I find it inconceivable that it has been over a month since my last post. It's not that I haven't been painting just that I have neglected to post to my blog. December is always busy but that's not my excuse. My first priority has been posting paintings to the Daily Paintworks. After doing that my intent is to post to the blog but that often falls to the way side. Good intentions etc...

Anyway we are in Colorado for the holidays and I have been busy either painting outdoors when the weather permitted or indoors looking out the picture windows at my mother-in-law's cabin near Glenwood Springs. More to come, but this is what I've done so far on this trip.

"Snowy View" 6x6 oil on masonite SOLD

"Mountain Snows" 6x6 oil on masonite
DPW auction click here

"Snowy Peaks" 6x6 oil on masonite
DPW auction click here

"Western Light" 6x6 oil on masonite
DPW auction click here

"Glimpse of 'Sunlight'" 6x8 oil on canvas panel
DPW auction click here

In the Mood...

I really got in the mood to paint after my success with "Standing Guard". Since there was still time to spare and I really didn't want to venture out into the Black Friday madness I just kept going. My next painting was a potential contender for this year's Christmas Card "Christmas Cardinal". By the time I finished that and cleaned up it was time for dinner.

"Christmas Cardinal" 6"x6" oil on masonite available thru DPW click here for more info

Today after sitting down to write our annual Christmas newsletter (yes, we are those kind of people - we like to let folks know what we've been up to and some actually want to know), I sat decided to try a still life using a brass vase and some sunflower-ish flowers I had on hand. It was another fun one to paint. I seem to be enjoying the process more and more on each painting. I wonder why?

"Sunny Posy" 6" x 6" oil on masonite will be available thru DPW tomorrow.

Visible Improvement

Sometimes you just paint along and it's hard to tell if you're really getting anywhere. Anyway today I picked out an old photo to paint from and realized it is one I had attempted "en plein air" during a workshop a few years ago at a friend's hill country ranch. The painting I ended up with the first time did not work. I never even finished it since the start of it was so dismal. With lots of practice behind me and a better feel for what I wanted to do, I tried the same scene again this time from a photo in the studio. This time the painting I ended up with was one I was proud of and very happy with. Putting the two paintings side by side is the best illustration of how far I've come as a painter in the last few years. It's good to see that you are making progress.

"Standing Guard" 6"x6" oil on board $35 available through my gallery on Daily Paintworks click here

On Wednesday I had fun with a photo I took downtown on 6th Street while out painting with Plein Air Austin. The photo showed some historic buildings on 6th Street (our entertainment/clubs district) and the skyscrapers including the Frost Bank Tower behind them. The buildings were challenging, but I really enjoyed trying to render them in paint.

"Sixth Street" 6"x6" oil on board available through DPW auction click here for details

On Saturday I went to a mini workshop with Susan Carlin at the Windberg Art Center. It was put on by Central Texas Pastel Society. Susan did a demo in the morning during our regular CTPS meeting and those who chose to pay a nominal fee could stay to do the workshop in the afternoon. The idea was to paint a simple still life with just one fruit or veggie as a subject. I found that the hardest part was to try to represent the fabric we used to drape our still life boxes. I managed to do two pieces, my pomegranate and the persimmon I borrowed from a friend. I was pleased with both pieces and found the workshop very helpful.

"Pomegranate" 8"x8" pastel on Wallis paper/board available through DPW auction click here for details

"Persimmon" 6" x8" pastel on Wallis paper/board available through DPW auction click here for details

Come See Me At E.A.S.T. on Sunday at Stop #71

I'm so pleased to have confirmed a booth space this Sunday at the East Austin Studio Tour. It's at the Clay  River Studio EAST stop #71 at 906 Koerner Lane just off Bolm near Airport Blvd. It's just behind Big Medium. I will be there from 11 to 6 on Sunday November 20th showing my work and selling my new 2012 Art Calendars. Come visit with me and I can show you what I've been up to over the past few months.

Today I met with friends and we painted at Bull Creek again, only this time we painted the other side of Loop 360. There was a lovely little pool of water below a cliff of big bolders. The fall leaf colors were lovely. It was a cloudy overcast day, I'm sure it would have been even more lovely in brighter light. I called the painting "Peaceful Reflections" however the three little girls there on a rock hunt were shrieking and making it anything but peaceful for much of the time we were there.

"Peaceful Reflections" 8"x 8" oil on board.  Listed for auction at DPW. Click here for details

On Tuesday I hosted a paint out for Plein Air Williamson (County). Naturally it was the day we finally got some rain. No sooner than I arrived it started to rain. Only two other intrepid painters showed up and one got called away on an emergency so the two of us remaining set up under the railway bridge to shelter from the rain and made the best of it. It was really nice to finally see a little rain around here. Kinda wish there had been more of it.

"Rainy Day at the Park"  8" x 8" oil on board. Listed for auction at DPW. Click here for details.

Another Arty Week

"Abstraction I" 6" x 6" oil on board check out the Daily Paintworks Auction here


Somehow another week has sped by. This week I attended Life Drawing, two plein air paint out sessions, showed and sold my work in a holiday market, and spent two afternoons looking at art at the annual E.A.S.T. (East Austin Studio Tour). What a wonderful art filled week. I was inspired by some of the art I saw this weekend to try my hand at an abstract painting. The result is "Abstraction 1". I had so much fun playing with it that I may make a series of "Abstractions". Next weekend E.A.S.T. continues and I am considering taking over the space our friend Nancy Germond occupied this weekend and try to sell my art. Judging from the prices in most of the studios, my art would be very underpriced, but that might be a good thing. Christmas is coming and it should be a good time to market my work. Since I am attending a workshop next Saturday, I would only be able to display on Sunday, but since the landlord of the space is agreeable to renting me space for just the one afternoon (at a great price) I think it might be worth a try to see what happens.

"Texas Grazing" 8" x 8" oil on board check out the Daily Paintworks Auction here

"Texas Grazing" was painted at the Michaelis Ranch in 30 mile an hour winds. I won't guarantee that there is not quite a bit of Texas dirt embedded into the paint. The wind was relentless all morning. My friend Susan and I had set up a table to display our paintings at the Holiday Market that Mrs. Michaelis is putting together each Saturday running up to Christmas. She kindly offered us the opportunity to sell our work as well as the opportunity to paint at her beautiful ranch. The table only blew over once, but some of the paintings (fortunately all dry ones) blew off the table several times. Oh the joys of painting en plein air.

"Fall Colors from the Creek Bed" 8" x 10" oil on board check out the Daily Paintworks Auction here

Painting together with a few friends in the dry creek bed of Bull Creek on Friday. The fall colors improve every week. It is perfect weather to paint in Central Texas this time of year. Cool in the morning but warming up to t-shirt weather by about 11 am.

"Distant Barn" 6" x 6" oil on board check out the Daily Paintworks Auction here
When I painted this one, I was simply painting it straight out of my head. There was no reference photo. I had started to paint a horse and failed miserably, so I wiped it out and started over just trying to create a pleasing scene from memories of driving through the US. This is what came out.

New Paintings and News

As my friend Susan S. mentioned yesterday I have been rather remiss in keeping up with my blog. So let me  catch you all up on my news and what I've been painting lately. 

The Round Rock Art Space Show closed last weekend and I was very pleased to find that 3 of my "wet" paintings sold in the silent auction. 

Today I painted with Plein Air Austin at Westlake Beach before their annual picnic. It was mostly dark and cloudy with a little intermittent rain - something we need so badly that no one complained at all. The trees were resplendent in their fall colors and the grounds were just lovely. This is my painting from this afternoon.

"Westlake Beach Marina" 8" x 8" oil on board $45.00

On Friday I painted with a few friends from Laurel Daniel's class at Bull Creek.

"Dry Creek" 8" x 8" oil on board $45.00 (or bid in the DPW Auction)

On Wednesday I tried the Daily Paintworks Challenge "Paint Your Pumpkin" using the example they offered and adding my cat Coco.

"Leave it alone, Coco" 6" x 6" oil on board $35.00

On October 29th I painted with a group of Plein Air Austin painters in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Austin. I chose to paint the Avenue B Grocery. It's a wonderful old store that is in the middle of a residential block. It's been in constant operation as a grocery store for over 102 years and has been in the current owner's family the entire time. They serve the best sandwiches in town and are very reasonably priced. We sat outside at the picnic benches and had lunch there after we finished our paintings.

"Avenue B Grocery" 10" x 8" oil on board $50.00 (or bid in the DPW Auction)

October 28th I tried the Daily Paintworks 10 minute paintings challenge. The objective was to paint a simple still life multiple times with a strict 10 minute per painting time limit. I used one board and divided it into four parts. I then painted my pear from various angles using a kitchen timer to measure my time. By the third one I found I could finish in less than 10 minutes.

"10 Minute Challenges" 6" x 6" oil on board $25.00

October 27 I painted another cat portrait in pastel. This one is a portrait of my mother's cat, Josephine. This will likely be one of her Christmas presents this year.

"Josephine" 6" x 6" pastel on Wallis paper. Not for Sale.

October 25th another plein air excursion, this time with Plein Air Williamson (county). Oddly all the members who attended were also members of Plein Air Austin. We met to paint at the Hill Country Water Gardens nursery. It was a beautiful day and the lilies were stunning. I couldn't resist trying the main lily pond again. This time I tried to capture the Koi in the pond as well as the lilies.

"Koi Pond" 8" x 8" oil on board $45.00

On October 20th I met Plein Air Austin friends for an impromptu paint out at Barton Springs Pool. Unfortunately, the pool was closed for it's weekly cleaning (it's always closed on Thursdays, but we didn't realize that until we arrived to paint). Faced with that problem we did what all good plein air painters do, we improvised. We walked down to the spillway below the pool and painted there instead.

"Hints of Fall" 8" x 8" oil on board $45.00

October 19th found me attempting another Daily Paintworks Challenge painting. This one was extra challenging for me as portraits, particularly children, are very difficult for me. The challenge was to create a simplified painting out of a very complex photo. I decided to focus in on just the head of the little girl rather than the entire scene.

"Cute Challenge" 6" x 6" oil on board $25.00 (or bid in the DPW Auction)

October 18 found me scrambling for a subject. I painted several that I wiped off in frustration. Finally late at night I got this one finished and posted. In fact I was so late I missed that day's paintings and it posted for the following day - I couldn't believe it was past midnight already.

"Barely Hanging On" 5" x 7" oil on board $35.00 (or bid in the DPW auction)

October 16 was a small landscape from a photo taken on our last Colorado camping trip.

"Highland Meadow" 6" x 6" oil on board $35 (or bid in the DPW Auction)

October 15 and I painted a close up of a Poppy I took when staying with my in-laws in Evergreen Colorado also from our last trip there in July. This painting sold at the Jonestown Street Festival where I shared a booth with my jewelry making friend Denise Donnelly.

"Sunny Poppy" 7" x 5" oil on board SOLD!

Daily Paintings

This week's daily paintings include:

Sunflower 2, 6x6, oil on board, available here

Composition Challenge, oil on board, available here

An Apple A  Day, 6x6, oil on board, available here

Harvest Trio, 8x8, oil on board, available here

The composition challenge was done from part of a very complex photograph which was posted on Daily Paintworks as the weekly challenge. The objective was to choose part of the photo and create a pleasing composition from it. The Apple A Day painting came from me playing around with the paint. I bought some Yellow Oxide, a color I had not tried before, based on information in Qiang Huang's blog. He mentioned what lovely transparent grays a mixture of yellow oxide and ultramarine blue would make. The Harvest Trio painting came from my finding one of my dwarf pomegranates knocked off my new dwarf pomegranate bush. I hated to waste it but it wasn't ripe enough to eat so what else but paint it. The acorn squash and apple were from my kitchen and will soon be eaten.

Cat Project Done!

As I've mentioned before I began a project of painting three cats in pastel as a gift for a former manager and good friend of mine who recently retired from the newspaper we both worked at for many years. I had wracked my brain for a good idea for a retirement gift and realized that perhaps the best one I could give would be a piece of art, but I wanted to give something very personal that I hoped she would love. Having done a successful portrait of my cat for the Central Texas Pastel Society Annual Show, and knowing her love of cats, I decided a cat portrait would be ideal. She has three beautiful cats and after playing with several options I realized a single painting with all 3 cats would be very problematic. So I decided to do three individual small portraits. I posted the first one about a month ago and was pleased with it's resemblance to the photo I was working from. I've since completed the other two. One looks a little off kilter, but it's his ear that is unusual and not an error on the part of the artist. It occurs to me that perhaps pet portraits could be a profitable revenue source for me although I've only done cats so far. Both my mother and brother have asked me to paint their cats after seeing the work I'd done on my cat and Karen's cats, so I guess there are people who would like pet portraits. 

Mmm... something to think about. Anyway this project is done. All I need do is frame them and deliver them. I'm still trying to decide if there's a way to frame them under Museum Glass without it costing a fortune. These are small paintings and I plan to put them in 6x6 frames with only a spacer between them and the glass. Anyone know of a cheap source of 6" x 6" Museum Glass? Perhaps scrap from a frame shop. I'll have to check around.

Harriett, 6x6, pastel on Wallis paper glued to masonite

Eddie, 6x6, pastel on Wallis paper glued to masonite

Grace, 6x6, pastel on Wallis paper glued to masonite

Round Rock Chalk Walk 2011

Time flies so fast when you're having fun. It seems like only yesterday when I last posted my daily paintings but that is not so. A week has passed and I have a whole stack of paintings to add. I participated in the paint out associated with the Round Rock Chalk Walk Art Festival last weekend. For two solid days I painted in downtown Round Rock while the chalk artists painted on the street. Friday was fairly slow as the event was just getting underway. Only a few chalk artists came to start their work and none of the vendors were set up yet. Saturday was a whirlwind of artists, vendors, tourists, kids, dogs and entertainers. It was cloudy and gray much of both days, and the weather finally brought us a good downpour of rain, fortunately just after the judges completed their judging of the chalk art on the street. It was a wonderful event. As we finished each painting there was a "wet" area for us to display our work inside the Art Space Gallery. Our wet paintings were put up for silent auction and I was excited to get the first bid. The art was also judged when the chalk art was judged and first, second and third prizes were awarded. My friends Liz Zornes, Beryl Kerwick and Susan Anderson (in that order) won. I managed to put 5 small paintings into the "wet" painting show to complement the 5 framed pieces already in the ongoing plein air show in the same gallery.

RR Chalk Walk 1, 6x6, oil on board, silent auction at Round Rock Art Space Gallery

RR Chalk Walk 2, 6x6, oil on board, silent auction at Round Rock Art Space Gallery

RR Chalk Walk 3, 6x6, oil on board, silent auction at Round Rock Art Space Gallery

RR Chalk Walk 4, 6x6, oil on board, silent auction at Round Rock Art Space Gallery

RR Chalk Walk 5, 6x6, oil on board, silent auction at Round Rock Art Space Gallery

Today I attempted a self portrait. It was just as successful as all my previous self portraits so after several hours of work, I threw in the towel and I wiped off the board so as not to waste it. Oh well, some day I feel sure I will manage one I can live with until then I'll keep trying.

Most recent daily paintings include:

"Wild Spring" A very typical Texas spring time scene with bluebonnets in the fields and the cacti (at least I think it's a type of cactus or agave) blooming. I took this photo near Marble Falls several years ago while on a trip to see the art collection of Mr. & Mrs. Jerry Owens. They were gracious enough to invite our pastel society to come for a private tour of the home they built in Horseshoe Bay to accommodate their incredible collection of art. They also owned the Riverbend Art Gallery in Marble Falls which we toured later that same day. 6"x 6" oil on board. Bid on this painting here

"Wish You Were Here" We helped out with the Mamma Jamma Ride against breast cancer on Saturday. The ride started and ended at the Reunion Ranch. They had a beautiful little beach set up by a small pond. The beach had very bright colorful umbrellas and adirondack chairs. I loved the yellow chairs and the red umbrella, but wanted to see them on a real beach with an ocean in the background rather than dried out Texas countryside, so I moved them to an imaginary beach. 6"x6" oil on board. Bid on this painting here

"Post Rush Hour" This was from a photo I took through the windshield at 5th and Lamar near Whole Foods in Austin. The sun was setting in the West and we were heading south. I can't remember why but the number of cars on the road tells me it was definitely after rush hour. 6"x 6" oil on board $35.00 click here to buy

"Fist City" this one was a real departure for me. I did it to meet the "Hand" challenge on Daily Paintworks. I did find it very challenging. Looking through the other challenge paintings I was very discouraged by seeing one painting that the artist did with her non-dominant hand. I had enough trouble doing it with my dominant hand - I can't imagine trying it with my left hand. 6" x6" oil on board. $25.00 click here to buy

"Sunflower" I did this one because I bought my mother a bunch of sunflowers and other flowers to celebrate her 65th anniversary and what would have been my dad's 103rd birthday (smart man, he married on his birthday so he'd never be caught forgetting an anniversary). The bouquet decorated the table for lunch. After lunch my 90 year old mother said flowers were too much trouble to care for and she didn't want them. I reminded her they were cut flowers and all she needed to do was throw them away when they got old. She didn't care, she refused to take them home with her. So I got a beautiful bouquet for me - even though that was never my intention. My feelings were bruised a bit, but I like the flowers and would never have bought them for myself. 6" x 6" oil on board click here to bid.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

This week I got paintings delivered to three group art shows I will be participating in with one more to come. I have two paintings at the Northwest Hills Gallery (7050 E. Village Center Drive, Austin) show now through October 28, five paintings in the Round Rock Artspace Plein Air show (231 E. Main St., Round Rock) through October 22,  three in the Georgetown Hospital Gallery of Healing (2000 Scenic Drive, Georgetown) through October 22 and will have three paintings at the Corridor of Art (700 Lavaca, Austin) through November 20. Lots of shows, and lots of schedules to get straight. Each show has an entry deadline, delivery deadline, most have artist receptions, and then of course pick up deadlines for those pieces that don't sell. It's worth it though to get the art out and seen.

This week's daily paintings include a black and white value study done to meet the value study challenge at Daily Paintworks. com.

Value Study Lily 6"x6" oil on board $25.00

Peaceful Farm 6"x6" oil on board up for auction on DailyPaintworks.com

Nightfall in the Forest  6" x 6" oil on board $35.00

Sheltering Trees  6"x 6"  oil on board $35.00