Saturday, April 13, 2013

Art in April

Some of my art at Chandor Gardens
    Spring is here and a very busy time it is for me. Last weekend I participated in the Spring Fling at Chandor Gardens. it is a smallish event but growing and in a beautiful setting. I painted a few paintings while I was there and had a very enjoyable two days.

Little Range Rover
8 x 10
oil on canvas
SOLD
 
 Several of my artist friends participated including Sheri Jones, Jill Randal, Dan Spangler and Olivette Hubler. My friend Tosca bought the armadillo painting above that I recently finished. The garden is always beautiful but it was filled with song on Sunday.( The song of mating toads.) The fountains were full of courting toads.

One of the fountains full of toads in Chandor Gardens.


 I placed an add in the April edition of Western Art Collector and it really paid off this time. I sold one sculpture last week and three this week so my thanks go out to the good people at Western Art collector.

Glen Rose Goats
 Today, Saturday,  a group of us went down to Glen Rose to paint bluebonnets. It was a beautiful morning. We were going to meet at the back entrance of Fossil Rim, the wildlife park. I got down early to look for a place to paint. The area around Glen Rose is a very hilly region and famous for its dinosaur tracks, hence the name Fossil Rim.

A friendly donkey near Glen Rose
The area abounds in wildlife as well as farm animals of all kinds. I saw lots goats, sheep, horses, donkeys, longhorns and other cattle. Everything is green and lush and there were many fields of livestock that would have made beautiful paintings.

Texas Bluebonnets - in the lupine family.
The one thing that was somewhat lacking were the bluebonnets. However a short distance from the back gate I did find a nice patch of bluebonnets. They were not as thick as usual but beggars can't be choosers.

View from the Overlook.
I went back to Fossil Rim and the overlook to wait for our group. In the photo above from the balcony of the Overlook restaurant you can just make  out part of a herd of giraffes. Fossil Rim is most famous for its conservation of endangered animals especially rhinos, but I didn't see any where I was.

Olivette, Maryann and Sheri painting bluebonnets.
 Our group today consisted of Sheri Jones, Olivette Hubler,Maryann Brummer and Candy Clynch. We parked along the Side of the road and painted the bluebonnets I found. It was a beautiful spot and a beautiful day. We all enjoyed it very much. I painted bluebonnets and cedar trees with a trail going through them. I had to meet my family for a movie so I had to leave before I was really finished. I'm posting it now but I'll do a bit more on it still..

Texas Spring
9 x 12
oil on canvas
Looking ahead,  I'll be painting at Prairie Fest at Tandy Hills in East Fort Worth on April 27th. On Saturday May 11th I'll be doing a sculpture demo at Dutch Art in Dallas where Sheri Jones will be doing a painting demo. The next week I'll be painting at one of the homes in my neighborhood, Ridglea Hills, during the Historic Society's Hidden Gardens Tour. The gardens will be large, one to three acres in size. Finally at the end of the month I'll be painting in paintout in Waxahachie.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Doug, I love the sound of the Spring Fling, it must put you in the mood for Summer.
    Fossil Rim sounds great too I would love to see dinosaur tracks, as a child I was obsessed with dinosaurs and anything to do with them.

    It's just starting to look like spring here with lovely sunshine today. Over the weekend we had heavy showers and huge gusts of wind, the poor rooks at the bottom of my garden lost half of their nests and I found dead babies on the ground. Although I moan about their noise and the mess they make at this time of year, I did feel sorry for them, they looked so forlorn,
    Chris.

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  2. Wonderful post, Doug! thanks for sharing these amazing photos..the blue bonnets are so beautiful...we saw lots of them when we visited Texas...Congratulations on selling your "Little
    range rover"!!!

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  3. Hi Doug, just found your blog. Looks like some goodies on the table there. Nice sculptures too. I thought about getting into that one day. Have fun painting.

    ~Randall

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