Another Dutch Iris painting

8" square acrylic and mixed media on gallery wrapped canvas. SOLD

What a great day yesterday! Mary McCleary has an exhibit called "An Act of Faith" at The Grace here in Abilene. If you click on The Grace you can get some images and information. She gave an artist talk that was wonderful. I had heard her speak before but never seen her art work in person. Her work is just amazing...photographs do not do them justice.

Afterwards Kenny and I went to Harold's Bar-B-Que for lunch. It's an institution here in Abilene and even get's Texas Monthly writeups. The food was good but my favorite part was how Harold asked one of the customer's in line to get him a coke from the drink station.

Dutch Iris in a Jelly Jar original painting

12" square on canvas. SOLD

I got some more irises to paint. Also here is a link to an article in The Abilene Reporter News about local people with Etsy stores. I never expected to end up in the Business section!

Hybrid Rapture original mixed media painting by Polly Jones

24" by 36" acrylic and mixed media on cradled wooden panel.

I'm pretty obsessed with the form of the curly leaved hybrid chrysanthemum. Unlike my usual mode of working from life, when I want that image I work from photographs. They are complex and I'm allergic to them. The drawn blue image is a plant called "Blessed Thistle" and was commonly used during the Middle Ages to treat the bubonic plague and as a tonic for monks. I got this image from one of my favorite copyright free resource books called "Handbook of Plant and Floral Ornament from Early Herbals."


This piece feels kind of different for me. Using a more limited palette this time made it so much easier to create unity than my usual mix of many colors. Also in this painting I used thick and thin paint and layers of collage to create a sense of space that has some breathing room to it. With a lot of my past work, it seems like my paint is thick throughout and gives the space a uniform feel. Does this ring true to you?

This painting will be in a Center for Contemporary Arts show that will combine paintings with floral arrangements called "Arte d'Fleur" I'll give more details later.

Dutch Irises, Together original flower painting by Polly Jones

12" acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas.  SOLD

Here's a painting I have been working on this week in response to a request. I love hearing from people who want me to do a special painting for them. My policy is that no one has to buy it unless they love it. That takes the pressure off of me since worrying about duplicating a piece can be a total creativity buzz kill. Sometimes a painting takes on a life of it's own and it's hard to keep within the constraints of their wishes. This person requested an iris painting with a feel like this one. As you can see, I deviated a bit. Whoops. Back to get more irises and do another one.

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had your black eyed peas today. May your year be fabulous!! I appreciate you guys so much. Thank you for taking the time to look at my work this year and for the feedback you give.

Here's a side view of a painting I did today. Just need to do a better photo of it head on. The blue was hard to photograph. SOLD