Mia Culpa Joanna

I turned off the TV about 2 a.m. this morning. Then about 4:15 a.m. I woke up wide awake thinking that I forgot something. It was one of the neatest things about my show last Saturday and I did not put it in my post. Who knows why the mind does things like that. I even sorted photos with the fact that Joanna did not want her photo on my blog (we both hate photos), so I avoided the few snaps of her. And.....what was it that I forgot? Well, to say that Joanna came to my show!

That was THE BIGGEST SURPRISE. We moved our cars out of the motel parking as the parade goes right down First Street/Highway 60 and you can't move them after about 9:30 a.m. because of the parade. We had gone to Gene's sister's, Velma's, house to see them, make some food preparations and eat some chili and tortillas. We were sitting there and family members were coming in and out. Some we had seen on Friday and some we had never seen. :) Velma has a large family. Anyway, the door opened, I glanced up and what??? There was Joanna, all the way from Austin, Texas. I couldn't believe it. Roger (Gene's brother that lives in Arizona) said that he wished he had had a camera. My jaw dropped and I was soooooo surprised. I probably didn't mention either that is was so nice for Roger to come, but I knew he was coming. I do not know how my mother's intuition had not picked up on the fact she was coming, right? Oh my....

Gene and Joanna had talked about her ticket when she came out to the house for Father's Day. I did not hear that at all. Then on July first at her birthday celebration, I had asked her when she was coming to New Mexico to visit her Grandmother, saying I hoped she would come while we were here. She said something like she probably would.

So, mia culpa. The blame is mine.... You can find out more about Joanna on her web page. You will enjoy her musings, Longhorn baseball page and beautiful photos.

Love ya' Joanna!

Sketches for Scavenger Hunt #47

We are visiting Gene's mom here in Albuquerque. I had a chance to get the list for the Scavenger Hunt #47 and make a small start. I have a new sketchbook for this summer.

Regina picked it up for me at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Pretty cool! It is about 6 x 8 inches with 200 sheets of nice paper for pen.



So, my sketches for today are number 1, close up of an eye. Gene's eye. I started to do the page of eyes and noses, but we just had the two noses and mine. I was drinking wine so didn't want to go stand in the bathroom to do my nose. Or stand up at all! Number 2 is my hand holding something round. The eye and noses took about 5 - 10 minutes and the hand about 10 minutes. Without erasing I messed up the little finger. I had a very difficult foreshortening problem with that. I could see it better after I finished. Ha.



Number 3, the negative space around a plant. I did the only plant in a pot. It would have been more of a challenge with more leaves up high over the rim. Number 4, bottle top, off a water bottle. Number 5, Rabbits in the yard having a conversation. This is a substitute for a piggy bank, the only one we have is an aluminum beer bottle and Lacey, host, said she wanted piggies. So, I just sketched the cottontails outside under the window. And number 6, something on the fridge, a toothpick holder. About 15 minutes, total. All the sketches were with a Micron 05 pen, burnt umber color.

Not a very exciting start to my new sketchbook, but it is a beginning. I hadn't sketched for a couple of weeks. Hard to believe. Something I shouldn't skip. I will sketch pretty steadily when we get to Silver City next week. That is where I discovered the Scavenger Hunts last year and posted my first sketch on July 22, Hunt #2. I hadn't realized that I only missed the first one. Whew! They have kept me sketching and trying new ideas for sketching.

The Scavenger Hunts have been fun. A different host for each nine days and a list of 26 items to sketch along with some challenges. Each artist has a different style and ideas of what to sketch and why they sketch the way they do. Fun to get to know them and be encouraged in your endeavors. I have to go post my sketches there now.

Later.......

Across the Street, Pastel Plein Air Demo

Sunday, July 8,2007

On Sunday, I painted at Peppers. I did a demo in pastels. I never decide ahead of time what to paint. I was going to set up under one of the tents, but it looked like it might rain again, so I painted on the porch. I looked across the street and painted the empty lot and the trailer, uh, manufactured homes across the way. It was a good day. Very slow visitor wise. A few people showed up to watch me paint. One artist remarked that she really enjoyed the day and learned so much. She said, "Oh, thank you, Jo. This was like a free workshop." That makes it worthwhile.

Our dear friends, Gen and Charlie, came up the hill from Truth or Consequences. We visited and went to dinner with them in Socorro, 27 miles down the hill toward their home. We ate at the Ranchers Steakhouse which was the old Roadrunner. It was very good, we would recommend it. All public businesses in New Mexico are smoke free now. Is that great?

PASTEL DEMO

I put an under painting with pastels and water on Art Spectrum Colourfix pastel card, 9 x 12 inches. I put on some red and blue and then brushed it with water. While it was drying I did a couple of small rough sketches to see if I wanted the houses closer or have the mountains show more. I chose the latter.


I use the harder pastels to start and also to blend some of the edges. I blended with my fingers on the sky. Sometimes I don't blend at all. Pastels are brighter without blending as the crystals of the pigment can shine and reflect more, blending softens the colors. I start landscapes with the sky, blending several different blues. The sky is darker at the top and lighter as you get near the mountains. Then I put in the mountains and work forward. I tried to have warm colors in the shadows and cooler highlights as the sun was pretty high when I started.



I always have red in my trees to compliment the greens, evergreens especially. I let part of the under painting show through. Because of the atmosphere, landscapes are usually cooler and paler in value in the back and get warmer and darker as you come forward in the painting. This gives depth to the painting. The focal point has the lightest lights and darkest darks.



I finished up with some soft pastels and a signature. It took about four hours, but that included breaks to talk to people, have a glass of wine and visit. :)

If you have any questions about a technique or painting, make a comment or drop me a note. To purchase one of my plein air paintings before they are framed, including this one, drop me a line. They are just $100 including shipping charges and taxes (for Texas customers).

Magdalena Old Timers, Saturday, July 7, 2007

The parade was in the morning at 10:00 a.m. There are horses, stagecoach, queens, floats, and assorted cars and groups. Traffic on Highway 60 comes to a stop for a couple of hours. Poor tourists.


Here are the queens. The new queen for this year is Mary Gomez in the sunglasses. She was a classmate of ours in high school. Ouch! Remember this is "Old Timers".

Miss Teen Alamo

Roger (Gene's brother) ran into Earl Gleason, cowboy song writer and singer. He had met him once before. He had the number one cowboy song this year, "Springerville". It is about the cattle drive from Springerville to Magdalena, 117 miles. They drove the cattle on a driveway for many days. The cattle grazed and were sometimes fatter when they got to the railroad and trucks than they were before they started.

Here is a snapshot of the tourists trying to get through after the parade and you can see Roger and Earl Gleason on the left.

Valencia County Sherrif's Posse

Holly, the Basket Artist

The show went on as scheduled, sort of. I had put in my advertising from 12 noon to 4:00 p.m. and Peppers had put from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. so we were there from 12 noon to 5:00 p.m. Not a great crowd and the rains came about 2 p.m. and the outside vendors had to close shop. Not as many visitors to Magdalena as in past years.

Adobe Memories
11 x 14 Acrylics

The painting, Adobe Memories, sold to a very nice collector. Thank you, Lynda! We also sold some of the items from my cafepress.com store. The tiles and tile boxes are just beautiful.

Sun Pears

Pastel, 5 x 7 inches

The door prize of the painting, Sun Pears, was won by Pat Valentine from Socorro. The painting was painted at Peppers as a demo last summer.

This is my corner in Peppers Art Gallery.

The Ladron Mountains

On Friday we took another photo of those interesting mountains. They look different every day. If you put Ladron in the search box above you will find three more photos of these rough peaks and a painting. A favorite subject in my photos.