Why didn't I do this sooner?

I don't know why I didn't set up a personal blog for my art work sooner.  I assume I could use the excuse 'time restraints', but I would be stretching the truth.  So this is day one.  It's my husbands birthday and his one year celebration of being retired for one year.  Seems like a good day to start.

The last day of November I completed this painting from memory and a photo reference I took this summer.  We were traveling from MO to CA and on the journey home we passed through some incredible landscapes in AZ.   I have a new found appreciation for that area.  Maybe it is because we took our time to get to know 'her', stopping every once in a while to take photographs of the beauty.  Being retired you can do that.

I have many paintings to post from our journey to the West coast and back.  We were traveling in a vintage 1962 Airstream.  More on that later.  I do have a blog on that project as well.  See the blog list for the address.

I have been looking at paintings by Matt Smith (www.mattsmithstudio.com) and thought a Prickly Pear Cactus would be great fun to paint.  Take a look at his work.  Amazing.