South Texas Cactus

In April a home tour took many of us down country roads we had not been before. Since we've had so much good rain this year the land was bursting with blooms.

Giant Crinum

First Garden plant to bloom this winter in February.

Ti ll


I photographed my Ti plants in December and they froze in January. In February, I painted a memorial to them which helped, I think, to keep their spirits alive. It's now June and they are sprouting new growth from the ground.

Ti

El Maquey, Indian Lodge

Light on White, Indian Lodge

October 2009 trip with Rockport 9 plein air painters. First stop Big Bend National Park. Second stop Ft. Davis and Indian Lodge.

Big Bend Flora

and Rio Grande at Santa Elena Canyon

are two of the six plein air oils I painted on our first adventure together as a group called Rockport 9. We caravaned to Big Bend National Park which is about 10 hours west of Rockport and stayed in the Park at Chiso's Lodge.

The paintings were all 12x16" and took a couple of hours on location and several hours at home revising until they pleased me. Great to be mushing around in the texture of oils with a palette knife; my rendition of frosting a cake.

A little move forward in painting at my studio with palette knife on a larger canvas than I took for my plein air paintings at Big Bend National Park in Texas in October. It was a perfect trip with eight other women to paint at Big Bend and the Ft. Davis for more than a week--a 10 hour drive from Rockport through barren country right near the border of Mexico.