Roosters ~ Sister Chicks ~ Iron Horse Inn ~ Granbury, TX

Rooster #1 (there's more on the way)
9" x 11" Watercolor on 140 lb. paper

Six "sister chicks" of Canvas by Canvas have been on a weekend painting retreat at the Iron Horse Inn in Granbury. At one of the last paint outs at the Lake House I took lots of good "fowl" pictures and decided this was the time to experiment. It was a cold, rainy time but Cindy, Karen, Maryann, Barbara, Connie and I did not care what the weather was about once we got unloaded and set up in Theresa's and Paul's Artistic retreat studio. Theresa is Irish and it was fun to hear the owners talk about their travels and Theresa is also a fellow blogger. We enjoyed wonderful breakfasts and met a young couple, Dr. Jason Moore and his wife, Amanda, who are doctors. See their photo in the slide show below and chickens, and more chickens. We ate at Babe's Chicken on Friday evening and there were chickens in the rafters and we were supposed to be celebrating the two members' (who didn't come) birthdays. But that has never bothered us with a birthday celebration so we had our very own proxy birthday girl, Maryann to do the chicken dance and blow out the candle. We had great food at Babe's and a whole bunch of fun. Betty and Margie sorry you missed your birthday celebrations.

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Not one of my better days with clear beverages and a tooth crown, and a "procedure", a trip to Strawn to eat at Mary's Cafe where she serves chicken fried steaks that hang off large white platters with lots of white gravy, the brick smoke stack at Thurber. I got a note from Fealing Lin saying that she's going to be having a workshop in Dallas soon. I painted with her in a Tuscany workshop with Ted Nuttall. You will enjoy looking at Fealing's and Ted's watercolors on their sites. I needed a new travel brush.

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A blog joke about early bloggers, a joke about big arms and email checking, (I relate to both of them), Myrna mentioned the Precise Pen in a post and I also like that pen for a pen sketch before adding some watercolor and it gives some diluted lines and interesting color. I have the "smaller laptop" bug, and Granbury packing taking some journaling supplies and next post I'll show some slides from the Tony Saladino critique.
Myrna also wrote a nice tribute to artist Al Zerries.

Mouse over for the slide show captions.

Small Acrylic Landscape ~ Art Journal Pages

Small Acrylic Landscape
8" x 8" Ampersand on Gessoboard with 2" deep cradle

The plain birch plywood strips can be used as is but I decided I wanted a light stain on this one. Next time I will make a note to myself to not be in so big a hurry to get to the painting and mask off the area to protect the sides. I got a few drips and splatters but sanded them off. I bought these from a friend and wanted to see if I'd like painting on them. I think they give a nice professional look to a painting.

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What to do when No. 1 son says, "I'm leaving for China Monday?" Play sick or feign a heart attack? All of those options ran through my mind. He was going alone but meeting someone to tour some factories. On Tuesday, that little TUJ inset was a "Thank you Jesus" when he called to say he arrived. Wednesday an eye check and the last one was 2004 and there is a pattern here of not good follow up on my part. I will have cataract surgery on both eyes later, much later. Much needed broom and mop work in prep for a house guest.

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My house guest, Andy, was in for a jewelry workshop. She's the owner of Kickapoo Creek Jewelry and she brought lemons with real leaves from her sister's home. Oh, happy day, we went to DFW to welcome home our Indiana Jones. Monday is time to get away from reality and enjoy TNT's "Saving Grace" about our Oklahoma neighbors. Remember I mentioned a pattern..well here we go again - a teeth cleaning and I got the question "I hope you've been seeing another dentist since your last visit was in 2006." "Well, no. You quit sending me those cards so I quit coming." I did break off a sizeable chunk of a jaw tooth last year but it didn't hurt and I didn't have dental insurance so..and in the p.m. some CBC members hung our show at La Cima.

A slide show about the welcome home at DFW and our CBC paintings hanging at La Cima. Some of the acrylic paintings have a glare as the lighting was not the best and I had to use a flash. Enjoy.

The Best Robe ~ Acrylic Figure ~ The Prodigal Son ~ PCPC Arts Festival

"The Best Robe"
16"x 20" Acrylic with collage on gallery wrapped Canvas

My second entry in the Park Cities Presbyterian Art Festival is based on the prodigal son theme, Luke 15:11-32.
A hungry and penniless young man longs to return to his father. The compassionate father has been waiting for his return and welcomes him back home. The son asks and receives forgiveness for wasting all his money. The father was so happy his beloved son has returned home he asks his servants to bring "The Best Robe" for him, a ring for his hand, and sandals for his feet in preparation for a great feast. Great rejoicing occurs when lost children of God return to Him, our Father, and ask forgiveness. My previous post showed the first entry, The Birds of the Air.
The festival will be April 25-May 3 at 4101 Oak Lawn Avenue, across the street from the church. The top works in each category will be honored with a ribbon. The "Best of Theme" and "Viewers' Choice" winners will each receive a cash award of $1,000. Some of the artists in the metroplex area might consider the show for next year as it is a well run, professional show presenting Biblical themes.

The Birds of the Air ~ Acrylic Figure ~ PCPC Art Festival

"The Birds of the Air"
30" x 40" Acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas

This is the largest I've ever worked and I realize if I do this again, it would help if I had a large stand up easel. I enjoyed working this large and will try this size again.
This is my entry for the Park Cities Presbyterian Church Art Festival. I chose The Sower of Seeds theme from Luke 8:1-15. "The Birds of the Air" are watching a farmer as he goes out to plant his crop on a sunny spring day. Some of the seeds fall on a well traveled path and are trodden down and the waiting birds eat the seed before the seed produces a crop. The seeds are the Word of God that's heard by men but the devil takes the Word from their hearts before they can believe and be saved. The birds in the painting are more generic but are patterned after the raven. The raven is the first bird named in Genesis 8:7 and was considered unclean. I will post my second, and much smaller, entry later in the week.

Small Acrylic Landscape ~ Tuscany ~ Art Journal Page

"Tuscany Rental"
9" x 12" acrylic on canvas board
$54.00
This is the second small landscape I painted in the Maureen Brouillette class last week (see previous post). It is loosely based on a photo taken while in Tuscany several years ago. This small colorful acrylic landscape was fun to paint and the next class will be March 10 and it will be all about still life.

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I have been wanting to take a workshop with Anne Bagby for several years and now I'm gathering up supplies for a 3 day with her at the Artists' Showplace Gallery in March. Her just released dvd, Collage: Paper, Patterns and Glazing came yesterday and it was and is a visual treat. Now to gather up more supplies. Anne has a great section on her site about her journal pages that I know you'd enjoy seeing. Her pages generated the idea seen below.
On Saturday after good Texas barbecue, I watched "Changeling" just in time for the Oscar announcements. This is a pencil sketch of Angelina, then I am finally ready to part with my Snow White Barbie and I gave it to a grand daughter that had enjoyed her also, and a jewelry party on Sunday.
I've been thinking about an email friend that was about to throw down her brushes and give up watercolor. Then I remembered what Bob Burridge said in a workshop, "We all want to paint better. The only way to paint better is to paint a lot of bad paintings."
Check out some of these sites for some new inspiration:
A good book with some paint along exercises: Expressive Color
Free art lesson videos to watch: Jerry's
About.com Watercolor and Acrylic Painting
Now go paint some bad paintings to become a great painter - maybe even an art maestro and to see one at work check out Nicholas Simmons. I agree with his statement about a painting having a lot of interest that melds and has elements of abstraction and realism.

Maureen Brouillette Acrylic Landscape Class ~ Art Journal Page

Landscape Blue
8" x 10" Acrylic landscape small on canvas, 3/4" staple edge
This is one of the paintings I finished in Maureen's Fast and Loose class on Tuesday. The next class will focus on a still life and Maureen said "No flowers. Find something in your kitchen to use in a set up."

Maureen with a canvas board and a canvas drawn off but with circulating the room, I don't think she had time to get back to her second project. Maureen comes over from Dallas to teach these classes at the Upstairs Gallery and the next one will be posted on her web site or on the Gallery's site.

Maureen's beautiful finished acrylic 8"x10" painting.

Maryann, a Canvas by Canvas member, and her acrylic landscape. Nice painting with you, mas and Betty was there but got away before I could snap her photo. Betty is our CBC web mistress and has added two new paintings to our CBC site "Cowtown" and "From A to Z with CBC" and we're sold one of the boot paintings, Circle of Friends.

Emiko and her lovely painting and thanks, Emiko for sending me the photograph of the armadillo. I was complaining I had written a story (true) and I needed to paint an armadillo to go along with it and no photo. I've never painted this curious animal before and I've never seen a photograph of one being held like a baby either. He may end up a very impressionistic painting! To the rest of the class I'll try to get your photo next month.

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Me with a really red face at the Tony Saladino Critique, searching and losing stuff and what about as you age you start developing a 3rd eye called "the search eye" to find lost items, a new restaurant at the Highlands, Boudreaux's, and I'll be back, sooo good, tried out my new Raffine sketch book 5.5 x 8.5 with a practice rooster and with it's 100 lb. paper, I like the way it takes a wash, Maureen's class and I tried out Derwents' Inktense ink pencils, and some acrylic mini landscapes I'll post later and they are very bright and colorful and this small watercolor entry looks more like mud. Watch for them. I think I'll call them miniscapes.

Mel Stabin Watercolor Workshop ~ Student Paintings, part 2

"Steps of San Miguel:Doll Sale"
15" x 11" watercolor

"San Miguel Street"
15" x 11" Watercolor

Sketch with watercolor in preparation for painting. It's fairly apparent I hadn't opened my Carl Dalio DVD on drawing. I cheated by sketching in pencil first and paper got really abused by so many eraser marks trying to work on my perspective. Jan, one of the Artists' Showplace owners, gave me a quick lunch break course in perspective. After sketching the paper was wet front and back before the washes were applied.


"San Miguel Buildings"
15" x 22" Watercolor

These are 3 of some landscape and figure paintings from the Mel Stabin workshop that I painted. At the end of the post there is a slide show of the rest of the class paintings. The class worked hard in this 5 day workshop and many paintings were finished.

Many of these workshops are filled with mostly women but this time we had a "Colorado Boy" and we taught him the art of saying "Bless Your Heart". It seems in the south you can nearly get away with slander if you end the conversation with bless your heart and Max left us by repeating that phrase. Click Here and Here for other thoughts on the subject. The last link made me smile because I hadn't thought of "I swanee" in a long, long time. After all the bless your hearts be sure to ask "and how is your Mother" and all will be forgotten and maybe forgiven.

Some "Mellisms"
1. The worth of the painting does not depend on how much time you spend on it.
2. Indigo and Aureolin make a good dark rich green.
3. Develop good brushwork. Don't use the tip but press down on the brush and use the flat side (round brushes).
4. Have little echoes of color to create unity.
5. Make simple washes with subtle color changes and max of two washes.
6. Use fewer strokes.
7. Exhaggerate the essence of what you are painting.
8. This one is important and he stressed a lot....Make one shape of close values to fuse edges say a garment to a background.

Slide show with Mel demo using his backpack as his support/easel, and placing students' work in mats for the critique and lots of slides of students' work, part 2. See previous post for part 1 and the class dinner at Amore Italian and some of the best food.