travels.

I am in Sunny California. The weather here is so lovely...I forget how bright and clear everything seems out here, and the mountains...sigh. Of course seeing my beloved family, and close friend has been the best part of this trip. I hope you had a great day yesterday with some people and food that you love. This is a painting that was made to clean my palette off before my trip. Happy weekend to you.

french market. lydia host

My parents are traveling around Europe, eating fresh and fabulous fruit and vegetables. My Mom snapped this shot and emailed it to me!

I am teaching a mini-workshop on Daily painting at 301 in December, Jan. and Feb. each class could be taken individually or as a group they will build on each other. This class is designed for all levels of painting and will be laid back and fun! click here for more information you have to scroll down a bit!

I am heading to California for Thanksgiving, not sure if I'll be able to post or paint even...so I will wish you a Happy Thanksgiving now! Happy Thanksgiving!

Lydia

French creamer 2. Lydia Host

I was thinking about my grandmother today when I decided to paint this little french creamer that she gave me...with the fabulous 'weed ' Lantana stuck into it. She is eighty-nine, and just one of the smartest, most classy of persons you could ever know. Lydia

zannie Apples. Lydia Host 8x8

This is not a great photograph of this painting...but when it gets dark so early. ...I will try again tomorrow. I am painting some fruit and veggies for a little show on Saturday at the Paper Wasp Gallery where I will be showing with Lisa Warren, and Ardith Goodwin, it is the last market day of the season, so get down there and get your farm fresh produce! (painted and grown).

Lydia

green chair. Lydia Host painting a day painting 8x10

I have so many pictures of girls in chairs. For my senior thesis I painted a series of chairs and some of them in with people some without! I had fun with this. Lydia

shrimpers. Lydia Host daily painting a day painting 8x8

Today was a fun plein air day. There were three of us....it started out a little chilly but became quite fabulously warm and it was a sparklingly clear day. Joanne Brandt painted a little dingy up on props that was charming somehow, the painting was equally as charming! Conroy Hudlow, is a regular at the figure drawing classes- his work is quite amazing, but it was his first foray out into the plein air scene...so he just sketched ( well it looked more like a finished drawing to me). Click on their names to see their blogs. I wanted to paint shrimp boats and these two were parked together... I am not exaggerating the color of the nets on the boat on the right...bright green. Anyway I liked that there was a real modern fishing boat just visible on the left...not as picturesque as the old ones....better start painting these old guys fast! Hope you have a great weekend. Lydia

Blue chair. Lydia Host painting a day painting 8x10

I painted this from an old picture that I took of a friend....I love the angst! The blue chair is a 'reading chair' that was given to me by a really nice lady, who told me it was from her grandmothers estate ..in San Fransisco Ca. I love that there is a chair made just for that purpose!

Lydia

Sweetness. Lydia Host daily painting a day painting 8x8

I took some snapshots of this little girl at a local exploreum (with her mothers permission!). I just loved her whole look, and her expressions, the headband was the perfect finishing touch. Lydia

Tea. Lydia Host daily painting a day painting 8x8

Something emerges from the chaos! I actually love it when that happens. There is a painter who kind of took off on pointillism and creates these images that seem to emerge from the fray...Chuck Close kind of does that too, although his have a technical or computer generated quality. I will see if I can find the other artist that I am thinking of and post a link to his work.

Lydia

Pre- Raphaelite= Waterhouse copy.

Sometimes when I need to just paint something that makes me happy....I will paint quick copies of some of my favorite portraits. This is actually a really poor copy ( I know I am only supposed to sound positive for posterity...but its true) but I liked the way it turned out anyway. This is from 'The Lady of Shalott' 1888 by John W. Waterhouse. I just have always loved the Pre-Raphaelites and their lovely models full of angst and drama! They are sort of glazed over in Art History classes that I have taken, but there is a class that is offered occasionally at Spring Hill College by Dr. Patricia Neal that is about this movement, last year I signed up, but the class didn't make and so I am just hoping to see it again and when it does I will start canvasing for people to take it with me! Lydia

tilted. Lydia Host daily painting a day 11x11

More beautiful persimmons. You may or may not know this, but there are two kinds of persimmons grown around here; stranuous and non -stranuous....if you've only had the stranuous you might think that you don't like persimmons. I had only had the stranuous and recently tried the non...boy are they sweet and delicious- almost like an apple in texture as opposed to the stringy weirdness of the other. Lydia