Marjorie's Washer
@2012, Claudia Ballard
8 x 10 acrylic on panel

Please ignore the bars of light across the top of this painting...I shot this on the road and not in my usual studio setting.  This is one of the paintings I finished during my “retreat”.  It was based on a photo reference I took at the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings home in Cross Creek, Florida.  Growing up I remember my grandmother washing clothes in these big galvanized tubs.  When we were really little, we would turn them into wading pools on hot summer days.  I might be able to get both feet in one these days.  :->  It is a beautiful historic state park and there are tours of the house, which is just as she left it.  Have more photos of this site which I hope to develop into paintings someday.  Click here for more information on the park.

For now it is good to be back home in the Florida sand.  South Carolina was beautiful...still some spring rhodedendrons and azaleas hanging on.  My sis-in-law has beds of irises just opening into huge blooms.  They have a bird feeder just off the dining area in front of a bank of windows.  Lots of cardinals, gold finches, wrens, house finches, and a stray woodpecker or two stopped by while we ate breakfast.  I went to sleep one night to sounds of an owl in the woods across from their property.  Stay tuned for more animal paintings coming soon!