Buckets of Sunshine
20 x 20
oil on gallery wrapped canvas

I just love the way grocery stores have been setting up their entrances with beautiful bouquets.  I am found there snapping a picture or three and take a bunch home with me. If a city has an outdoor flower market, then there is a sure stop for me.  My friend Janet  said "they are one of her pleasures because they look like happiness waiting for someone to take them home!" I agree :)  www.claudiafinn.com

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Eight in the Nests

Eight in the Nests
oil on panel
16 x 20

I saw a wonderful thing today, and at eye level!!  A robin's nest with the adult robin sitting 

atop.  I though it such a gift to see the robin's beauty up close.  Oh this reminds me to take 

more notice and appreciate those beautiful gifts that only God can provide such as these.  

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Treasured One Oil Painting

Treasured One  SOLD
oil on panel
16 x 20

A special treat was seeing the beautiful newness of other gardener's gardens this past 

weekend in Smithfield, Virginia.  It's raining today so I thoroughly enjoyed painting one of my 

favorite subjects. Posting a few pics for you.

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Oil Painting titled Boats on the Water

Boats on the Water
20 x 24
oil on canvas

Spent the day in one of my favorite cities, Smithfield.  Pat and I were married there in the oldest church in the county, Christ St. Luke's church  so it was a treat to walk the cobblestone walkway again. We also visited  Main Street for the art galleries and had  lunch at the Smithfield Inn. The appetizer of Smithfield ham on sweet potato biscuits is to go back for!!

I met some talented artists on Main Sreet, like Robbie Perrotti-Younger owner of the Painted Garden Gallery who was such a kind and enthusiastic artist to meet. It was wonderful to talk with a fellow Christian painter. Her painted furniture was so one of a kind and here she stands next to her most recent floral!

A few houses down at 343 Main Street was Ann Hubbard's Color Scapes  Her bright cheerful paintings and sculptures are full of the love of color and beautiful places. 

 Ann is the originator of the Smithfield Arts Center, and her creativity overflows in clay and paint!

 My favorite antique shop called Wharf Hill Antiques  has unique collectibles. This antique store is a seasonal fun stop, and I am always glad to see how it is decorated because there is always just my kind of inspiration.

Email me your favorite city to spend the day, I would love to hear about it!

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Nest Demonstration

 Demonstrations are so fun to see for me so I am posting one here.  I just wish that I had stopped and taken more images along the way.  That is always a factor because one does tend to get fully immersed in the process.... On Leslie Saeta's blog, Slices of Life  there are many posted demonstrations at the end of one of her great 30 days of Marketing posts.  Here is the link. Leslie's blog is a favorite because she is always posting great information to help artists grow as marketers of their own work.  Check out her paintings too, they are beautiful and painted with a palette knife.

Step One
Rough in the background color and draw in the general composition.

Step Two
Refine the actual subject shapes and begin to lay in the actual color of the background.

Step Three

Begin working from dark to light.

Step Four
Considering the light source I used three distinct values in the main subjects and balance
the colors by repeating them in the background and foreground.

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Yellow Sunflowers and Red Ranunculus

Yellow Sunflowers and Red Ranunculus
My Mother's Day Bouquet

20 x 24

acrylic on canvas

Today I got the chance to enjoy the emerging spring colors of some Norfolk gardens and I took some of the most appealing garden to doorway shots that I found to share with you. 

  

My next front door color!!!  Love this turquoise!! 

This one is from my back door.

Finally, brothers (and sisters), whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me--put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you (Philippians 4:8-9

I love the promise at the end of the verse, if you or me do the first part of the verse the peace of God will be with us.  Amen!

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Moonlit Sunflowers

Moonlit Sunflowers
36 x 48
oil on canvas

My favorite place to get inspiration for my paintings  is from my ever changing garden.  There is a beautiful energy there.  Plants bursting with the life to show their color, texture, shape. In winter I don't feel the same feelings even though there is beauty there.   It is quiet then.  But in spring there is an amazing feeling of lovely creation showing itself.

This writing from Ann Voscamp reminds me of a garden.

 I am God’s masterpiece. (Ephesians 2:10)

I am forgiven (Eph. 1:7).
I am a new creature (II Cor. 5:17).
I am strong in the Lord (Eph. 6:10).
I am accepted in Christ (Eph. 1:6).
I am loved with an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3).
I am overtaken with blessings (Deut. 28:2).

And I looked into the eyes of women rejected and women betrayed, women wounded and women forgotten and women feeling unnoticed and unloved and unwanted and I cup each face with truth: This is your song, your inheritance if you are in Christ!

That is who you are in Christ and your sisters will sing Who you are and Whose you are until you remember, until you run like you are made to fly.

This is what the friendship of women could be:

Sisters will just keep singing your song
Till it perches in your lost places,
Tuning you to what grace is
and the lovesong of your Father
who never stops singing at all.

Your Father who says of you in Zephaniah 3:17:
I rejoice over her with gladness;
quieting her fears with My love.

--Ann Voscamp

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Mother's Nest Acrylic Painting

Mother's Nest
24 x 30
acrylic on canvas
www.claudiafinn.com

 Nancy Strong Spencer was my beautiful mother's name.  She was my a best friend mom and we grew closer with each passing year. She blessed me with her faithful instruction and love.  She taught me from a heart full of love, devotion and humor.  She always had a story for things that reminded her of whatever I was talking about, which kept the conversation going in such sweet places.  

Everyone I know that knew my mom has spoken words of love and admiration about her. She was always willing to stop anything and give me her time and words. She made me clothes from Vogue patterns and curtains for my kitchen with material we selected together.  She always seemed more interested in helping me in any way than anything. 

 I loved watching her with our kids, her way was such that she was exactly where she wanted to be reading a book, taking them for drive-thru milk shakes or just hanging out and talking with them. They were exactly where they wanted to be as well.  I miss you MOM. 

This painting would be the perfect gift to represent your love for the love and nurture your mother has given you through the years.  I would also love to custom a painting for a specific number of eggs and colors. www.claudiafinn.com offers this painting for sale. 

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Bird Stop

Bird Stop

16 x 20

acrylic on panel

The Vine and the Branches

15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes^[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. ³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, as I also remain in you.No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit;apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.

 Lord your loving hand prunes me and gives me strength and love,  I cannot even breath with out Your interaction.
 Help me God to love others.
 Amen 

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Oil painting of Norfolk Dunes

Norfolk Dunes

16 x 36

oil on wrapped canvas

Reading this week in a very special Bible app called YouVersion where I picked out some great topics of study. Proverbs and Psalms and Darlene Zschech's Revealing Jesus are two of several I chose.
I  can listen or read it! wow I can even hear it from my I phone walking trails or the dunes!!

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