Spring ushers in busy times at Wild Ozark. I’ve got a host of things I’m working on, and Rob does too. Most of mine are real estate, art and garden related, and most of his are solar and homestead tasks.
studio & gallery closed this weekend
This weekend I’ll be at the Bentonville Art Market, so my studio is closed. The gallery will be closed this weekend, as well.
woodland plants emerging
It’s busy times at Wild Ozark in the woods, too. Many of my old plant friends are returning for the season. Some with flowers, some with just interesting leaves. And with a bit of disappointment, I found that some decided not to return this year at all. Yesterday I noticed the first of the Jack in the Pulpit plants up.
garden – rabbits, moles, woodchucks
This year, I had actually gotten some nice lettuce plants growing and a lilac bush planted. But the other night I caught a rabbit in the garden munching on the lettuce. And the woodchuck has a well-worn path straight to the lilac space. The leaves keep disappearing off of it, and I am blaming the woodchuck. Moles are moving around in my beds, too, making tunnels everywhere they go.
The button bushes I’d propagated from cuttings last year are leafing out, too. These are incredible pollinator plants, and I’ll have two in the garden if they manage to survive. I’ve got one in a pot that I’ll bring to the studio on the 27th, if anyone would like to get it. I’ll bring nursery plants as I have them ready out there each weekend.
It seems like busy times at Wild Ozark in my garden, too. And not necessarily in a good way. Rob brought me some plank discards from his sawmill and I’m strategically placing them around the fence-line to close the gaps. Hopefully that’ll work.
art in progress
I’ll be working on my Felkins Creek study once I get this blog post written. Click here to go to the page for the progression, if you’d like to follow along. My goal with this is to figure out how to paint a scene with backlighting. Later on, I’m going to paint a larger version of it on either a 16 x 20″ or 24 x 36″ panel. Here’s where it stands right now:
art just finished
The cooper’s hawk is finished, but needs to have more oil applied in places to even out the sheen throughout the whole painting. It has to dry thoroughly before I can varnish it.
upcoming paintings
To have plenty of originals to show at the Bentonville Art Fair on June 1, I need to paint some more. Smaller ones can offer lower price points and so that’s what I’ll be working on as soon as I’m done with the Felkins creek scene. I have a handful of 4 x 6 panels.
Mill Pond at Boxley
I’ll do both views of my photos of the old Mill Pond at Boxley Valley. From where I stood, this is looking left and looking right.
maybe some plants
On the rest of my 4 x 6 panels, I may do some of the woodland plants, like the jack-in-the-pulpit shown above, some ginseng, bloodroot, and fern or wild ginger. It depends on how many I can get done in time for them to be dry.
events on the horizon
- art market Bentonville, April 20 from 7:30 am – 1 pm
- Bentonville art fair, June 1 – 2 at Orchard Park
- art on the border, July 19-20 in Fort Smith
Contact Mad Rox: (479) 409-3429 or madison@madisonwoods and let me know which hat I need to put on 🙂 Madison for art, Roxann for real estate, lol. Or call me Mad Rox and have them both covered!
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Author/Artist Info
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Roxann Riedel is a salesperson for Montgomery Whiteley Realty, artist, owner of the only ginseng nursery in Arkansas, and the author of books and this website. Madison Woods is the pen-name she uses for her creative works. She’s a self-taught artist who moved to the Ozarks from south Louisiana in 2005. Her paintings of the Ozark-inspired scenes feature lightfast pigments from Madison county, Arkansas. Her inspiration is nature – the beauty, and the inherent cycle of life and death, destruction and regeneration. Wild Ozark is also the only licensed ginseng nursery in Arkansas. Here’s the link for more information on the nursery
There’s always a discount for paintings on the easel 😉
Online Portfolio
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