The last show of the 2016 Holiday Season . . .

The Lincoln Craftacular!

This is the first year I've been able to do this show and what a night!

People came ready to BUY!

I LOVE my little antique table!
And those boxes and advertising memorabilia always make me clutch my pearls.
Mink Chow - love.

If I had had time to take pics of the crowd, I would have but it was busy from the time the opened the doors at 4:00 to those early shoppers to 9:00 when we all began packing.

Over 80 artists and crafters with an incredible array of work.

I think (I think) I was the only watercolor artist there (woohoo!) so for sure I hope to be invited back next year.

Did I mention that the temps outside hovered around 5? These folks were BRAVE!






So much sold tonight including a few that I have really grown attached to.
I'm never sure if people understand the attachment to and the meanings behind these little paintings.
I hope so.
These have found some wonderful homes.

Across the gravel road . . .

The beautiful, ever-changing view across the gravel road from our farmette.

This scene moves easily from full on snow in January and February to patchy snow in late winter, pale greens in the spring, tall Big Bluestem in summer months, and the eventual blonding heads turning rusty red when summer's over.

I love every month and season of this view and have been thankful for every year we have lived here that the land is protected CRP, never having been broken.

To think that this is the same field that was burned off in the spring to eradicate weeds and was so soon green again is wonderful to have witnessed.

I will be painting this same scene again with the fall colors and quite possibly a few of the blackened earth during the spring burn.

Watercolor on canvas . . .

The beta test.

Challenged with creating two unique pieces for a fundraiser, I decided to try a new technique with an old medium. Well, not so old really. Just one I am familiar with.

All artists were given one or two 8x8 canvases on which they were to work in any medium to create work that would be donated for auction at The Crossing Arts Alliance in Brainerd, Minnesota.

I really enjoy working in watercolor and was wanting to try the canvas prepped with watercolor ground to see how watercolor reacted with it. I have to say that while it was fun and gave me different surface than the cold-press 140gm paper, it was like painting on chalk. The paint seemed to soak up quickly and I lost vibrancy. It would take more glazing to achieve the depth of color I'm used to. And if I left it for a while and came back to add another layer of color, the watercolor tended to bead up. If I am wrong that this is how it reacts in a typical fashion, then I simply need to do more and keep practicing.

Overall, I'm happy with the results and will give it a go on other materials.

Lazy . . .

So.

Tell the truth.

Is it lazy to spend a summer morning indoors deep in watercolor?

In the Nick of Time . . .

In the Nick of Time

I'll just leave this here and come back later for details.

I'm back! Details.
I'm not sure where my reference photo came from but I loved the fresh cut wheat in rows.
The little town in the distance is from a photo I took while driving
back from Brainerd, Minnesota last month.
So iconic here on the Great Plains.
The white houses, a few steeples, and
grain elevators.
The storm on the horizon is nothing out of the ordinary for folks
out here in the middle of the country so to add it to
this painting was natural.
Always trying to stay one step ahead of Nature.
And with that, I need to head out to take in the last
of the garden, pull up tomato plants and okra and chop
out the invasive chives.
Who gave me that evil clump of chives, anyway?

Detail : 10"x10"
Oil on canvas

Day 20 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge

Day 20 : Person to Person

I love to paint wide expanses of prairie and sky with farmsteads on the horizon.

But I can't shake the feeling that they are somewhat lifeless until I add

what is always there but not so obvious - tall radio and telephone towers.

So I call this one 'Person to Person' as farms used to be

remote and out of communication until telephones came along.

And now we all have these little handheld devices that beam your conversation

up into the sky where it connects with a satellite

then beams it unbelievably to the person you wish to speak with.

I can see that this painting needs a little touchup but you get my message.

Details : 8"x8"

Oil on canvas

Day 17 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge . . .

 Day 17 : Fort Robinson Bluffs

Getting back into the 'one a day' swing again and feeling the burn.

Spring a year ago, Ed and I took a driving trip west from Lincoln into the Sandhills of Nebraska and on into the Black Hills of South Dakota, through the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore and Custer Parks and a few others.

I'm okay with people calling Kansas and Nebraska 'flyover states' and it seems to keep the riffraff out of the way while you enjoy the unbelievable scenery.

No mountains to get in the way of the view.

No people, no crowds, nothing but sky and grassland.

In west central Nebraska is an old US Army fort - Fort Robinson.

Here is where Sioux Chief Crazy Horse surrendered and died.
The Fort Robinson Massacre was here.

Here is the site of a German Prisoner of War camp during World War II.
Local farmers would come to the camp for field workers.

The place is infinitely fascinating with history and lately I can't get enough of it.

Something in my center makes me feel at ease in the grassland and prairies.

It is hard to imagine the prairies treeless but you can read My Antonia
 and get a wonderful description of Nebraska through Willa Cather's eyes. 
Trees were brought in by settlers and people walking their way to the West, 
hoping to make homes.
Buffalo Soldiers were stationed here.
There are good things about this area and bad things - all concerning the Red Cloud Agency, Sioux, Lakota, and Cheyenne - and most definitely there can be sadness felt here.

I'm deeply moved when I'm out here and can't drink it in fast enough.

Details : 12"x12"

Oil on canvas

Day 8 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge . . .

Day 8 : Two Farms

If no one is impressed but me that I've stuck with my 30 Day Challenge, 

then hooray for me!

I'm starting the second full week of painting an oil painting a day and I cannot believe how energizing and affirming this is.

Especially when I posted Day 7 on my Facebook page and got 59 'likes'.

More 'likes' than I got on my birthday, I think =-D

Anyway.

This painting is another simple prairie landscape with some unexpected detail.

If you look closely, you can see that this is a painting of Two Farms

but not the traditional farm.

This is a painting of wind turbines that are cropping up all over the central states.

When I look at the maps for the amount of wind in the central US,

the highest amounts of wind are concentrated from Texas northward through North Dakota and Minnesota and the highest areas are through Iowa.

Traveling between Omaha and DesMoines is jaw-dropping.

One day I quit counting at over 100 near Walnut, Iowa.

This developing source of power is having serious consequences and affecting the true farming communities and farmers in ways not imagined.

So here you have Two Farms.

Non-traditional.

Details : Oil on canvas

12"x24"

Day 7 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge . . .

Day 7 : Untitled

Wow, a week! Seven days and seven paintings!

I have impressed even myself with this 'every day' thing.

Okay, what did I learn today?

That there are more artists than just me who paint the same subject matter more than once. I have been reluctant to repeat landscapes or clouds or grass because I think (well, who know what I think?) that it simply isn't done.

Boy, was I wrong.

Last night I got out a few basic painting and color theory books and found that this is exactly what I should be doing if I ever intend to improve on whatever my subject matter happens to be.

Duh.

So there will be more gravel roads, more grass, more skyscapes, more more more.

Now I'm getting a bit more excited about this process.

All things unfold in their own time but I seriously wish I'd not been telling myself for these last 40+ years that I could not paint.

Detail : Oil on canvas

8"x8"

Day 3 . . .

Day 3 : watercolor study snowy field

Doing these quick little studies is a big confidence builder and seeing them on a computer screen lets me see where I have room to improve.

Unless and until my style of watercolor changes, these will probably lean toward the wash with fat detail. Broad strokes of suggested shapes.

The tiny brush I am using for these 2x4 paintings in my little watercolor Moleskine won't allow for much detail that isn't broad. Yes, I have lots of other brushes, tubes of paint and papers but I'm sticking with this little kit for now with its 12 hard cakes of paint. It challenges me to mix cake paint and water to achieve the color and tone I need.
The end.

Developing . . .

Passing

I am trying to find the mental art-link between the metalwork I am used to doing and the watercolor I am getting used to doing.  Is the link the color?  

The high contrast?  The composition?  

Or is it the difference between the two media that captures me?

Is it the color mixing?  The achievement of depth?  The lack of edge?  

Or letting the materials do their little jobs?

I would love to give credit for the reference photos I used in this composition but no idea where they came from.  Only that I saved and printed them a long time ago.  

So 'thank you' whoever you are.

High Wind Warning . . .

High Wind Warning

Trying my hand at quick watercolor to start to loosen my grip.  This one took maybe 15 minutes, my personal time limit.  The subject particularly apropos lately as the wind will not let up and grass fires are everywhere, sadly.  Destruction has been minimal but this always has the potential to be devastating.

Be careful out there.

The Rim of the Prairie . . .

I spent part of yesterday afternoon rummaging around in a local antique mall keeping an eye open for bits and pieces of ephemera to use as new photo props for my online shop when I happened across this book - The Rim of the Prairie by Bess Streeter Aldrich. I wasn't familiar with the book or the author, whom I'd only heard of and knew nothing about. Still, the book spoke to me. But I left without it.

By Saturday morning I had that book weighing heavy on my mind and decided I had to have it and I drove back to the shop and found it, bought it, brought it home and did a little research. I found that Bess Aldrich Streeter was born, lived, died and was buried not far from where I sit right now - I in Davey, Nebraska and she in Elmwood about 15 miles to the east. Her books are reflective of Nebraska in the late 1800's and early 1900's, much like Willa Cather's writing, whose writing about Nebraska life and prairie life I love.

Why is this so important to me? Have you ever lived anywhere that just 'felt right'? Someplace where you have such a deep appreciation for the landscape, the earth and the sky that you never want to leave ev

en for a day? That's exactly where I am and I think this book will open some doors to the past that will connect me with my present.

My intention was to find some books and a few pieces that felt 'prairie-ish' so I could re-take photos and update my shop site. What I've come away with is so much more and may really give me an insight to what I'm hoping to achieve in terms of expressing who I am and who I want the world to see.

It just spoke to me from the rack on the wall.