The Misery of it all .. baseball.

Well, as you might expect from the title of this blog, the baseball game did not go in favor of the Longhorns. Drat. They lost to Nebraska, 14 - 4. The Horns started off great again and were ahead 4 - 0 into the 4th. Then it was over. No rhyme or reason, it seems. The Hons had 3 days of practice, which was unusual in this harried schedule, so they were thinking that would help. They still had 3 errors and only one base runner after Nebraska started scoring. Ouch. You can read on Joanna's blog and on the official page. Hopefully tonight will be better. It is on Fox Sports Net if you are in the right area you can see the teams, too.

We stayed until the bitter end. Most of the 5,900 fans were long gone by the seventh inning stretch. They were going to watch the Longhorns win in the Sweet 16, basketball. They were much happier than the baseball fans. :) Texas beat the Stanford Cardinal 82-62. I took this photo when Pat McCrory was batting, hoping for a two out rally. They are capable of that, you know. Not to be!

This was the final a couple of minutes later. Our announcer on the radio, Keith Moreland, said their scoring looked like a Zip Code at the end of the eighth. (14144 would be, Stella Niagara, NY). Hmmm.



Even the Nebraska fans didn't look too excited when it was all over. Maybe just thinking of trying to find a place to eat on Friday night in Austin. Not easy, ha. It was pretty cold, too. 62 degrees. It was 78 at the start of the game.

We hope for a big win tonight on TV. Hook-em Horns!!

Geranium, Pastel Floral at Regina's

A geranium pastel floral painted from a real setup completed for a change. Yesterday was my second painting day in a week with a good friend pastelist. Wow! Is that great or what? I went to Regina Burchett's new studio and we painted her geraniums that she had just brought home. The plant was big , full and beautiful. We both painted in pastels. It is always interesting to see the difference when two or more artists paint the same subject.


This was the setup. You get a very tiny peek at the studio.



We both started on Colourfix pastel card, gray,9 x 12 inches. No under painting. This is probably about 30 minutes into the painting. No drawing.


Developing the flowers and color. Establishing the direction of light, we did not use a floodlight.




I changed the pot from green to brass. It seemed to fit better with the tablecloth and background.

I added some very bright highlights around the main flower. I want to highlight the flowers a little more, I didn't have some of the softest pastels with me for that. I just took my box of Rembrandts and a few Nupastels and dark Unisons. I may work on the outer shape of the plant as well, it is pretty uniform and will be more interesting with different negative shapes. I will post that in the next few days. (Tomorrow is golf and baseball -- no painting.)

Here is the almost final of the paintings. Interesting, right? Mine went toward the warm side and Regina's is cooler. Maybe that is from standing on different sides and having the light hit the flowers differently. It is also how we are different and make different decisions in our work. I love that.

I picked up lattes on the way (sorry Gene) and Regina furnished lunch (thanks Regina). We had a great visit and always learn from each other. She is going to be in Lockhart, Texas, tomorrow afternoon and Saturday for the spring festival, The Rites of Spring. Stop by and check out her work in person at her booth. Her booth has a sign "Fall Shadows". Hope to see you there!

Last night, Joanna and I went out to Quality Seafood, to see Tommy Byrd and Kathy Street. They are a great duo and put on a good show. The food was good, too. Fresh seafood and a full bar. You order at a counter and they bring it to you or you can get full service if you sit at the bar. (I prefer to be waited on in a restaurant, but....)

This is a shot of Kathy and Tommy last night. She is a brand new grandmother, too. :)

I first met Tommy at the Gallery in Bastrop. Besides being a singer/song writer he is a visual artist, working in black and white drawings. Kathy is an oil painter. These are talented people. Check out their page and listen to some songs (you can buy their CD there) and check out their artwork. Very nice. You will find a schedule of their appearances on the website so you can take in a show or two.

Have a good time and come back here to see what Regina (preview there) and I painted yesterday on my next post.

Photos of spring near Bastrop, Texas

Today we played golf. We ran into the turtles on hole number 8 as usual. I hadn't taken a photo in a while and the big turtle was on the stump. I think it is the same old turtle that I have posted about before.
I took a photo of the big turtle and noticed another small turtle there when I zoomed in. The black spots in the water are more turtles swimming.


When I got home and downloaded the photos, I was surprised to see that there were four turtles on the stump.


On the way home I snapped some shots of the wildflowers that are just starting. These are on Highway 71 just over a mile from the house.


These bluebonnets look almost artificial. Must have been the cloudy day and the automatic focus on the camera.


These Indian Paintbrushes are so beautiful, huh?


I think these are wild grapes. The flowers look like wisteria from a distance.

Art with Susan, La Villita

Yesterday was a trip to San Antonio. Gene had a meeting there, so I went to visit Susan Carlin at her new studio in La Villita. It is really a great location and I had a great time.

Susan had a student there, Sharon Woody, so we didn't converse as much as we would normally. Susan and I (or is it just me) can never talk fast enough and never finish a conversation. Dang. But I did paint plein air on Susan's patio and she got her work done, so that is a good thing. The weather was perfect.


This is the scene on the patio that I was putting down in pastel. I was trying to simplify it to focus on the fountain.


Here is Susan checking my painting and giving me some professional hints and a soft critique. :) She helped me with the water and to find some important additions of the two lamps to fill in the left side and add some interest.


Gene took this of me working on my painting and Susan working on a sketch.

I enjoyed talking with the people that were visiting Susan's studio. I have said before that sometimes I like the talking as much as the painting. Again ,it was a great day and good for me to be in the company of a good friend and great artist. Hopefully some will rub off on me!

Tomorrow I will have another art day with Regina Burchett and try out her new studio. Yippee! Two great days in one week. We will be working in pastel. Such fun! Maybe I will finish the patio scene and post a finished photo.

Baseball, more good, bad, arghh and sigh....

The baseball game last night was a cliff hanger. Texas pulled out the win, but it took 10 innings. The final score was Texas 5 and Oral Roberts 4. What made it interesting or nail biting was not only did Texas squeak out 5 hits, they had 5 errors. Oh my gosh! Read about the great win and the misery of it all on Joanna's page and the official version on the Longhorn page. You can also read Joanna's thoughts on the renovations of Disch-Falk in the post from Sunday evening. I agree with her 100%.

The win went to pitcher Brandon Belt. He is the regular first baseman! The game ended on an interesting play. The bases were loaded and Russell Moldenhauer was sent in to pinch hit. He hit a sort of blooper single and scored Jordan Danks. Whew! I got a video of it, not great, but it shows at any rate. (You can see it better in QuickTime on my Mac)

Deer Photos and Baseball Note

Gene took these photos in the front yard on March 6.


The deer seem to over night there. We have a bird bath and maybe they drink water at our place. We have just trees and sand in the yard, so they don't come here to eat. I guess it is just a quiet place in the neighborhood to sleep.

The Longhorns beat Texas Tech in the Saturday game, 4 - 3. Texas had two, two run homers in the first inning and never scored again. Whew. Agony to see if they could hang on to win. They are now 4 - 2 in Big 12 Conference play. They play Oral Roberts in Austin on Monday evening and then will face Nebraska (5 - 0 - 1) on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That should be exciting. Nebraska and Oklahoma tied 8 - 8 today because of the Big 12 travel rule. The game was ended after 10 innings. The fourth time a game in the Big 12 ended in a tie since the beginning in 1996. The game lasted 3 hours and 55 minutes and went past the 4:30 p.m. curfew.

You can read about this last series between Texas and Texas Tech on the official page and Joanna's baseball page, of course.

Acrylic Painting, Desert Cactuses

I painted this a couple of weeks ago. I intended to put it up as a WIP, work in progress, and didn't so now it is a demo of sorts. This is in acrylics which I don't use very often, but I am starting to like them more. Pastels are my favorite medium, but sometimes I just want to use a brush.

Some pluses for acrylics:

• Clean up with water.
• Dry quickly
• Frame without glass when used on board or canvas.
• Easy to correct.
• You can glaze and use like watercolor.

Some things I don't like about acrylics:

• They dry quickly. Not able to blend as easily. (I have not tried the new interactive acrylics.)
• Lack of texture unless you add medium or pumice, etc.
• They dry darker than I put them on.
  

The first step on the canvas was to sketch in my plan with a watered down blue. I had sketched and rearranged the cactus in my mind from a photo reference of a scene in New Mexico.



In a landscape I start with the sky and the distant hills. I usually have a background, middle ground and foreground.



Next I worked in the cactus with the blooms and began developing the middle ground.

Then I filled in the whole bottom with dark ground clutter and began to work in some detail there. I did not get a photo, I was too interested in what I was doing. Here is a closeup of the details.

Desert Cactuses

Acrylic on canvas, 16 x 20 inches

This is the finish. There is a bright and dark area on the left around the prickly pear cactus hoping to be of interest and direct the eye around the painting.

It looks like my theme for my show in New Mexico in July will center around cactus and local scenery doesn't it? I called this Desert Cactuses in place of Desert Cacti, both are correct in the dictionary. Do you have a better name? Thanks.