April 27 - Desert Plants from Arizona 8 x 10 acrylic

Thank you to all who wrote saying they were getting their morning (mostly) fix of daily painting emails! I'm so glad to hear from you and yet I worry about those who said they weren't getting them! Still haven't figured out what's going on.

We all wonder when a painting's finished, right? When can you stop? Well, in my case, I know when a painting ISN'T finished--it shows up without a signature. I ran across this acrylic, started while in the Arizona mountains at Grapevine Canyon, and decided that it needed to go the mile to the finish line tonight. So what did I do? I added the necessary contrast to perk it up--using layers of acrylic color to both bind and unify the design, creating the spiral wherein your eye traverses around the image, and finally finding a resting point somewhere in the middle of the cactus on the left--between the areas of yellow ochre and violet. Another artist might work an additional umpteen hours pulling out all sorts of details. I tend to stop when I get the visual feedback that the design is working. This original 8 x 10 acrylic will be going up on my ebay store in a couple of days for $120.

Tomorrow I lead a ride of perhaps 20 riders up my mountain and out on the trails for a five hour ride. I'm looking forward to it, although the temperature finally went above 85 today. Warm! And then company is coming over for an overnight and movie in our theater. I hope I can keep my eyes open!


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March 5 - Desert Plants, Acrylic 9 x 12

This morning I spent several hours painting with another friend of mine, working on acrylics, sharing ideas for developing a looser painting structure and layers with glazes (a lot of which is covered in my Walter Foster book, Painting Horses in Acrylics). We ended up with about six canvases, and loads of learning. Today's painting is one that I finished to a happy conclusion in a 9 x 12 format of the agave and cactus which abounds in this area of Southern Arizona. We were inside, as it was still quite chilly until about noon, but were looking out a huge window to see these plants. And here's a photo of one of the Grapevine Canyon Ranch buildings and the desert landscaping. My goodness, there's that agave!

And you actually get TWO paintings today, as I'm playing catch up. Now we're back on schedule!
Today's trail ride was really challenging, up through a canyon, out over the top and then back down to the ranch through some stunning Arizona backcountry. My saddle is getting broken in, and I'm grateful for a steady horse under me!
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