Prairiefest 2013

Prairie Fest 2013
Oil on Canvas
8 x 10
$100

Last weekend a group of us went to paint at Prairie Fest at Tandy Hills Park in East Fort Worth. The weather was super, with very little wind, which is a treat at Tandy Hills. This park has plants that are now very rare in this part of Texas including wild foxgloves. ( My friend Sheri Jones painted them.) Other friends there were T.K. Riddle, Olivette Hubler, Hai Chi Lee, Linnea McKinnie, and David Tripp.

Wild Foxglove

Cool Morning in Chandor Gardens

Foo Dog
oil on canvas
 8 x 10
$100



   Yesterday several of my friends and I went back to Weatherford to paint in the Chandor Gardens. The artists who came to paint were Olivette Hubler, T. K. Riddle, Tosca Engish, and Sars Ward. The Gardens do not open until 9:00 so we were not able to get an early start to the day.
 


The front door of Douglas Chandor's house.

The temperature reached over 100 but in the lush gardens we were never hot. The trees and water really make a tremendous difference. I decided to finish a painting I had already started of one of two foo dogs guarding the path to a beautiful fountain. I had shade and a breeze.

Path to the fountain.

 T. K. went and picked up lunch for us, most of us had chicken salad sandwiches and iced teas. We ate at a table on one of the patios and again we had shade and a wonderful cool breeze. Eventually after eating we went back to painting.


One of the most beautiful fountains in the gardens.

 The gardens were busier than usual with many families having their photos taken. This is such a beautiful and amazing place. It is no wonder it is so popular for weddings and other events.

One of the many interesting spots in the garden.

 I finished my painting and got ready to leave. It was almost one o'clock and I had not been hot at all. Then I went to the parking lot to put my stuff in the car. It was HOT there.



Parker County Court House in Weatherford

 I took a photo of the Parker county court house. It is a really beautiful building. Most mornings I pass by there are prisoners in orange and white stripes tending the grounds. I've never seen a guard, someone must be inside in the air conditioning watching them.


Some of my peppers

 When I came home I looked at my poor gardens for inspiration. I water everyday. My plants are alive but most of them don't look great. My citrus are doing really well, I'm still getting lots of okra, some peppers and a few tomatoes. But, many of the other plants are struggling. We could really use some rain. Even a small rain greens things up a great deal more than watering with sprinklers

Mini oranges

Some of my cacti and succulents.

Art Every Day

The Garden Child
8 x 10
oil on canvas
$175

 I have not posted in a while, but I have been really busy creating art. I have a lot of paintings in progress but I'm posting one I finished on Saturday. I am also working on several sculptures, working on entering shows, and generally staying really busy.

Olivette and I painting at Chandor Gardens in Weatherford.

Today for example a group of us went out to Chandor Gardens in Weatherford  to paint. It really was not too hot, and it always seems about 10 degrees cooler or less in these gardens. We had a good group turn out to paint, Olivette Hubler, Steve Miller, Allen and Tosca Engish, Dan Spangler, Moira McCarthy, and Linnea (I don't remember her last name.) It was a great day for painting. We also had a great lunch catered by a local restaurant called the Wild Mushroom. It was served in the  room that served as the studio of Douglas Chandor. I sculpted later in the day.

One of Dennis's great landscapes.

Yesterday I went to the Art with Artists critique group. This is a super group that I go to in the summer. They meet once a month at one of the member's homes and have breakfast and then they bring their art to critique and share what they have been working on. This month the group met at Blair and Janelle Curren's home in Aledo.

Four of John's great still lifes

Not all the members were there this time. Those present were, Blair and his wife, a friend of theirs, John Cook, Dennis Farris, Beatriz Welsh, Darnell Jones, Nancy Boren and me. Blair and Janell fixed a great breakfast including fresh Parker County Peaches.

John getting ready to share a larger painting.

There was a lot of really great art to look at. One of the things that makes it so great is that they all have very different styles but they are all very talented. John Cook brought the most paintings, two large partings and four small ones. Nancy brought five, Dennis  brought three, I brought two paintings and a sculpture, and everyone else shared one painting. One of the topics was information on painting from old art books. Nancy told about one from England, that talked about how when an artist goes out to paint they should find a "rustic" to carry their materials when painting outdoors. Blair had a great old book  from his grandfather from the 1920s. It said that  to create a great painting took two artist, one to paint it, and one to "kill him" before he over painted it. This was the author's way of talking about the universal  problem of overworking a painting.

Blair and Janell's patio, it reminds me of a view in New Mexico.

Blair and Janelle live out in the country. We saw several hummingbirds on the patio and a roadrunner in the front yard. There is a great view off the back patio. You feel like you are far away from everything. In fact they had a lot of photos of a mother fox that raised a family of six foxes under their deck. Seeing wildlife up close is one of the treats  of living in the country. At my mom and dad's they have some foxes too, as well as deer, armadillos and cottontail rabbits.

Scout on my patio where I did some of my sculpting and painting.

   
Sunday I worked at home on my sculptures and paintings on my patio, accompanied by my studio assistant Scout. My friend Tosca had told me about an old British mystery called Five Red Herrings by Dorothy Sayers. It is about a  group of plein air painters, one of whom gets murdered,  on a painting trip in Scotland. I had  ordered this from Ebay and started reading it today. I'm also reading a book on the art of Maynard Dixon.  Lastly I did quite a bit of yard work.

Me painting the picture I posted at the top of this blog.

Saturday several of my friends went to paint in the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens.We had a good group show up for painting and later lunch. My friends with us today were Olivette Hubler, T. K. Riddle, Tosca Engish, Candy Clynch, Margie Whittington and her husband, who has started painting more, Hai Chi Lee, Dan Spangler, Moira McCarthy and Linnea.

T.K. painting behind where I was set up.

Tosca painting on a park bench in the gardens.

Candy painting a floral painting

A grazing bison at the Fort Worth Nature Center.

 I'm working on several bison paintings for some shows this fall so earlier in the week I took some more photos at the fort Worth nature Center when I went painting there with my friend Kent Brewer from Waxahachie.

Bison in the shade at the nature center.

Fort Worth Nature Center Painting, Chandor Gardens

Heading for Shade -  Fort Worth Nature Center
Work in Progress
24 x 20
oil on canvas

 This is a painting that I began last week at the Fort Worth Nature Center. I am working on it for the Preservation is the Art of the City Show in the fall. I went out to the nature center last week and found most of the bison as well as lots of deer taking advantage of the shade to escape the Texas heat. I hope to finish this in the next few days.

A neat view in Chandor gardens.

I went back to the Chandor Gardens in Weatherford to paint again today. I was joined by T. K. Riddle again and Dan Spangler. My painting from today is far from finished and until I finish the bison painting I won't be able to finish it, so I'm not posting it yet. Instead, I'd like to post some more images from  the gardens.

.

An Asian portal in the gardens.

It was an absolute blessing being out painting in the gardens today. The temperature was delightful. This was the sort of day that we can't really expect to see until late September. It was not a bit hot. It was a cloudy day, and it even sprinkled a bit on us as we had lunch. Speaking of lunch, it was great.  T. K. picked it up for us from the same place as last time.

A quiet pathway .

The gazebo.

One of the beautiful fountains in the gardens.

A peaceful spot.

A very photogenic  cadmium red dragonfly.

A small waterfall in the garden.

A blue dragonfly  near one of the streams.

A cicada shell on an agave leaf.

Fort Worth Botanical Gardens, and Home.

Where the Path Takes You
8 x 10
Oil on Canvas
$175

This morning I woke up at six and watered my gardens before heading to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens to paint. I painted today with Tosca Engish, T. K. Riddle, and Robbie Clemmer. We found shady places to paint and even though it was very hot today it was not too hot where we were.

The inspiration for my painting.

There was shade, a breeze and thanks to the water sprinklers, a little extra coolness in the air. Tosca, T. K., and I painted in the same area. It was nice being able to visit as we painted the morning away. Around noon we were ready for lunch so we decided to go to the Swiss Pastry Shop for lunch, ( and air conditioning.)

Tosca painting with watercolors.

Tosca's husband John, and two other painters Dan Spangler and Hai Chi Lee joined us for lunch. It is always nice to have lunch and visit with fellow artists. You can learn so much from the experiences of your friends.

T. K. painting in oils.

After lunch I came home. I am inspired to paint in my own gardens but it is not nearly as fun as painting with others. I water it every morning and evening and still things look too dry.Besides, I'm actually working on a painting of some bison that  I began at the Fort Worth Nature Center for the Preservation is the Art of the City show. When I finish this, I hope I will have time to finally paint some at home, and hopefully there will be green things left to paint.

One of my roses.

Sunflowers near my cucumbers.

Some of my Roma tomatoes. Next to Porters, they are my favorites

Right now there is a lot of color from the flowers, fruits and vegetables in my gardens. My biggest problems are the squirrels. They eat everything and are especially destructive  to the sunflowers which they love, and show that love by shredding to the ground. I have a live trap and have relocated so many of them and put nets over my trees and grapes, but it feels like a losing battle. In the mean time though I have lots of photos I can paint from if I choose to, but of course that is not the same thing at all, is it?.

My Bell of Georgia Peaches.

My doves

Some of my miniature oranges, I also have full sized oranges, lemons and limes.

A coneflower.

Some of my succulents, cacti, and an owl statue.

The Bronze Lady
8 x 10
oil on canvas
$200

 Thanks to my friend T. K. Riddle, our group has a new and very interesting place to paint. We went to Chandor Gardens in T. K'.s town of Weatherford, just west of Fort Worth.These gardens were at the home of a well known portrait artist Douglas Chandor. He painted the wealthy including several U.S. presidents, Eleanor Roosevelt, and a coronation portrait of Queen Elizabeth that hangs in the British embassy in Washington D.C. He and his wife lived half the time in New York and the other half of the time in Texas. While in Texas he spent a great deal of time designing and planting the gardens of his estate.

This was the view that inspired my painting.

Chandor was inspired by British and Asian gardens. The grounds have a bowling green, ornamental trees and flowers, pools with koi, one with a stone Chinese junk, a large waterfall, streams, bridges,  arbors, European boxwoods, cacti, fountains, ornamental stonework, etc... Chandor designed his gardens to be like outdoor rooms so that wherever you are there are interesting and beautiful views. These gardens are now maintained and owned by the town of Weatherford.

Arbors and flowers at the garden.

I had never been to these gardens, and in fact I knew very little about them. When I arrived it was almost overwhelming. There were so many views that were inspiring I had a hard time deciding what to paint. As many of you know I love working in my own gardens and was inspired to paint and plant.

An entrance to the house over an oriental bridge over a stream.

In the end my love of sculpture dictated my choice of a subject, a fountain with a beautiful sculpture of a lady. I loved all the greens of the background along with the blue greens of the sculptures patina. Also the temperatures were in the 100s and I had shade where I painted, that helped me make my choice too.

Another view of the house and grounds.

In addition to T. K. being there, Olivette Hubler, Joyce Thomas, and Leslie Talty were there painting. We ordered lunch and had it delivered, most of us had chicken salad sandwiches, chips, iced teas, and homemade cookies, from a place called Yesterdays. The food was great, and it was a beautiful place to eat.

Another view of the gardens.

After lunch we painted several more hours. Olivette, T. K., and I enjoyed painting there so much that we all joined the garden so we can paint there any time. The lady who ran the gift shop invited us to show and sell our work in the gift shop which I am sure we will do.
 It was a very nice day.


An interesting character statue in the garden.

Koi in one of the ponds,

The Chinese junk statue.

A beautiful blue green pool with the Chinese junk.

T.K. painting the ferns.

Olivette painting near the house, the north windows of Chandor's studio are behind her.