Archive for November, 2007
Cool Cricket
Thursday, November 29th, 2007
One of the things I love about living in Texas is that we still hear crickets in the evening during November. This one is a survivor with one leg half there and part of one antennae missing. Those big eyes followed every movement! I’m not even entirely sure it’s a cricket. The photo below was taken in October, a large grasshopper on the back door window - I didn’t use it for my Halloween posting so might as well share it here!
Art everywhere
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
Garden Whimsy - While tidying up the garden and shaking out the soil from dead plants, I marveled at the beauty of root systems. This one is from a dead Croton, stuck into the ground upside down makes an interesting garden sculpture. This one’s entitled Frustration.
First Snow
Monday, November 26th, 2007
First Snow, 36 x 24 Acrylics on canvas, crackle glaze. This is the main painting to be set into a ”box frame”, adding 3″ width and length. Painting will extend out onto the frame…will post when finished, probably tomorrow.
Anoles in the sun
Monday, November 19th, 2007
Today there were three anoles playing in a warm sunny area by the back door, changing shades of brown and green. There was a lot of rain earlier in the year, so that must be why I’ve seen more this year than in the five years we’ve lived here.
September rain
Friday, November 16th, 2007
I’m painting walls this week, not Art…but there is definitely an art to painting walls! Also, taking time out to sort through a number of photo-taking sessions I haven’t viewed yet, and found this one taken during a storm back in September.
Caterpillar Art
Thursday, November 15th, 2007
It’s still warm and sunny in Texas, and caterpillars are making Art in the garden!
Seasonal treasures
Sunday, November 11th, 2007
While photographing the filigree on many of the decaying oak leaves in a park forest, leaning backwards with my head in the branches, a little green snake struck out at me, the delicate body about 8″ long and no wider than a baby finger. I wrote to the Biology Dept. at Texas University, and they identified it as a Rough Green Snake - Opheodrys aestivus - it’s nonvenomous.
Walking back home completely happy to have chosen that path, expecting no more treasure for the day, a leaf twirled in the breeze, hanging from a spider web strand.
Gold In The Mountains #1
Sunday, November 4th, 2007
Gold In The Mountains #1, finished - 20 x 16 inches Acrylics on stretched canvas. Mounted on a box-frame, extending out 2 extra inches on canvas-covered background, with rustic barn-wood finished edges.
This is one of those paintings that never felt truly finished, until this week. Started late in 2005, it has evolved through many changes. The first thumbnail shows the painting at a stage where I thought it finished and entered it into Artjury.com’s Spring/Summer online exhibition, and it was accept ed. At the time I liked the larger areas of flat orange-gold. About six months later I judged that the work needed more depth, so began a long process of repainting, scrubbing off, build-up, scraping, etc. The painting reached a few different stages where it could have passed for finished, but I was not entirely pleased, so continued until I was. One never knows beginning any painting, how long it will take.. The image above shows the painting as it is today, now well and truly finished! Click on the thumbnails below to enlarge and view a few stages in the life of Gold In The Mountains#1.
Polypore Fungi painting update
Thursday, November 1st, 2007
Polypore Fungi finished - 58 x 41 x 1.5 inches,acrylics, modeling paste, plaster on canvas
One of the goals for this painting was to see if a composition could remain balanced with the main subject offset to the right. With Petra’s suggestion there is more contrast..also scrubbed some paint away for more background to show through.
Considered smoothing out and the fungi with more plaster and sanding, decided against, and painted illusion instead. I like the rougher hand-made look of the fungi, and think it can’t venture too far from the blurry background (style balance). Painting finished, but open to critique.
Polypore Fungi * are lesser appreciated life forms that help maintain the healthy life cycles of forests by aiding the decay and conversion of plant and animal matter into nutrient-rich soil. {*and mushrooms, bacteria, molds, lichen and other non-flowering plants}