Golf, etc...

I haven't posted about golf much.  We haven't played much because of the cold and the gallery.  But here is something worthwhile to watch and possibly help with:

Funnyman Feherty's "F Troop" No Joke

There are more videos there to see how Chevron and golf people are working to help soldiers returning from war.  Pretty interesting and touching.

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.

We can golf until....... (no art)

Gene and I have a great time golfing. We aren't very good and do not work at getting better, but we have fun and walk nine holes, two or three times a week. When we are away from home we usually ride in a cart and play at eighteen holes to get some walking time.

We were out yesterday and saw Esther Wright golfing with the Senior group. She is amazing. Ninety two years old and still plays several times a week.

Esther walking to the putting green.

Esther watching her putt.

We met Esther and her late husband, Fred, when we moved to Bastrop. This was about twelve years ago. We played with them one day as the course was pretty busy. Fred was telling us that he played with right handed clubs for twenty five years and switched when they started making left handed clubs. They also used a 1934 Ford for their golf cart! The course then had only nine holes. They made it eighteen about the time we moved here. They could both easily, very easily, beat us at golf and won regularly with the Seniors. We still see Esther's name in the paper occasionally for closest to hole, or low score. A few years ago Fred was so proud, he had made his first hole in one, I think he was about ninety one or two at the time. Isn't that great? I hope that if I am around at Esther's age I will still be following the little white ball around.

Finders Keepers, Right? Photos

**Update below 1/12/09

Gene and I went and walked the golf course today. We play nine holes. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. I think it got up to about 77 degrees today. When I hit my drive on number six, I could see something shining. I thought it might be a golf club, but up on the power lines??? As we walked down the fairway, we could see it was a golf club but up in one of the huge oak trees. Gene reached for it with his pole that we get balls out of the water with, but that was about 20 feet short! Someone must have been very frustrated to get a club up that high. Wow.


You get a little sense of the size of the tree here. I didn't think to take one before we got close enough to see what it was.


This is Gene reaching up. You can't tell that it is another 20 feet to the limbs.



And here is the club! There for the taking.

We came back to the house and I worked on my new pastel painting for the Austin Pastel Society show. I'm doing a market scene in Bolivia. Slow going. I'm letting it rest a little. I took a photo of it so I can look at it on the computer. It is easier to see mistakes there, I think. You can put them upside down or look in a mirror and that helps, too, but photos really shows errors. Especially perspective or ellipses, etc. I also like to look at the paintings in black and white to check the values. I need to warm up the front and highlight this painting to give the scene more depth. So, tomorrow, tomorrow........

I also need to get a photo of the saguaros to post. I did finish that one. The deadline is Sunday. I like to think I work better under pressure, but we all know that that is not true, just an excuse for waiting until the last minute.

1/12/09 (Originally posted on 1/9/09) Today we golfed again. This gives a little better idea about how high in the tree the club is. Gene took a long line he has with a weight on it and tried throwing it up there. It hooked once, but came back down sans the club. So sad.

Baseball and Golf

I haven't forgotton about baseball and golf. We haven't actually been golfing since we flew up here. We have been able to see a few of the College World Series baseball games and have enjoyed them. It is great that Fresno State made it to the finals. The three game play off starts tonight and features Georgia as the other team. It will be the Bulldogs against the Bulldogs. We were sad that the Longhorns or any Big 12 team did not make it, but it is still great to see the young guys do so well.

It is very sad that Tiger Woods will be out for the rest of the season. I hope he recovers completely so we can continue watching the greatest golfer ever. One of the announcers on the golf channel noted that without Tiger playing in the 8 tournaments he had scheduled, there would be about $20,000,000 up for grabs by the other players. I hope that next year Tiger will be the Player of the Year, the Comeback Player of the Year and the winner of the Fed-Ex Cup and the Grand Slam. Who knows? We will certainly miss Tiger and that makes the weekend golf just a little boring. I sure won't be going out of my way to watch. Sigh......

Baseball, Golf and Kids

I'm not sure Joanna and Larry would be considered kids, they are over thirty, but they are our kids. Joanna was here yesterday to watch the Longhorns win the series against Oklahoma. The score was 13-7. (The official story here and Joanna's more interesting review here. Go Longhorns! We enjoyed the visit with her. We see her at the ballpark mostly this time of year. She worked on the computer and DVD player, setting up new stuff for us. Thanks, Joanna. She took some gecko/lizard photos, too. She will probably post them soon.

Our day was good today, too. We got in a great round of golf with son, Larry. It is always fun to have him around. He plays so well, but only gets to play once in a blue moon. Beautiful weather and good times.

Larry on hole number 14, the newly anointed rooster hole.



The rooster on the run. He is camera shy.



One of the turtles out for a stroll on the cart path but working his way towards the water on hole number eight.

Photos Woodpecker Holes

My art for today was cleaning on my studio and arranging things. I have paintings we have purchased that were everywhere. We have zero wall space left. :) I made room to get some of my paintings off the floor. When I get the mess cleaned I will post some photos. I had to put some above the windows in my studio. Our whole house is a growing museum. Artifacts from South America, hand me down antiques, knick knacks, family photos, etc.

We have golfed the last few days. We walk nine holes and sometimes don't even keep score. Our golf. We have to take advantage of the good weather while we can. It was supposed to rain today and cool off, but it seems to have waited for tomorrow. We don't golf on weekends anyway. Too many people. During the week there are times that we are the only ones around. Seems like a private course. Today was one of those days, there were a couple of guys a hole or so behind us, but we weren't having to rush. On number 9, Gene spotted these holes in a tree. That bird had been very busy, don't you think? It is a dead tree about 15-20 or so feet tall.

Couch Potato

Nope, no painting of a couch potato, but I have been one today. I have a bum heel and my knee was hurting last night and I think it is from trying to protect the heel while playing at golf. Anyway, I lay and sat around with my foot up all day. I am reading a James D. Doss book, The Witch's Tongue. He writes about the Utes like Tony Hillerman writes about the Navajos. I just love these books and feel so at home when reading them. We grew up near the Alamo Reservation here in New Mexico, that must be the reason. I do like the high desert country.

I also watched the British Open Golf Tournament to root for Tiger. You can read about it on the Golf Channel. Can you imagine winning three in a row? He has his work cut out for him though, I think he ended the day about 7 strokes back.

I was on wetcanvas.com commenting on the Scavenger Hunt and just looking around the site. I ran across a watercolorist that is interesting, Robin Purcell. She does bold landscapes that are somewhat abstract. I like them because they are such bright colors. She posted about Robert Bateman, a wildlife realist painter. His work is amazing. You need to check his site out and read his philosophy on painting and his hints. Wow. I could never be that patient or work that long on paintings but I certainly admire his work. What do you think?

Hopefully I will be sketching and painting over the weekend.

Disaster Day .. Well, not quite

On the Rocks, pastel, 9 x 12 inches

"This area between Silver City and Deming, New Mexico, is very unusual and beautiful. Huge boulders were flung into the air by a volcano near Albuquerque and landed in a clump approximately a mile in diameter. You can explore, like a maze, just winding your way between the rocks. It is pleasant for picnicing or hiking as you can find cool shaded areas in which to excape the heat of the sun.

This was painted early morning to capture the light. Painted the summer of 2006 with wild flowers and green in the usually dry New Mexico desert. This is one of Jo's favorite paintings for the year." (Quoted from my web page from last year)

Our excursion this morning ran into difficulties. We drove about 35 miles to the City of Rocks. Gene was going to bike back toward Silver City and I was going to paint for a couple of hours and pick him up. When he went to unload his bike the front tire was flat. No problem, just change tubes, air it up and go. He got the old tube out and went to put in his spare and it had the wrong valve. The good thing was that he found out the tube was wrong now and not when he is a million miles from nowhere with no cell phone signal. There are lots of those locations in the mountains. He has been riding about a year with that spare tube! False security! We then load up and go back to Silver City with a stop in Bayard for gasoline as it was $3.09.9 a gallon and has been about $3.29.9 in Silver City. Back in town and the gas had gone down here, too. But only at the Chevron and Exxon stations. Interesting. Anyhow, buy a new tube and to the house to change and go try golfing. Arrived at the golf course that we like so much and there was a tournament in progress. Back to the house to fix the tire, do some e-mail, snack and back to golf. It looked like rain with thunderstorms to the west with much lightening. We decided to try nine holes. The storms went around us, about 5 different ones and we ended up playing 18 holes. Nice afternoon with clouds and beautiful cool weather.


I sketched #1 for Scavenger Hunt 48, the edge of a pond. This sketch is at hole #16. I should have taken a photo, it is a beautiful green. Another day for that. 10 minutes


I sketched #2, tree bark with a knothole of sorts, when we got home. This plum tree hangs over the deck. It is old and has many trunks. 15 minutes

These sketches are in my little Strathmore Sketch (recycled) sketchbook, 3.5 x 5 inches. It has pretty good paper. I really don't like Strathmore pastel paper, it is just awful. It has a deep grid and does not hold any pastel to speak of. I sketched with a regular Pilot ball point pen. They don't leak and are very nice every day pens.

We had dinner, left over Chinese from yesterday. Very good from a fast food place, served cafeteria style. They serve in styrofoam containers as they hope you take it out. We asked to order from the menu and they served us in hard plastic plates. Then we had to ask for a to-go box. They thought we were weird. It was very good, though. No wine there, not even Chinese tea. But, we had white wine with it tonight. Then sat on the deck with wine and coffee. The neighbor had some very eclectic music going, Irish folk songs, Enya, some big band, some Native American, Andean, soft rock and more. It was floating out their window and very enjoyable. Gene put up the bird feeders and some hummingbird feeders so we watched the hummers. One of the items on the Scavenger Hunt is a bird feeder. So I am ready.

Maybe the bike/paint excursion will work tomorrow.

Not Expired

Well, I haven't disappeared forever. We left Bastrop on July 4 and headed for New Mexico.

We arrived in Fredricksburg, Texas, just as the parade was starting so had to make a detour.



As we drove down the side street I happened to see this giant cactus. The driveway must be 10 - 12 feet wide, right? So the cactus is just as wide and just as tall or better. Gotta love Texas. :)

I won't bore you with all the details but we came on Interstate 10 to Ft. Stockton before turning north. Ft. Stockton is so bleak. I'm sure the history is very interesting, but that is another story.

I snapped the train station among the over 150 photos on the road trip.



The speed limit on Interstate 10 you can see here. Wow. I'm sure the usual suspects still speed and do 5 mph over the limit, don't you? Scary.



We arrived safely and hung my show on Thursday night. On Friday we went to play golf in Socorro and buy the food for the reception on Saturday.




I was snapping a photo of the water lilly on the right in this photo and the concentric ripples you see on the left about a third of the way up are where Gene's ball had just gone in the water. :) Interesting.

My reception was today, I am very tired and will paint in the yard at Peppers Gallery tomorrow, so will post about all that on Monday from Albuquerque.

Michigan stay, Sketch

We are in Michigan and have had a whirlwind day. Always happens with Sue around. Ha. We got here on Wednesday evening and Sue was delayed in her arrival, so we played nine holes of golf at Beeches Golf Club. Links style and very nice. We dined at The Fish Tale Pub and Grille - 38 North Shore Drive, 269.637.5123, on the non-smoking deck and had a very enjoyable dinner.

Yesterday, Sue came and picked me up and we went to Saugatuck to do our art thing.



We walked, talked and sketched. Turns out my sketch was #1 something that floats for Scavenger Hunt 42. Micron 05 pen in a Chronicle sketchbook that Sue gave me in 2003. It has a place for a sketch and notes. Perfect for traveling. Has four colored pencils on the front in a little case.

Mostly talked, of course. A latte at a place overlooking the harbor. Gene says latte in French means "you paid too much for your coffee." Ah well. We met up with Gene and Sue's mom in the afternoon and decided to eat at Marro's in Saugatuck. David was in Grand Rapids so he drove down and joined us for dinner. Sue's brother is the head chef and WOW what a dinner. It is Italian with flair. One dish was stuffed morrell mushrooms. The best dinner we can remember, ever, and we eat out a lot!!

A couple of photos from South Haven.



The sky was hazy and you could hardly see the horizon. Looked like the boats were floating in the sky.

The Horns play Brown tonight at 7 Central Time for the Regionals. They play at the Round Rock Express Stadium. Hook-em!

Sorry we can't be there, but hey, our granddaughter, Christy, is graduating from high school in the morning. Go, Christy!! We have our priorities right!

So, I am even more behind in this blogging world.

Golf Photos, Turtles, Pastel Meeting

My art yesterday was a trip in the evening to Austin for the Austin Pastel Society meeting. Regina and I met for dinner and then the meeting. Regina is good inspiration for me and we work well together. We were planning a painting excursion, maybe a workshop in April. The demo at the meeting was about shipping paintings and presented by Rebecca Neef. Rebecca is a wonderful artist and so knowledgeable. I do enjoy being around her, I learn so much.

Here are a couple of photos from golf. It was a gorgeous day. You can see why we like being out on the courses. Relaxing and just being outside is great. The turtles were sunning themselves, must have been about thirty or more. You can see heads peeking out of the water as they scattered upon my approach. The big one, shell about a foot long, never went in the water, he must be used to the golfers.



This is Gene retrieving balls, one of his favorite parts of golfing!