Jun 18 - Hey, Virga is a Word and one of my Paintings!

Check this out! This Word-A-Day blog contacted me and asked to use my little 7x5 painting of the virgas for their blog--which reaches over twenty thousand people! I of course said yes, since they provide click backs to my site. What a treat to see this little painting in such good company!

It was a hot-hot evening in July, and I was painting outside the Riverside Art Association's gallery, on the opening of the "Au Naturel" exhibit of plein air work of the Plein Air Artists of Riverside. The evening clouds were lit from underneath with the setting sun, and the virgas were veils of cadmium orange and white. Entitling that painting "Virgas" is how the Word-A-Day folks found it.

On the home front, I've been drying garden pickings using my Excalibur dehydrator. Right now it's full of kale and spinach, which I pulverize and put in my morning fruit smoothie. Organic greens without the cookin', and I can't even taste the kale.

You can see my entire blog HERE.
My workshop schedule for 2010 is HERE.
Color System information can be found HERE.
If you need to email me directly, please click here.

Jun 17 - The Cover with more Work

WOW. I can't believe I let this much time go by without writing to you. Life gets in the way some times, and my last post was when I was down in San Diego for the opening of the Women Artists of the West show. I do hope you can visit the Wieghorst Museum and take in the show. It will be up through the end of this month.

Here's the cover, coming along nicely now. I have it almost finished on my easel as I type this, and share these stages with you to help you understand how it comes together.

I've had to take images of my friend holding a sword to make future corrections in the anatomy. I did these guys out of my head, so they have some, um... "issues". "Head copy" is what all the old art directors and illustrators were known for. If the director needed a quick sketch of a person holding a can of beer, illustrators were able to draw that directly from their head--no reference. I can do that now, mostly with horses and people, trees and what not--must pay homage for all that early training!

All of the foreground around the figures is done with the Cool Box colors. The only warms in this piece so far are the skin hues!
So on this one, the Color System continues to provide cohesive color and ease of mixing.

Nothing new on the home front, except the chickies are growing up, and Willow thinks she owns them all. A gentle spirit.

You can see my entire blog HERE.
My workshop schedule for 2010 is HERE.
Color System information can be found HERE.
If you need to email me directly, please click here.