A Merry Christmas and a Fitting End of 2013 and Start of 2014




My dog Scout and I

    This has been a very good year. My family has been blessed with health and happiness. The end of the year came and went very quickly. We had an ice storm that kept our roads frozen for days. The roads were so bad that I had to miss the opening of the Christmas small works show at the Insight Gallery. I wasn't able to get my car out of my driveway for four days, but I did get some nice photos of the Christmas lights with all the snow and ice. on the lawns and trees. Christmas was wonderful. Christmas Eve we were at my sisters and Christmas Day at my parents. We had delicious meals and played games and enjoyed each others company.


Round Bales in Winter
8 x 10
oil on canvas

     After Christmas the weather has been somewhat erratic with warm and cold days but my friends and I have made good use of our time. Last Friday, Dec.27th a group of six of us went down near Waxahachie at a place near an area called 5 Points. It was a beautiful day. There were so many interesting things to paint including an old cotton gin, farmhouses, out buildings, and barns with rusted tin roofs, round bales of hay, cattle, sheep, goats, horses, and chickens. On this day I began a couple of paintings and finished the one above.


Texas Farm and Field
8 x 10
oil on canvas

 On the next day Saturday even more of us, around 10 or so, converged on this small community. The locals were intrigued to find artists painting their farms and livestock. They were all very welcoming and hospitable. We received invitations to paint on peoples ranches and even had an offer to cook hamburgers for us. I painted a hay field with the farmhouse in the background. The following Sunday was going to be cold and windy , so no painting, but a group of us used this day to go to Dallas to see the Sorolla exhibit at the Meadows Museum. This is an incredible exhibit. I can not say enough good things about it.


Winter Sun
8 x 10
oil on canvas

    On Monday it was a little cool again, no painting. I had lunch with my parents, two of my nephews, and some cousins. Then in the evening we went to my sisters to watch the Alamo Bowl.
    Tuesday it was still somewhat cool, but it was New Years Eve and I wanted to get one last painting in during 2013, so I went to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. The scene I painted is one that I have painted before .  I like it because when almost all the leaves are gone, this tree still has glowing orange leaves.


Winter Greens
8 x 10
oil on canvas 

    Today on January 1st, 2014, I wanted to get the year off to a good start. I went back to the 5 Points area with my friend Kent Brewer. We were joined by our friends Tina, and Mary. We were painting an old barn beside the road when the owner showed up. She unlocked the gate and invited us to park and paint on the property. She was on the way to another ranch and just told us we could close the gate and put the lock on when we left. The hospitality of the people of rural Texas is so amazing. It was a very nice day for being outdoors and painting.

Paint Historic Waxahachie

Round Bales
8 x 10
oil on canvas



View of the courthouse and  down town from the parking garage.

    This is another painting I did at the paintout. It looks like a stable, but it really is the old train station by the feedstore, thus the bales of hay. This has been a great paintout. There are so many things to paint and so many great artists to paint with. Olivette Hubler and I both painted this building, but from opposite ends,
she got a great painting.

Cloudy Day Painting

Hay at the Feed Store
8 x 10
oil on canvas

 Here is a painting that I did down at Waxahachie at the Jill Carver workshop. I did this one on the first day. We painted at the feed store. I painted one of the grain silos with the hay in front of it. I really chose this scene because of the trees in it. It was a gray cloudy day and all the structures were gray. So, our assignment was to work on values. The second day of class we looked at photographs of our paintings and the scene we painted on the computer in black and white. What I needed to work on was the wrappings on the hay, I had them too dark. The lesson for me was that yellow can be darker than green or blue. So today I got this painting out and lightened the wrappers.

Hay at the Feed Store

Wrapped and Ready to Roll
5 x 7
oil on canvas panel

This was painted at the Waxahachie feed store. I don't think I have ever seen hay wrapped up like this or if I have I've never noticed it. The dark gray in the background is the base of a grain silo. This painting was done  as a study of values more than anything else.