Back to work ... Pastel painting and sketches and photos at the baseball games.

Sorry I have been absent. Have you missed me?? Our internet and phone have been out since about 3:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. How spoiled are we? It was like going back in time.

This post will be a little long so I will put the art first. I painted today as we had to wait for the technician. They said he would be here between 8:00 a.m. and midnight. Pretty large window, huh? Someone had to be here so we were. The tech showed up about 4:30 p.m. Took him about 10 minutes to fix the signal.

Serve 'em Texas Style
Pastel, 5 x 7 inches

I really like painting apples, like I have said before, they are my fall back. Something enjoyable to paint without too much thinking and planning. Still life painting is another challenge after painting landscapes. You can't really use atmosphere like you do in landscapes. These apples are for the miniature show with the Austin Pastel Society at the Scarbrough Building in Austin in June. I would have liked to use red apples, but this is what I had on hand. I like the contrasts with the red, white and blue Texas bowl, so it was probably a good thing after all. I had a nice afternoon, listening to the old iTunes while I painted. (I just noticed in the photo the apples in the back left seem to be floating ... hmmm. I will check that out later this morning. You may get a new photo. It is 1230 a.m. Tuesday. Yikes.)

I was lucky to have some spots of sun to take the photograph. (I wrote about my shady yard problems before.)I like the way the photos turn out of pastels taken in direct sunlight. There is little color adjustment to make. Of course the lines look stronger, I think the digital camera does that .. it separates and intensifies blue and red. The color is fairly close though. I also took a photo of the commission I finished. I will post it after it arrives at its new home.

Our weekend was tied up with the Longhorns Baseball. I did manage a few sketches for Scavenger Hunt 133 on Saturday during the early game, Texas State and Army. (Army won and Texas State was eliminated.)


Number 1 - something that makes noise. The fans and the obnoxious loudspeakers. They kept the volume at deafening levels. We have complained, but ..... I think it is like the new restaurants, they think it seems more fun and exciting if you can't talk ( think yell) because of the noise. Sketched in the small sketchbook with a Pilot ball point pen. Ten minutes or so??? Not many fans there yet.


Number 2, use this to see, Gene's binoculars. About 15 minutes. These took longer as I was watching the game, too.

Number 3, someone sleeping. A cute little girl asleep on her mom's knees. Of course they left before I finished. They woke her up, too! We have seats in the shade so the baby was not in the hot sun. :) About 10 minutes.

A couple of new blogs I have discovered. I am supposed to be listing the ones I already follow. Oh well, I will follow these now, too.

http://santorafineart.blogspot.com/ Carol Santora, loud (as in colorful) cows and other fun and beautiful paintings.

http://scrute.blogspot.com/ Sharon Crute, race horses and more. Wonderful. Thanks, Nancy. Hmm, another blog. :)


**This is a great commentary by Bill Little, Last Man Standing, reviewing the feelings and emotion involved in the games. A great story even if you don't know or care about baseball ... all about the athletes.

I have to include a few of the baseball photos. I took so many........ Joanna got some great ones, so check her blog, link below.

We spent many hours at the UT baseball games, the Regionals were in Austin. The historical game Saturday night between the Horns and Boston College went 25 innings and lasted 7 hours and 3 minutes. Whew! Marathon baseball for sure. It was the longest game in NCAA history. The Horns won, 3 - 2. We left home about 1045 a.m. to watch the early game and returned home about 2:00 a.m.

Austin Wood at the beginning of his marathon. He is the closing pitcher and usually only pitches a couple of innings. He pitched about 13 of the 25 innings. It was a no hitter in the middle of this long game. Wow! There are some photos in a link at the top of that page and all the statistics. Travis Tucker and Michael Hernandez batted 12 times each. The one game was almost the equivalent of three games.

The handshakes at the end. The Boston College pitcher, Mike Belfiore, was amazing as well. He played several positions including the 9 innings he pitched. Amazing young athletes. We, fans (a huge amount stayed to the end), were exhausted. I can't imagine how tired the players were when their adrenalin dropped. The poor catchers...

I grabbed these stats from the Boston College page:

FACTS AND FIGURES

Both teams received a standing ovation at the conclusion of the game

Texas had to reset the scoreboard twice to post the score by inning

It was 96 degrees at first pitch at 6:02 p.m. - The game finished at 78 degrees at 1:05 a.m.

Texas introduced the 21st inning stretch

Both teams used all of their position players

There were 683 pitches thrown in the game

Texas stranded 24 men on base

Belfiore, Hamlet and Lawrence each played three positions

Texas had three runs on 20 hits

Junior Chris Kowalski recorded his first-career at-bat

There were 11 walks in the game compared to 42 strikeouts

The 10 p.m. ET game at UC Irvine game started and finished

The 25-inning game was the longest game in NCAA baseball history. The previous longest game was a 23-inning game played between Louisiana-Lafayette and McNeese State on March 27, 1971. ULL won the game 6-5.

The game also marked the longest NCAA postseason game in history. The previous longest game was a 19-inning contest between Clemson and Fordham at the NCAA Northeast Regional in New Britain, Conn. on May 26, 1988.

Texas and Boston College combined to set NCAA records with 42 strikeouts, 222 total chances, 69 assists, 192 plate appearances and 171 at-bats.

Texas' 91 at-bats, 103 plate appearances, 115 total chances and 75 putouts set new NCAA records

Tucker and Torres set the NCAA single-game record for at-bats with 12 AB's against BC

Preston Clark's 33 putouts against BC set a new NCAA record for most single-game putouts.

These next photos are from Sunday night. The Horns were behind until the bottom of the 9th inning and Preston Clark hit a grand slam home run and the Horns won the Regional! Yes!!

Some Army fans. They said "Go Army" on their chests and "Beat UT" on their backs. A noisy bunch!

Preston Clark early in the game. After it gets dark, my camera won't take good photos, no flash, so the aperture stays open too long and the shots are blurred.

The Army players at the end. They are a classy bunch. (Great Army stories on this link, they travel in uniform.) They haven't been to the College World Series many times. It was sad that they had to loose. They will go on to be the great guys that protect our freedom every day. Thanks to them for their service!!


The Super Regional next week. Best two out of three against TCU in Austin. The winner goes to the College World Series in Omaha! The Horns last won in 2005. Hopefully they can make it this year. With their ups and downs it is scary. The pitching is great over all. The offense is spotty. When it all comes together, they are great. They are determined, especially the Seniors.

You can read about the baseball fun on Joanna's Longhorn Baseball Page. There are some articles on the Longhorn Page and the NCAA page where they are streaming the games free on the internet. I'm sure there are stories on ESPN and other sports pages.