National Anthem, the Right Way

Is this cool, or what?

Happy Birthday, Larry! (2010)

Happy Birthday Larry!

I hope his day is fantastic and this new year as well.

He is working this morning at a photography shoot. He takes beautiful photos and will be happy to work taking photos for you, too, information on his website. So, no golf today, we are hoping for Monday but the forecast is not good, perhaps tomorrow.

Larry sitting at the top of Huayna Picchu at Machu Picchu in 1984. Larry walked the Inca Trail for three days and two nights to get to Machu Picchu. Pretty cool!

And here he is at golf in Bastrop on January 2, this year.

And just before that shot with Gene.


You can see his post from last year here, and see how cute he was in a Texas shirt.

Well, another year has gone by already. Wow. We rarely get to see Larry even though he lives in San Marcos. Today will be special, the sun is shining and we will have dinner with Larry, Joanna and Jennie in Austin. Yay! I imagine Larry and Jennie will eat milanesa as we are eating at a Brazilian restaurant, Sao Paulo's. I look forward to some fried yuca and the bread made with yuca flour and stuffed with cheese. In Bolivia this bread is called cuñapés.

Pastel Landscape, Papalote Dos

I painted with my pastels today. Gene unframed an old painting for me and I reused the Pastelbord for this windmill. It will go well in the frame which is made to look like old wood. I painted this from one of the photos we took on the way back from Mexico.

The photo of the painting is not great, it should be more blue-gray. We still do not have any sunshine. Hopefully tomorrow. At least we are not back east in the snowstorms. Yikes. Hope you are all well and staying cozy!

Papalote Dos
Pastel, 8 x 10 inches on Pastelbord

This painting will be destined for Peppers Art Gallery in New Mexico.

Some Hunt 164 Sketches

I had the brush pen out and one of the challenges for Scavenger Hunt 164 is to use a medium that you rarely use, so this fits in. I sketched in the bigger sketchbook that I used for the ballet sketches. The pen is a Prismacolor Premier Brush Tip Marker, size B. These pens were given to me to test, so I will post about them soon.

Number 4, can opener and Number 5, outlet. The opener hangs under my cabinet in the kitchen with the outlet behind it. It is very difficult for me to add the shading with the brush tip. It is like trying to draw with a paint brush. Practice, practice.......

Number 6 - veggie, number 7 - fruit, number 8 - fork and number 9 - spoon. The fruit is a mandarin orange and the fork is not crooked. Ha. This fits a challenge, too, of putting several items together.

Number 10 - handle and number 11 - flower. The handle on the pressure cooker and the remains of the poinsettia from Christmas. It is actually getting a new leaf or two, I thought it was a goner.

Ballet Sketches on the Move... Susan Carlin, note.

I was taken to the ballet today. Enid Wood, pastelist and also a member of the Austin Pastel Society, invited me to go with her to Studio Spotlight, at Ballet Austin. They have an hour with some of the upcoming ballet to whet your appetite and promote it. There were school children there on a tour and quite a few visitors. There was something of a mixup, they didn't know we were going to sketch, but they made arrangements and gave us the go ahead. The facility is fantastic.

They certainly don't have to worry about me stealing any ideas. It was difficult to sketch the movement even with small gesture sketches. One pose lasted about 5 seconds. Ha. It was beautiful to see the movements and the performers and have a friendly discussion to learn more about the ballet. They were performing Bach from the Valentine Show.

The dancers waiting to get started and warming up. The lady with the music in the center has lost her chair, she was not dancing! I didn't notice that I left out the chair until now.



The bald headed gentleman is not Gene. He is the artistic director and as he spoke he moved constantly as well. :)

I actually did one more page, but it was the first and a warm up, right? You don't want to see it.

At any rate it was a very nice day. We went to eat at Z Tejas after the ballet. Very nice and a gluten free menu for us.

This evening I watched Susan Carlin paint for a while. She paints on UStream on Wednesday evenings and other times, too. When she is not painting live and in person, you can watch her many taped videos. Nice to watch and visit with her. It was special today as she had a painting accepted into the Salon International at the Greenhouse Gallery. Congratulations to you, Susan!

Sketches Hunt 164 and Color Notes

For a start on Scavenger Hunt 164, I did these two while watching TV, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?. Sometimes yes, sometimes no, by the way. These sketches are in the regular sketchbook with a Micron 005 pen, purple. A few minutes each, freehand as usual.

Number 1, phone -- the phone from my desk out of the dock. Number 2, watch -- an old pocket watch with a leather strap on it, probably my Dad's.

And color notes. I was watching an old video tape by Helen Van Wyk today and she was mentioning how color is affected by the color it is next to on the canvas. Many times, as beginners, we ask the instructor what color they are using and try to match it exactly. Even if you could match it, it would most likely not look exact on your canvas because of the difference in the paint's surroundings. The colors take on or reflect the complement. You can test this by putting a red circle on a white background and stare at it.

Then close your eyes and you should "see" a greenish circle.

Helen Van Wyk usually started paintings with a gray canvas and on the video tape, she was painting some terracotta pots. As she developed the pots and had not touched the background it was appearing very blue. I will try to do this exercise and post it here. It was quite interesting.

Black and white acrylics.

The pots with color, there is a subtle blue to the background now, which you probably can't see here. I had hopes that it would show more.

The more finished pots.

I thought it would show up more. Maybe I had to do a larger painting. This was only about 6 x 8 inches and about ten minutes to do. I did it on watercolor paper so it dried before I could finish each layer. But maybe you get the idea.

This illustrates the idea that the color depends on the background. The orange and blue stripes are one solid line of the color on a black to white background. The colors look brighter against the dark and darker as the black changes to white.

You never know if the color is right until you try it on your painting.

Annual Juried Members Exhibition, You Are Invited

You are invited to the Austin Pastel Society Annual Juried Members Exhibition in March. Invitation below. I will remind you again as the date gets nearer. The show will be very nice, there are many beautiful pastel paintings in a variety of techniques and by many artists. The reception on March 21, is free with free parking that day. The awards will be given out at the reception. You can click on the invitation to see it larger. The invitations are post cards with the front and back shown here:



My pastel painting, Hill Country Autumn, was accepted into the competition. It is one of my favorite paintings. Many times I do a painting and then it is gone from my mind. I might see it at a later date and not even recognize it as mine. Weird, eh?


Hill Country Autumn
Pastel on Pastelbord, 12 x 12 inches
You can buy it now on my website with Paypal/Credit Card and I will deliver it at the end of the show in May. :)