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Showing posts with the label Golden Pond Studio

I hadn't decided what to paint, although I knew I needed to try a horse. I imagined a vertical horse, but another composition began to emerge—

© Laurie Pace        Graphics One Design 2026 MORNING CALL Oil on Canvas  SOLD   by Laurie Pace    Four Hours, an Old Easel, and an Unexpected Gift GOOD MORNING TO YOU!!! ☀️❤️🎨 Sometimes a painting takes us somewhere we never expected.  MORNING CALL began with the return of an old friend—my painting easel.  (This is available here on my website.) My husband gave me that easel in 2000. Four years ago, during a difficult season of family losses, I thought I was finished painting. A friend took the easel to her studio. Recently, I felt God prompting me to ask whether she was using it. She wasn't.   And my easel came home. MORNING CALL became the first painting I created on it after its return. I began by preparing a canvas with a grid, abstract patterns, and passages of color. Once dry, I rolled a light layer of gesso over selected areas. I hadn't decided what to paint, although I knew I needed to try a horse....

Before The Lights Come On... what happens in my studio? Good Morning!

© Laurie Pace        Graphics One Design 2026 Before the Lights Come On My Art Studio on a Monday Morning “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!” — Philippians 4:4 GOOD MORNING TO YOU!!! ☀️❤️🎨 Every morning, before I walk into my studio, an entire lifetime is waiting for me. The brushes stand in their holders. The palette holds yesterday's paint. The water glass waits for fresh beginnings. Then, usually around six in the morning, the lights come on. And the music begins! My studio is small, but it holds so much more than paint and canvas. There are photographs of my grandchildren, a colored-pencil drawing of my dad, a handmade cross, and a little waterfall painting I created in junior high around 1964. Its frame is made from black-painted yardsticks! A vase from Jackson Hole reminds me of my years with Rare Gallery. Audrey Hepburn has watched over my studio for 38 years, courtesy of a gift from my husband. My cameras, brushes, books, paintings, ...

The colors tumble across the canvas like someone emptied the entire candy store onto my palette!

© Laurie Pace        Graphics One Design 2026 Sun Blaze Oil on Canvas  SOLD   by Laurie Pace   SUN BLAZE — A Birthday and a Candy Store! GOOD MORNING TO YOU!!! ☀️❤️🎨 Today one of my grandsons turns ELEVEN! Red hair, beautiful blue eyes, and a love for the little candy store in our town. Oh, that candy store! Bright colors, sugary treats, ice cream, and POP! LOL! Looking at my newest painting, SUN BLAZE, I couldn't help thinking about him. This 24 × 24 palette knife oil painting is bursting with orange, yellow, turquoise, pink, purple, and blue. The colors tumble across the canvas like someone emptied the entire candy store onto my palette! And there's a horse in the middle of it all. The orange reminds me of his red hair, and those brilliant blues bring his eyes to mind. I didn't paint SUN BLAZE as his portrait, but today it feels like the perfect painting to celebrate him. There's something wonderful about the way children experience co...

Beneath the layers of paint, I wrote words that would eventually disappear:

© Laurie Pace        Graphics One Design 2026 Follow the Love Oil on Canvas  SOLD   by Laurie Pace   What if a painting could tell your family's story without showing a single face? Years ago, a collector commissioned Follow the Way of Love, a colorful equine painting in which the horses represented members of her family. She already owned several of my paintings, but this one carried a particularly personal meaning. Beneath the layers of paint, I wrote words that would eventually disappear: Follow the way of love.  Today, the painting hangs above her fireplace—a daily reminder of the family it represents. Sometimes the most meaningful portraits aren't portraits at all. Read the complete story and see the painting's progression at Threads of Grace. Laurie Pace | Elle Pace Google photos: Finished painting and hidden words. Blogger labels: Laurie Pace, Elle Pace, Threads of Grace, Follow the Way of Love, horse painting,...

Perhaps one of the hardest lessons an artist learns is knowing when the painting has said enough.

© Laurie Pace        Graphics One Design 2026 First Flowers Oil on Canvas  SOLD   by Laurie Pace   The Painting I Should Have Left Alone Looking through photographs of my painting Fair Flowers, I discovered something about myself as an artist. The finished painting was beautiful, and it sold. But as I studied the photographs of its progression, I realized I loved an earlier version even more. The flowers were merely suggestions. Colors mingled, edges disappeared, and the viewer was free to imagine the blossoms rather than have every petal explained. But I kept painting. I added definition, contrast, and detail until the bouquet was complete. Today, I find myself drawn back to that earlier moment when the painting was softer, quieter, and full of possibilities. Perhaps one of the hardest lessons an artist learns is knowing when the painting has said enough. I want to paint another bouquet soon. And this time, I hope I'll re...

Perhaps sometime between late October and December, Texas will remember it is supposed to be fall.

© Laurie Pace        Graphics One Design 2026 Falling into Winter Oil on Canvas  SOLD   by Laurie Pace              Falling into Winter — A Season for Everything It is the last week of September, and here in North Texas, summer seems unwilling to leave. We had a splash of rain, but nothing measurable at our house. Hubby has kept the trees watered, so they are still holding their leaves. Perhaps sometime between late October and December, Texas will remember it is supposed to be fall. I am ready. I came across an older painting today called Falling into Winter. I wasn't looking for a lesson. I was simply looking for a painting filled with fall color.    But then I began looking at the horses. They share the same landscape, surrounded by reds, golds, greens, blues and violets, yet each seems to experience it differently.   One bows its head. Another turns. Another lifts its ...

I didn't want to repaint the garden of color that had grown around her, so I rolled a transparent veil across portions of the canvas with a brayer...

© Laurie Pace        Graphics One Design 2026 Immersed   24 x 24 Available. Full Photo on my Website blog. Click the painting to view it.  Immersed — Layer Upon Layer “Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.” — Genesis 3:20 I thought she was finished. Then I took one more chance. I didn't want to repaint the garden of color that had grown around her, so I rolled a transparent veil across portions of the canvas with a brayer. What was underneath remained. Some marks were easy to see. Others became quieter. Some nearly disappeared. And suddenly I realized how much that resembles us. We are layer upon layer, generation upon generation. The woman who emerged on my canvas no longer looked exactly like the woman in the old photograph where I began. Her face changed. Her hair changed. Everything around her changed. But she held her gaze. She marked that canvas, and the journey came forward. I began t...

Before going very far, I pulled out my color chart and began mixing small samples of colors that spoke to me. Most eventually found their way into the painting.

© Laurie Pace        Graphics One Design 2026 Painting In process Oil on Canvas  SOLD   by Laurie Pace   “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” – Ecclesiastes 3:11 Finding Her in the Paint I began with an older black-and-white photograph. It didn't look exactly like the woman who eventually appeared on my canvas, but it gave me somewhere to begin. I had a 24 x 24 canvas in the studio, so that became the size. No great plan. Just a photograph, a square canvas, and charcoal. Before going very far, I pulled out my color chart and began mixing small samples of colors that spoke to me. Most eventually found their way into the painting. I had absolutely no idea what the background would become. My brain kept saying, Make it dark. Follow the photograph.    My heart kept saying, COLOR. I didn't want to bur...