Newer Work #67

Wow, has it really been a week since I’ve been not-busy-enough to put a post on.  I know I’ve looked at my followees recently.  Actually been working a lot on developing various classes.  Summer is coming up and working on summer classes for a couple galleries.  So,  five minutes for a post…

This is the last of a batch of refractured watercolors that I did recently.  Clouds are wonderful!  But as we approach summer, they come fewer and further between.

#1250 Softly into the light. Refractured watercolor on foamcore, 10×8″ matted to fit 14×11 frame. $105.

Newer work #66

Had the inspiration to put a little land in this one.  And of course, trees always reach up to the sky.

#1249 Three trees on the hill, Refractured watercolor on foamcore 10.5×8″ in mat to fit 14×11″ frame. $105.

A Dylan kinda day….

…..blowin’ in the wind.  Had to go to Palm Springs, then Moreno Valley yesterday, then home.  We were forecast a windstorm and we sure got it.  The ethereal, formless sky is very powerful when it moves fast.  I didn’t see any forecast for rain, but had rain coming home through Cabazon and into the desert floor.  (Had I known there was a possibility of rain I would’ve taken the other truck – the windshield wipers on my small truck do not work well.)  Saw lots of palm fronds blowing around in Palm Springs, and plenty of dust, a few limbs down.

When I got home, the trash can was on its side on the front porch, and the recycle can was gone entirely.  At 11pm and hungry, I was in no mood to go hunting for it, but this morning I found it in the side yard.  At that point I also found my 10 foot ocotillo had blown down.  Poor thing was in full bloom, and there was a verdin nest in the upper branches, now on the floor, and a distraught verdin hanging around.  I put the nest in one of the oleanders – it’s a ball-nest so I have no idea if it contains chicks, eggs or at this point, omelet.

Plans are underway to relocate the ocotillo to the south side yard by the fence.  Long shot, but it’s worth a try.  I need to wait until tomorrow until I have two other friends who, with my neighbor will help lift the viciously spiny creature, which probably weighs over 200lb.

So many spines….

Art and science.

John Constable is known for painting realistic skies during a time when meteorological knowledge was not what it is today.  Yet he used a lot of science in trying to get it right – and a bit of artistic license where necessary, too.  A long but very interesting article from The Cloud Appreciation Society.  I loved the quote:

” I am led to this having been very busy with rainbows –”

John Constable’s rainbow.

 

Forever home

“Tranquility with tree”

Last month, from my show at 29 Palms Gallery, I sold a painting that went to its forever home in Wisconsin.  “Tranquility with Tree” has a special place in my heart – my some-times art dealer Rick Pantele and I put a 5×10 foot giclee version of it into an office at Kaiser Permanente.  Tranquility with Tree also spent about two years in the Pioneer’s Museum in Imperial.  I had stopped taking it to shows as it was my last framed piece, and the last one in a series is always the hardest one to sell.  So I was delighted it sold a couple weeks after coming out of the museum, from a gallery where it got to hang on its own little wall and didn’t stand out like a sore thumb.

In shipping it to Wisconsin, I got to talking to the client – whom I have not met – and he kept in touch through the reframing and sent me a picture of my baby in its Forever Home.  Then he ordered a commission painting to go with it!  The sibling went out in the mail today and I will hopefully have a portrait of the two of them together in due course.

“Joshua Evening”

 

Newer Work #65

After the rain the sun….. but this it what it can look like before the rain.  A mixture of distant rain and haboob.  We have a storm forecast for today – just enough to wash the air and muddy the ground.  But it’s not here yet…. (oh please, oh please, one more storm this winter…..)

#1247 After the rain, the sun. Refractured watercolor 10×8″ matted to fit 14×11″ frame, $105.

Yucca Valley Presbyterian Church

I’m always open to shows in unusual spaces.  I had the opportunity to show work in this church and had a silly thing happen when I went to set it up.  I had agreed to meet one of the deacons, David, at 9am on the appointed day.

Three little paintings surrounding the white board in office meeting room, Yucca Valley Presbyterian Church.

I arrived with 10 minutes to spare, so parked in the parking lot and got out and went round the church and confirmed he was not there – all doors were locked and mine was the only vehicle in the lot.  So I waited.  And waited.

Paintings in office meeting room, Yucca Valley Presbyterian Church.

Half an hour later I started to get concerned so I called him.  It turned out he had approached the church from the other side, parked round the corner where I couldn’t see his truck, didn’t look to see if I was in the main parking lot, unlocked the church and was also waiting patiently but beginning to get a little concerned.  Oh well.  But then we had a bit of a rush as I had to be elsewhere later, and I forgot to take photos of the setup.

Paintings in office meeting room, Yucca Valley Presbyterian Church.  The red vertical assemblage piece on the bottom left is someone else’s work. 🙂 

 

Yesterday, Doug and I went to the church service – it being the only Sunday during my show that I wasn’t at a show.  Now I get to show you the show.  I got to meet a lot of people, talked about the possibility of teaching some classes at their location, and once again, I forgot to take pics of the two in the sanctuary.

Paintings over the sofa in office meeting room, Yucca Valley Presbyterian Church.