Plein Air North Texas

 Today I helped install an art show at DFW Airport featuring almost 80 paintings by  20 artists from all across North Texas, including Fort Worth, Dallas, Granbury, Keller, Aledo, Mansfield,  Weatherford, Waxahachie, and Colleyville. These artists are Darnell Jones, Beatriz Welch, Cecilia Robertson, Blair Currin, Tina Bohlman, Olivette Hubler, Cecy Turner, Sheri Jones, Margie Whittington, Sabine Higgins, Jan Bateman, Claudia Davis, Leslie Talty, Maryann Brummer, Sara Ward, Carol Ivey, Linda Reedy, Linda Popple, Ann Hardy, and myself. The majority of us are members of the Outdoor Painters Society. I have known all of these artists for many years and have had the pleasure of painting with them across North Texas at informal paint outs at areas like the Fort Worth Stock Yards, Dallas Arboretum, Lake Granbury, the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens, and back roads across the entire area and plein air events like Prairie Fest, Paint Historic Waxahachie, and the Outdoor Painters Society's paint outs. All work is for sale and may be purchased by contacting the artist.

I want to give special thanks to my friend Guy Bruggeman who spent his day off hanging the show. He is the curator of DFW's art collection. The show will hang until March 2nd. It is located in the car rental facility at the south entrance to the airport on the second floor. I will be going back several times to look at the work when I have time to really study it. It is a pleasure seeing every one's work hanging together and seeing how different artists interpret the same region.

Paintings by Sara Ward and Beatriz Welch

One of my paintings and two of Olivette Hubler's paintings.

Paintings by Sara Ward and Cecy Turner

Paintings by Sabine Higgins and Maryann Brummer

Paintings by Linda Reedy and Sheri Jones.

Painting by Darnell Jones

Paintings by me and Claudia Davis.

Painting by Ann Hardy.

One of my paintings.

One of my paintings.

Paintings by Claudia Davis and Jan Bateman.

Christmas Blessings

Texas Spring
9 x 12
oil on panel
$250

   At this time of year I like to think of all my blessings, and they are so numerous. Of course here I write about art, and even my art blessings are greater than I can count,.but I am going to write about a few.
   Today I went on a tour with ten of my painting friends of the Caravaggio exhibit at the Kimble Art Museum. This was my second tour of this exhibit given by my friend Beatriz Welch. She truly is a gifted teacher in the way she shares her knowledge. It was a wonderful and inspiring tour. Afterwards we had lunch at the restaurant there, which is always a great treat.
   Something else that I need to write about are the Christmas cards I have received. Many of my painter friends have their paintings made into cards. Receiving these cards is  one of the things that I truly look forward to each year. This year I got an amazing card. My friend Sheri Jones actually sent out original acrylic paintings on paper. I appreciate Sheri's art and am so honored to have received her card which is in itself such a wonderful gift.
   Another blessing I had began a few months back. I was contacted by the editor of a local very upscale magazine called Indulge. She wanted images of my sculptures for their holiday gift guide. She included my large longhorn bronze sculpture, Native Texan, and the small horned toad bronze sculpture, Horned Pride (miniature). The magazine came out a two weeks ago, and almost immediately the sales started coming in.
   Finally my greatest blessings are having time to paint and sculpt and most importantly all the great friends I have met through art.
   The painting  I posted today is one that I began as a plein air painting in the spring of 2009 and just completed this week. It had yellow and red wildflowers in it but I got out my reference photos and covered them with bluebonnets. I really like the new painting much better.

Five for the Small Works Show at the FWCAC

Garden House
8 x 10
oil on panel

Last Tuesday I wasn't feeling very well. I found out I have walking pneumonia. I'm slowly (very slowly)  starting to feel better. One of the worse things though is that I haven't felt like creating any art at all. I don't have a lot of good things to say about daytime television either!

Camping at Lake Granbury
8 x 10
oil on panel

 However, even though I have been missing out on this great fall weather and color, I haven't been totally idle. I did get these five 8 x 10s in the Small Works Show at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center. This is a fun show featuring all kinds of art, 9 x 12 or smaller and unframed. It is a great place to add to your art collection or buy Christmas presents.

Bad Hair Day
8 x 10
oil on panel

The stipulation of this show is that the work not be framed and must fit in a 9 x 12 mailing envelope.So the paintings I selected had to be on flat panels. Many of my friends put paintings in this show as well. Over the years I've purchased several paintings there myself. I'm looking forward to seeing the show once it is hung and maybe adding to my art collection.

The Road Home
8 x 10
oil on panel

Two For My Tea
8 x 10
oil on panel

On my own in the Botanical Gardens

Pots of Color
8 x 10
oil on canvas
$175

     Anyone who knows me knows that when I paint out I usually have a group along, but today I went out to the Botanical Gardens on my own. (I probably will do a bit  more on this painting, but if I wait until then it might not get posted until next weekend.) It was a bit warm today since I didn't have much shade but I enjoyed it. I chose these pots because of their shapes and the colors of the flowers in them. (I decided to paint them last weekend when I was at the Art in the Garden Show and I think they had more blooms then.)


My subject before I took some liberties with it.

      The good thing about planting in pots is that you can add color to almost any spot . Plus it is easier to keep them watered than large beds, especially in times of drought,  like this year.

Monarch butterfly

    As I painted I noticed that there were lots of monarch butterflies flying around. I haven't seen any butterflies in quite a while. Every year the monarchs migrate across our state on their way to Mexico. It is one of the signs of fall, and something I always  look forward to, just like the long v formations of ducks and geese that will be heading south later.


Hibiscus in the center pot.

      Hibiscus are one of the plants that do so well in pots. They have large blooms and come in a variety of colors including red, yellow, pink, and peach. The bad thing about them in my opinion is that the blooms don't last very long and if you don't bring them in they will freeze in the winter. I  think there may be some now that are more hardy.


View of the garden. The best thing about this photo are the puffy white clouds. There is a chance of rain tonight!



Outdoor Painters Society Paintout in Glen Rose



Fall in Glen Rose
8 x 10
oil on canvas
$150

       This weekend the Outdoor Painters Society held a paint out in Glen Rose on Friday and Saturday. I had to work on Friday but I drove down to Dina Gregory's for the barbecue dinner after work. Dina lives just out of Glen Rose in a little place called Eulogy. On the way down we had a pouring rain. It was almost hard to drive in all the rain. Dina has a beautiful log cabin type home in the country . She has huge porches on her house with great views, so many of us chose to eat outdoors and enjoy the rain and cooler temperatures. There were many people there that I didn't know but several that I did including, Sheri Jones, Sabine Higgins, Randy Saffle, David Schultz, Joyce Thomas, Debob Jacob, Tina Bohlman and others. I left quickly after we ate since I didn't want to try to find my way home in the dark in pouring rain.

Me, painting along the Paluxy River.

I drove back on Saturday morning with Cecilia Robertson to paint. We set up along the Paluxy River by the old stone mill, which is the oldest building  north of Waco in Texas. There was a bit of color along the river, as well as some water in it thanks to the rains. Several other artists painted here including Sheri, Sabine, Debob, Olivette Hubler, Carolyn  Cobb, and Christy Kidwell. I saw some great art being painted today.

Me painting along the Paluxy River.

Around lunch time many of the artists went to lunch at the Green Pickle. Cecilia, Debob, and I ate with David Schultz, Linda Schindler, and a lady I didn't know. There were several other tables of artists in the restaurant. I think we all got burgers, they were great. For dessert we all shared the last piece of coconut pie in the restaurant. It was really good, the waitress's "granny" had made it that morning. After lunch, Cecelia and I drove back to Fort Worth. Some of the others continued painting and others went home too. It was a really nice day.

Sabine Higgins packing up as Olivette Hubler paints.

Water Garden

Water Garden
5 x 7
oil on canvas panel
$75

    This is a small painting that I started last weekend at the Dallas Arboretum. It was actually the first water lily painting that I did. It isn't as painterly (loose) as I'm going to try to be doing but I went ahead and finished it in the style I began it.
    We didn't reach 100 today so I enjoyed working on it on my patio. We actually are expecting some days to only be in the 80s next week. That will be great. We have water restrictions now. It has been a real struggle to keep things green. Hopefully we will get some rain in the near future. Right now about the only color in my gardens is from my crape myrtles and roses. My favorite rose is an old rose I got from my grandmothers garden when she passed a few years ago. It seems like as long as they have some water they don't mind the heat. Based on singing, my birds, domestic and wild, seemed to be enjoying the break in the heat today as much as I was.

                This is the new dove I bought to keep my old dove company. At first they didn't care for each other
                         much but as I was out painting today I noticed that It seems now like they are getting along much           
        better. I really enjoy hearing their cooing in the morning . It is a cool and relaxing sound to me.

This is one of two antique roses that I brought from my grandmother's garden. It has small pale pink blooms. She often kept them in a vase on her kitchen table.   The other rose I got from her garden has small red blooms, however it isn't in bloom  right now,    One of the things I love about these old roses is that they are so hardy and disease resistant.

My 101st post

Tip Toe Through The Garden
5 x 7
oil on canvas panel
$75

This weekend I went to paint in the Dallas Arboretum with my friend Olivette Hubler. I did this painting fairly quickly, then we had lunch and both started a second painting. It was a really hot day and an orange level pollution day but the gardens were beautiful and a treat to be in.

Lush flowerbeds surrounding a broad lawn.

The gardens in Dallas are on a former private estate on the shore of White Rock Lake. I was really impressed by all the blooms and the lushness of the gardens,

Part of the house from the original estate.

 This is the front of the home that sits in the middle of the gardens. I think it is sometimes opened for tours but wasn't today. There is a restaurant on the back side of this house.

Water lilies in the garden.

 The gardens are full of all sorts of water features in addition to being right near the lake. There are streams, fountains and pools. The sound of splashing water make you feel cooler even on a very hot day.

More flower beds.

A large pool on the edge of the lake.

A frog sculpture in the Arboretum.

 The gardens have many large sculptures in them that sometimes add a bit of whimsy and/or beauty. This is one of four large frogs shooting water at a ball. People are allowed to get in the water to cool off.

Beautiful crape myrtles.

Outdoor seating at the restaurant.

I had never been to the Arboretum but I will be sure to go back. There were so many things worth painting.