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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Finished Painting of Profile (oil, glazes, Lady, cat, heron, fish)

"3 Keys to the Loch", 12 x 12 oil on canvas.

I finished the fish & the background, added in the keys, and now it's done. The water in the background looks like a lake, or loch, hence the title. The fish has a lock in its eye, and the other characters in the painting all have a key. Originally I was going to have just one key dangling off the lady's hat, but once I put the lock into the fish, I realized all three of the other characters had to have a key.

I entered this painting into a juried show AVAA 32nd Anniversary (Austin Visual Arts Association). 

WIP Stage two: True to my vision despite similarities

WIP stage two. Acrylic on 12x12 canvas. No title for this piece as of yet.

There are several images I've used consistently throughout the years such as a checkerboard, a fish, and figures in weird hats. Checkerboards, fish, and figures with strange headgear are also used extensively by an artist whose work I greatly admire. I mulled this over a lot and finally decided that since I was already using these images in clay and in watercolor over many years, and since my full intent is to create my own original vision, that it was OK to continue with them in paintings. So I put all three in this painting to challenge myself to use them and still present my own vision. I think I have succeeded. By the way, the fish has something the cat and heron both want--besides a nice fillet!

Keeper of the Keys

"Keeper of the Keys" oil  on 12x12 inch canvas.

This started out as a regular figure painting, but I redid it in monochrome, keeping the original pose.  The underpainting is done in violet oxide acrylic, with oil glazes over it. I learned a lot glazing the painting. Also had lots of fun with the owl and the cat.  It still needs to dry for several months; then I will put a varnish on it.