Brenda Stichter, artist

Peach Blossoms en plein air We have had two spectacularly gorgeous days here in northern Indiana, and I took some time to paint en plein air to celebrate! The time just disappeared while I was painting, and I was so surprised to hear from my Beloved Husband around supper time. I was just sure I should have another hour or so before he headed home from work.  $215.00 plus shipping and handling 9" x 12" Painted with artist quality heavy-body acrylic paint on panel Click here to view on my website. This is a painting of our peach tree in bloom. This tree is very old, and has had a lot of damage over the years, but it still produces the best peaches I have ever had. I hope it lives a long, long time.  Please pardon the crooked horizon! I decided to take my "gear" out to paint without going through it first, just to see whether I have everything I need for the next time I paint away from my studio. I was only a few steps from my back door, so when I discovered that I di...

Triumphal Entry This year, I really wanted to have a new painting for Palm Sunday, so, only a few days behind schedule, I am releasing this painting. Sometimes called the Triumphal Entry, this event in the life of Jesus Christ is told in all four gospels in the New Testament. What I noticed as I read through the accounts this time in preparation for both celebrating on Sunday, and for painting this work, is that there is a sense of foreboding, or foreshadowing in the telling. 12" x 12" Painted with the finest quality acrylic heavy-body paint on canvas panel Ready to frame Click here to purchase via my website.   For this painting, I knew I wanted to use green, and in fact, I originally wanted green to be the most prominent color in the painting, but it seems the painting itself had other ideas. (Ha!) I started working on the arch shape in a couple of colors of green over the gold underpainting, and liked the way the first layers were giving a sense of movement – my eye moved...

A Vase of Happy It was delightful to return to the studio after celebrating with my son and his new bride this past weekend! Since their wedding occurred just as spring is thinking about coming to our neck of the woods, I decided to paint flowers from life. Not my usual painting, but I loved remembering that I do, in fact, know how to paint! 6" x 6" Painted with the finest quality heavy-body acrylic paint on acid-free, heavy weight Fabriano watercolor paper Click here to view or purchase on my website. I started with a yellow background because I wanted to communicate brightness and happiness. I love it when the back layers come through to the front, as I might have mentioned once or twice before... My first sketching layer was violet-red. I limited myself to using five colors that coordinate with my last painting, and the violet-red was the mid tone that could show through all of the other colors as I worked.  Before I tell more about the weekend, wedding, and painting, I wa...

Full Circle I am so excited to share this painting! I have been working on it for a long time, and I love the way it turned out. (I recently heard that some artists don't like their own paintings... I like almost all of mine, at least when I first release them.) Studio time has been hard to come by recently due to having had the flu, lots of travel, and my dear son's upcoming wedding - woo-hoo! So I am so very pleased to finish this one.  48" x 48" Painted with artist quality heavy-body acrylic paint on 1.5” deep gallery wrapped canvas Edges painted black Click here to view or purchase on my website. I know it is tough to tell from the photo that only shows the painting, but this is a large work, and the small squares on it are about 3.5" square individual little works. They were blocked out and painted white and started fresh after all of the rest of the canvas was finished.  Well, there is so much to say about this painting! The very first layer, in enormous pu...

Our local artist group, Lakeland Art Association has invited me to exhibit as part of a two person show coming up THIS FRIDAY, showing for the month of March. There was another artist scheduled to exhibit for this occasion, but he has had an unavoidable situation that is preventing him from being there. I feel honored to be able to fill in! The Substance of Things Hoped For 36" x 36" acrylic on canvas Available at Lakeland Art Association this coming Friday, March 7 from 5:00 - 8:00 p.m. Please come to the reception! Arise My Love 48" x 48" acrylic on canvas I plan to have at least eight or ten works displayed in this new-to-me downtown space, and I wonder if you have any favorites that you would like to see there. It is always a little bit of a juggling act to make sure that the paintings exhibited in one location aren't scheduled to show in another place for the duration of the show, so there is always a bit of extra paperwork to get figured out. I plan to hav...

Sunken Treasure Although most of my paintings start out with words on the canvas, and a theme already in mind, this painting is different.   36" x 12" Painted with artist quality heavy-body acrylic paint on 1.5” deep gallery wrapped canvas Edges painted black Click here to view or purchase on my website. Last summer when my Beloved Husband went to Paraguay for a mission trip, I had grand ideas of how many paintings I would accomplish while he was gone. I prepped about ten surfaces, and was ready to make lots of painting progress during those 12ish days. As you may recall if you were following along with me at that time, my “muse” evidently went to South America with my Beloved Husband, and those canvases did not get finished! But a few got a starting layer, and this one started with a fairly simple wash of acrylic paint in a color I like.  Often as I work on a painting, there will be many layers that I do not like. (I have a large canvas in progress right now that is at o...

Be Mine Heart And the third heart painting headed to Gallery 317  is called Be Mine Heart. I bet you can see why it's called that! I would love to have you check these works out in person in this gorgeous gallery in Bryan, OH.  6” x 6” Painted with artist quality heavy-body acrylic paint on 1.5” deep gallery wrapped canvas Click here to view on my website. All three of these coordinating paintings have metallic and iridescent interference paint colors that are difficult to see in the photos. I loved playing with the textures and characteristics of the different paints and tools that I used to make interesting paintings - all sharing similar shapes, colors, and theme.  Arms Wide Open , 2nd place winner In other news, I learned on Monday that my painting Arms Wide Open was awarded 2nd Place for Abstract in the huge BoldBrush competition for the month of December! There were over 2000 paintings in this competition, so I feel "all biggety" about being selected for an award. ...

Kiss Me Heart Since Valentine's Day is approaching, I painted three small heart paintings, and this is the second one I am releasing on my blog and website. (However, they are available through Gallery 317 in Bryan, OH . Please contact me if you are interested in one or three, and I will get you in touch with them!)  6” x 6” Painted with artist quality heavy-body acrylic paint on 1.5” deep gallery wrapped canvas Click here to view on my website. For this series of works, I was considering traditional "heart colors" with accents that made them interesting. Part of the challenge in these pieces was getting enough value contrast, since most of the more traditional colors are mid-range in value. So the white and bright orange work to keep the paintings from being all one tone. I also wanted to use symbols and phrases that are familiar for this February holiday - it reminds me of those little candy hearts with words on them. On this heart painting, can you see the heartbeat an...

I Love You Heart With Valentines Day coming in about a month, I decided to paint a series of three small heart paintings. I will release one each day, and they will be available at Gallery 317 in Bryan, OH . Please contact me if you would like to purchase, and I will connect you with the right people there! 6” x 6” Painted with artist quality heavy-body acrylic paint on 1.5” deep gallery wrapped canvas Click here to view on my website. Today I started writing in a new journal. I have been journaling for years and years now, so I have a lot of full notebooks, um, somewhere. Today I finished yet another notebook, and started writing in a new one that my beautiful daughter gave me. In the last years, I have started writing passages that I have memorized on the first pages. I must admit, I find I remember them better when I have had plenty of vitamin D (vacation, anyone?)!  The first of these memorized sections in my journal is always this:  Psalm 62:5-8 My soul, wait in silence f...

Jacob's Ladder When I (finally) got a chance to work on this painting last week, the title and the composition and color all came to me really quickly. That is a fairly uncommon thing to have happen, though the first layers of the painting have been on the easel for a L O N G time. Maybe my subconscious has been working on it?  $1100.00 plus shipping and handling 30" x 24" Painted with artist quality heavy-body acrylic paint on recycled panel, framed Click here to view or purchase on my website. The "steps" on Jacob's Ladder don't necessarily line up for an easy climb in my painting, and the stairway doesn't look like any stairway I would want to try climbing! The colors are brilliant, and there are iridescent, metallic, and interference paints included to help express the idea of something heavenly, not earthly.  I used "tears" running across the painting in both directions to help me build my structure and to picture some of Jacob's s...

Minnesota Muse Minnesota Muse is my first painting of 2025. I have been in Minnesota with my dear Mom many times already this winter, which means fewer studio days. Because it has been so long, I struggled with ‘blank canvas syndrome’. I felt unsure whether I still know how to paint! So I chose the path which is less difficult (for me) to ease into painting by working on a representational scene. I look forward to returning to my abstract work soon. 12” x 12” Painted with artist quality heavy-body acrylic paint on 1.5” deep gallery wrapped canvas Click here to purchase via my website. The photo I worked from was taken in Minnesota by my friend, Lois, and was a winter landscape with hoar frost lying heavily over the whole scene. (She has such an eye for natural beauty! I was glad she gave me permission to use her photo.) I intended to make the scene look like the photo, but the painting seemed to have its own plan.  Preparing to start my painting, I manipulated the photo using filte...