Farmland in Ohio    6" x 6"    Pastel      ©Sheila Ashley Liston
Available $75

Day 12 of Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days, September 2017 Challenge

Country drives are something my husband and I enjoy. Our area in Northeast Ohio still has many beautiful working farms. Some farms in our area have been sold to developers for building new homes. As farmers age, frequently there is no family member willing to take on the family business. Then it becomes a financial necessity to sell off the farm to provide a retirement income for the owner. Some of the landowners have donated development rights to the State of Ohio or local governments to protect productive farmland from conversion to non-agricultural use. I feel compelled to paint some of the remaining farms in my own form of preservation.

The Church in Aurora

The Church in Aurora    9" x 12"    Pastel      ©Sheila Ashley Liston
Available $150

Day 10 of Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days, September 2017 Challenge

This is an historic Church in my city in Aurora, Ohio. It has beautiful nighttime lighting that just seems to reach out to me. On this particular evening in the fall, the rain and wind had started to bring some leaves down. The reflection of the church itself cast a soft illumination on the street in front.  The smell of fall was in the air. Our car in the library's parking lot served as a studio that night, until there was no more light to see my pastels. I finished it today in the comfort of my studio.

Well I am one third of the way through the challenge. It was hard to focus on painting over the weekend, as with many people, my mind was on Hurricane Irma and its' effects on the people of the southeastern states. We have family and friends in a few of those states. We do continue to pray for the recovery of the people there.

My husband and I found this Bible in the dumpster behind our shop a few years ago. I wanted to try my hand at Bible Journaling with making art directly on its pages. I was reluctant to try this in my other Bibles.  Since this one was already a bit dirty and dog-eared, I gave it a try.  This one seemed to speak to the situation with the hurricanes and floods this weekend.

Great Falls of Tinkers Creek

Great Falls of Tinkers Creek     6" x 6"    ©Sheila Ashley Liston
Available $75

Day 8 of Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days, September 2017 Challenge

Great Falls at Tinkers Creek is a part of the Bedford's Viaduct Park in the village of  Bedford, Ohio. It's a paved walk down to the falls in an urban area, where one can see the ruins of an old mill and dam. My husband and I love waterfalls and we were willing to do some research to find this one, as it is not well advertised. The waterfall was beautiful in the fall. 

I painted this from memory and then finally looked at our photos and found some changes that I wanted to make in the tree area. 

I made additional changes to the background tree area. This represents the hilly area across the gorge where the a significant amount of leaves had fallen.