Caught up as of today!

Mustang Spirit
bronze on granite

    March 7th was the Texas Masters Show at the Insight Gallery in Fredericksburg. As always it is a tremendous honor to be part of the show. This show features some of the very finest representational artists working in Texas. This year my newest sculpture in the show is a running mustang called Mustang Pride.
     One of the most enjoyable things about this time of the year has been the Sorolla exhibit at the Meadows museum in Dallas. This has to be my favorite show of any artist''s work I have seen. It really gives a complete view of the artist, his process, and his work. By the time the show ended this weekend I had seen it six times. Each time I went it was with  different groups of friends and each time I saw different things and in different ways. Some of the pieces were from private collections and so there was a certain feeling of sadness in thinking that I would never see some of them again.



Bison in Spring
8 x 10
oil on canvas

    I had two big events on March 29th. The first was a paintout with ten of my friends at the Fort Worth Nature Center .I painted one of the bison. These paintings will be auctioned off at a dinner and fundraiser on April 26th at the Nature Center. The show may be viewed online on their website.



Spring in Texas
8 x 10
oil on canvas

      The second event of the day was the Fort Worth Art Dealers Association's Spring Gallery Night.I had paintings and sculptures at a place called Portfolio on Camp Bowie. My friend Margaret did a sculpture demo and I did a painting Demo. I did a painting of bluebonnets and cattle. This one was started from photos and finished in plein air.



Dutch Branch Park

       The last two weeks I have discovered a new place to paint, Dutch Branch Park at Benbrook Lake only a couple of minutes from my house .It is a beautiful place with wildlife, hiking trails, horse trails, and nice views. ( I used to take my Labradors here to practice their retrieving in the lake.) Last Saturday a group of seven of us went out around sunrise and painted there. I started two paintings there and also worked on my painting from Gallery Night. I had to leave early to take some sculptures to David Dike Fine Art to replace several that had recently  sold there. Then I went back to the Meadows Museum to see Sorolla for one last time with some more friends. I ran into several other fellow artists there. I think almost every artist I know who saw it went more than once.
      Today I met my friend Linnea back at Dutch Branch Park to paint again. It was a beautiful day, not nearly as windy as last Saturday. We saw a flock of six wild turkeys and several deer. I worked on my two paintings from last Saturday, started a new one, and finished the one from Gallery Night. I would have liked to have painted longer but my nephews had baseball games today. In the evening I worked on several sculptures and watched a movie on Theo and Vincent Van Gogh.

The Texas Masters Show

Me working on my demo at The Texas Masters Show at the Insight Gallery
 

     This weekend was one of the ones  I most  look forward to every year. It was the start of the Texas Masters Show at the Insight Gallery in Fredericksburg. This year I did a sculpture demo during the opening reception.  It was really great meeting some of my collectors. I was truly impressed by them.
   
      Another thing that I thoroughly enjoyed was visiting with the other artists. Because I was doing my demo I didn't get to talk with all of the great artists there, but  some of my favorite artists that  I visited with were Gladys Roldan-de-Moras, Jill Carver, D. Larue Mahlke, Bob Guelich, Mary Buchholz, George Halmark, and Chuck Rawle.


       The next morning after the show I drove around to enjoy the scenery and wildlife of the Hill Country and then went back to the Insight Gallery to watch painting demos by Cheri Christensen and Mark Haworth. It was a very interesting demo and a nice way to wrap up the weekend at Fredericksburg. This turned out to be a profitable and enjoyable weekend.

Two of my bronzes in the show.

 

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Three of my bronzes in the show.

Two more of my bronzes in the show.

Sculpting and Painting in the New Year

Coyote sculpture in progress at the zoo.
 

   One of my newest projects is a small coyote sculpture. Last weekend I went out to the Fort Worth Zoo and worked on it. When I'm finished I'll cast it in bronze. It was fairly cold but I enjoyed working from life. We have two coyotes. They are brothers. They are housed between the jaguars and bobcats in the Texas Wild section. I think they can't be very happy with their choice of neighbors.


Coyote in the Fort Worth Zoo

   I also went out to Cedar Hill State Park south of Dallas to paint out. There was a group of about seven of us including my friends Tina Bohlman and Olivette Hubler.There is an old farm on the property complete with buildings and farm machinery. I didn't finish my painting that I was working on of one of the outbuildings. One of the things I can say about it is that I'm still working on my values, especially the darks.
    I also had some very exciting news, my gallery in Fredericksburg asked me to do a sculpture demo for their Texas Masters Show. This is truly an incredible honor for me. Some of the artists who have done demos there recently include Scott Christianson, Quang Ho, and Jill Carver. The show opens March 1st and my demo will be Saturday morning, March 2nd.

The farm in Cedar Hill State Park

Western Art Collector

My editorial in Western Art Collector

Spring is one of my favorite times of the year and things as usual have been really busy. First, I just had an editorial in the April Issue of Western art Collector, not that this kept me busy but I was pretty excited about it. In the first weekend of this month I participated in the Texas Masters Show at the Insight Gallery In Fredericksburg. I just had a show open last Saturday at Artspace 111 in Fort Worth. I did a sculpture demo for a few hours and it went really well. April 7th I am part of a group show at the Southwest Gallery with the Outdoor Painters Society. April 21st I have a show at David Dike's in Dallas.

My work in progress of a horse.

There are several plain air outings coming up and as usual I am working on several sculptures. The one I plan on finishing next is the horse shown above. I started it last Friday . Right now I am just sort of blocking it in. It will be an Arabian when it is done. I have been going out to the Benbrook stable sketching and taking photographs. Now I need to take the sculpture out there and work on it in front of the horses to really capture the anatomy

Some of my roses.

 One of my favorite things to do this time of year is to work in my yard and as I work in it I always see things that I'd like to paint and never have the time. The rains have been perfect this year and my roses and iris are really blooming well. The wildflowers are also really great this year especially the bluebonnets and I haven't even been out to photograph them. I'm really going to have to get busy and take advantage of the great spring weather we have had. There is no telling how hot it will be this summer or even in the late spring.




One of my rose bushes that I got from my grandmother's garden.

Plants along my back fence.





Plein Air and the Texas Masters Show

Black and Green
8 x 10
oil on canvas
$250

   I had a terrific weekend at Fredericksburg on Texas Independence Day. I went down for the Texas Masters Show at the Insight Gallery yesterday. It was a beautiful drive down. It felt like a late spring or early summer day. The peach and plum trees were in bloom as were the first bluebonnets. And if you are wondering, this is usually way too early for these things to be blooming.

Two of my longhorn sculptures at the show.

   The show was great. I sold three sculptures, two last night and one sold before the opening. This show highlights the work created by artists living and working in Texas. Many great artists were in attendance including Jill Carver, Chuck Rawle, Gladys Roldan de Moras, William Kalwick, Jim Eppler and D. Larue Mahlke. The gallery was packed from six to eight and even after that more people were still coming in.

Four of my sculptures at the show.

   As always, everything was first rate from the art work to the food at the reception. In keeping with tradition wild game including quail, venison, and shrimp and margaritas were served.

Guests at the Gallery.

    The next morning after the show I went out painting. A cold front had arrived during the night and although the sky was a beautiful blue and the grass bright green it was cold and  windy. Still I was able to do a quick 8 x 10 of a field with some Angus cattle in it.

The scene i painted at fredericksburg.

   If the weather had been nicer I would have loved to have painted other animals I saw today along the road and at the Saurer Beckman  Farm..There were fields of sheep, goats, bison, and all breeds of cattle including Angus, jerseys, herefords, and longhorns..

A young ram at the farm.

   After I painted I went to the nursery in Fredereicksburg and bought a persimon tree and bought some tomato plants in a feed store. The nice weather we have been having makes me want to be out planting.

A field of goats.

   I stopped off at Salado at the old Stagecoach Inn. The inn was built in the early 1860s on the site of an old Indian village and became a crossroads of the Chisholm trail and the military roads. Many famous people stayed there including Sam Houston who gave a speach on its balcony against Texas Secession and General George Armstrong Custer. Lunch in Salado was a great way to top off my weekend trip. 
   Now one more show to get ready for tomorrow, so more on that later.

Texas Masters Show

Mother and Child
bronze on granite

I  have two shows coming up this weekend.  The Texas Master's Show at the Insight Gallery in Fredericksburg and

Art  Reach at  Christ  Chapel. I will have my newest sculpture, Mother and Child in both shows as well as my sculpture of a crucifix in Art Reach. These will both be really enjoyable shows. I am looking forward to  seeing  many  of  my  good  friends  and  fellow  artists  at  both  shows.