Desert Ruins

"Desert Ruins"
5x7 inches
Acrylic on panel
Genre: landscape

These ruins are on the Dorgas-Sublett hiking trail in Big Bend National Park, Texas, USA. In the background are the Chisos Mountains.

Big Bend Adobe Ruins -- and a Rabbit

Title: Big Bend Adobe Ruins

Medium: Acrylic on panel

Size: 6x6 inches

Genre: Landscape

Can't stop painting the Big Bend area, so I'm just going to continue. This is the Dorgan-Sublett trail, which is near the Santa Elena Canyon, and features 2 or 3 adobe ruins. The cliffs in the background are in Mexico, and in between runs the Rio Grande. The part where there is green grass in the way back is near the river bank.

Title: "Rabbit, Revered"

Medium: Acrylic on panel

Size: 7x5 inches

Genre: Fantasy, Magic Realism

Just a bit of fun with a bunny and an Ionic column. The bunny is really a ceramic figurine, and the column is one that I made out of clay, just for paintings such as this one. 

Big Bend Sotol

Title: Big Bend Sotol
Size: 5x7 inches
Genre: Landscape
Medium: Acrylic

Lately I've been painting landscapes. I'd been wanting to paint the Big Bend, Texas area for quite some time, but lacked the confidence. Every year for many years, my husband and I have made a pilgrimage there. I feel a familiarity and a love for that vast, beautiful, desolate, and formidible place. I've finally taken the leap into portraying it, and am very glad. For the time being I'm painting it from photos, but eventually may add plein aire into the mix.

This is a departure from my usual work, but I've decided not to limit myself when it comes to genre, and paint what I feel like painting. I love that kind of freedom.

Here are a couple more of them. Click here to see them at Daily Paintworks.

"Big Bend Window, Back View" 8x10 inches, acrylic

"River Bend" 8x10, acrylic

Wilderness Teacup

"Wilderness Teacup"
Size: 18x18 inches
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Genre: Fantasy, Imaginative realism, Surrealism, Magical realism

This is about how we modern people relate to wilderness. For many of us, it's a road trip. It's also about the contrast between nature and the amenities of civilization. Both are fragile, yet both have an iconic strength.

Terlingua Joe

"Terlingua Joe"

Size: 6x6 inches

Medium: acrylic on panel

Genre: Figure

SOLD

Recently, Austin actor Greg Holt modeled for our figure session, wearing his cowboy outfit. Just for fun, I put him in the Terlingua Ghost Town, which we visited on a recent trip to Big Bend National Park out in west Texas. The ghost town is mixed in with modern buildings, which gives the place an eerie yet funky and charming feeling. The old ruins were originally a mining town for mercury mines.

I'm having a great time exploring new concepts and ideas in painting.  I plan to do more West Texas themes.

What Texas Means To Me & The Offering

"Reverie at Green Gulch", oil on panel, 5x7, will be featured in the international art show "What Texas Means To Me" at Austin Art Space Gallery, Austin Texas USA. Show runs from July 2, 2010 to August 28, 2010. Artists' reception is on July 10 from 7pm to 9pm. Unfortunately I'm going to miss the artists' reception, as I have a previous commitment. But I want you to know that the shadows on the hills behind the model are deliberately shaped like wings. Green Gulch is a real place, it's in the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend National Park, Texas, USA. Big Bend always gives me wings.


"The Offering" acrylic on illustration board. Size: 3.5 x 2.5 inches, ACEO miniature. This piece is about opportunities. Sometimes they fly right up to us and hand us something beautiful, but mostly they just hang around in the background, waiting to be grasped.

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