Goodbye Summer

Summer is over already - time just zooms by me. Now it's Fall and the air is crisper and the leaves are turning, time to get ready for the Holidays. I'm working on it :)

Autumn Leaf          5x7 in watercolor & soft pastel on watercolor paper

This morning's garden

My garlic chives have spread through the garden and are now blooming. I noticed some little visitors as I was taking photos this morning. Have a good Labor Day weekend all!

Garlic Chive flower. I don't know what this colorful little bug is but I see them often in my garden.

Peppermint

Black eyed Susan - Hello Mr. Spider

Sage

Hydrangea's last stand

Summer Flower Garden

My poor flower garden is neglected and overgrown - trying to keep up with the lawn & weed whacking has left me little chance to work in the garden.
But it is blooming anyway and it still looks pretty - something to smile about.  :)

Flowers have been the subject of several of my paintings, here are a few

Happy Gardening!  :)

Creativity - What do we get from our families?

I think I get my creativity from my father. He was extremely creative in anything he built. That creativity must've come from his mother - my grandmother whom my sister & I referred to as Nannie :)
Nannie taught me about cooking & sewing & gardening & making up games and how to play cards & how to make snap dragons to talk & how to shoot watermelon seeds between your fingers & collect fall leaves. The time we spent at her house is filled with loving memories. She was very creative & fun & kind & generous & we loved her for it. She was a wonderful soul.

That Groundhog Lied!

Where is spring? You just cannot trust those groundhogs!

I need to get out in my poor neglected gardens and get them back in shape. 

I love gardening, it is so relaxing and it makes me feel close to my grandmother (who I called Nannie) She had a house in the city of New Brunswick NJ with tiny front and back yards which she filled with flowers and bushes and vegetables. Her house was filled with potted plants and in the summer the front porch was full of hanging pots of flowers. If it was your birthday, Nannie would bake you a cake in a bunt pan, icing it and then put a small jelly jar in the middle with water and filled it with flowers from her garden. It was beautiful, creative and so Nannie. She passed away in 1998 and I still miss her terribly. She taught me so much and she was a wonderful person. Daffodils aren't thought of as glamourous flowers, but they are bright and happy and resilient, just like Nannie and they are my favorite flower.

Daffodils soft pastel on paper

I have 10x8 matted prints of this painting for sale in my Etsy shop at https://www.etsy.com/listing/41582979/daffodils-soft-pastel-reproduction-print

The gray twilight

I started this blog to let people know something about me and my art, but its pretty obvious I'm not very good at keeping it up and posting often. I usually feel I don't know what to say and fear that what I put here would be thought of as stupid or worse yet, irrelevant and boring, so I put nothing. That's pretty much how I am about most things - I let fear & anxiety control my actions. Even though I'm that way, I have a desire to live a better life, to have the courage to live the life I dream of. I need to try. This quote from Teddy Roosevelt impresses me. My fear of failure keeps me from ever having a chance at glorious triumphs but I'm tired of living in the gray twilight.

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt

Happy Valentine's Day

Never miss an opportunity to tell someone you love them, 

even if you know they know,

because you never know when 

you won't be able to utter those words to them again.

Christmas Commission

Pet portrait commission for Christmas. She is a Catahoula-Huskey mix. Beautiful eyes.

Lulu 8x10 soft pastel on paper

Where have I been?

My last post was the middle of August, then my husband and I found out that he has cancer... incurable, inoperable pancreatic cancer & my life has been a sad fog of hospital stays, doctor appointments and fear of what will I do without my best friend. I've tried to keep up a few positive creative posts on Facebook - but its to hard for me to try to be creative, I guess. But since this is supposed to be a blog about my artwork and creativity, I will not lament on about this. When I can manage to have something creative to post I will. I've decided to create a blog about my experience with the sadness I feel, to have a place to put my feelings, since I cannot afford a shrink and keeping it stuffed inside seems to be making me feel like I'm going to explode.
I've created a blog devoted to trying to survive the loss of my husband, and best friend
I don't know why I'm doing it, I'm such a private person - and a big believer in being careful of the TMI, but perhaps I need an overflow valve. So there you have it.

Remington Just Trying to Survive

I hope to soon have some kind of creative content to share here, so don't give up on the Remington Creations blog.

Butterfly Experiment

Trying some mixed media today - watercolor, ink & colored pencil. Not sure how I feel about it yet. May need more practice to be able to bring the different mediums together the way I like it. Any thoughts?

5x7 using reference photo I took of Tiger Swallowtail butterfly in my garden

Dragonflies hold your place until you come back

I had created some bubble paint background for bookmarks a while ago. I used one to make a bookmark for my mother for her birthday. I thought dragonflies would be appropriate since the bubble background kinda looks like water. I didn't want the background to show through the watercolor, so I sketched them with ink and painted them on watercolor paper, then cut them out and attached them to the background. I found the watercolor paper to be almost too thick to cut out such small intricate shapes. I may have to use thinner paper next time. I attached the bookmark to card stock and inserted it into a plastic sleeve to protect it.

Dragonfly Collage bookmark for Mom

Young Buck

My friends and I go camping in Shenandoah National Park (cabin camping) and every once in a while we are visited by various wildlife like this young buck. I was thinking about what a nice time my husband & I had up there this past trip and I decided to paint our friend young buck.

Watercolor & ink, 6x4 inches.

You Are a Classic!

Latest item out of my studio

5x7 folded card on watercolor paper in watercolor & ink

I had an idea for a card, maybe for a birthday or father's day. I painted this card today on watercolor paper, folds to 5x7. Watercolor and black ink. Featuring a '58 Corvette I snapped a photo of at a local car show. I'm thinking of recreating it as a linoprint that I would hand color for my Etsy shop.

What is Creativity? 1

I'm on a creative journey - what does creativity mean? How is perceived by different people? How is it encouraged or discouraged in the work place? How is it viewed by those close to you? Is creativity different in different genres? Every once in a while I'll post an article about creativity I find interesting. Tell me what you think.

article: What Does Creativity Mean to You?

Two Old Buddies - pet portrait

 I finished the "Two Old Buddies" pet portrait. I like the way they are never apart.

It was a pleasure getting to know these two trough this painting.
10x8 soft pastel & pastel pencil on blue Canson Mi-Teintes paper.