Joanna's Poppy Photo and Constable's Paintings

You need to pop over to Joanna's Photobox page and see her beautiful poppy. She took the photo at The Huntington in California where she saw Constable's Great Landscapes. He did six foot painting sketches for his six foot paintings. Amazing. The links to that exhibit are there, go have a look. Wow, to the photos and the paintings. Thanks, Joanna.

Sketch in Pickup, Road Photos to New Mexico

The trip to New Mexico was uneventful. It was rainy and foggy as we left home and drove through the hill country. The bluebonnets are still quite nice, would have been better in the sunshine.


As you drive between Roswell, New Mexico, through Vaughn to Clines Corners, the countryside is so bleak. This abandoned windmill and corrals are in the middle of nowhere.



These cattle have water and the feed is pretty good right now from last year, not green yet, however. Temperatures have not warmed at night. Still near freezing.


Before you get to Vaughn you see the caprock, edge of the plains. Sorry about the power lines. Did you hear the recent report that power lines and wireless phone towers may be affecting the bee population and how important bees are to our life. Spooky.


These two trains were along the way past Vaughn. East meets West, I suppose. The one on the left is stopped waiting for the other to pass. Vaughn still has a large number of trains go through. It is on Highway 60, a very small town that has not changed in many years.


Then about Morairity you see the edge of the back side of the Sandia Mountains. By backside, I mean that Albuquerque is on the West or other side of the mountains.



My sketch is pretty bad. I blame it on the bumps in the car. It is the dashboard and some mesquite and a cow .. of sorts. It was done with the Micron 05 in the generic sketchbook that is about 7 x 9 inches in size.

Exhibit Closes, Raffle winners

We went to Daddy's Grille to take down my exhibit today. We drew the winners of the Raffle. Lori McDaniel of Bastrop Sign Craft won the dinner for two at Daddy's Grille. Richard Downing and Annie Keyrouz each won a painting from a selection of my paintings that had been on exhibit for the past month. You can see the paintings on my web page that they may choose from. Scroll down, they start after the fourth painting. The fourteen paintings that have a black background are available for them to pick from. I will post the selections when the winners decide. You can learn more about the event on my show/exhibit page.

Daddy's Grille will continue to show a selection of my work on one wall. Thank you, Raymond!

The $250 proceeds from the raffle were presented to Charlotte Pietsch of the Family Crisis Center. Gene and I have volunteered at the Crisis Center since 1997. Raymond and I were pleased to help them in this small way. In the picture from left to right, Raymond of Daddy's Grille, Me, and Charlotte.

Longhorns Sweep Texas Tech

On the way to the baseball game today we saw a UT baseball decorated van. Wow. We see many football fans in motor homes and cars with stickers and flags, but this is the first one dedicated to baseball that we have encountered. How about that?




The Horns completed a sweep of the series with Texas Tech. Friday nights game that was suspended and finished yesterday was 7 - 2, Yesterday's game was 10 - 1 and today was 4 - 2. Tech was ahead only once in the three games. Yes! You can read about the games on the official page. Joanna has the more colorful stories on her blog.



After the game today the media surrounded the coach. I guess he is used to being a popular guy.



They allowed the youngsters to run the bases after the game. It is a fun filled event. The little ones run all over the place. One little girl ran to first, second and almost to third then turned toward the pitcher's mound, ran around that and back to third before going on to home plate. She was tiny, about 5 years old, and just kept on running. The older ones pass the younger ones. They all seem to be having a great time. When the run began, Who Let the Dogs Out, was the music being played.