Snowy Vermont Farmland

Snowy Vermont Farmland

Its nearing the end of January and so far, winter has not really arrived in the way of snow. So I have been experimenting with painting snowy landscapes in the studio.

Working from photographs is new for me, as I have always preferred to paint from life. I have found this to be a bit liberating, because when working from a photo I feel like I can alter and interpret the colors more, knowing that photos never "truly" record color accurately. So I shift colors, warm or cool, play with variations within the same value range, and even make stuff up if I want a specific feeling to occur.

I am beginning to love this series because of all the additional design freedom that is involved with each painting.

Here is a detail of the how I warmed up the foreground and cooled and neutralized the background. In life I love the "lace" that bare trees make, and I am going to continue to work on representing this detail in paint.

Have a wonderful day, and I hope you stay warm.

Liz

{How the painting looks matted, ready to pop into an 11” x 14” frame}

Snowy Vermont Farmland

approx 5” x 9” (12.7 x 22.9 cm)– oil on gessoed paper }

Click to purchase

Matted painting: $175.00 starting bid + S&H

Snow-scape of Rural Virginia

Rural Virginia – Snow Scene

approx 5” x 9” (12.7 x 22.9 cm)– oil on gessoed paper }

Available for purchase via my online shop

Matted painting: $175.00 + S&H

Have you ever notice how blue the sky is on a sunny winter day when there is snow on the ground? The deep blue of the sky is something I love on sunny winter day.

Over the holidays I watched many facebook feeds of friends who were posting photos of snowy landscapes, and I was jealous. I so wanted to have a snowy holiday season and to see Naomi frolic in the snow in her new snow-bibs we had gotten for her, just in case...

This week I finally accepted that the DC region may not get cold enough for snow this winter, so I dug into some photo archives and painted a snow scene from about three years ago. And I have to say this did satisfy my longing for snow...

{How the painting looks matted, ready to pop into an 11” x 14” frame}

Washington Monument Across the Potomac

Washington Monument Across the Potomac

approx 5” x 9” (12.7 x 22.9 cm)– oil on gessoed paper }

Available for purchase via Online Auction

Matted painting: $175.00 starting bid + S&H

This panting of the Washington Monument seen from the Virginian side of the Potomac River at dawn is one of my favorite views. When DC is tranquil, clean, and fresh.

{How the painting looks matted, ready to pop into an 11” x 14” frame}

Fields and Sky Landscape Painting & the new series, On the Road

Rural Virginia 4

approx 5” x 9” (12.7 x 22.9 cm)– oil on gessoed paper }

Available for purchase via Online Auction

Matted painting: $175.00 starting bid + S&H

Do you love the open road? When you want to get away, do you drive in your car, like Peter Gabriel sings In Your Eyes?

For me, the answer is yes to these questions and many more that delve into the subject of self discovery and the road trip. For I love the American landscape, the openness, the scenes that fly by when driving fast on an interstate, and the fleeting images that also fill my mind when I look back on an era and thinki about the places visited then.

And these ideas are the inspiration behind this new series of landscape paintings, On the Road.

Over the next year, I hope to paint many views of the American landscape, some from photos I have taken, and most from photos given to me by others. Currently, I am looking for photo submissions, so please send me some from one of your favorite road trips and let's see where this painted journey will take us.

{How the painting looks matted, ready to pop into an 11” x 14” frame}

Feel free to send an email {contact@elizabethfloyd.com} with a few of your images, please use "On the Road Photos" in the subject line. 

Thanks,

Liz

Rural Virginia 4 {a new landscape painting}

Rural Virginia 4

approx 5” x 9” (12.7 x 22.9 cm)– oil on gessoed paper }

Available for purchase via Online Auction

Matted painting: $175.00 starting bid + S&H

Another installment of rural virginia from a summer road trip.

Today, I drove out to the Front Royal area to deliver some paintings and so wanted to snap some photos for this series but because I was driving and had Naomi in the car with me, I deemed it too dangerous to try to drive and photograph... It was almost torture because I was so captivated by the patterns created by golden fields and the lines of trees that separated the fields.

Now that the leaves are mostly down from the trees, this week I have been fascinated with how the edge of the trees interact with the sky.

What have you noticed this week?

{How the painting looks matted, ready to pop into an 11” x 14” frame}

Rural Virginia 3 {a new landscape painting}

Rural Virginia 3

approx 5” x 9” (12.7 x 22.9 cm)– oil on gessoed paper }

Available for purchase via Online Auction

Matted painting: $175.00 starting bid + S&H

Being inspired by the idea of the open road, I have been diving into more landscape paintings... Here is another scene from southern Virginia, along the James River.

As the days have gone by, I have begun to call this series of landscape paintings On the Road... so please stay tuned for more to come.

{How the painting looks matted, ready to pop into an 11” x 14” frame}

Rural Virginia 2 {a new landscape painting}

Rural Virginia 2

approx 5” x 9” (12.7 x 22.9 cm)– oil on gessoed paper }

Available for purchase via Online Auction

Matted painting: $175.00 starting bid + S&H

I am busy on new landscapes, all inspired by road trips. A lot of ideas are floating around in my head, ideas coming from all sorts of places, making it hard to gather them all together and coherently sharing them with you. As soon as everything falls into place, you will hear about it.

Thanks for stopping in and reading, I so appreciate your visits!

Liz

{How the painting looks matted, ready to pop into an 11” x 14” frame}

Rural Virginia - loving living here {a new landscape painting}

{sorting photos into groups}

Twelve years ago I moved to the mid-Atlantic region, and like many twenty-somethings I thought my time here would be a short stint to build some career credentials (I was newly graduated from architecture school). Well, a lot has happened since then, like I am now a full-time artist, and I call Virginia my home, a place I never want to move away from.

One of my favorite things to do with S. is to go on weekend road trips around the region. Often I am in the passenger seat, soaking in the views, and often I am snapping photos of glimpses of the landscape. These photos may not be masterpieces, but I love them because when I view them, I am taken back in time. Reminded of where we were in our relationship and of all the hopes and dreams we were contemplating then.

Tons of photos have been taken, some so beautiful, others not, maybe because of a blurred power pole or something else marring the scene.

I have always wanted to somehow save these photos and then I realized they would be great as paintings. Salvaging the beauty within while also overcoming any shortcomings. This idea has me so inspired that I am going through all our road trip photos and looking at them with a new eye, one with a mind on how to paint them...

So, expect to see more in the future, and here is my first one of rural Virginia, down near Smithfield or Jamestown VA.

Rural Virginia

approx 5” x 9” (12.7 x 22.9 cm)– oil on gessoed paper }

NFS

{How the painting looks matted, ready to pop into an 11” x 14” frame}