Sandi Hester

April 4, 2013

Trip to Maine – Part 1

We usually take a painting trip for me and last year (yes, I know I’m a little behind :)) we took a trip to Maine. We agreed that it was our all time favorite trip. It was BEAUTIFUL! I painted a ton while we were there. We had a wonderful view from our room so I painted a lot from our balcony. We had a great view of Porcupine Island (don’t you love the name!) and there were colorful boats out there all the time. Here’s our view & our hotel…

We also went to the beach one day and while I painted Grady hiked the hill/mountain I was painting. Here’s the view from the mountain – Grady took a picture of me on the beach waaayyy down there.

view from hiking - Copy

I will share the paintings I did on the trip in the next post – you can see one of my paintings on my easel in one of the pictures above.

3 Comments

March 27, 2013

The Path To Spring…

“Let the winter come – it’s the only path to spring.”

8×8 Oil Stick

That’s about the only thing I like about winter – it’s the path to spring! The bleak, cold, dead, dreary, colorless days of winter are what make the warm, life-filled, colorful days of spring so exciting and beautiful. And it’s a beautiful picture of the gospel – death gives way to new Life!

This painting was done with my oil sticks. I love the buttery loose feel of these and how you have to layer and mix the paint on the board. I’ve been doing a LOT of flower paintings like this – more to come later!

1 Comment

December 4, 2012

Chestnut Group Paintout

6×6 oil

I’m part of a plein air (just a fancy name for painting outdoors) painting group called the Chestnut Group that has special paintouts where we get to paint at places not always open to the general public. We get to paint in some really neat places all over Tennessee. These two paintings are from my first paintout with this group in Warfield, TN (I think that’s where we were). My first painting was of a wonderful old red barn that was HUGE.

After lunch I was pretty wiped out but decided to venture out by myself into the little town square that had some great old buildings – I did this second one really fast.

6×6 oil

2 Comments

November 3, 2012

Buttercup Paintings for Sale TODAY!

8×8 oil

These are just a few of the MANY paintings I’ll have for sale today.

Here are three buttercup paintings I did in the spring from flowers off our property. The earliest house I remember living in when I was little had buttercups down the property line and I loved them as a little girl and love them still today. We’ve been planting big batches of them around our pond each fall. They were fun to paint too! You can tell the first painting is my earliest buttercup painting because it doesn’t have very thick paint on it. The little russian doll container I use to hold my salt in my kitchen. The last painting is my favorite.

2 Comments

October 31, 2012

Up To My Eyeballs In Varnish!

Grady and I have been working hard to get ready for the art sale and open house this coming weekend. My studio has been covered up with paintings in one form or another. Here are two shots of two different desks covered in paintings that have been varnished. It’s going to be a beautiful Saturday so I hope to see lots of you!

I meant to mention in the post about the art sale that the bird painting was done with oil bars (or also called oil sticks). I am in serious love with these things!!! It’s like painting with soft sticks of butter and they leave a nice texture to the canvas when you smoosh the bars down as you paint – I’m ALL about texture when it comes to painting! I’ll have more paintings done in these bars to show you as time goes on. They take a while to dry but you don’t have to varnish them because they are made with wax which is really nice. Below is a picture of my every growing oil bar collection. Another wonderful thing about them is that you don’t have to use turp or any mediums – just some paper towels and you’re good to go – they would be perfect for someone just starting out in oils. They also keep you loose with your painting because they’re huge so you can’t get all detail. They are FUN FUN FUN!!!!

October 26, 2012

African Woman and Children

8×8 oil – SOLD

Those of you who are familiar with my work will recognize this painting – it’s my oil version of this watercolor painting I did a long time ago. It’s still one of my favorite pictures to paint from Africa. Here’s the watercolor version…

2 Comments

October 15, 2012

Art Sale & Open House

8×8 oil bar

Some of you are saying, “It’s about time!” I’ve been saying I’m going to have an art sale since spring. Well, I’m FINALLY having one. Many of you have been asking to see our house too so we’re going to do a combo – art sale and open house. We’ve designed a colorful, unique, salvaged house – a one of a kind. We love old things so we built a house to look like a 100-year-old farmhouse. We used as much salvage and old stuff as we could – our floors are from the 1800’s, we have several old doors, every door knob is different, old lighting, etc. Here’s a picture of our little banquette in our kitchen – built for just the two of us (the walls are painted in chalk board paint – I’ve got writing and pictures all over them…)

The sale and open house will be Saturday, November 3rd from 1-3:30. I have LOTS of art. I will be selling my watercolor prints and lots and lots of my original oil paintings. All my original oil paintings will be framed and ready to hang on your wall OR wrap to give as an original Christmas gift. I know I haven’t shared many of my oil paintings on the blog but I’m hoping to post more before the sale so you can get a sampling. Above is one of my little birdies in oils (not the best photo of it – some glaring – took it too fast). I had a friend see some of my birds early on when I started painting in oils and she said she’s going to buy all my birds – so if you want one you better get here before Steph does :).

Feel free to pass this information along to anyone you think may be interested. Here are the details…

ART SALE & OPEN HOUSE

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3RD

1:00 – 3:30 PM

4252 BURTON HOLLOW RD, WHITES CREEK, TN 37189

(we are about 12 minutes from Rivergate and about 10 minutes from Nashville)

Since this is a post about the art sale and open house of our home I thought I would wrap this post up with sharing two paintings I’ve done of our house. Here are two from the pond side – for some reason I really like painting this view…

8×8 oil

2 Comments

October 11, 2012

On to Oils…

6×6 oil – SOLD

I’m moving on from my acrylics (tired of those) and ready to move onto sharing my oils with you. I have a ton – since I’ve started painting in oils I’ve been painting like crazy – I just LOVE them! Grady walked into my studio the other day and said, “wow – you have a LOT of paintings in here – you need to have an art sale and clear this place out!”. I’m going to go back to the beginning and start there with sharing with you. You will notice a difference as I start progressing – I start finding my way after a little while and finding my voice and how I like to apply paint. You’ll start to see the paint application get much thicker with a lot of texture. I found I like thick and juicy paint. I think this was my very first oil painting I did of a little kitty and her bowl of milk. And speaking of art sale – I’ll be having one sometime in October I think. I’m going to announce a date soon to hold me accountable to having it and so you can put it on your calendar.

4 Comments

June 6, 2012

Muck Trees

These are my muck trees – what is muck you ask? Muck is the left over paint from your palette that you scrape up to throw away. Here’s a visual for you…

I had a lot left over one day and painted these trees and the lady below from just sticking the end of my brush straight down into the muck and putting it down on the canvas. Paint doomed for the trash made something pretty!

I also thought I’d post this watercolor I did for a friend of mine a while back – it’s from a special trip she went on and I loved this little old blue shed with its green shutters.

2 Comments

May 11, 2012

Meet Mr. Finch

I don’t know what it is about this bird but I’ve painted it a lot – in watercolor, acrylic, and oil (you’ll have to wait to see it in oil – I’m going to post all my acrylic paintings first). I should show you the photo I’ve been painting from – it’s in some old bird book I found at a used book store. I just love the colors on him – that blue beak just calls to be painted! You’ll be seeing a lot more versions of this little guy – I’ve painted him a lot.

2 Comments