Blue Heron #2

“Blue Heron #2”
20” x 16”
Unframed - Oil on Canvas
Available at $800.
Laura Marie Anderson © November 16, 2006

I have been painting on this for three days now. Each and every time I call it finished and photograph it I return it to the easel for more paint. It is driving e crazy. For now I call it finished. Perhaps I will return to it one day.

Tomorrow I have to go to Billings and take down a show I have had up at McCormick Café, teach a cycling class at the YMCA, and happily visit with my eldest daughter, Karie, and grandchildren, Marcus and Christopher. Follow that link and see a painting I painted of them when they were both one year old. They are three years apart in age.

Great Blue Heron

“Great Blue Heron”
16” x 16”
Unframed - Oil on prepared Masonite
Available at $750.
Laura Marie Anderson © November 13, 2006

I started this yesterday and finished it today. Quite honestly I don’t know for a few days if I have actually finished something not. Paintings are like brand new love affairs it takes a while to be able to see their faults.

This was painted from a photo that Karl took in Shark Valley, Florida. While I was painting he was touring.

I forgot to tell what happened while I was painting in Shark Valley. I was positioned behind a wood railing that was about two feet tall. There was an older gentleman watching me paint and chatting with me. There were many other people near a building not to far away. Before the fellow came along, I watched an alligator skim across the water and try to take a non suspecting bird. I’m not sure if he got the bird, it was so quick and them he was gone. I was sitting there thinking about how stupid the bird was to have held still for so long. Then I started thinking about how long I had been sitting there painting. How stupid it might prove to be. Then this older man came by and while we were talking I forgot all about the alligators. Suddenly an alligator flopped himself up on the grass about two feet in front of me. I flew back out of my chair, saying one of the most familiar four letter words. When it was over the old man and I laughed at the language that had sprung from my mouth. The alligator moved on. I think he was like my old rottweiler, Carma; he just got some sort of thrill in watching the humans scatter.

Autumn Love

(Full Painting)

(Detail of - Moose a 5" tall in Painting)

“Autumn Love”
24” x 36”
Unframed - Oil on Canvas
Available at $1,900.
Laura Marie Anderson © November 5, 2006

Autumn Love is a painting celebrating the mating rituals of moose. As part of their foreplay, the bull stands behind the cow, and then tips his head back so that his horns almost lay upon his back. He then snorts in, curling his upper lip back and rotates his head in an arch from left to right. It seems to be an endorphin inducing practice; the bull intoxicated.
I had the opportunity to sit in a canoe and photograph these two. He was definitely head over heels for this cow, but since she was limping she would have nothing to do with him and just turned and walked away.

Buffalo Hot Springs

“Buffalo Hot Springs”
18” x 24”
Unframed - Oil on Canvas
Available at $800.
Laura Marie Anderson © November 5, 2006

I have been working on this painting for sometime now. I started reworking it this past summer in the lodge while working in the store. Last week I took it out for some more paint and then again today; I am finally satisfied with it.

Shark Valley

“Shark Valley, Florida”

6” x 12”

Unframed - Oil on prepared Masonite Panel
Available at $150.

Laura Marie Anderson © October 31, 2006

This painting I did plein air at Shark Valley National Park in Florida, while in vacation last February. I was so blinded by the lighting that the painting was very dark and the birds were not even close to white. Anyway, I had to look up the name of the place so I found this site with pictures. (Do come back to my page :>))
http://www.great-florida-vacations.com/shark-valley-gallery-1.html
I think the painting is just about right now and I found a bunch of other photos I took on our trip of lovely exotic birds that I may paint sometime this winter.