A new painting, something new in my studio and being "flocked"

I have been unable to do any painting in my studio for over a week because it has been a construction zone but I did finish an 8X10 painting before the work began.

 Since I moved to MI everything that I had forgotten from my mid-west past has become new again to me.  The change of seasons is one of those things. We arrived her at the beginning of fall and got to see the leaves of the trees turn beautiful colors and then fall off.  Next came the winter and snow which we had not seen for 20 years.  Then came spring with lots of rain and things turning green again.  Now it is summer with beautiful flowers everywhere.  Since I love to paint flowers this has been an inspiration to me.  I noticed the tiger lilies blooming in my neighbor's yard and decided to do a painting featuring one large "Tiger Lily" which is what I titled this painting.

I have a confession to make about flowers and any plant in general.  While I love to paint flowers, in real life, I am a plant and flower killer.  This is not by choice.  For some reason I have a Black Thumb when it comes to plants of any kind.   My mother had a Green Thumb and could grow anything, I am sad to say she did not pass this talent on to me.  If anyone gives me a plant as a gift it will be dead in a short time.  Too much water, too little water....I never know what the problem is.  I can paint them but I can't grow them.  At least in AZ the cacti in our yard flourished because the more you ignored them the better they grew.  I am good an ignoring.

Now for the new studio improvement project.  Our son Brian and his wife Sarah came for a visit and they decided I needed a ceiling in my shop.  Roger had planned on installing new lighting for me so this was the perfect time to do both projects.  Here is the before photo.

And....Here is the after photo.

All I can say is that it is light and bright thanks to Brian, Sarah and Roger.  Time to get back to painting.

Now to tell you about our being flocked.  "Flocked?" you ask.  "What is that?"  Here is a photo of our flocked yard.

We woke up to this yesterday morning.  Flocking yards is a fund raising project for the Three Rivers High School band.  Here is the way it works.  Someone will give a donation to the band and give them an address of someone they want flocked.  In the middle of the night these flamingos will be placed in the front yard of that house.  In turn, we will give a donation for them to be removed and placed in someone else's yard.  When flamingos first started to appear in yards around town we had no idea of what was going on until our grand-daughter, who is a member of the band, explained it to us.  What a fun idea to raise funds for the band!