Feb 25, 2016

February- Time to Paint the Garden!


This has been a time of loss for my family.

But...I'm not going to write about this.

Because it's February!  
it's Time to PAINT the Garden.  

Oh! how I love to paint my garden.  (It's always much more beautiful in my dreams.)  Reality requires work.      

How to paint a garden?  Use the months of January, Feb and March and April to dream about your window vignettes.  What should they look like?    Imagine each window as a frame to a beautiful, ever changing painting.  With God as the artist, it is always a masterpiece.

My paintings change season by season, day by day.    Add bark and evergreens for interesting textures on wintry days, and add more color for spring and summer.

Yes, my garden is still an all you can eat buffet for the many critters living nearby, deer, squirrel, fox, groundhogs, and raccoon.  Last year, we caught three groundhogs in Have-A-Hearts. Then turned them free miles away. Could the same ones have returned?
We have three.

My dad and mice...
Dad caught a mouse in his Have-A-Heart, he painted the mouse's toenails with bright red fingernail polish (imagine mice toes peeking through the cage below).
 
Even when driven miles away, red toed mice would show up again and again in our home, off to the Have-A-Heart.
Wonder what those mice thought about their trips?


This just happened last year, despite my neglect.  Beautiful!   

My husband watered while I was away.




Guess who I discovered in the shower one early morning!?




                 
We saw wee bits of nature while at my parents home in West Virginia.  
It's not a stretch to see where ideas come from.

6 comments:

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

Hi Becky,
I hope you are painting happily away because I love your artwork. Thanks for sharing your gift with the world. I am inspired to create art (especially watercolor painting) again. Have a wonderful day!

xoMommy said...

Hi Becky~
Sending love and hugs to you and your family for your loss. I absolutely ADORE your little critters and fairies. The paintings that include bunnies ladybugs are my favorites. You make the world just a little bit happy and a lot more beautiful ~ thank you for that.

xo Smooches
Debbie Murray

becky kelly studio said...

Thank you Evelyn and Debbie. Watercolor is a good therapy. I'm doing ok. Love the comments about the things you like best. It's inspirational. I'm rarely painting, but when I do it's more realistic work and some abstract. (to warm up) I am struggling to pick up those brushes but it will happen in time. Thank you for the encouragement, Becky

us5 said...

Hi Becky,

Years and years ago I fell in love with your art - back when it was "Spoonful of Stars" from Hallmark. I was drawn to the softness of your watercolors combined with the sweet innocence and wonder of childhood. Thank you for sharing such beauty and joy with us! I was a new mom back then, of twin girls. And I bought (it must have been around the year 2000? or 1999?) two of your cards to put away to give to them when they were grown. I can't attach my photo here :( but it was the card "Remembering the little girl you were...is almost as nice as being friends with the woman you've become." Next month my girls are turning 21, and it was time to give these cards to two of my sweetest friends.

But when i pulled them out of storage, I was grieved to find that the glue on the envelopes had stuck unrelentingly to the face of each card! OH NO! I've tried everything: steam, a hairdryer, tears! But to no avail. I am kicking myself for having stored them that way!! So I've been looking and looking online for replacements, but they aren't to be found. :( You are my last recourse...I wondered if it's at all possible that you might have any somewhere in some dark corner of the attic that you'd be willing to sell to me?

My daughters are both the types to love your art as well. And the sentiment in the card is absolutely true. I wonder if it was the same sort of loving friendship that you shared with your own mother, Becky. I'm so very sorry about your loss. Your mom must have been so incredibly proud of you, and of your talent and the way you used it. I miss my own mother terribly too. This mother-daughter relationship is so incredibly precious.

I will be so blessed and surprised if you DO have any of this card tucked away somewhere - or in some other format? But i also totally understand if it's not something that is at your fingertips. I just decided that it was worth a try, and that it would also be an opportunity to thank you, and to let you know that your work is admired greatly in my little corner of the world.

with thanks,
Barbara R.

becky kelly studio said...

Hi Barbara, thank you. I'm touched you saved the cards for all these years! I've sent a private email with some ideas about your cards.