Paintings of Wildlife & Nature by Rebecca Latham
I love paintings of squirrels, or at least the paintings that capture the playful personality of the animal. So often the scene is filled with soft neutrals and rich earthtones — a very interesting to paint! :) This is a small piece I am painting by request. 
This is a picture of one of my new miniature paintings – a bull moose from Wyoming. I am very pleased wit the way it is turning out. I will post a better photo of it when the painting is a little farther along. :)
Here in Minnesota, "spring" takes a little bit to get here. :) The bitter cold is gone, but (unfortunately) we tend to have mounds of snow this time of year. Sooo… I thought a nice spring wildflower picture might help those of us who are buried under a foot of snow think of the warmer days that are coming. :)
I am very eager for the warm weather to arrive. I love being able to get out and experience what I am painting on the canvas. The time I spend out and about is very appreciated after all of the long hours of studio painting.
I am planning to do some research in several wilderness areas in the U.S. this spring/summer that I will be using for some of my new paintings. I am also tentatively planning to do some plein air painting during that time as well. I have been wanting to do some ‘actual’ painting in the field to capture the essence of the area more accurately in my work. :)
This is another new piece I have sitting in my studio right now. You may notice the dark strokes look a bit different on this piece than some of the other sketches I have on the blog. That is because for this piece I did some "redrawing" in paint – you could think of it as sketching with a brush instead of a pencil. I am working on this piece in it’s color phase at the moment. :)
This is a second sketch for my commissioned beaver painting. I combined both of the sketches together for the painting – so there are two beavers in the painting. I’ll be posting the actual painting a little later.
There has been some interest in my wolf sketches on the blog – requesting a few more posts featuring them. This sketch is the rough for a new painting I will be starting on soon.
As I posted earlier, I have been primarily working on the stack of commissions I have in my studio right now. This is one of the rough sketches for my beaver commission. I have been painting on this piece for the last couple of days.
I really liked studying this animal. He walked slowly, as you would expect a beaver to behave, but could also jump or run at any moment and be very energetic. It made watching him almost comical. :) With the beautiful fall colored leaves on the ground complementing him, I think the painting is going to turn out very well.
I finished a few paintings recently that never made it into the blog, unfortunately. Sometimes those deadlines……
This (pictured) is one of my new paintings I’ve just started to sketch out. I have a number of these half-done and just-started pieces sitting around my studio at the moment. :) Most of them are being painted for a number of my upcoming shows (both confirmed and unconfirmed).
Keep an eye on the Lathamstudios.com exhibits page for times and locations – It is updated as new details are confirmed. :)
A foot and a half of heavy snow in Minnesota :).
I have just returned to my studio from our recent exhibition in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The show went very well. It was great to see everyone again!
A few new things have popped up, so I will be posting about those a little later. I am starting on some requested artwork right now. More photos to come… :)
