Bike Riding in the Pines, Photos

Today was Pedal Through the Pines, a bike ride to benefit the Family Crisis Center. We help with this event every year. The staff at the Center work hard on this project. It takes a great deal of planning and work. On Friday, I helped a little by helping with food and packaging. Gene helped with the signs and getting the routes ready.

Today we went about 6 a.m. to help again. I help check in the riders and Gene is a SAG car driver. Today was a great day. Warm and cloudy. Perfect for the ride. There were about 1200 riders, about 400 more than last year I think. If you like to bike and want to support a great agency, check it out for next year. It is the first Saturday of March every year. Pre register on line and come to Bastrop for a great day.

Early in the morning with a few riders at the start.

Not many people there yet.

Riders between Bastrop State Park and Buescher Park

Pears in Bloom, Acrylic painting, Baseball note

I have been trying to adapt to acrylics. They seem to have some great qualities:

• dry quickly
• frame like oil with no glass
• bright colors
• clean up with water, no fumes
• use like watercolor for washes, wash over when dry without affecting the previous layer
• use in a style like oil, opaque
• you can paint over anything you don't like
• finish can be dull or shiny like oil

I still have a problem with them. I paint so brightly then when it dries, the painting is much darker. Regular acrylic artists advised me to use less water and use acrylic medium to thin the colors. I tried this. I'm having to paint several layers to brighten/lighten the painting. This is not good for me as I tend to loose the fresh look. Many strokes give an overworked look to a piece.

I keep working at it. I like the finished paintings. I suppose it is just something that I will get accustomed to. I truly haven't painted many acrylic paintings.

Pears in Bloom
Acrylic on board, 9 x 12 inches

Other art news, I met Regina Burchett in Austin on Thursday afternoon. We visited the Davis Gallery, had dinner at Houston's, and went to the Austin Pastel Society meeting. The gallery was interesting and helpful, the dinner was great and the meeting program by Jeri Salter was about plein air at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. A great day off from baseball and being with Regina energizes me for art. After working on art, usually on your own, it is good to be with other artists and especially good friends.



Baseball note:

Score from game Wednesday, February 27. A much better day for the fans. Comfortable in the stands and Texas won. The game ended unexpectedly, for the fans, after seven innings. The teams had agreed to end because of some time restraint on the visiting team. They didn't announce the decision so we were a little surprised when the teams walked out and started shaking hands.

Friday, February 29, the Horns were in Houston for the Houston College Classic at Minutemaid Park. The Horns lost to Tennessee, 5-4, in their first meeting ever. UT vs UT. Read about these games on Joanna's Hook-em page with a blow by blow description and on the official Longhorn page. I signed (paid money) us up for the Houston College Classic to be shown on the MLB.tv site and watched the Houston-Texas Tech game and the Longhorns and Tennessee Volunteers on Friday. Very nice reception and picture. We hooked Gene's laptop to the TV to have a large picture. However, today the site is not responding and I am irritated. The Longhorns play Rice tonight and it will be on TV, but I would have liked to watch the other two games and see the games tomorrow. Hmmmm.

Teaching Classes

I was reading "my " blogs tonight and went to Jeanette Jobson's blog. I haven't been reading her blog very long, but I do enjoy it and she is a fabulous artist. Go have a look. Her February 26 post (I couldn't get that page to open on its own for a direct link to that date) was about classes. She was talking about no longer teaching weekly classes. Here is a quote, "The numbers of people attending are slowing, yet I still do the same amount of preparation work for minimal return."

This made me think of teaching classes myself and why I haven't taught many. People have asked me many times to teach classes. Especially when I was in the Guild. They have the idea that teachers just magically throw out their thoughts and instruction without preparation. Oh, how wrong they are! Maybe there is someone that has been teaching for fifty years and they can teach a class with their eyes closed. If there is someone like that, they are few and far between.

I recently taught a six hour class over two days. Preparation involved many things:

• I spent several sessions on the computer researching pastel techniques and history.
• I knew what I wanted to teach, but had to put the hows and whys together.
• I prepared some cheat sheets with ideas on composition, color, value, pastels, techniques for using pastels, supports, pastels, etc. This was about 6 pages of information.
  
• I made a lesson plan for how the time would best be used.
  
• I planned a short demo for each day.
• Gene helped me to cut foam core for folders and different papers to size for trying each kind.
  
• I gathered equipment and supplies.
  
• Gene and I carried my equipment to the studio and brought it back.
  

I would guess I put in 20 hours prep time for the class, maybe more, about triple the class time. This doesn't include my experience and knowledge that is stored to answer questions and give assistance. Or the time on publicity and coordinating with the interested artists. It was in a friends studio, so she did the prep time on the studio setup and cleaned up afterwards.

For someone that teaches regularly, I would guess that prep time would be similar. So if you have regular classes, that would require many hours of preparation time. Of course if you taught a weekly class to different people, your prep time would be less as you could do the same class over and over. This is probably rare also. I would guess that most students keep coming back to classes.

I enjoyed teaching the class and sometimes I wish I taught more. I learn from teaching. But .. I do not have the time or the dedication to be a regular teacher and do a good job. I would not do it if I wasn't prepared.

If you are a regular teacher, I applaud you. If you are a student, I encourage you to appreciate your instructor. (My students were very appreciative and kind.)

Cloudy in the West, Pastel Painting, Baseball note

I painted this little pastel a couple of weeks ago, but every time I thought to take a photo it was cloudy or too late in the day. I have been taking photos of pastels in direct sun and have not had to adjust the color on the computer hardly at all. This one is not adjusted.

Cloudy in the West

Pastel 5 x 7, Pastelbord

The subject is clouds in New Mexico and done in studio from a photo. I enjoy working on Pastelbord and finished this in a short time. The painting needed only some highlights added after it sat on the viewing table for a few days. Because it is cloudy the highlights are very subtle. I didn't want to bring sunshine into the picture. Time flies when you are having fun and I enjoyed working on this painting.

Do you think 55-59 degrees Fahrenheit sounds fairly comfortable? If so, you haven't sat in the Disch-Falk Stadium in 30 mile an hour winds to watch a baseball game. Wow, it was cold yesterday. We dressed warmly with sweatshirts and jackets, but ..... I forgot something for my ears so it was very cold. By the end of the game there were about 100 people left in the stands. The game was good. Texas beat UT Pan-Am 10-3. In one play of interest, Travis Tucker was trapped in a run down between first and second. Travis did a quick double turn and the UTPA second baseman fell and Travis made it to second base safely. That was the first time I had ever seen anyone escape a run down. :) Brandon Workman pitched and had 11 strikeouts. Excellent! Read about the game on the official page.

Up your price and sell more, hmmmm?

Clint Watson's (FineArtViews.com) newsletter made me smile today. The title is "Does Expensive Art Just Look Better?" Check out the comparison to good, uh, expensive wine. There is some evidence that the price affects the view. His regular newsletter points to many articles by other artists and gallery owners, but he writes some good advice of his own.

What do you think? Which painting below do you like better? Surely the second one! :)

Loop 150 Sunset

Pastel 9 x 12, $175.00



Loop 150 Sunset
Pastel 9 x 12 inches, $1,500.00

Shoulder Sketch and Baseball note

I didn't sketch at the game today. After we went shopping and I sketched this from memory while waiting for Gene. This father and two children were a couple of rows in front of us. You could tell they were family from the identical shoulders. All three were very slim with some bone structure showing. :) About a 5 minute sketch with a ball point pen.


The Longhorns swept the Virginia Commonwealth Rams. It is nice they came to Austin. I'm sure it was intimidating and exciting. A great weekend as it was the inauguration of the renewed stadium, Disch-Falk Field, and there were so many unusual things going on. Today the Longhorn Pep Band was there to play the fight song, national anthem and The Eyes of Texas. That sure ads to the excitement. I wish they would use more of the band music during the game. It peps everyone up.... Longhorns won today, 10-2. Both teams played different players. I suppose the Rams wanted to give as many players as possible a chance to play in front of a crowd. We attended one of their games a few years ago and there were about 50 people there, including our group of 10 or so. :) In Austin there were over 18,000 fans in the three days. You can check out the story, stats and photos on the official page and look at some great stuff by Joanna. Be sure to look at Joanna's photos to see daughter Jennie with Bevo yesterday. Super photo!