The Prairie Moon

 Deep in country, the moonshine and the stars' light is quite heavenly. It is almost impossible not to draw, paint, or photograph the beauty that surrounds one, day by day...

Rising Moon mktodd

Kansas Palms in Harvest Moon mary todd

Last Night's Moon mary todd

MoonGem mary todd

Sunflowers in moonlight mtodd

Moon and Clouds in Flyover Country mktodd

Sunflowers in Moonlight mtodd

 The presence of the moon is inescapable when one lives under a prairie sky.

Moon as Pearl mktodd

.

.

.

Thinking of Japan

Driving west into the town of Manhattan, Kansas, near the north end of the Flint Hills, there is a confluence of farmland, Flint Hills, and Konza Prairie. Autumn brings a layered view of bare trees, furrowed land, and rising hills.

The edges of the view suggest the human element; a house almost hidden atop the left hill, and a vehicle on a road in the lower right blend naturally into the landscape.

Thinking of Japan by Mary Todd

Here is the scene just to the south, in a different season:

and yet another view, another season, less than a quarter mile away:

Winter Palette on the Tallgrass Prairie

The combined forces of

• unrelenting winds sweeping in from the Colorado Rockies, 
• an open door to the polar air from the north, 
• and generous helpings of snow, ice, sleet and rain---

combine to give a chilly blue, white and grey color palette to much of the prairie during winter months.

Snowy Flint Hills Winter mary todd

[However, in the next post,

 the additions of some creamy salmon shades and even several yellows 

can brighten the scene...]

Sunflowers in Blizzard by Mary Todd

click to view large

Watercolor Cows in Winter mary todd

Mouse Haven in Kansas Blizzard mary todd

Farm in the Flint Hills mtodd

The State Bird... Meadowlark in Icy Flint Hills Winter mktodd

Providence . Luck . Blessing: Location Location ...

Passing through the Flint Hills of Kansas changes any being...
 the soaking sun,
            the windy rain,
                      the still solitude, the joyful merging
 of a myriad of living things into a buzzing,
 atomic whole--
 .. .. .. .. .. .ah, the Konza Prairie wildly
necklaced about* by the rich Flint Hills is the place for me...

The Flint Hills and the Konza Prairie, as they butt up against the Osage Questas to the east, are truly magnificent in displays of nature's extreme cycles, from a rich, even lush biodiversity to the frosty, transparent aura of the cracked, ancient rock atop the plateaus...

Periodic starkness brings into high relief the vibrating elements of presence, entanglement, and life.

Goose in Flint Hills' Winter by M.K. Todd

* “…a rusting trough ornamented with a necklace of horseflies slung above the last dregs of its stagnant water”

.

.

.

Bee on Sunflower by M.K.Todd

Beautiful Morning Moon by Matt Flintstone

.

.

Contact and Purchase

Most of the original art shown here is available for purchase.

•  Some are ready as large framed pieces; 
• some have been printed as small card size items and 
• others can be printed-to-size per request. 

Large Digital Files may also be purchased, for those who wish to use their own local printing and framing services.


Prices range from $10.00 for small prints to an average of $120.00-$400.00 for larger framed photographs.

For example, the following landscape, Thinking of Japan, 

is a 16" x 22" print on a creamy-soft heavy matte paper; 

with the frame it measures 21.5" x 27.5" and is available for $140.00/

Here is a view of Wrenhouse; this print is available on a wonderful thick canvas paper which looks beautiful in a barnwood frame. The larger copies of this print and the related images in the series range from $120.00 to $200.00.

This wren began to nest in a house which had lain dormant for several years.

I had been outside sitting still to film some emerging butterflies, when the wren began a flurry of activity and even was so kind as to have a mouthful of straw in the shape of a heart, above.

.

.

.

 Some have requested to purchase digital photographs with ownership rights for advertising purposes; this is also possible.

• A gentleman in England wanted my cat jumping over an obstacle to promote a collar for active cats! Similar to this photo:

I may be contacted by email at mtodd@ksu.edu -- or katytold@gmail.com --you may leave a phone number and time if you would like me to give you a telephone call.



Enjoy!
Mary Todd