Painting from Memories

> Welcome. I am so happy that you stopped by. My garden gate is always open for you to come in and sit and relax with a cup of tea while I share with you the inspirations for my art. The weather is starting to get warmer in Southern California and brings back some of my favorite childhood memories of summers spent with my family at my Grandparent's beach cottage at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. Do you have a favorite warm weather childhood memory?

I have been working on a large painting for my office based on "childhood memories" Let's join Bentley, my Studio Assistant, and look for inspirations.

Finding Inspiration . . .

For me, nothing says summer more than a flag flying in the breeze.


Here . . . .



My outdoor white wicker furniture reminds me so much of my Grandmother's white wicker.


There . . . .

Everywhere . . . . .

My aunt, Maureen Riley, painted this watercolor of my Grandparent's summer cottage.

Wrightsville Beach is an island and my Grandparent's home was located on Bank's Channel which was always calm and a wonderful place to swim and sail. The ocean side of the island is located just a few blocks away so we had the best of all worlds.

Banks Channel

My cousin just sent me a copy of the old photograph of my Grandparents taken at Wrightsville Beach. My grandfather is the man in the bathing suit and my grandmother is the beautiful young woman to the left of him. The word Maa is pointing to her. We called her Maa as children and the name stuck.

The photo is of my Grandfather, PomPom, and my brother and cousin in front of their cottage.

I wanted to paint white wicker on the porch with a flag blowing in the breeze and lots of red roses. My grandparents were from Ireland and we always had tea in the afternoon, even during the summer months. . . so naturally I wanted to paint a tea set in my "memory" painting.

This is a little reading nook in my office where I like to bring the outdoors indoors with plants and fresh flowers. I wanted to paint lots of flowers in my painting so I would always have flowers indoors.

The completed painting.

"Childhood Memories"

"For the Lord gives wisdom." Proverbs 2:6

Thank you for stopping by. I love hearing from you and sincerely appreciate your visits, e-mails, comments and those who follow my blog. I read and cherish each of your comments.

For some reason Blogger will not let me leave comments and does not recognize me. I will keep trying to leave you back a comment.

Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to see me paint something special.

Have a lovely week. Blessings, Erin