GOMEZ AND MAMA - PAINTING #35!!!!

Here we are at THE END of the 7 weeks of a painting a day- 5 days a week. Thank you all for the encouragement and advice you've given and for following along with this blog. I hope you've enjoyed the artwork and that it's encouraged you to pick up a pencil or paint brush and create your own works of art. For me, it's been a great learning experience, and an exciting, exhilarating, grit your teeth, nerve tingling, challenge that makes me both sad and relieved to see it come to an end. Several times, in these past 7 weeks, when life was rushing too fast, I thought I was going to have to bail out on my goal, but, somehow kept putting one brush stroke after another until the difficult times passed. I've gained a good bit of speed since this series started and have 35 more paintings than I did too!
I'll be working on the 4 unfinished paintings (the Alamo, The Riverwalk, Gateway to the West, and Strutting his Stuff) Monday and Tuesday and will post them as soon as they're completed. The kids will be out of school for the Thanksgiving holiday and I'm going to spend some time with them. After that, maybe we'll start a new goal?
For all you artist's out there, Austin is having a tour of studios this weekend. I don't have the details on it - google it if you want to go too. My youngest daughter and I are going to go check it out.

Today's painting, Gomez and Mama, are some adorable donkeys that my husband's friend has and she sent a photo for me to paint them. Thanks so much for sharing the photos, Teresa!
I'm grateful to all of you for joining me in this part of my journey. Have a great weekend everyone!

Gomez and Mama
acrylic
6"x6"
$30.

THE SEASONS BOUNTY - PAINTING #34

How time flies! We're almost at the end of our 7 weeks of "a painting a day" series. I'm going to take a week off and spend some time with my kids and grandkids. My son has been telling me he misses me because I've spent too many evenings painting straight through. Then it'll be back to work (fun) as usual, although they'll be larger in size and they probably won't be completed in a day. Hopefully this fast paced painting has been like a speed drill for a typist. Now it's time to focus again on details and getting everything just right.

Seasons Bounty
Acrylic
6"x6"
$30.

JOHNNY

I took a chance today and did a 1 day portrait. Didn't know how it would turn out, but figured I didn't have to show the picture that it came from if it wasn't similar enough. My son had been in one of his guitar lessons and I was sitting around waiting from it to end when another instructor, Johnny, picked up his guitar and started playing. His music was awesome and while I listened it occured to me that he'd make a great painting subject and,I happened to have my camera with me. Johnny let me take his photo and gave his consent to let me paint his portrait. I showed it to him today, before it was finished, and he seemed to like it. Here's both the photo and the painting.

STRUTTING HIS STUFF

Mr. Turkey is back for the holidays and strutting his stuff in this stylized oil painting. I like this one, but am going to rework his tail feathers and then replace the picture here with the reworked one in a couple of days. I've already wiped the entire tail off once this evening and repainted it but, don't like the second one either, so it's getting wiped it off again as well and will be "fixed" in a couple of days. In case you're wondering, I cut that part of the photo out. :D Couldn't stand to show it.

THE FLAVORS OF COLOR - #31

A fellow artist and his wife invited us to attend a reception, talk, and display on Chocolate, with them at the Sand Antonio Museum of Art last night, and it was as DELICIOUS as it was interesting! There was lots of wine and luscious, decadent, incredible, chocolate samples there for us to enjoy. The company and the reception was wonderful! So, with thoughts of the discussion(s) , the enjoyable art, and the lingering taste of sweets on my mind, comes today's painting The Flavors of Color.

BLONDIE

This painting is an 8"x10" acrylic of a blond maned horse up at my neighbor's ranch. She's such a beautiful animal that I slow down and take a good look each time we pass by. She doesn't especially like being stared at though and too often turns her back to me when the camera comes into sight. Well, it's Friday night and hope you all have a great weekend!

Blondie
Acrylic
8"x10"
$40.

DEEP IN THOUGHT

This is painting #29 and it's an 8"x 10" acrylic of a cat we used to have. His name was Butterscotch and he was an incredibly loving, beautiful cat inside and out. Today was a great day to paint his portrait and now he's immortalized. Tomorrow's painting will be another surprise. Hope you like surprises!

CHILDHOOD PRANKS

This scene is a micro sized cityscape from Santiago Chile and was inspired by my husband who, with his childhood buddy, used to swipe tomatoes from the old shop keeper not far from his home. I'm still having a hard time picturing my husband stealing anything since he's Mr. Honesty, but I guess we all have our moments of doing something we shouldn't have at one point or another. :) Anyway,he CLAIMS they were never caught but told me that after I had already started the painting and I left it as is. It's more interesting like this. My hubby's dad told us the old man is still there and took a photo of him and his shop and sent it to us.
This is it for the Cityscapes for this week. I've run out of good photos and don't have the time to go take some better ones at the moment. The rest of this week and all of next week will be surprises.

Childhood Pranks
oil
6"x6"
$30.

GATEWAY TO THE WEST

The St. Louis Gateway is a huge, stainless steel, arch that stands by the Mississippi river at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial park in St. Louis, Missouri and represents St. Louis’ role as the gateway to the West. It stands 630 ft. tall by 630 ft. wide at the base and is supposed to be the largest monument in the U.S. I just found out that there is a tram system in the hollow insides that carries people to an observation deck on top of the arch. I've driven by that arch at least 6 times and never knew that you could go inside it! Thank you, Internet! This is an 8"x10" oil painting for the "painting a day" series.

Gateway To The West
oil
8"x10"

SAN ANTONIO RIVERWALK

This week's painting subject is cityscapes and todays' is of the San Antonio Riverwalk. It's such a beautiful place with so many sites just begging to be painted. I'm not sure if I'll do another San Antonio scene this week or not yet. This one isn't quite finished and, although I painted all weekend long, the Grand Canyon and the Alamo from last week are still waiting for me. The one of the Grand Canyon is getting close though. Tomorrow I'll be painting the St. Louis Arch and a part of the river along side of it. We only have 2 weeks left now of the 7 weeks of "a painting a day". Last Monday I was begining to think that I wouldn't be able to make it all the way through the series. Now I'm confident that I can paint the last 9 paintings and then I'm going to really enjoy taking a break. :)

San Antonio Riverwalk
oil
8"x10"
$40.

ALBUQUERQUE'S BALLOON FESTIVAL # 25

One of my aunts and a bunch of cousins live over in Albuquerque and we've gone to visit them many times, but we have only seen the Balloon Festival once - eight years ago - and it was a sight to see! We got lucky that time because some guy was giving tethered balloon rides to kids of all sizes. All my family got a ride in it except me, and, I was too embarrassed to go take the space that an actual kid could have had, and passed it up. The rest of them raved about it. I'd really like to see it again but with a better camera than the one I had then. My family has been watching the progress on this painting and the younger ones are saying they can barely remember it - if at all. Mark your calendars for September if you enjoy big balloons. Old town Albuquerque is a neat place to visit too and, if you can, plan a little extra time to drop down south a bit and see Karlsbad Caverns while you're in New Mexico. I saw the caverns when I was a kid but all I remember of it now is that it was also an incredible sight. If you go, take a few extra pictures for me. :D

Albuquerque's Balloon Festival
oil
8"x10"
$40.

NA POLI COAST, KAUAI - #24

This was an awesome sight that I probably didn't quite do justice to. We were there 18 years ago, paid for a motorized raft ride around the coast line and, this fantastic sight was waiting for us. We moved along the coast and also saw some nude bathers, but, I didn't think you'd want to see that. :)

Na Poli Coast, Kauai
oil
8"x10"
$40.

IN MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Today's painting is the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln memorial, and, since it's election day, thought it would be a fitting subject since he was the one who did away with slavery so that all men could be equal. Too bad it wasn't for the women at that time as well. Way back when I was a kid of 12, my brother, Mom, and I went and saw this site and I remember standing at the base of the statue, looking way, way, up to into the face of that colossal man and thinking he must have been the greatest man ever to have such a towering monument made of him. This morning I read that the sculpture, Daniel Chester French, positioned Lincoln's fingers to form the letters L and A - possibly because he signed a federal legislation giving Gallaudet University, a university for the deaf, the authority to grant college degrees and the sculpture had a son who was deaf. The National Park service claims that is just an urban legend though. Henry Bacon designed the statue and Daniel French and two other men did the actual chiseling. What an amazing job!
This painting is (basically) finished. After the paint dries I'll touch up the face and make it look a little more like Lincoln's and then ad the words, "In this Temple, as in the hearts of the people, for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever", on the wall behind his head, as it is in the monument.

THE ALAMO - also unfinished

Well, I was thinking yesterday must have been some kind of fluke or something (me not getting the painting completed) because I really felt like Super Woman then and did again today. So, I painted another 11"x14" today - and didn't get it finished either! The Subject is the Alamo and it seems to be much simpler than yesterday's Grand Canyon so maybe the size difference is the make or break factor. I'm packing it in for the night. The lines on everything in the painting still need to be straightened, colors deepened, the trees are still missing and so are the people. I'm going back to the 8"x10" or smaller sizes from here on out until the 21st. Too bad. I don't like painting small. This is going to be one very busy week getting them all finished!

The Alamo is something that every Texas painter must do at least once or their status of Texan is seriously questioned. This is my first one. Since it stands for independence and fighting for what one believes in, It seems fitting for today - voting day. Did you go make your vote count? I voted for the first time in my life today because of an e-mail that went around a few weeks ago about the suffragists fighting for women's rights back in my grandma's time. Reading about what few rights women had back then was sickening and shamed me into going to vote - even though I'm not too sure just how much our votes count these days. I did it for my grandma, myself, and for all women.

The Alamo
Oil
11"x14"

GRAND CANYON - UNFINISHED

Today's adventure is an oil painting of the Grand Canyon. Apparently I bit off more than I could do in a one day sitting though and will have to work on completing it in between the other paintings I'll be doing this week. That's right, it's not a one day painting. :O I should have taken a hint from some of those other "painting a day" painters and made a little 3"x4" of an orange or an egg, or something else very simple, but I felt like Super Woman today. So what happened??? Famous landscapes will be the painting subject of this 5 day set. Next week's topic is cityscapes.

Grand Canyon
oil
11"x14"

PLAY WITH ME! - # 20

This little guy is actually a girl. Her name was Leia - after the princess in Star Wars- and she was our dog for 13 years. She was part Corgie mix and part Australian Shepherd and sure was a beauty! She was also incredibly ornery. After someone asked me to paint a puppy I started looking through our old photo books and that sure take me back a ways! I'd post the original pictures to share with you, but, we had a lousy camera back then and they're hard to see -or is that just that I need new glasses?. Anyway, I'm working on ideas for this weeks paintings this afternoon. If you have anything you'd like to see me paint, please let me know.

Play With Me!
Acrylic
3"x4"

Painting # 19 - MOUSE ATTACK

I've been making room for a couple of family members to move (back) in with us these past few days and had a 3 day splitting headache. I did paint, but couldn't stand looking at the computer screen long enough to get them posted. Sorry.

This puppy is modeled after one of our dogs when he was little. There's a wind up mouse that's driving him crazy and he's loving it. Someone asked me to paint this little guy, so, here he is!

Mouse Attack
Acrylic
3"x4"
$10.