Trees, trees and more trees....

Maggie Stiefvater is working on trees this month. How nice is that for me? I hope to work along with her. See how it goes.

My bane is trees as I told her. At least I can't get those cottonwoods. I feel pretty good about my pines and oaks. :)

So I think I will play along for awhile and see what happens. We are traveling this weekend to Albuquerque. There are many cottonwoods by the Rio Grande, so maybe, maybe I can sketch in person. Or at least get some new photos. On the computer at home, I must have fifty photos of them. That is the way it goes.

I looked for cottonwood paintings last night on Google. One that kept coming up was a painting or two of Georgia O'Keefe's. Those are a big help. I think they look like chamise bushes. :) My research is not good so far. My book on sketching trees and other things is at home. I don't even remember what it is called. Will make a trip to the library when we get back. Maybe they have some art books. It is a small town.


At any rate, I went out in the yard today and sketched the mimosa tree that is there. It says on-line that they grow to 25 or 30 feet tall and have a short life as trees go. This one must be in its senior years. I sketched it fairly close, some leaves and flowers, and then a further away sketch. The tree is interesting, it has bumps where the small branches start and they appear to be on the "up" side of the limbs only. Feathery flowers in pink, yellow close to the stem.

Now to try it in color. That will have to wait until next week. Check back and we will see where we are at, then. The flowers may be gone, but we can fudge that. :)



You may remember that I painted some roses with acrylics the other day and didn't post them. So I sketched the roses today to have a better look at them. This will probably help the painting when I get back to it. All these sketches today are with the Micron 05 burnt umber pen in the NY Sketchbook.

Now I need to go see what Maggie is doing........

Scavenger Hunt 50, Sketch #1

Scavenger Hunt # 50 started yesterday. Here is my #1, something just outside the back door, Micron 05 burnt umber pen in the NY sketchbook. 15 minutes. The circuit breaker box and meter, watering can, buckets and a towel over the bucket. Pretty sight! Ha.

My sketching is getting better I think. I am getting faster and a bit more accurate. My style doesn't change. I would like to do very even hatches and some dots like pointillism, but that would mean more time and as you know, I am not patient. I want it done yesterday. It is more important to me that I am getting an image that I can live with. I do not erase and usually my sketches are the first try. Rarely to I scrap it and start over.

It is interesting to me because I am not impatient in other things. I can just sit and look at the sky or birds or whatever and I don't get antsy, but with art I want instant gratification. Maybe that is why I like ink and pastels as opposed to colored pencil or watercolor. You have to do many layers and in the case of watercolor, wait for it to dry.

I pointed you to Linda Blondheim Art Notes the other day. Today's recipe is for a tuna dip and she uses toasted bagel bits instead of chips or crackers. It sounds great. I would use regular tuna, not smoked, but still makes me hungry ... and of course the rice and nut crackers for me. For any gluten free person out there check out Nut-Thins made by Blue Diamond. They are excellent. You can find them at main grocery chains now. I see on-line that they have several new flavors. Yummmm.

One more blog tonight, sketches

I could not leave Scavenger Hunt #49 at item number 13. I'm not superstitious, but, who knows?

So here is #14, a calendar. This is my iCal on the iBook computer. Nothing scheduled today as you see. My regular old Pilot ball point pen in the NY Sketchbook. About 10 minutes.

#15, something lime green. This little plastic jug of concentrated lime juice is green. What is lime green anyway, the outside or the inside? The outside is pretty dark. This plastic is almost pine green. The only light green, that I consider lime green, was on the label in the cut piece of lime. So you decide. This is with a green Micron 005 pen and colored pencils. About 10 15 minutes with the coloring part.

My last entries for Scavenger Hunt 49. Jeanne Grant is hosting Hunt #50 so it has some quirks. Come sketch with us.

New Southwest Forum on WetCanvas

Plein Air Yuccas in New Mexico
9 x 12 inches on canvas board

I must post again, there is a new forum on wetcanvas.com for Southwest art. Any medium is acceptable. I posted my plein air yuccas from Silver City, so there would be something there. Ha. They were previously posted in the Plein Air Forum. Joining the site is free and I have met so many artists there. A great support group of a hundred thousand or so. :) At least that was how many were on line when I just checked, so must be many more. A forum for every interest in visual arts (painting, sculpting, photography, watercolor, landscapes, etc.), even debate forums.

This new Southwest forum will be an additional spot in my web browsing and posting. I regularly visit the Scavenger Hunts, the Soft Pastel forum and the Plein Air forum. Once you figure out how to use the wetcanvas site you can be browsing there indefinitely. :)

Cottonwoods Change

I was not pleased with the foreground and left side of the cottonwoods painting (and the trees). I decided to work on it here on the deck as an exercise in another cottonwood. I need to go sit under some and sketch right there, close up and personal to get the feel. I love them, especially around an old adobe building.

Here is the change. Greying down the dark shadows on the cottonwoods helped some. Not one of my better efforts, but I learned that I need more practice and study. That is a permanent affliction. I see improvements in every painting, but I see that practice, practice, practice is the real answer to developing as an artist. So, here I go, off to practice .... something.

Later .....

Scavenger Hunt 49 Sketches

I have been working on a few sketches for Scavenger Hunt 49, which will be over tomorrow. I doubt that I ever get the 29 items done in 9 days. I will try to sketch most days at least. The sketches I am posting today are in my NY sketchbook with the Micron 05 pen in burnt umber.

#9, a stack of something. These are some travel books and an atlas here in the house on a shelf. About 10 minutes. #10, favorite space. We are in a rented house in Silver City, so no favorite space. I chose to sketch my art bag that goes with me everywhere. About 15 minutes. (I had typed "minuets" .. a little different, huh?)



#11, trellis and #12, textured wall. This view of a plastered adobe wall and trellis is off the back deck. About 30 minutes. The yard and deck are very small, but it is nice out there and will probably be my favorite space in this house.



One of the items on the list was tire treads. No one had sketched this item, so I went out to take a look at the tires on the van. Simple, repetitive designs, should be easy. Well, I began to sketch and the designs, although repetitive were very complex and as I was looking back and forth to sketch them, I was just lost. So I went to the pickup and they looked more even, but they were still very complex designs. So, who knew? I only spent about 5 minutes at this .. not my idea of fun. It was a great challenge, though. :) Next time, I will have to pull up a chair and take a better look. The larger sketch is from the van and the small one is from the pickup.

A Smile for Joanna

This isn't very art, baseball or golf related, but I thought Joanna would smile (she needs one today) and I forgot to point it out to her in Magdalena the weekend of my show.

You all have seen the cherub boy statues like this one, I am sure.




Well, when we checked in to the High Country Lodge in Magdalena I got out of the pickup and walked around for a minute and this is what I saw. Well, you can bet I did a double take.






So I walked to the other side to get a better look and this was what I saw. I was relieved to see a beautiful fountain, because after all we were in my little home town of very conservative country folk. :)

Oh, them bones, them bones.... them dry

I just had a smile. Sort of a sympathetic smile. With my knee and the re-injuring of it on my mind, I wandered around reading some of my regular blogs. Anna Sellers, Anna Sellers Art and Thoughts, in Indiana has a bum knee and has been sitting down to paint. And, on her blog tonight she says she missed a stair and sprained her ankle. So she has upped her recuperating time as well. Then, Jeanne Grant in Bakersfield has a bum knee as well. Unfortunately, I think hers is the most serious, and I hope she recovers quickly The point is, I think there is something in the air. So watch out if you read my blog and are an artist, you might just catch this "illness" that seems to be going around.

Here are a couple of roses from the garden for these blogging buddies.....

Can't Leave out my Mom ...

Well, a short story (I promise) about my mother, Alice. I just can't only talk about my Dad. She was one of nine girls that were raised on a homestead ranch north of Magdalena, New Mexico. My grandmother was a mail order bride, sort of. My grandfather met her in Kansas and then sent for her. She came by train and stagecoach to Socorro, Ne Mexico. (Another story here.) They homesteaded at Tres Hermanos and raised nine girls. I don't have the ages in front of me, but my Mom was born in 1905 and was next to the youngest. Grandfather started a trading post and established Field, New Mexico. (You can see a photo of my grandfather there.)

The girls were the ranch hands and did all the work that men usually do. Can you imagine what my grandfather went through? Wow. When my mom was pretty young my grandfather was remarking about all the clothes he had to buy and all the washing my grandmother had to do. He said something like, "We should just paint their bottoms blue and turn them out to pasture!" One of the girls a little older than my Mom took him seriously and proceeded to paint the sisters, I think four of them, blue from the waist down. In those days, paint was lead based. All my grandmother had to clean them up with was gasoline. They were a pretty sick bunch of girls, but all survived.

They lived in Santa Fe for a while as my grandfather was State Land Commissioner. Two of the older girls talked the chauffeur into letting them drive the government car. They took my mother along to keep her quiet. They ran the car into a ditch and had to come clean to my grandfather. He was very displeased and they were all punished.

My mother was very even tempered. I never saw her angry with anyone. She worked as a bookkeeper at the general store in Magdalena for years and everyone respected her. She handled all the problems, too. I guess she was the "complaint" department. She really liked living at the ranch and being outside with my Dad. She was not a good housekeeper, why bother? She kept her treasures in cigar boxes.

By Alice on the cover of notebook paper. The black is the design on the paper.

She drew pictures on calendars, note book paper, envelopes and scratch paper of all kinds. I don't think she had the opportunity to try her hand at painting. She thought everything we kids did was wonderful. She never yelled or talked back to my father and he was pretty ornery. She loved music and could play the piano by ear. They had a player piano at the ranch and I guess she learned from watching it play and touching the keys. She sang at the dances in Magdalena. My brother, Tommy, would leave when she started to sing. She would write to the main radio station in Albuquerque and tell them the cows didn't like Frank Sinatra and some of the other things they played. She drew pictures of the cows with their hooves over their ears. Every song was her favorite song. She played the ukulele, too.

Mom was always dressing up like someone else when she was young. She loved playing jokes and laughing. (More stories.) When I was in school, she always took part in the talent nights and helped organize them. Once my Mom and some other women acted out the poem, The Creation of Sam Magee. I thought it was such a creepy story at the time.


She loved baseball, especially the Dodgers. She listened faithfully. My Dad rooted for the Cardinals so they could bet and have fun with each other. They could hear the Dodgers and the Cardinals on the radio at night. The basketball teams they followed were the Lakers and the St. Louis Hawks, again because that is what they could hear. But baseball was her favorite. I went to work for Continental Airlines and I asked her where in the world she would like to go? "To Los Angeles, to see the Dodgers!" So we did.

She loved to take photos of rainbows, cows and sunsets and sunrises, so I guess that is where Joanna gets her love for the same and baseball, too. Check out Joanna's gardenia photo. Just beautiful. Check out her other photos, you will find some sunsets!

And so the saga continues........

Plein Air Cottonwoods Along the Gila

We made it out yesterday to Cliff. What a beautiful day.

About 5 miles out you come to the continental divide. Here in Silver City we are on the Atlantic side and water from here makes its way to the Rio Grande. At Cliff we were on the Pacific side. The Gila goes into the Salt River and south of Phoenix to the Colorado.


The sky was sunny and the views are great. This is about 10 miles out of Cliff.


I set up under some elm trees. My knee was doing OK, but I put my pastels on the tailgate and sat there to paint. Robert Genn said in one of his newsletters the other day, that you paint better when comfortable. :)



This was the view so I just started painting.


I did a watercolor under painting. I remembered a brush. :) I put blue on the sky so I wouldn't have to spend time on the sky to fill in holes in the pastel and finish that part quickly.

I filled in the sky and worked on the far hills and trees. I wanted to show the mountains, even though the trees covered them from my particular seat. I wanted the red fence to be there also. It was hidden by the close trees.



This is the end, I wish I had not put the big foreground trees in after I looked it over when we got back to the house. I may change that. If I do, I will post the change.

Artist hint: Before I go to do plein air with pastels, I put the pastel card or paper on foam core with tape. I make a folder with another piece of foam core and tape one side if the two together. I clip it closed. To paint, I just fold back the top piece of foam core, and paint. When finished, I just fold it closed and clip it. It keeps the pastel from smudging and is easy to transport. I can stick it in my bag ... or hand it to someone that buys it while I'm painting. :) I picked up this hint from Steve Napper at a demo at the Austin Pastel Society. In this case, you can see I had to clip the foam core folder to a piece of masonite to fit on the easel. You can easily store paintings this way. You can put more than one in a folder with a piece of glassine between each of them.

The easel cast a shadow so I took another photo inside this morning.

Pastel Plein Air

Cottonwoods along the Gila
9 x 12 inches, on Colourfix Pastelcard, white

Gene rode his bike. He rode about 35 miles. He got to my stopping spot just as I put the pastels away. Great timing. I worked on the painting for about 1 1/2 hours. On the way back we detoured by the Tyrone mines, the sky was beautiful and a grader was at work on the skyline.


We also saw a couple of young mule deer bucks.


As we came back into Silver City, the clouds were building and the rain was starting.

All in all a good day. We ate at a new Chinese restaurant, the China Gate. They had wine and a good menu. They were helpful with my gluten free eating and the food was great. (I forgot to add my fortune. It fits right in with my normal style of procrastinating. "Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired." That is my habit for sure!)

When we got back to the house I guess my knee was feeling so good I forgot to take care and when I stepped from the pickup to the curb I really pulled the same spot again. Luckily we had stopped for some Traumeel cream. We have had very good results with this medicine. I put that on and ice and went to bed early. I had an uncomfortable night, but today it is on the mend again and Gene got me a cane to keep the weight off when I walk. See how it goes by tomorrow. No golf for awhile. :(