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"Coming and Going" or "Hello Good-Bye" were both titles considered for this painting. The gourd reminds of a wingless bird, maybe saying, "You talking to ME?" 
The pumpkin: the October-November Cross-Over Fruit.
To paint this pomegranate, I set it on a box and put the box on a table so that it was nearly eye-level. I rigged a backdrop using a cigar box and a pashmina, then I tacked a black fan to the right side of the box to block all ambient light. Lastly, I turned on a nice, bright light and moved it around until I was happy with the play. The thing that I liked was the way the top was peeling down toward me, casting a shadow barely caught.
I kind of liked the original block-in of Soda Springs and thought to perhaps leave it alone, but there is something inside of me that always wants to make it better or to finish it, if it could be more finished. Sometimes I regret it but not this time. I had a lot of fun completing this little 8x10, reliving that afternoon painting the springs with my friends; the memories of the sounds and smells and jokes were keeping a smile on my face as I finished the afternoon on my canvas. That's kind of what it's all about.
While I was in Wyoming, I had the wonderful opportunity to have had a couple of "brutally honest" critiques of my painting, "Sisters" by two highly respected master painters and I'd like to share the lesson, as it was very instructive. 
On this bridge, I painted with Lee and Kay, two of my great painter peeps. There was a big, huge heap of horse hockey right behind us, lending an authentic rustic air to our proceedings, together with the wonderful sounds of the springs, and of course our own witty repartee. Another artist did a painting of us painting on the bridge, complete with the hockey; I'll see if I can get a picture of that to share with you.
One day, while I was on my Wyoming retreat, we had a "paint the town" day, and believe it or not, this mine-like thing is right downtown where I was staying. It looked like a mine to me but as I painted, townsfolk stopped to chat and there were many explanations for this oddity. However, all agreed: it's not a mine. 
I believe the exact name of this creek is Torrey Creek but it is located in Whiskey Basin and they call it Whiskey Creek because, according to locals, cowboys used to hide their whiskey in the creek to keep it cool in the summer. Sounds good to me. 
I shot several pictures of this little 6x6 and they are all totally glare-smacked. It's too dark to reshoot so I'll give you an apology to go with your painting today. 
This angel sketch is a demo, teaching how to quickly and accurately sketch out and block in a design, and also a lesson in light and shadow. 
I am just getting back from a wonderful week of painting with my husband. We camped in New Mexico and made daily trips up into Colorado to paint and this was our first day. I was painting a waterfall that was in front of me while the yawning vista beckoned from behind. Also from behind was a wicked storm that struck while I was working. For a bit, my husband was holding an umbrella over me while I painted but when it started to lightning, we packed it in. 
This is a morning painting of the Patriot. It was hard to paint because it drifted quite a bit, so sometimes the boat on the canvas looked twisted. This was another one that was "fixed" after I got my arm back, in the studio. 
It was getting a little late in the day when I started this painting and I was on the side of the road, trucks whizzing by and honking, my arm in a sling, painting with my left hand "like a one-armed paper hanger," as they used to say. I was racing the setting sun and sweating and swatting mosquitoes and some invisible biting bug: not having fun. I thought of myself as a painting warrior of sorts. Plein air painting is radically different than studio painting. It's extreme painting.
This painting is just behind Plein Air Judy. On our Louisiana trip, we visited the site of a house that had been swept away by Ike, leaving the 2 storey deck behind. I painted Judy from beneath it one afternoon. This painting was done from the top of the deck the next day, looking out over the marsh right after sunrise. 
A group of artists went to Louisiana last month to paint shrimp boats and local scenes, and sometimes each other! This is my very dear friend Judy, working on a painting under the cover of a deck that belongs to a house that blew away in Hurricane Ike. There was much devastation still in evidence there, but the people are resilient, rebuilding and very friendly. 
This is a Louisiana painting, originally done left-handed, now painted over. It may be a tiny 4x6 painting, but you'd be embarrassed for me to know how many hours went into painting this. 
The article that I wrote for American Artist's Workshop magazine can be found in the Summer Edition, or a shorter version may be viewed on line by clicking here. I really love to write and Qiang is such an interesting person, the article kind of wrote itself in many ways. It just took awhile to get it onto paper! 
This is my first right-handed painting in so long. 
This was a most important moment. Richard Schmid is one of the most important masters in our generation and I am extremely privileged to have met him at his recent opening in NYC.
This scene will not be around a lot longer. The barn looks like it will welcome a change; so tired. There are working farms all over this area, tractors moving, workers working, animals grazing. But all around them are very busy earth movers, bulldozers, tree haulers. In place of vegetable patches, strip malls are popping up here and there. While we were painting, an enormous power company truck turned down the dirt road we were next to with a load of telephone poles in tow. The drivers got out and watched us paint for a while, smelling the roses before they're gone. The little barns and farm houses seem vulnerable and threatened and really crying out for documentation. So we documented with love. And, you know... paint.
This is the site of the morning painting of Tuesday's paint-out. Judy and I were in a field beside a busy road and were plagued by drive-by honkers. Many jerks of brush reflected on canvas due to jerks of road. They could not lessen the sheer joy of our morning, though.
One day, I was at the grocery store and I met a vision that took my breath away. Literally. Her name was Esther and she was behind the deli counter. Her mysterious hair was hidden in a paper wrap and her lilting accent mesmerized me. I wanted to paint her immediately but did not have the courage to freak her out by asking, so I asked for some baby swiss instead. Our paths would serendipitously cross again and she would become the subject of more than one painting. In this one, I am depicting her story, which she told me during a long sitting. She said that when she was a preschooler in Nigeria, she told her mother that she would one day go to America. She could not recall how she knew of America, but she looked westward from Africa from her earliest memory. I'm so thankful that she came all the way to Texas. Westward Vision was in the Richeson's first Top 75 Portraits international competition.
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