Keeping Cool

When it's hot, I find it helpful to think cool thoughts. So I painted a coyote from a photo I took last winter.

"Winter Morning Lookout." Oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches.

The backyard animals all come to drink water, and sometimes even to bathe.

A cactus wren

Mourning Dove

Gambel's Quail

Gambel's quail

I hope you are all staying cool!

Forgot something?

I have. I forgot to tell you that if you aren't local, you can still find a few of my new reproductions (the ones I mentioned in my last post) in my etsy shop. https://www.etsy.com/shop/JackrabbitJunction

"The Trickster." Oil on canvas, 16 x 20 inches

Next year is going to bring about some interesting changes for me. The first one I am going to tell you about is that I am going to teach an online class!!! I have taught a few classes before, but I have never taught an online class. Fortunately, I will be helped greatly by my friend, Carla Sonheim and her husband Steve Sonheim. The class will probably take place in the spring. If you think you might be interested, you can email me. I will be writing more about it in the new year, so stay tuned for more details!

Have a great weekend, everyone! Thanks for reading, commenting, and all!

A Good Friday

A small sampling of the flowers in my garden right now:

Is there such a thing as too much orange? You decide.

As I was sitting here this morning, working on the images for this blog post, a coyote came trotting up to the water dish I set out for the animals. I grabbed my camera without getting up (it shied a bit), I carefully aimed and took a photo of the top of its head. The sound of the camera was enough to scare it away. DANG. I need another photo of a coyote, and they just don't want to cooperate. I am going to have to figure out how to turn off all the sounds of my camera, with the hope that coyotes will get thirsty again.

Until I get another good coyote photo, I have resorted to doing paintings from blurry photos, like this painting I (think) I just finished.

"Morning Stroll." Oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches. ©2012 Karine M Swenson

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter Weekend! Here's to surviving yet another holiday filled with sugar-loaded junk food. As a recovering choc-o-holic, I have to put a great distance between me and chocolate Easter Bunnies. They are cute and taste good, but if I eat them, my teeth will rot out and my jeans won't fit. Instead, I am going to dye Easter Eggs and eat an apple. If I make it through the holiday without succumbing to temptation, I will feel like I have really accomplished something! The new religion of sugar is alive and well, but I no longer believe in it. Sorry, Hershey's.