Gallery Notes - Pastel Paintings

I mentioned that Regina brought some paintings for my gallery. We have always had such good times painting together. I hope we can continue that. It is good for artists to interact and connect. You can see more of her pastel paintings on her website, Fall Shadows. I will put the one she brought yesterday here to tempt you to go look at more.

Nursery Collage
8 x 10 pastel
by Regina Calton Burchett
copyright with Regina

She brought some note cards, small prints and some postcards, too. You need to stop by and see the paintings in person.

I will take some photos at the studio/gallery today so you can see how nicely it is coming along.

The Bastrop Fine Arts Guild, in the same building as my studio, is starting "First Friday" in Bastrop. They will have their featured artist for the month reception. Other businesses will stay open until 8 p.m. and see if we can't get the idea working here. The Guild's featured artist for May will be the Bastrop High School Photography Students. That is great. Stop by and see the photos and all the art in our location and across the street at the Mercantile. I will post more about it tomorrow.

First Friday
May 7, 2010
6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
1009 Main Street

Bastrop, Texas 78602

My new painting for this and Cinco de Mayo is a pastel of some little girls that were dancing in Santa Fe, New Mexico, several years ago. They were so cute.

She's My Sister
Pastel on Pastelbord
16 x 20 inches

Scroll down for earlier posts today.

Sketching ... finally.

I did manage to sketch at the gallery yesterday for Scavenger Hunt 175. I sketched because I didn't have time to do other painting. It felt good to get the pen and ink going. Well, actually, a ball point pen and the regular sketchbook were my tools.

Number 1, round .. a wooden bowl/vase from Bolivia. I had it at the gallery to hold the tickets for the door prize and it is still there. Number 3, leaf .. these are the leaves on the plant that Ellie brought me for the gallery. I need to get it replanted!

Number 2, art supply. The pot is out of proportion. I drew the rim first and then the brushes. The brushes are too small. At least I did some sketches. Yay!!

Scroll down for earlier post today.

Music, Music, Music

We are having a musical weekend. We started off the evening at the Roadhouse in Bastrop. We went to see and listen to Byrd and Street. They are soooo good. Larry Byrd and Kathy Street are both visual artists, too. They promised me they would bring a few prints and CD's for me to sell at the gallery. You can hear their music on their page.

Greg Lowry, Kathy Street and Larry Byrd

The music was great and the food wasn't bad either. They have fish and chips on Friday, which Gene and others enjoyed very much. A group of artists were there.

Regina and Larry came out from Austin. Regina brought a new painting for the gallery and some cards and prints. Very nice to have them visit and bring new "stuff" (art).

From there we went to the Lumberyard for some jazz on Main Street in Bastrop. That was fun, too. They sell snacks and soft drinks and you can BYOB. The group last night was the Academy Jazz Players.

Tonight we go to a Revel in Austin. Classical cello and piano with Joel Becktell and Carla McElhaney. We have been to several of their concerts. Fantastic music, casual fun and an evening to remember. We met Joel in my hometown, Magdalena, New Mexico, of all places. He likes art, too!! I don't know when they will be back to the Austin area, this is the last Revel of the season. Hope you will be there.

Oil Painting Flowers and New Pastel Painting Landscape

I painted again at my studio, in between paperwork. I'm getting a bookkeeping system set up and it is a pain. There is more paperwork than you imagine keeping track of paintings and now other folks paintings and jewelry. Oh well, that is studio/gallery life. Pretty nice, actually.

I took a better photo of the flowers I painted in oil. I enjoy painting flowers once in a while.

Studio Blooms
Oil on Gessobord, 11 x 14 inches

I also finished the pastel painting I started the other day, and the sun was out to take the photo. I like to take the photos of pastels in full sunlight. The photos do not require much adjusting on the computer.

Hill Country Spring
Pastel on Pastelbord, 10 x 8 inches

The colors on this are a bit more clear in real life. It was fun to do this painting from a photo I took a few years ago somewhere between Austin and Brady, Texas, probably. I wonder why the gate is open with no cattleguard? It looked like it doesn't have a gate to open and close. They must not have any cattle or horses out there in the country. There are buildings behind the oak on the left. Hmmmm. Maybe the name of the painting should be "Lost Gate", "Where's the Gate?" What do you think?

Revamp of My Blog

I took some of the widgets and java off the sidebar of my blog. I have a slow computer and internet at my studio/gallery and realized how slowly my blog loads in that type situation. Sorry for all of you that have suffered with that. Hopefully it is a little more streamlined. I made regular links for all the blogs I had on the updating bar. You can see blogs I follow on my profile page anyway. I will check this out at my studio tomorrow and see how it works now. I hope I didn't leave anyone off and now I can add more, right?

I'm working on a pastel landscape at my studio as well and will probably finish it tomorrow and can post a photo. We may play golf in the morning. It has been ages since we played. Between the rain, the studio and Gene has been down in his back some, we just haven't played. I definitely need the walking.

I also checked with Marky at Peppers Gallery in New Mexico and we will be having the Old Timers Reunion show again in July. Need to paint some new stuff for that. No time for procrastinating now!

Oil Painting - Flowers and Baseball Note

I painted at my studio yesterday and today. I started an oil painting of the flowers I had for my ribbon cutting. When I stopped yesterday I was not completely sure about the painting. Today I realized I had the background backwards. I had the dark side where the light hits and the light side on the "light side" where the light is coming from. It is much better to have the dark on the side where the light is coming from, remember I am speaking of the background, and light where the light is going. You can see it here in this snapshot. My light source is on the right .. so that should be the darkest background. This makes the objects of interest, the sunflower, to have its bright side against the darkest background.

Blossoms, 11 x 14, oil on Gessobord by Ampersand.

Not a great photo, you get reflections from wet paint. Also my camera was set on small images. I always keep it on high settings. The battery ran down last week and I put in a charged battery and reset the date. I never thought about the size settings. Evidently the default is small photos. I will take a better photo tomorrow or when the paint sits a while.

I also only got a small photo of some of the excitement at the game last night. You can read on Joanna's page, I can never explain correctly. The end result is the "closer" (pitcher) for UT, Chance Ruffin, had to bat. He hit a sacrifice fly. Everyone was so excited. I actually got this photo of him with the ball flying off, the white line near the foot of the first baseman. Very exciting. Oh, the Longhorns won over UT San Antonio, 6 - 4. So check out the story on Joanna's Longhorn Baseball Page and the official Longhorn page.

A Pickles Comic for You

To preface this, you might know that Gene and I fuss/argue about almost anything. We have known each other since we were 2 and 3 years old. I married him to get even for all the torture when we were in school!

We were in the same grade so fussed about school, too. We did do homework together but still argued about who was finished first or was right or whatever. We never went out until after we graduated. We looked up one of our high school teachers a few years ago and called her. "Mrs. Ingram," Gene said, "This is Gene Castillo."

"Gene Castillo?? (pause) Eugene??" she queried.

"Yes mam," Gene replied.

Mrs. Ingram quickly came back, "Are you and Karen Jo still fighting?"

So you see, things haven't changed ... we graduated in 1960. Ancient we are.

You can click on this comic to make it larger. It fits us so well. Smile... You can see Pickles, by Ben Crane, in the newspapers and get it delivered to your e-mail here.

She is an artist, too.

Sketches by Richard Rudnicki

I haven't posted about Richard Rudnicki in a while. He does the most interesting sketches and has been sending them out by e-mail for years. He is now stopping the e-mail notice and continuing with his sketches on his blog. Richard sketches daily from a memory of yesterday and posts his favorite for the week. A good exercise in sketching, don't you think?

Richard near Dartmouth, setting up his easel for our plein air painting ... in 2003.

I met Richard in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 2003. We were looking for a place to rent and he had a cabin. We did not rent his cabin, but I called him and he invited me to go paint plein air with his friends. We did and then we went to a "Paint the Town" in Annapolis Royal. What a great time we had. Richard is a great artist and was so friendly and sharing with his work. You should check out his website, too. Look him up when you are in Nova Scotia. He has a studio in Halifax now with Susan Tooke, his wife. You will find the information on Richard's website.

Richard and I with my painting. We were younger then, right? Sigh.....