Upcoming Show, Blog Resuscitation...

This has been a chaotic summer, but it has been a very productive one because so many good things have come of it. This past Friday, I delivered 10 paintings to Lee-Bunch Studio Gallery in del Rio, Texas, where I will be the featured artist for the month of September. Pam Bunch, the artist/owner, and I had a great afternoon catching up on lost time, and I was treated to an array of delightful paintings by some of my favorite artists. The drive to and from Fredericksburg was relaxing, and the only thing that could have made it better would have been evidence of rain in the drought-stricken landscape.

So, here's the plug: Check out Lee-Bunch Studio Gallery at 100 W. Greenwood St. in del Rio, TX. There will be an Art Walk Friday, September 4, and the Gallery is located upstairs, above the Del Rio Loan Company, on the corner. It's a super gallery with lots to see, and of course, you will see my paintings over on one wall. I would love to see you!

Now, as for the blog resuscitation - I have signed up for a course with Cynthia Morris and Alyson Stanfield that will, I hope, breathe some life into my blog! The following paragraphs, by the way, are part of the assignment and I'm supposed to be describing the people I want to visit and read my blog.

Well, I think that what I wrote above told part of the story for me. So, who do I want to read my blog? Both artists and non-artists alike - I want to attract people who express an interest in the arts and creativity. As odd as this might sound, especially after shamelessly plugging my show, it means more to me to spread the arts to the world, than it does to sell them.

I would love to be completely self-sufficient financially as an artist, but can honestly say that if it means that I would have to curb my readership or writing style in order to formulate a marketing strategy, I would definitely encounter brambles and rocks along the road to that "success."

"Success" is in quotation marks because it would have only been partially met. It would be financial success - yes - but not the success that allows me to rest well at night and say to myself that I have worked a good day and fulfilled my sense of becoming - which is that intangible need in all of us that is inherent in the act of creating. Thus, I've come full circle, and back to why I want to direct this blog not just to other artists, but to anyone who expresses the slightest interest in creativity. People are creators by nature - of that, I am convinced. So, if I can in some way be instrumental in helping anyone along his or her creative journey by means of this blog, then my goal will be met.

To everyone: have great weeks ahead and awesome creative moments!

Back in Business!

It's been quite a while since I've posted an update - well, for two reasons: the good one is that I've just returned from a 10-day workshop in Idaho, where I learned a lot and had a great time. The not-so-good one is that my computer was down all that time, but now I'm back in business and online again, so all is well. It turned out to be nothing more than a bad IP address. Whew!

My next several postings will be of small studies of landscapes in oils. I'm shaking things up a bit and am loving what I learned at the workshop. Sometimes it's refreshing to do some about-faces. Lately I've had a string of what I consider failed paintings. Perhaps I'm in a rut and need to try different things for a change. The desire and the fire is as strong as ever, so I must keep it strong and healthy!

The little study that is posted here is a watercolor painted at the very beginning of the workshop. It was a 20 minute study and fun to do. The workshop was primarily geared towards painters in oils, but I and a fellow painter brought our watercolors and had no problems gearing things towards our medium.

Donkey Kong

These past few weeks have been a flop painting-wise. That, of course, translates into crankiness because I hate for time to slip away without having been put to good use. It was that string of paintings didn't work out, that were unceremoniously dumped into file 13. I feel like I'm a baseball player in a batting slump, but I suppose that's just part of the game and slumps go away with perseverance and patience. In fact, I often think that down times are good for us in a weird sort of way, so I must be patient.

Down times are definitely not times to stop creating; instead, they are times to switch gears, and that is what I have been doing . Rather than beating beating my head against the wall and giving myself a migraine, I have been keeping a sketch diary of my daily life and having a ball with it. It has been so long since I have done anything like this, that the change is refreshing and nostalgic, and probably the most therapeutic exercise I could do. In fact, now I find myself sketching in my diary instead of taking care of needed chores.

NOTE TO SELF (from dog): Chew up diary 10 minutes before feeding time.

Next week I will attend a 10-day landscape workshop and I'm looking forward to it because I never feel confident painting landscapes. This should be a great experience and I'll be attending with some close friends as well. When I return I'll post some of my efforts. :-)

Finally, a little story about my dog, Sam. Sam is a Border Collie, and as such, he likes to herd and stare at critters, who are his charges. Anyone who knows BCs knows that they can do this activity all day long, and there is no one and no critter that can out stare or outlast a BC. Promise! Well, I don't have any animals for Sam to herd, but being the resourceful dog that he is, Sam created his own job and he does "fence duty" each day, which essentially amounts to staring at the two miniature donkeys on the other side of the fence, keeping them away from the fence, and responding in any way possible to the donkeys when they tease him from their side of the fence. Of course, it all amounts to Sam either running up and down the fence line, creeping up and down the fence line, stalking up and down the fence line, or just lying down for hours and staring at them. This has been going on for years, and the donkeys have gotten to know Sam well. In fact, the three of them lie down near each other in the heat of the day, under the shade of some old cedar trees.

OK, all that preface to get to the story....two Great Danes were introduced to the pasture last week who are just as tall as the donkeys. It was an interesting sight. The dogs were turned loose to run free, and immediately they decided that the entire county belonged to them. So, Sam and I entered the scene, stage left, returning from a walk. The two beautiful giants came galloping up to the fence barking and making a fuss. Sam, of course, was semi-oblivious; he was near the fence, so he was searching for his donkeys and almost couldn't care less about two dogs, except that they were a little large and their voices were booming. We walked closer to the fence. Heck, might as well acquaint ourselves with our new neighbors. Well, as the dogs made their final charge, then so did the two donkeys. Yes. The donkeys took off after the Great Danes, who were taking off after Sam, and they chased them, not only away from Sam, but all the way to the other end of the pasture and kept them penned in the corner! What a sight that was! And Sam, well, he was beside himself with excitement because he wanted to be a part of the activity - I'm not sure he could figure out what the heck the situation was, but it looked like fun to him, and he was completely on the wrong side of the fence! Needless to say, there is a reason they use donkeys to guard sheep and goat herds - the donkeys won that afternoon. I'm not sure Sam ever figured out that his buddies had chased away his aggressors. I thought it was pretty cool.

Nowadays, the Great Danes and the donkeys have made their peace. They completely ignore each other and take no interest in one another. Meanwhile, however, fence duty has resumed in earnest between Sam and his donkeys during the cool parts of the day, along with the donkey games and the teasing of ol' Sam, and if it's too hot, all three can be found lying in the shade, side-by-side.

Happy painting!!

A Sketch Here and There

I quit my job in the big city so that I could have more time to spend as a painter in a smaller town. Say what? I have to laugh now at how I fantasized! The reality is that sometimes life just gets in the way of painting, period, and that is what has been happening lately. I'm old enough to know better and secretly I think I did, but it sure is fun to pretend ignorance for as long as possible, right?

This evening I'll start painting on a piece that I sketched out last week, and I'm looking forward to it because it's different from anything I've been working on lately. Should be a lot of fun. Otherwise, I spent a lot of time catching up on the matters of life and going to my office job. Sometimes things work out that way, but I'm thankful to have the benefits of a good job and a good boss right now.

Friday was Take-Your-Dog-To-The-Office-Day, so I did. Sam wasn't too impressed. He slept the whole time he was there. It's a good thing he woke up and sneezed, because for a while I completely forgot that he was with me. Something tells me he prefers my studio to the office, where he can go outside and check out the donkeys, do his "fence duty," and lie down in the cool dirt outside as the mood strikes him.

I have posted a few of the sketches I drew over the course of the week, but I won't be painting cats for a while. I can't wait to get to work on that drawing that awaits me in the studio.

Callie Girl

Recently I was challenged to put in 20 hours per week painting in the studio, with Fridays being the check-in day. This sounded like an excellent idea, so I accepted the challenge because it is way of making me stick to a specific work schedule, where my weekday painting is concerned. Sometimes it feels like I lead a double life: 4 days working full-time in an office that seems worlds away from my studio, and a 3-day weekend working full-time as an artist. My heart, however, never checks out of the studio, and so there it awaits me each evening when I arrive home from the office, hoping that I will pick up a brush and resume painting. That doesn't often happen, but this 20 hour challenge just might change that evening scenario. We shall see.

Meanwhile, this past weekend I worked on Callie Girl, a Catahoula mix, who belongs to a very close friend of mine. This dog is like no dog I've ever met before. She has the largest vocabulary of any dog, and she thinks she is as good at vocalizing as she is at comprehension, and she's often a little too smart for her own britches. One of my favorite things to see her do is to stand on her hind legs and balance on two feet, erect, above the grasses, so she can see whatever game or critters might be in the brush that she wants to chase. It's the oddest sight! She's a good pointer, too -- some dog in her ancestry was a mighty good bird dog.

So, that's Callie, painted in about 8 hours in watercolor. In the morning I will get up and start another study of her - there are about 4 or 5 that I want to complete. She is an unusual dog with an unusual personality. My intent is to capture that unique personality.

Lunchtime Sketches of Marienkirche

These three paintings are some of the

quick studies I did, trying to catch the

light before it changed. I went back to the same little church so many times that I began to feel like a Texas version of Monet, painting the my own "mini-cathedral" over and over in the different types of light. Although I grew tired of drawing the steeple, I was fascinated with the changing colors of the light upon the stone, and how quickly a color would appear, then disappear in the blink of an eye. The subtle light show made the monotony of re-sketching the steeple each day worthwhile.

Marienkirche

This little church is in Fredericksburg, and it sits alongside St. Mary's on San Antonio Street. I love it, and when I first moved here I began painting little thumbnail sketches of it from the front seat of my car. It was a perfect subject to paint in the few minutes that I had on my lunch break from my office job, and my favorite part was watching the play of light as it shone through the top part of the steeple. This piece was painted in 2006, and I used it as the starting point for some studies for my daily painting this year.