Here is my 2017 Calendar with paintings from this last year...

I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. I think it is my best calendar yet. I'm having a Giveaway for a free calendar. The drawing will be on November 3rd. To enter all you have to do is comment here on my blog.

The calendar is for sale here in my new Shop. Take a look at my new shop, if you haven't seen it yet. :)

The calendar is $24, and that price includes shipping. Click on the calendar category, and then click again on the calendar that comes up to see the order information.

Here are the paintings that are included in the calendar month by month...

"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."  Genesis 8:22

These are the paintings I worked on the last week of the challenge.

This painting has been sitting in my unfinished stash for at least 9 months. What is it about these unfinished paintings that is so hard to complete? All month I’ve been seeing it out of the corner of my eye, occasionally picking it up and scrutinizing it… Finally I decided to finish it up and post it and I love it …

Prolific Pansies
8" x  16" oil on canvas
$225

Don't you love the view of the mountains as you are drawing close to them? To get to the mountains from where I live is a long grueling trip through the prairie. So that first glimpse is precious. This is actually on Highway 159 going north from New Mexico.

This is a work in progress,  as I still have to put more layers on the clouds…

Headed to the Mountains
12" x 12" oil on canvas
Unfinished

I’m having so much fun on Instagram. There are artists that encourage and inspire me, and so many wonderful people who share their own life experiences, plus I love to keep up with all the activities of my own children, who I don’t see all the time.

This painting was inspired by a friend I haven’t seen for a long time. Her mother was my midwife and delivered 6 of my 9 children. Because of Instagram I get to see a little of what is going on in their lives even though they live faraway.

Hayes in the Field
11" x 14" oil on linen

We have a very dear friend whose  grand-mother was a trick roper, and she passed on this legacy to her grand-children and even her great grand-children. I asked her for a photo of her grandmother so I could try and paint her.

I still need to work on her facial features in and the rope.

Texas Skip
8" x 10" oil on canvas
Unfinished

After working for two days on this painting of Nymph Lake in Colorado from a photo my son took on a climbing trip, I had to move on to the next painting. I'm hoping to get back to this one soon and complete it.

Nymph Lake
Unfinished

Always work on a little mini painting when I need to catch up... :)

Mini Autumn Rose Bouquet
4" x 4" oil on canvas
$35

And last of all, but probably my most favorite painting this time around, is one of the aspens turning their golden yellow color in the fall in Colorado.

Road to Gray's Peak
10" x 20"

Hope you enjoyed seeing the progress of these paintings over the last month. :)

Got a little behind this week, but I was able to catch up by doing 3 mini Bike Basket paintings. I think these bike baskets have been one of my most popular paintings, and the gallery loves carrying an affordable original work of art that makes a wonderful gift...

They each have their own little easel...

I’ve always wanted to try working loosely with a pallet knife, and this rainy scene in a town seemed a perfect trial for this. One thing about this painting challenge is to try out new things,  posting a painting every day, no matter how it turns out... Some paintings aren't finished after one day. This is one of them... I think the two figures under the purple umbrella need to be looser.

12" x 16" oil on canvas

I took a photo of Clear Creek in Colorado last January fulling intending to paint it when I was home from our little trip, and then it was lost in the shuffle. So glad I remembered I had it stored on my camera...

9" x 9" oil on gesso board
$160

Another photo that I saved because I thought it would be fun to try and paint was posted last summer on Instagram by my daughter-in-law. This is her water skiiing on Lake Chelan...

6" x 6" oil on gesso board

I wasn't intending to paint more sunflowers this time around, but my daughter left town for the weekend and gave me this bouquet of sunflowers in a green glass vase. It was actually the green glass that intrigued me...

8" x 10" oil on linen
$160

That is my report for the third week... One more week to go and I finally feel like I'm getting warmed up. The first week was fun, second week was stressful, the third week was catching up... I'm hoping this fourth week will be relaxed and enjoyable...

Hope you enjoyed seeing the paintings from the challenge. Please comment and tell me what you think. I love to hear from you. :)

I can tell you that this is truly a challenge, and I found myself getting very tired and stressed this week, but from past experience I know that if I press through there will be some great rewards. One of the paintings I have been working on every day along with the daily paintings is a commissioned piece of the countryside in Haiti...

12" x 16" oil on gallery wrapped canvas
SOLD

1804 Coffee out of Tulsa, Oklahoma commissioned this painting of the coffee fields that they are developing to encourage the Haitian farmers and get them back on their feet. I think it's wonderful what they are doing to help Haiti. You can support these farmer's by purchasing their fresh roasted organic coffee beans... 1804 Coffee

I always love painting from a photo that my daughters bring back from their travels. This one was from their 2 week back-packing trip to Europe. A quiet resting place along the Cinque de Terre...

Watching the Boats at Manarola
8" x 10" oil on canvas
Private Collection

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Two paintings were from my sunrise walks by Guthrie Lake. There is an old broken down pier that is still standing in the lake, and I hope they leave it standing, because I see such beauty in it. There is an old heron who is sitting there waiting for the sun to rise every morning...

Next I tried out a new for me technique with the color wheel on a bouquet of flowers and ended up not being happy with it so , I scraped it and repainted it with a sunflower and zinnia bouquet.

This is the " before" that I wasn't happy with, and this is the "after" that I like better, but I think I need to add a little more red to the sunflower...  So the painting on the left is no more, and the painting on the right that replaced it is Finicky Flowers  5" x 5" oil on raised panel.

The next painting was inspired by a vase full of dried eucalyptus that my daughter has over at her house...

12" x 24"  oil on black canvas
Unfinished

And one more mini sunflower painting...

4" x 4" oil on mini canvas
$35

So, there you have it for week 2, now to press forward. Hope you enjoyed this update on my paintings for this week...

Red Sunflowers

This has been a great week. I've been able to accomplish a lot and fulfilled part of my goal for this month of painting sunrises and clouds...

August Sunrise
12" x 12" oil on canvas
$250

My daughter Sage and I have been getting up while it is still dark and driving to Guthrie Lake to walk most mornings. We usually both have our cameras and the sunrises have been incredibly beautiful!  I think it's meaningful that the word "august" means inspiring reverence or admiration; of supreme dignity or grandeur; majestic…

Clouds Over the Prairie
12" x 12" oil on canvas
$250

The inspiration for this painting was from a photo that I took last year in September. I was on my way to Guthrie lake one evening and had to stop by the side of the road to take a photo of the beautiful clouds that day. I have wanted to paint sky scenes for a long time now, and I'm really enjoying capturing the awesomeness of God's handiwork in the heavens.

I completed three mini paintings to take to the gallery. They will also be for sale in my Etsy shop.  If you hover  over the images the captions will show up. :)

Aloe Vera
12" x 12" oil on gallery wrapped canvas
$250

This is one of those large aloe plants that twist and turn in strange positions. It sits on a railroad tie on my patio. It appears to be falling out of the pot, but it is actually well rooted. This was a fun painting to do outside from still life.


And  the last one for the week was a commission from a very old friend of mine. I met her for the first time when I was 13 living in Saudi Arabia. She asked me if I could paint a beach scene from the town we lived in Ras Tanura on the Persian Gulf with her and her sisters and mother when they were young. This would have been back in the 60's...

Sisters by the Sea
8" x 8" oil on linen
SOLD

I really had to use my imagination for this one. The girls in the front I took from a photo she sent me of the girls decorating a Christmas tree. Everything was pieced together from different photos. I like the way it turned out. I know she is happy with it. It's a sweet gift for her mother.

So that's it for this week. Hope you enjoyed reading about it. I hope the second week turns out as well. :)

I really enjoyed painting sunflowers this summer. I guess you could say it has been kind of a healing for me. These past 6 months have been a big transition for our family in many different ways. Caring for aging parents with dementia is a huge challenge. I found myself many times at a total loss as to what to think about each situation, and how to cope that would be the best for everyone. My father-in-law is now in a nursing home, because it takes so many to care for him. I'm thankful that there is a place where he can be cared for, and at the same time it is a very difficult adjustment. My mother is declining, as far as dementia goes, and she needs more and more time and attention. For now, we seem to be getting on top of that situation, and that gives me more time to enjoy painting again.

Farmer's Market Flowers
12" x 16" oil on black canvas
$320

11" x 14" oil on linen
$285

I'm looking forward to painting 30 Paintings in 30 Days in September 2016 with Leslie Saeta. If you would like to follow my daily posts, visit my blog Simply Painting, or I will be doing a weekly update here, or you can follow all the wonderful artists that are participating on Leslie's blog 30 in 30.

"Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say, Rejoice." ~ Philippians 4:4

We've been having a lot of sunshine around here lately and a lot of 100 degree temperatures. When I painted this little 5" x 5" mini painting, all I could think  of was sunshine...

A Little Bit of Sunshine
5" x 5" oil on Ampersand panel
$48

After my daughter brought home some beautiful sunflowers from the local Farmer's Market,  I decided to tackle a larger canvas of sunflowers in a blue and white  Moroccan vase ...

Celia's Sunflowers
16" x 20" oil on canvas
$640

While I was thinking of a title for the painting, I did a little research on the vase that I bought a couple of years ago at Pier One Imports. The signature on the bottom of the vase is A. Serghini which  I traced to the pottery making village of Safi, Morocco.

If you are curious about the place where they have been making gorgeous pottery for 8 or 9 generations, take a look at this blog... Morac Mama 

Master Potter      Safi, Morroco 
Photo from Morac Mama

As for the title of the painting... The lady's name at the Farmer's Market who sells beautiful sunflowers is Celia... Celia's Sunflowers has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

I just had new note cards made from some of my new paintings... They are available in my Etsy shop along with my paintings... https://www.etsy.com/shop/knaylorpaintings

"But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand." Isaiah 64:8

I’ve been trying to post each one of these paintings separately, but I can’t seem to get the individual photos to line up and accurately portray the colors. I hope you can imagine what it truly looks like.

This is a commissioned piece made up of 3   12″ x 12″ gallery wrapped canvases, so the painting actually continues on the sides of each one.

3  12" x  12" oil on gallery wrapped canvases
SOLD

This Monterey Cypress tree stands on a cliff overlooking the ocean just north of Santa Cruz, California. These cypress trees grow to various heights and widths and are found  surviving the tough conditions along the California coast, as they are some of the only large plants able to withstand the salty spray of the ocean seabreezes. Some of these spectacular trees are over 200 years old. My daughter-in-law sent me a photo she had taken of this view of one of her favorite landmarks and asked me to paint it for their newly remodeled bathroom. I've heard that she loves it so much she decided to put it in the living room. :)

I love painting oceans...I will definitely have to do more of these...

"Behold, He spreads His lightning about Him, And He covers the depths of the sea. " ~ Job 36:30

3   20"x 20" oil on canvas
SOLD

I LOVE aspens...

So I decided to paint some large canvases full of aspen trunks with beautiful background colors.

The inspiration for this particular set of paintings came about last fall while walking through the  glorious golden yellow leaf hues in our own fall woods at home. It reminded me of the  autumn aspens up in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado... It was also inspired by a yellow, gray and white striped serape blanket that I found at our neighborhood second hand store "The Purple Ostrich". I asked my daughter Anna to model for me while I took photos of her standing in the driveway with the blanket I bought for her.

Excited about this series, I got right to work and set them up on the floor leaning up against a couch in my studio. They were too large to put on an easel... After getting the first layer on, I had to stop painting and start work on some commissions. I leaned up the unfinished canvases in our little guest house and kind of forgot about them. A few months later we had a weekend guest who fell in love with the paintings and bought them. I think she would have taken them unfinished, but I insisted on working in the final layers.

I love them...she loves them... and I love this little story...

The title from the hymn "Be Thou My Vision".