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.

CHILDHOOD PRANKS #27

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.

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.

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. :)

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.

Winston, glad you're enjoying yourself down there. Can't drive by the newspaper office here without thinking of you and wondering how you're doing.

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.

IT WASN'T ME!

This little pooch looked so cute I had to paint his picture. I changed my thoughts on the background and was going to change it around a little, but the paint is too wet to do that just yet. Maybe later. After looking at this puppy, I dug out my photo book and looked up our dog's baby pictures. That could be tomorrow's painting.

READY FOR FUN!

These are a couple of characters that wandered onto our place a few years ago and never left. They've eaten most of my flowers, torn up most of the fencing around here, try to eat the magnetic signs from my vehicle anytime I forget to remove them, and have rubbed their horns on a few nice cars, but they kind of make up for the mischief they've caused by their friendly, lovable, personalities. They don't care much for being looked at through the camera lens though and it was tough getting some good photos of them. Now you can see how adorable they look as well. This is a 9"x12" oil painting.