New Jersey

1978 Beach Haven, NJ~
To my knowledge this is my first plein air painting (as opposed to outdoor sketching). I was 32, not yet a mother; I sat on a piling to paint this spontaneous watercolor of flower gardens in front of some bay-side cottages. It has been hanging on the studio bathroom wall for 30 years, where you may have seen it.

At the time I had recently moved to rural NE Pennsylvania from Philadelphia and I was about to launch my new "career" of House Portraiture, in which I painted on commission over 630 watercolors and pen & inks of client's homes, businesses, hunting cabins, favorite places and even a golf course and a mobile home! Twenty years later in 2000 I knew that this type of forced labor had not only paid many a grocery bill, but I had learned everything it could teach me. The problems it presented were routine as had become my solutions to them. It was time for a new challenge.

I decided to paint only what I wanted and hoped to sell mostly from my own studio. Finally, my work was enabling (requiring) me to get out doors to paint my chosen landscape subjects. I needed to break the bad habits I'd developed in working from photos. I craved the experiences of the fresh air, seeing the subtle colors deep in the shadows, depicting atmosphere and air quality. I launched this millennial change of course in the southwest.