

Junco Looks Up

This fluffy junco is gazing upwards with some wonder. Perhaps it is a young one marveling at how well their parent can fly?

Fireweed Bee

Another mini painting, this one inspired by my own garden. We have some fireweed growing on one side against a fence. If you’re not familiar, fireweed is pretty, grows very tall and has flowers that come out over several weeks working their way up each stalk. So all kinds of bees have been visiting every day to get the fresh pollen. These plants hum joyously with life for most of the summer.

Curious

There’s something so endearing about small birds …and they are endlessly fun to paint! This one is a Chestnut-backed Chickadee, I believe. They have that classic chickadee profile and head tilt. I also had fun applying the paint to create a rather abstract background.

Ruffled Feathers

Well, it’s always fun to paint the delightful local Anna’s hummingbirds. I played with various brushes and my palette knife to get the feeling of the feathers …oh, and I used the other end of my brush to scratch into the paint too!

Red Admiral

I was out walking near a pond recently. There were dragonflies darting and weaving over the surface of the water and a little bit along the path was a Red Admiral butterfly just sunning its wings. I was immediately inspired to paint one for my next mini. There’s a lot of dark velvety wing as well as its soft dark body so it was challenging to paint one but I’m happy with how it turned out.

Tranquility

I spent several days on this one layering up the paint and carving out the shapes …exploring until I felt I had achieved the feeling I was looking for …tranquility. This was done as a commission but with complete free rein in terms of subject and execution. I feel both grateful and humbled to be given this kind of freedom in a commission. The location where it will hang has a spa-like calm feeling so I wanted to build on that with this painting. The yellow waterlilies (or spadderdocks) are reminders for them of canoeing on the Ontario lakes they love.

Blossom Bee

This sweet bumble bee and apple blossoms painting is another mini. The spring this year has been unusually cold and damp with sightings of pollinators being few and far between. Then recently we had a warmer, sunnier day and there they were – all different sizes and types of bees in the garden. It made me feel so good that I wanted to paint a celebratory bee painting. Hope you enjoy!

Green Tea Doodles

take some time for tea and check out my doodles

animals