Seafood, Creatures from the Sea, or Ditch....oil paintings

12x12 crawfish

6x12 crawfish

12x12 shrimp

12x12 oyster

12x12 crab

12x12 crab

I have found it hard to decide when enough is enough.  I don't want to continue to bring paintings of subjects that I have painted a lot before, I don't want people to think I can't paint anything else.  But invariably if I come to a show without my seafood series I catch it from more than one source.  So I just try to make sure that I have enough new stuff that people don't think I'm a one-trick pony.

Guitar, Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar.....Oil Paintings

This one is 10x20 and I called it "Fender Bender" (Another attempt to amuse myself while doing the more mundane side of the art business....Tagging and pricing paintings)

This one is 10x20 as well.  It is the "Unplugged" version.

and if you need a square format, this one is 12x12.

As usual, all of these are on 1 1/2" thick gallery wrap canvas (no staples) and wired so that you can hang them without framing. (Unless you want to frame them, then you can.)

Coffee Cups, Cup Stack.....Original Oil Paintings

These are little 8x8 jewels.  They would look awesome in a kitchen tucked on a stack of cookbooks, or on a backsplash near your coffee pot.

And this whimsical cup stack is 8x24.  It would fit great on a narrow wall in between two doors, or in that spot above your light switch (I have a painting hung above my light switch in my kitchen.)

Birds of a Feather....Oil paintings

I love the reflection of this egret, as well as the sunset mood of the whole painting.

This one has a swampy feel to it.  You get the feeling this one is waiting for a fish to swim by.

This is a painting that I did last year.  Men immediately recognize these as wood ducks.  So that makes me happy.  I will have it with me at the Cotton District Arts Festival this Saturday in Starkville.  It went so well with the other birds that I decided to post it.

MSU original oil paintings, Taligating, Bully, Cowbell

These are three of the paintings that I will have available with me at the Cotton District Arts Festival in Starkville.

If you are unable to make it to Starkville, message me and I can tell you other options to get one of these MSU original oil paintings.

If you do plan to attend look for me in Booth 275 on Maxwell St. just off University.  We will be there all day!

Florals, Florals, Fresh Flowers, more Florals

I wanted to call this post "Floralpalooza" but I didn't think that would boost the chance of google search picking it up.  I do love me some flowers!

Abstracts, Color Explosion, Freedom

I have had so much fun exploring this new way of creating abstracts. I put a few of them in the living room when I first finished them. I like to "live with" a painting sometimes after I finish it. I often see changes I need to make. And sometimes I just like them and enjoy having them around me for a while before they go off to their new homes. Well, these paintings are like no others I have done before. They have such a feeling about them. You would think that having 4 or 5 paintings in one place that all have that much color and action going on would be too busy or somewhat distracting, but I can't explain it....it's just a feeling of positive energy.

This one is one that I did before discovering Flora Bowley.  You can see that it lacks the freedom and abandon that the others have.  However, it will appeal to an entirely different type of person than the others.

New abstract, dedicated to Paula Hallman via flora Bowley

This spring I was looking around online and stumbled upon an artist that offers online courses and monthly newsletters to help you create colorful, energetic abstracts. I have been dabbling with abstracts for a couple of years on and off, but nothing has really lit my fire.

Until Flora Bowley. I read her blog and I viewed an online sample of one of her newsletters and I was just feverishly wanting to try it. I made my plan to start the very next day after seeing the video. I gathered my tools and had everything ready. I woke up at 4 AM (did not say I GOT up, just woke up). Plans for colors and compositions were running through my head. I was so excited.

I got up and got my coffee, did my daily devotional readings, and then checked my email and FB. It was on FB that I discovered that a dear artist friend of mine, Paula Hallman, had passed away. I don't see Paula but one week a year when we are neighbors at the Red River Revel in Shreveport, but we were great friends. I "got her" and she "got me". Her passing hit me harder than I could have imagined.

I thought to myself, "there is no way I will be able to paint today, much less explore a new style". But after a few more tears a realization hit me. Paula could not paint that day, but I could paint. And I did. I went on to paint straight through from 8 AM till 7 PM pretty much nonstop. Something I never do.

I discovered that I loved Flora Bowley's system. I love the music that she paints by, I love the freedom, the depth, the energy. I love that I can paint using her format, but in the end, the paintings look nothing like hers. They are definitely mine.

So I am sharing this first one that I did (with more to follow). In the "system" that Flora teaches one of the ways to start a painting is to write words on the canvas as the first layer. You then go on to add other layers on top which eventually cover up most of the bottom layer. But in this painting, when it was all over and I stopped to look at it.....you can still see part of one of the words I had started with.

I had written Paula.  

Love you girl!  I know your spirit is exploring the universe and you are seeing the places you have traveled to in your dreams...

Rural, Farm, Barn, Cottonfield oil paintings

These are such a good match to show together.  Typical roadside views on pretty much any road in Mississippi.

Cotton Boll Oil Painting

Hello to all who subscribe to my blog (and to those who have stumbled upon it or come here to browse).  I have come to see that my painting life has a rhythm and a cycle to it.  Try as I might to paint more consistently, I have settled into the same pattern for the last three or four years.  So I think it's just the way it's going to be.  

I tend to start the new year off painting like crazy after taking off for the holidays.  I paint to get ready for the spring festival(s) that I attend.  I post those new pieces on FB and my blog all in a two-week period so that my followers can see all the new work, and so that people that pick up my card at the shows will have something to see if they look me up.  

Then I have to catch up on the stuff that I let go during the time that I was painting 24/7.  Plus I normally get some commissions at the shows so I get those done and shipped.  Then it's time for vacation and the yearly convention that I attend with my husband. 

Once that's over it's time to start painting like a crazy person to get ready for the 8 day show that I do over in Shreveport at the beginning of October.  So I once again post all my new fall work in a two-week flurry.  When I get back from Shreveport I do like I do in the spring, catch up and do commissions and maybe a few things for the galleries.  Then the holidays hit and I take off for family stuff and start painting again in January.

So this is my SPRING ART BLITZ for 2016.  I have painted like crazy to be ready for the two spring art festivals that I applied and was accepted for.  I will be posting more info and more paintings over the next two or three weeks. 

You can always check out my FB page, Lorrie Drennan, to see if there is anything more current.  And for those of you who are my super supporters and subscribe to my blog AND are a friend of my FB page, well I promise to put some things on here that are not going to be on FB so that you will at least have that consolation...that you didn't subscribe for no reason!

These are cotton bolls on 12x12 canvas.  They (cotton) have been a really good seller for me lately.  And I learned from several cotton growers in Louisiana that my cotton is pretty "anatomically correct" so that made me happy.