Wisconsin sunflowers

This time of year the sunflowers are harvested in Wisconsin. It's just an incredible sight traveling down a road and coming upon a field of these flowers. I'm told that most of the harvest is used for feed to birds rather than humans. I've heard that most of the corn that's grown goes to animal consumption and not human also. I've included one of the shots I took of a Kewaunee, Wisconsin farm and two of my pastels -- both 5" X 7"s. These two were both done fast -- in a couple hours and not fussed over.

Next week I am headed for Cody, Wyoming. I will be driving there for a plein air painting workshop with Frank Serrano (you can check out his work on one of my links), a California artist. About a year ago I was looking at another artist's blog and came across Frank Serrano's work. I liked his work and saw he had a workshop in Cody and that started a whole thing for me -- about being there a long time ago. I was in Cody the summer after I left art school, painting in the mountains with a buddy from art school. I left town with $200.00 and came back with about $3.00. We did all this without a cell phone or a credit card. Looking back on it, I must have been nuts. Anyway, it all worked out. I painted in Jackson, Wyoming mostly and only traveled through Cody. After all this time I am going back looking forward to painting there and meeting Frank Serrano. I will post photos when I return -- and hopefully some paintings. I'll be stretching some linen this week. This will be fun.

Pastels

I have never worked in pastels, although I once was a Waldorf teacher and did chalkboard drawings for the children's main lesson every day so I guess that's pretty good training. One of the art suppliers that I use had a sale on a box of pastels, so I bought them a couple months ago. The first one I did was the stream (a 5" X 7") which is from the Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico. The farmhouse (an 8" X 10") is from somewhere in southern Wisconsin. I had just spent a lot of time on an oil painting which I just plain don't like very much, so I thought I'd give something else a try.

Followup to Barns & Farms show

The Barns & Farms show ended on August 5th. I sold one of the paintings and just picked up the other today. I went to the opening of the show last July 7th. The barn photo is of the Barnsite Studio and Gallery. The other two photos were taken after the opening show -- about 8 PM when the sun had set. Today the field on the right of the road is full of sunflowers. Oddly enough, as I looked at the show I found someone that I had not seen since art school -- dare I say, 30 years ago! That was fun; being in the show was fun; selling a painting for more than I ever had before was even more fun. Today, August 6th, I drove to Kewaunee, met with the gallery owner, put the painting in the car and then headed north to Algoma where I gassed up and then drove around, taking a few pictures of the harbor and eventually pulling over to find a place to paint. I took my little portable watercolor rig to the shore of Lake Michigan and painted a 8 X 10 watercolor. I had to navigate a rocky path to the shore and would have had a hard time with my French easel. I was happy with my little painting and then drove south back home. I really love those barns and farms in Wisconsin, so the four hour drive was a nice trip. I will be trying for that show again next year.

Barns & Farms

I sent out slides of three paintings a couple months ago and had two of them accepted to a national juried show called "Barns and Farms". The show is in Kewaunee, Wisconsin and about a four hour drive for me. I dropped them off there and darned if the place wasn't a barn building which houses a gallery and a school of art. The show begins this Saturday, the 7th of July, and ends in early August. The large farmhouse painting is a 30" X 40" oil on canvas and the cattle at the shore painting (14" X 18") was a from a place I stayed in Scotland on the Isle of Skye in Lower Breakish. So if Clint Eastwood ever asks me "Do you feel lucky, punk?", I'd have to say "Yeah" and then duck.

Plein Air with the Cicadas

I went to Wagner Farm in Glenview, Illinois last week with two old painting friends. Usually I paint alone. While I stood out in the hot sun to do the painting of the large building (like an idiot), they were in the shade. I had cicadas on my easel, on my pallete, in my paint and on my clothes and the back of my neck. I've set up in the woods and had spiders crawling up the easel; I've set up in the mountains and had mosquitoes buzzing me, but this was about the most annoying. Funniest moment came when I looked down at my shirt pocket and met the gaze of two beady red eyes looking back up at me. The darn things are harmless ---- but they are annoying -- noisy too. The larger building is a 9 X 12" and the smaller (the barn door) is an 8 X 10" -- which I did in the shade! Now I have the farmer tan -- I'm a redneck.

The watercolor landscape is a 4 X 12" winter prairie scene on gesso prepared rough w/c paper. This scene is something you see often in the midwest in winter -- the fields are at rest and the landscape looks wide and barren. The photo was taken four years ago when I had a class of eighth graders. I just attended the high school graduation of some of these boys (their German teacher Frau Mauerman is second on the left). It was my pleasure to teach them during 8 years. We also took wood carving from another teacher. From the left: Lukas, Frau Mauerman, Danny, John-Charles, Rahsaan and myself. Most are going on to college and their teacher is going on to more art. The best thing is that they are just as happy to see me as I am to see them.

Grain elevator or granary?

This is an 8 X 10 watercolor completed last week. The color seems a little weak from the original. You see a lot of these in the midwest farmlands near the railroad tracks. When I was a teacher I would take opportunities to take the kids out to the farm and let them experience another way of life. The life a child experiences in a city is far removed from the source of things. A city kid grows up seeing the grocery store as the source of everything they eat. Several times the kids in my class planted vegetables, cut watercress from a stream, pulled rocks from a field, harvested, fed the animals and milked the cows. I'm a city kid too, so what do I call this? Grain elevator or granary?