This is taking the still life outdoors. There are many things happening in this painting: the stylistic movement of the green daubed background, a vase of flowers outside on a tree stump that seems to be on fire, and the cool pattern of blue daubs that make up the shadow. Oh yeah, not to mention a white mouse enjoying his acorn. Definitely one of the most colorful, unusual, decorative paintings I have done. 
Sometimes I let a painting take me somewhere new. I have painted so far six mouse paintings. This happens to be my latest one. We have a some what large mouse collection displayed in our downstairs bathroom. There are realistic mouse holes painted on the baseboards, an all mouse themed book collection, many mouse figurines, and original mouse oil paintings and other paintings as well. The walls are painted in the color orange and Red. One person described it as 'Walt Disney meets the Impressionists.'
This is a painting I did from a photograph in Ste. Genevieve county. Late summer is a wonderful time to go searching for fields, for the color of tall grass can not only consist of a variety of greens, but also a variety of it's compliments, Red. I often wonder about the small animals that live and pass through this sea of grass when no one is watching. Look carefully, and you might be surprised at what you find. 
I painted this from a photo I took at the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis, Missouri. I took more of a pointallistic approach for this painting due to the small foliage of the flowering shrubs. Sometimes the subject matter dictates the stroke of the brush. 
I painted this on location during Ste. Genevieve's Autumn Daze Plein Air Event, 2006. A good thing about plein air painting is that it forces the artist to get loose with his or her paint brush, thus resulting in a more confident brush stroke and unification of the painting as a whole. 
