Red Roof Barn

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.

Spring-Cypress

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.
The barn in the distance was falling apart and I thought of painting it newer, since that would be easier. I just loved it's faithfulness, though: the stalwart sentinel, still watching over the field... I thought I owed it to the barn to give it a go.
If I'd gotten this shot just a hair lower, all the lines would have lined up. I could not actually see the scene on the screen of my camera, so I'm lucky that it came out at all.
Just behind us was the quaintest operation going on: a young man and an old woman were hand-picking a crop of some sort, stacking and crating it, while an old man worked from his tractor. If it hadn't felt so invasive to do so, I'd have faced them and tried to depict their work. I did take pictures of them so maybe someday...

Japanese Bridge

This is the product of my paint-out yesterday afternoon. I was being harassed by mosquitoes and had several kamikaze gnats fly into the painting, preferring it to the real thing obviously. About now they're wishing I were a watercolor artist.

It was so serene, painting the water and the bridge, listening to the trickle of a fountain, in the 74 degree shade... As a Houston plein air painter, let me tell you, days like this are to be treasured; right around the corner is SUMMER.

Painting a Bridge

I came so close to making it under the wire by midnight! but alas, 2 minutes short.

I spent the day with a dear friend of mine, Judy Crowe, painting down in Houston. In the morning we were in a field and in the afternoon we were in a Japanese garden place with fountains, koi, lilies, statues... It was not easy to settle on a vantage point.

My little pond here was affected by the netting draped over the top of it. We decided that it must be to keep the egrets and herons from dining on the koi, which were cleverly hidden underneath.

The painting is not finished in this pic but it was before I left. I shall post it after I photograph it for you.

Lauren

This is a very harsh picture of my painting of Lauren. She is the girl who sat for us last week, and since we did not meet today (Easter Monday), I will bookmark this work in place of today's.
I can see things when I blog that need to be improved in a painting much more easily than in real life. Perhaps because the digital image takes liberties with subtle nuances, basically eliminating them; it forces the imperfections into recognition. I learned a lot from the process of painting this one. I plan to paint over it and reuse the canvas: satisfying. 

 

 

 

Jakey

This is part of the view from Jakey Ranch in Wyoming. It was the beginning of autumn and in the 6x8 format, I wanted to show the massive mountains standing guard over the little man-made dwellings. It seems bigger when you click on the image (get it?).

I now want to try again with a bigger canvas.

East From Wagon Box

I painted this little 8x6 on a very, very windy day at Wagon Box Ranch, WY. I was with my friend, Jeanne Mackenzie, backed up against a barn door to keep from being blown away. Still, Jeanne's easel blew down and we both had plenty of Wyoming dirt and straw on our paintings: landscape on our landscapes!

The clouds were dramatically marching over us with their black bottoms and white tops. I picked them over all the beauty of the ranch, which was not such an easy choice.

As I look at this digitized version of the painting, I'm thinking that I may make some late-date changes to it. If I do, I'll post the results.

Monday Painting

This week we painted a young woman who has modeled for us before. Her mother's a painter so she has had plenty of modeling practice. I will show you my start but the finish will have to wait till later. And I'll show you the painting that I did of her 3 years ago, too (see 13 April entry).

At this stage of the painting, I have toned the canvas with ultramarine blue and cadmium orange and wiped down the highest lights with a piece of viva paper towel. Then block in the darks with the same mix I used to tone the canvas.

Next comes the color...

Waterway Demo

Here is the finished painting of the Ancient Mariner of the Woodlands Waterway Arts Festival.

Man of the Sea

I participated in a portrait demo at the Woodlands Waterway Arts Festival on Saturday, painting this wonderful model. When he saw it, the model said that my interpretation of him should be named, "Old Man of the Sea" and that we should sell the image to a fish and chips company. I thought he should be in a slicker instead of a button-down for that idea.

We worked from 10 till 1 but I talked for at least half of that time.

Little Green Apples, study

Green apples painted on a grocery bag.

Westward Vision

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.

Stage One

I have so many paintings at various stages of incompletion right now, including this one. I have two unfinished paintings of this model, as a matter of fact. She sat for us 2 weeks in a row and most people took advantage of that, painting on the same painting for 6 hours. Since I wasn't too crazy about my first start, I chose to start another one. I plan to finish both of them and will share the results with you. At this stage of the painting, all I've done is mark critical lines and begun to put in brightest color spot, lightest light and darkest darks. My support is cardboard.

Quilt Cottage

This painting was begun on a misty early morning in Old Town Spring. After about an hour and a half of painting, this cottage opened for business. It's a quilt cottage and quilts were hung from eaves and laid across rails; I had to do a lot of painting from memory! My favorite part of this is the light was bouncing from the front wall to the ceiling, making it very warm and inviting. This painting is 8x10 oil on linen in a gold frame and is hanging in the Richeson Fine Art Gallery with a price tag of $650. If this painting is for you, call the director Terry Stanley at 800.233.2404 and claim it. I hope you like it.

Altogether

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