Exhibit up and ready to go.. Bluebonnets and UT Baseball

Another long day for us. It was nice weather, a little cool. We went to Daddy's Grille at 8:30 a.m. to hang the show. We were done in a couple of hours. My paintings did improve the look of the walls. :) Ahemmm. The show is tomorrow. Yes! 4 - 6 p.m. at Daddy's Grille. Hope to see you there!

I'm posting just three shots, I'm just too tired. We put up 25 paintings and I have the one on the box, but it will just be there during the show.

Here is the north east corner.


Here is the north west corner.

Here is the wall on the north west.



Spring is in the air. Here are some of the bluebonnets peeking through the grass and other "weeds". Growing up we knew milkweed, thistles and such as weeds. We didn't know they were wildflowers. Go figure.



Baseball:
The Longhorns beat the Baylor Bears 3 - 2. It was win number 1600 for coach Augie Garrido. Wow and congratulations. I took photos and have a new pitcher to post but am too tired. You can read about it at Joanna's page and on the official Longhorn page.

Show Stuff

As always, I have so much to do on the last days before a show. Today I put cards on the back of the paintings and packed them to go. I made some slipcovers from bubble wrap and packing paper. They work very well. We started this last year for the show in Magdalena, to have an easy way to pack the paintings in the van for a 700 mile trip. Gene had part of an old swimming pool cover that we used first to make about four large painting covers. It is bubble and large enough that the only seams are on the sides.

I made the raffle ticket box, signs for the raffle and door prize.

Wrote and printed the tags to go on the wall. I wrote a couple of sentences for each painting we shall see how it goes. I printed them on light blue antiqued card stock with red cardstock on the back. Here is one, easier than explaining, don't you know. This goes with one of the paintings in the blog from yesterday.
Tomorrow we will go hang the paintings at 8:30 a.m. so I had better get off the computer. :)
Later.....

Yard Art, Acrylic Paintings and Texas Pasture, Pastel Painting

**Baseball Note added below 3/15/2007
Such a busy day. More rain and a baseball game. I'm almost ready for my show. I sealed/varnished the Yard Art paintings today. They are small acrylic paintings on wrapped canvas, 6 x 6 inches each. This is a snapshot just to show them, I will post a photo of each painting. This is art from my yard .. pine cones and oak leaves. :)




This painting is Texas Pasture, a 5 x 7 pastel. It is framed in a jewelry or knick-knack box. Looks nice. Something different at least for my show.

I ordered a few things from my cafepress store and have a few prints on hand as well. I don't usually do prints, but have a few photo prints just in case someone wants a recuerdo or souvenir. I will have a door prize. Probably a tote bag from cafepress. We shall see.


I will try to post tomorrow night (well tonight, it is after midnight) with more info about my show and getting ready.

Note about the baseball game, Longhorns beat Winthrop from North Carolina , 7 - 1. Read about it here.

**Note about the baseball game, too. Joanna is back and posting again, you can read here. I forgot to mention that Nick Peoples made a spectacular catch. A high fly way out in center field. Nick had his eye on it and was running forward some distance and slipped and fell to his knees, he kept his eye on the ball, got up and caught it. Wow! Jordan Danks made a great running catch over his shoulder almost to the fence. Great playing yesterday. The next win will give coach Augie Garrido win number 1600. Another wow!

Maggie's at it Again .. Food and Art--Rain and Plein Air

This is a pastel plein air painting that I did on location near the Gila Cliff Dwellings in New Mexico last summer. My art buddy, Sue, and I went to the Dwellings and sketched and painted. This is near the trail to the cliffs. It was a beautiful day. The rocks are so amazing and huge. This is framed for my show, now. The color is off, but the only photo I have. The red is not so predominant.

I have posted before about Maggie Stiefvater. She is one of those extremely organized persons, well not so much organized as orderly in her work ethics. She is married to a policeman, 2 toddlers, 2 cats and 2 dogs, I think. She is a full time equestrian artist who paints all kinds of things. She is a novelist and a harpist. She does her daily art blog, a web page, is in several galleries, has and e-Bay store, does research and gives workshops and much more. She runs on chocolate chip cookies that are amazing, she gave us the recipe recently. Now she has started a recipe blog, the Deadly Spatula.

I procrastinate so much that I am in awe of her. She wrote a blog about how she does so much. You may be interested in reading this. Her blog is witty and knowledgeable, a smile for me at the end of the day. Check it out.

It rained all day and last evening and night. We need it and it has been lovely. Not cold and steady here. It has caused flooding in areas not too far away, though. Problems for many including a couple of drownings. The automated weather here says in the computer voice, "Don't drown, turn around. The life you save may be your own." People just don't understand that it just takes a foot or so of water, depending on the force to push your car off the road. Very dangerous flash floods, especially hard to see at night.

Anyway, Gene framed paintings all day for my show. Sounds so simple, well. I'm doing small paintings, 11 x 14 inches and under. Two of the gallery style frames I bought at Jerry's Artarama didn't fit. They say, "Gallery Frame, 9 x 12 inches. As most of you know , a frame that is 9 x 12 inches usually has an opening of 8.5 by 11.5 or some such so you have a lip over the actual 9 x 12 painting. Well, these frames have a 9 x 12 inch opening. So my 9 x 12 inch glass and painting just go right through. The only way to use them would be to have a mat about 9.5 x 11.5 or slightly larger. Geez, did I miss a bulletin to all artists that we are changing standard frames? So we had to use different frames. Other small problems as well. He finished around 7 p.m.

I painted on a 5 x 7 painting for another box. This one is a jewelry box with a place for a photo. I almost painted on a 5 x 7 piece of Pastelbord, but after the frame fiasco, I measured and sure enough the opening is 5 x 7 so had to cut the paper larger. So in that respect, it was good the frames were wrong. Ha. These must be made in China or some such. I got the box at Hobby Lobby. Weird...... I have been painting in standard sizes for a few years to save on framing costs. Now I will have to buy the frame first and cut the paper to fit the frame. Arghhh. I forgot to take a photo of Gene, the framer, and it was too cloudy to take a photo of the new acrylics and this new pastel. Hopefully tomorrow. If it quits raining, we may golf with Larry tomorrow and take a break from this show stuff. Tonight I am printing the brochure and working on the painting tags.

Friday Art, Demo Richard McKinley, Austin Pastel Society

As promised in my baseball post, a brief summary of the Richard McKinley demo at the Austin Pastel Society meeting. He is very knowledgeable and has a gift of gab. Entertaining. I really like his landscapes and style. It is always so good to go to a workshop or demo. You reinforce the techniques and "rules" of painting that you already know. You get new ideas and are encouraged to keep plugging away. Richard encourages you to take from his workshop what you like and apply to your painting. He doesn't stress to do things his way, but to try it out.

Richard works on Wallis paper mounted on 100% rag museum board. For his demo he worked from a plein air oil he had painted along with his value sketches. He does a value sketch with a regular pencil on the side, not a drawing. Usually he uses about 3 - 5 values. Then he uses very thick watercolor in bright colors to do the under painting. He then paints with the side of the pastel using very light side to side motion. He considers every stroke, steps back and looks. He worked over 2 1/2 hours and did not finish the demo painting, but brought the focal area near finish so we could see some of the final touches. With the under painting so complete, it almost looked finished.

Richard discourages cropping as it changes the eye level and center of your vision. He says you always see and paint from the center.

He stresses value, color intensity, temperature and to soften edges for aerial perspective. Artists should sharpen the edges in the focal area and have the darkest dark and lightest light in that area. He encourages his students to give themselves permission to try new ideas, color, etc. I think this is something we all need to push our paintings to the next level.

We shall see how it goes and see if I remember and use the information. I always have a good plan and know the routine of sketches, value, color, etc., then sometimes wander off on another path. Practice, practice, practice...

Have I been sketching? No. I have been working on my show next Saturday. Wow, too close for comfort. I still have the tags and brochures to do. I hope to write a sentence or two on each painting tag. I've never tried that.

Gene framed three paintings today. What would I do without his help? Thank you, Gene!

Hope to post tomorrow night ....

Oops, I almost forgot. I painted two small 6 x 6 acrylic paintings today on wrapped canvases - no frame necessary. One is pine cones and one is oak leaves, my yard art! I will take photos tomorrow and hope to post them. (I also washed clothes and Gene cleaned some of the mess in the yard from the rain and hail last night. You probably didn't want to know that. Too much information. Hooray for the 3+ inches of rain!)

UT Baseball University of Miami, Ohio Series

I have been very lax in posting, wow. This series started on Friday, March 9. I missed the first game, I went to the Austin Pastel Society Demo with Richard McKinley (very good - another post). At any rate, the Horns lost 6-2 probably because Joanna and I weren't there. For those of you that don't know, baseball players and fans are very superstitious. I did have on my lucky earrings with a cow head in turquoise and silver. :) The Saturday game was swell as Adrian Alaniz pitched a shut out 10-0. Sunday, the game was called for rain in the bottom of the fifth inning. Horns won 10-4. The weather report said light showers on Saturday evening. It really came down -- in the afternoon. Can't believe they were wrong. As always you can read all about this on the official Longhorn page. They have great photos of the players.

Here is the rain coming in the shortened roof during the remodeling. There is also an unhappy Miami fan. :(



Here is the rain water running down in the row behind us.



The wet, wet, field. No time to roll out the big tarp over the infield.



A die hard fan, just didn't want to quit ... or let his seat get wet!



Here is the scoreboard about the time the game was called. Glad the Horns won, though.