After a nice 3 week break over the holidays, I picked up the brush recently and started working on the first commission of the year. It took me awhile to get into the groove and I had to start out slow… An hour each evening was all I had in me in the beginning.

This painting was given as a gift certificate to a man turning 80 years old from his son and daughter-in-law. Since, I’ve worked with the birthday boy and his wife to see what they wanted painted. They have a fondness for the historical Evans Farm, so that’s what we decided on – a landscape piece of this very beautiful historical site in McLean, Virginia.

So while easing my way back into painting (and getting back to my more hard-core schedule of painting every evening and all weekend finding a better balance between day-job, painting & running the studio, and life), we were hit with the second Polar Vortex of the season. In typical DC style, two days ago we enjoyed 56F/13C, yesterday it snowed all days – big, fluffy snowflakes for more than 12 hours straight, and today we work up to 14F/-10C.

My darling niece, Estelle, turns 5 years old today. We celebrated her with a birthday lunch at American Girl. Of course the dolls came too!