A Magnificent Plein-Air Day of Watercoloring

Plein Air Watercolor Sketch #1

Plein Air Watercolor Sketch #2

This morning, my painting buddy Chris and I piled our equipment into my Jeep around 8:30 and motored south to Ennis, Texas, to Love Park.  We found a large gathering of plein air painters from the north Texas area that we are fortunate to join from time to time in these excursions.  The day was sun-washed, about 60 degrees, with pleasant winds.  Bluebonnets infested the area, and most of the oil painters were standing completely enveloped in them as they painted their surroundings.

I chose a spot across the road from them, that had more cedars than bluebonnets, and I made two attempts at watercolor sketching these subjects.  Pines and cedars have always flummoxed me in watercolor (and still do).  I spent the entire morning, and early afternoon, staring at one single cedar, half in shadow, with a scattering of bluebonnets beneath.  I admired the view blissfully, and worked very hard, trying to match up the reddish-green tints that clothe the cedar.  I tried Quinachridone, Permanent Rose, Winsor Red and Cadmium Red.  I mixed in some Transparent Yellow, and occasionally Cadmium Yellow.  Nothing seemed to work in the final analysis.  I also studied hard the separation of shadows and mid-tones in the mass of the cedar, and enjoyed all the nuances I saw in those middle tones, the primarily warm colors, and the cools in the shadows.  I worked on those as well.

The bluebonnets–well, this was my second attempt in about four years with those.  I never can seem to make them “pop” out of their environment of green on my paper the way they do on earth.  I don’t have a clue yet what that secret is.  They looked pretty good against the white paper, but disappeared as I floated light, subtle greens around them to give them a “home.”  I guess I’ll have to work on that problem another day.

It was a very pleasant experience, the plein air sketching today.  I met some fabulous new friends that I look forward to seeing again.  We plan to gather at PrairieFest in Fort Worth on April 27 for another day of plein air bliss.

Thanks for reading.

I paint to remember.

I journal because I am alone.

I blog to remind myself I am not alone. 

Preparing for Friday Night, Piccolo Mondo Restaurant and Bar

Piccolo Mondo Restaurant, Arlington, Texas

I just completed my second consecutive night in the sweaty, 97-degree man cave, gathering and packing my inventory for Friday night.  Five local artists will be displaying and selling art out of the Piccolo Mondo Restaurant in north Arlington Friday from 5:30-11:30.  This will be the first time I have set up inside an elegant restaurant and bar.  The Friday night clientele has been described as a good audience for an art show, so I guess we are about to find out.   At any rate, it will be nice to hang out with my friends in a lovely setting.  We will set up our exhibits at 3:00 and the establishment opens for dinner at 5:30.  We have been told that reservations are the wise choice for a Friday night, but walk-ins are accommodated as well.  Our display area is one of the dining rooms clearly visible from the waiting and bar area.  The French doors will all be opened, and the art work will be visible to anyone entering the establishment.  I’m getting excited as the time nears.

Tomorrow will end my summer school for the week–it’s so nice not to teach on Fridays.  I had hoped to paint tonight, but ran out of time.  The hour is getting late and 6:00 will come all-too-quickly for me, again.  But I have every hope of painting tomorrow after school, as the weekend officially begins.

For any of you in the area, I would love to see you Friday evening.  For all the rest of you, I pledge to be painting and blogging again tomorrow.  Thanks for reading.  I’m not sure if this virtual tour of the restaurant is going to work, but here is the link:

http://tours.digispin.com/?sid=52159

A Plein Air Retreat with Claude Monet

Monet's Giverny in Athens, Texas

Sunday presented me with a bounteous gift.  I received a surprise phone call while in the studio Saturday from a long-time teacher friend/colleague.  Back in the early 1990′s we team-taught French Impressionism to her French classes and my art classes at Lamar High School.  Though we had not seen much of each other for nearly two decades, we continued to share a common thread in French Impressionist art.

She phoned Saturday to say she had just driven past a site in Athens, Texas that reminded her of Claude Monet’s gardens in Giverny–a pond on some private property that was glistening in the morning sun with a large body of water lilies.  My friend contacted the owners and secured permission for us to go on to the property.  I arrived the next day, and we went directly to work.  The owners of the property were extremely gracious to us, and I cannot recall a more splendid plein air opportunity than the one I experienced as the sun began to set on this beautiful body of water and lily pads.

I was out of my element, which is always fun en plein air.  I had never before attempted to paint lily pads, and found myself scrambling on this one.  But the sight of the sun, back-lighting the trees behind the pond, proved just as scintillating a subject as the shimmering water surface itself, and I found myself getting lost in this composition.  I have been invited to return when the lilies are in bloom, and I cannot wait for that day to happen.  The two-hour drive was well worth the experience, and I welcome the return.

I loved the connection I felt to Claude Monet as I studied the light playing across the water surface, the flickering leaves on the trees, and the bending grasses.  I did not want to leave the site.  I cannot thank my friends enough for giving me this opportunity.

Thanks for reading.

Preparing for Exhibit at DeSoto City Hall

Tell Me Where the Road Is

I feel the constant need to apologize to my faithful readers for not creating new work.  I’ve been so sick this past week, and have gone to school each day anyway, and then come home to collapse into bed.  Every day I am getting a little  better, but I’m still not back to full health.

This afternoon, I’ll deliver fifteen framed watercolors to DeSoto City Hall for an April exhibit.  I’m honored to be asked to exhibit there, and it is a beautiful venue for art.

This posted painting will be the centerpiece of my new show.  I’m showing the cover of a shopper that published the image a few years ago.  I’ve managed to get plenty of mileage out of this particular watercolor.  The image is a 1946 International truck that belonged to my 4th grade teacher, Betty Langhauser.  For decades, I saw this truck parked beside her home when I traveled to St. Louis to visit my own parents.  Mrs. Langhauser died a few years ago on the 4th of July.  On my next visit home, I saw that the vehicle had been removed from the property, and know that I’ll never see it again.  I’m glad I photographed it the year before she passed away and made the painting of it.

Tomorrow I begin another three-day art festival, Kennedale’s annual Art in the Park.  If I have Wi-Fi access, I’ll publish from that location.  If not, then I’ll publish from my home the delayed news.

Thanks for reading.

Saturday at Art on the Greene

Saturday at Art on the Greene

Good morning.  I am posting yesterday’s blog today, from home, because I choose not to pay for the AT&T Wi-Fi at Cowboys Stadium.  Following  is what I wrote in yesterday’s journal while seated outside my booth, waiting for the show to open:

I entered Richard Greene Linear Park on a sun-washed spring morning with the temperatures holding at a sensuous 70 degrees.  The canal flowing behind my booth provided a meeting place for a circle of giggling birds.  Twenty minutes later, I sat serenely in my director’s chair beneath the enormous canopy tree on the north side of my booth.  The walls of the booth were rolled up, breezes were flowing through, the art work was all in place, and patrons were already beginning to drift by.  The Advil successfully fought back the aches my body suffered from yesterday’s six-hour load-in and set-up.  The Starbuck’s bistro “breakfast-on-the-run” proved the perfect respite beneath the tree–coffee, sliced apple, grapes, cheese slices, English muffin and honey peanut butter.  I have a watercolor easel set up at my side, and I’m thinking seriously about beginning a plein air sketch for my own a, and perhaps for the passers-by.  It is not an easy task, trying to describe the long stretches of space spent alone in the artist’s booth during a three-day festival.  But conversations with patrons who enjoy festival art replenish my weary spirits more than I can say, and I cherish every one of them. 

Now, on the morning after, I can add to my journal entry.  Saturday was remarkable, with throngs of people who never diminished throughout the day and evening.  With this being the first large art festival in the history of Arlington, Texas, it proved a real homecoming for me, with teachers, former colleagues and former students coming by in droves and renewing acquaintances.  I cannot begin to describe the well-being and comfort I drew from talking with all of them.  The sales were phenomenal, and I even managed to create three plein air watercolor sketches at the easel, thus opening up further opportunities for conversation with those curious enough to approach and see what I was attempting.

A splendid day indeed.  Now today, Sunday, we are there once more from 11 to 5:00.  Then comes the break-down and load-out, and a weary trip to the bed so I can rise at 6:00 tomorrow and begin another week at school.

Thanks always for reading.

Blogging from the Art Festival

Hillsboro Antiques and Crafts Festival

Good morning from Hillsboro,Texas.  I wanted to post to the blog yesterday morning, but there is no Wi-Fi at this location.  I thought I would take advantage of today’s early Sunday morning lull to update.  I am composing this on a Word document, and once finished, will dash across the parking lot to log onto the Internet, paste in this document, then dash back to the festival.  (I’ll be Eddie Albert shinnying up the utility pole to make a phone call on Green Acres).

I am at the Outlets at Hillsboro Antique and Crafts Show in Hillsboro, Texas.  My 10 x 20’ booth space is very nice, as I am now able to present my art work without that crowded warehouse effect I’ve grown accustomed to inside a 10 x 10’ tent.  I have also been given an enormous store window space to place larger works on an easel.  Fortunately I am indoors as well.  The rain has been unrelenting throughout this weekend.  Yesterday’s Classic Auto Show was ruined (four vintage cars showed up, and left pretty quickly).  That definitely put a damper on the attendance.  Nevertheless traffic remained steady throughout yesterday, and some sales were made.  Sundays are usually slow, but we’ll see what happens today.

I had hoped to work on a watercolor while here, but honestly, I cannot find space in my booth to work without obstructing customer traffic.  So I spent yesterday in the booth space, studying art history and playing my guitar (two things I don’t seem to find quality time for lately).  Spring Break has arrived, so as soon as this show closes tonight, I will have a week of out-of-school freedom, and could do more posting to this blog than you can tolerate!

My reading lately has come from the 13^th edition of Gardner’s Art Through the Ages (our A.P. textbook of a thousand pages—I’m almost to 800 now), and Heinz Zahrnt’s Question of God: Protestant Theology in the Twentieth Century.  I read this second book with great interest during my years in graduate school, and now return to it, thirty years later, with a renewed interest.  Such a peculiar feeling, seeing the 20^th century as “history” now.  Gives me pause.

Hopefully tomorrow I can resume my work on the Ridglea Theater.  I truly believe that painting could be finished with a good day’s work.  I have another that I am itching to begin—a Fort Worth landmark that really seized my attention last week.  I fully intend to get that one underway while out of school next week.  I have two more art festivals coming up pretty quickly.  Thus, I feel this compulsion to get some more watercolors underway, because festivals have a way of interfering with my productivity—there is so much business and industry involved in updating the inventory, inspecting the furnishings of the booth, and the constant packing, unpacking, loading and unloading.  Very little painting happens during the festival season.  And I have really had the itch to pursue watercolor during these recent months.

Thanks again for reading.  Sorry for the blog hiatus.  I fully intend to do “make up” sessions next week during this wonderful Spring Break.

Finished Advertising Image for Art in the Park

Art in the Park, Kennedale, Texas

Sorry I’ve been away from the blog so long.  I have experienced a myriad of computer-technology problems and now am working on different equipment.  I cannot understand why this posted image looks so grainy.  Granted I took the photo outdoors when evening was darkening, but I have done that before with no issues.

I just finished an image to advertise the 3rd annual Art in the Park at Kennedale, Texas.  The two day event will be March 31-April 1.

Thanks for reading.

 

Watercoloring Harleys from the Man Cave

Harleys in Blanco, Texas

I believe this is the first time I pushed a watercolor so far on the first day.  I didn’t really get after the work until after school today, but found myself chipping away at it all afternoon and into the evening.  I believe I’ll have it finished tomorrow.  It’s not like I have other things to worry about–administering a PSAT test, teaching four classes, and giving a private lesson after school, and then getting my gear ready for an art festival for which I’ll leave in 48 hours.  Oh well, I guess there is no rest for the weary.  But honestly, I enjoyed working on this piece, actually playing with this piece.  I don’t know where all the time went.

The Man Cave was a great environ this afternoon and evening.  I enjoyed Neil Young Unplugged on an old VHS I purchased years ago.  Then I listened to Prince’s Purple Rain twice.   So, the music was great company.

Time to climb into bed and face that monster tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

Plein Air Watercolor Sketching from the Man Cave on a Rainy Day

View from the Man Cave 1 of 3

It has been days since the last blog.  Too much work demanded from school and upcoming festivals.  I got a reprieve from yesterday’s festival due to a scheduling snafu.  My name was not on the master list.  They offered me a booth in the food section, and I decided “No thanks.”  It was nice to be home for a Saturday.

Today it rained cats and dogs all day in Texas.  I re-opened my “man cave” in the garage, with cooling temperatures caressing the environment.  The cool rains made the morning very pleasant, so I stared out at the trees and bushes of my neighbor’s front yard and began work on a series of small watercolors I’ll insert into pre-cut 8 x 10″ mats.  This is the first of the series of three.  I relied on Prismacolor Watercolor Pencils and Winsor & Newton colors from my field box.  I found the sketching to be a nice “loosening up” exercise, and therefore very enjoyable.

Thanks for reading.

The Artistic Muse–painting, architecture, philosophy and literature merging

Weatherford, Texas Victorian Bed and Breakfast

How resilient the Life of the Mind, even when daily work details work overtime to drive away the creative impulse!  As I write this, I am totally exhausted, teaching high school full-time (or should I say overtime, since an extra class has been added to the previous “full-time” teaching load?) and keeping a busy schedule with art festivals.  I just finished my second festival in three weeks, the two combined festivals spanning six days.  I have two more consecutive festivals the next two weekends, and a final one the last Saturday of the month.  All told, it will be five festivals over seven weeks, the festivals themselves spanning ten days.  Oh yes, and there was the opening of my One-Man Show during that span, and a marvelous newspaper feature article giving me considerable exposure to the community.  The six-week grading period has just ended at school, so grades are due to be posted tomorrow.  Of course, I am still not finished with that task, and tomorrow will no doubt be another late night.

Nevertheless—my head and heart are abuzz with ideas, not always flying in formation.  I’ve never been linear in my processing.  Today alone (besides teaching three Art I classes and one Philosophy class) I have been possessed with musings over the Richard Diebenkorn show that I viewed breathlessly yesterday at the Fort Worth Modern Art Museum, along with ideas gleaned from The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell (my favorite “intellectual” artist of the 20th century), an extensive article from The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “The History of Aesthetics,” the Classical Age of Greek Art (my preparations for tomorrow’s A. P. Art History class), the Art of the Ancient Aegean (my preparations for tomorrow’s two regular Art History classes) and my recent sketches of Fort Worth’s 1907 Flat Iron building erected south of Sundance Square.

As I was musing over Classical Greek architecture, Motherwell’s comments on abstraction and some things written over the years in my personal journals, I decided to re-post this image of a watercolor I created earlier this year of the Angels Nest at 1105 Palo Pinto Street in Weatherford, Texas (http://angels-nest.com/).   It turned out to be a large vertical painting (approximately 22 x 30″) with the actual Victorian house occupying a small space at the top of a sprawling hill.  The majesty of this site is amazing to behold, and I would love someday to spend a night or two lodging there.  I first decided to paint it last January, when I was journeying to the Brazos River in Possum Kingdom to fly fish for rainbow trout.  The winter sun was extremely bright that day, lighting up this house like a diamond against the azure blue sky.  So splendid was the view, that I went to a great deal of trouble turning my Jeep around on a divided highway and coming back to this spot so I could take photographs to bring home to my studio.  Once I started on the painting, I found little trouble rendering the house, but considerable headaches dealing with that sprawling lawn and treeline.  The painting now is on display at the Weiler House Fine Art Gallery (http://weilerhousefineart.com/).  My One-Man Show will close Saturday, October 8, at the conclusion of the HandleyFest.  I’ll be present at that festival as well, with my tent in place.

I am stirred up by all these wonderful ideas, and wish I had time to pursue them in sketches and watercolors, but alas, there is a heavy slate of classes awaiting me in the morning, and a department meeting over the lunch hour.  Still, I think I will have a window of opportunity to paint with a friend tomorrow after school, and Thursday as well.  Yesterday afternoon yielded quality time to render the historic Ridglea Theater on Camp Bowie in quick watercolor.  I now have designs on the Fort Worth Flat Iron building, and hope I can get to it, if not tomorrow, then by Thursday afternoon.  Motherwell wrote about the word “abstract,” taken from the Latin, meaning to remove something.  He thinks that abstraction is one’s attempt to remove the unnecessary in order to get at the essence of something.  Much of that notion echoes the ideas of Andrew Wyeth with regard to drybrush renderings.  Today in the Art I classes, I was trying to lead the students in that exercise by drawing coffee mugs, and trying to discern how little of a mug could be drawn before the viewer could recognize its “essence.”  While students worked on coffee mugs, I worked on the Fort Worth Flat Iron in my sketchbook, trying to draw just enough of it to make the structure recognizable in its “essence.”  I next tried it with Victorian homes.  That reminded me to re-visit this Weatherford Victorian painting.

As my company is called Recollections 54 (from my birth year), I still find myself musing over cultural relics that remain from that decade, often in a current state of disrepair, yet possessing enough “essence” to exert their authenticity.  And just as an incomplete structure possesses the power to draw us into its essence, so also a partially-drawn structure can lead the viewer to the portion of the subject that matters, the core, the essence.  We are still able, with a little lingering, to recover some of the warm memories that hover in residual fashion about these structures.  The longer I linger in their presence, and the more time I spend in the writings of kindred spirits like Robert Motherwell and Richard Diebenkorn, the more I feel the presence of the muse and feel the stirring sensation of her whisperings.  And once again, I am ready to pick up the brush.  I hope I can tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.