Hello Stranger

I think I may have been a little busy. Been paintin' and paintin' and learnin' and such. It's good to be back in a painting class. I learn so much faster when there's a teacher and I keep getting great teachers, so the brain is getting a workout for sure.

Recent paintings: Owl's Head Lighthouse and Crooked River, Oregon. Can you tell that I had so much more fun with Crooked River because it was an 18x24 canvas and I got to use huge brushes, as opposed to Owl's head Lighthouse which was 10x10. The small restrictions were a requirement of the Austin American Heart Association for their "Find Your Heart in Art" show and silent auction. The larger piece was from Phillip Wade's first class. I love the still life I did this past Monday, too. I'll get a shot of it one of these days.

Self Portraits Can Teach

I was lucky enough to get a critique from Jennifer Balkan, my figurative painting teacher this summer, on this self portrait just before turning it into the Austin Figurative Gallery for the Self Portrait Show this past Saturday. She pointed out what I'd wanted to change and I'm so grateful that I finally "got it" about light sources and the power of shapes. It was a realy lightbulb moment for me to finally understand how powerful a composition can be when the viewer understands where the light is coming from. And the more subtle power in a composition that has interesting shapes.

Of course, I didn't get it good enough to create that really well on my canvas or I wouldn't have gotten the comment, more than once, that it had so much more interest when seen in a better light. So, something to work on in my future paintings...don't be so dull!

It was a very interesting show and such a treat to be displaying my work with Austin artists, as I still consider myself an art student.

NOW It's Done

October '06

I think this is the best painting I've done so far. I hope to continue to improve with each painting so that when my friend Lucy (pictured at the fence) retires, I can give her this painting as a retirement gift.

I figure that doing this for the past year (September 9th), on a constant basis, and taking classes on a constant basis, I have improved quite a bit, learned quite a bit. What do you think?