Author: Frances

Tuesday morning painting group in Santa Ynez.

Summer flower fun and more than one if you keep swiping. All from our ragtag cutting garden but i love it. I remember growing up in the summers at Atlantic Beach NC, and we’d go to the curb market, and these were the kind of flowers they had, in coffee cans, or those giant cans of “cling peaches”. I never understood what they clung to. .
#zinnia #zinnias #dahlias #bouquet #brightbouquet #rancholazaca #californiacookingandsouthernstyle

Happily back home after forever! Looks like the dahlias did fine without me.
#homesweethome #rancholazaca #dahlias #zinnias

LOVED this show produced by the @atlantictheater based on the book by @suemonkkidd Today was closing day, but something- a lot actually- tells me we will see this show again on other bigger stages – and I’d bet on Broadway before too long. #bravo

Unfinished but I stopped before I could eff it up, which in all likelihood I woulda. Was really trying this week to SIMPLIFY and this little painting will be my reminder. That, and always take an umbrella. It rained nearly all day. #pleinairpaintingisnotforsissies #pleinair #pleinairsketch #farmscape #kimenglish teacher

Painting this week in the Catskills. Hot as blazes but there is pretty light and all this green.

Farewell Johnny Clegg, 66, celebrated modern South African musician, whose talent, leadership, and courage were a shining light in the dark days of and after apartheid. His beautiful “Asimbonanga” -Zulu for “I have not seen him”- was written for then-imprisoned Nelson Mandela and became a soulful ballad for South African anti apartheid fighters of all races. He embraced, adopted, and transformed native South African music, melding it with his own, performing with black and white musicians. So embraced was he by his Zulu brothers that they considered him one of their own, and called him the #WhiteZulu. And man, could he dance. I was lucky to see him several times, including in Johannesburg in the ‘80s, and I wrote that he was like a cross between Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jordan. He showed the world how the arts are a force for healing and good, and he did it. RIP #johnnyclegg Photo from @sowetanlive Thinking about you @serenacrawford and all my friends in RSA @antheaboehmke @paulgzb @binkynewman @cookiemalherbe and others !

Little boys and boats. I never get tired of watching them. Love this “pose” and captured because there may be a painting in here. .
#centralpark #centralparksailboats #centralparkconservatorywater #iwanttopaintit #iwanttopaintthis #motherandson #motherandsons #sailboat

Love a big fat cloud .
#figure8 #iwanttopaintthis #iwanttopaintit #cloudscape

View from the living room, Figure 8. Pencil sketch “painted” in #Procreate app on ipad. So much fun. That old piece of driftwood was in our grandparents’ cottage at Atlantic Beach NC and then our mother’s, and now my sister’s. Things are things but they are also our stories. I think that’s why I wanted to paint this scene. .
#ipaddrawing #ipadpainting #procreate #4thofjuly #waterscape

A squall for all y’all. Love a summer storm. And a hot dog (not pictured) .
#summerstorm #squall

Happy 4th from Versailles! Actually this magnificent display was last week at the fairytale dinner at Versailles commemorating the 100th anniv of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The dinner itself was created and produced by the visionary @alexhitz and a magical evening contributed to by many talented and dedicated people, American and French. The French, lest we forget, helped us win our independence from the English. Happy 4th from Figure 8 Island in NC which also has great fireworks and great people! @jennifer.smith.hale Im sorry I missed you !