Texa, Margaret, Texas

Take a look at the lay of the land in this fair, wild state.

No wonder Sam Houston was enchanted. 

No wonder bloody battles were fought over the rivers, land, and towns. 

Even the cityscapes are remarkably beautiful.
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When Sam first brought me to this state, I thought I'd never seen such wide-open sky.  The rivers and roads continue to take my breath away. 

I'm going to pay tribute to my adopted state by painting deserts, sky, and cacti. 

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More Texas Landscape Photos and Art

Wood as Canvas

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I got my husband to get these cedar boards--- fence posts, actually. The texture and rough-sketch result is quite folksy and quaint. I love it. Krystal is not impressed. 

I would like a whole wall paneled in these. 

The snow guy needs some zip. He resembles an over eager used car salesman kind of guy, so maybe a plaid bow tie. 1950's style. Used car salesman are much more savvy these days. 

There was one complication in working in the little paint room all day. My eyes began to burn from the cedar! Had to move into the big room and turn on the fans. This comes from being allergic to lots of things.. .

I think this forest needs some deer and some rabbits. 

Wintry Nights

One night in the 70's, my dad looked out at the full moon and the softly falling snow.

"Let's take a walk."  Even though the family included a mom, a dad, and three teenagers, no one said, "I'm too busy," or "That's lame, Dad." 

If Dad wanted to walk, it was sure to be a good time. We geared up with hats, gloves, heavy coats, winter boots.  The air was crisp and twenty-something, but there was little wind. 

We walked to the top of the lower field and trampled through high weeds to the neighbors' fields. High above the town, we could see the sparkling lights below, but the heavenly stars and moon put all that to shame.  Even the snow sparkled and glowed.  

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Fence posts

Every year, I paint some things to give family and friends.

 Michelle requests a Cheesehead snowman this time around.

My paint room smells like cedar!  My husband

bought these boards at Home Depot and cut them to size. 

I'm using inexpensive paint as the wood soaks up the 

acrylics like a dry desert after a short rain. 

I'm playing around with landscapes, too, as the rough wood

makes an interesting texture. 

These evergreens will sprout lights and snow and glittery

ornaments soon.  

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Weekend paint!

In between shopping and church, modifying tests, and laundry, I painted a little.

I'm not sure who the lady with the lions is.  A snow queen of some type.  She deserves a story.  I will continue to work on the big cats. 

I found some happy houses that sparkled in the night, added my grandchildren, and have the beginnings of a white Christmas. 

A little re do

      After hanging around a friend's shop for a couple of years, these early works came home to roost. What mixed feelings!  My fledgling paintings which were so.... ugly.  Yes, they were.  Perspective was not bad.  however, the grass was splotchy and the sky looked like blue mange.  

     I spent last night redoing the skies.  A pearly pink sunrise on the one below contrasts with the evening blue in the one above. 

    Of course, the church and the railway have both fallen into some disrepair.  But while the the tracks are a symbol of dreams past, the staunch little church points to a hope that can never fade. 

The horses in spring graze peacefully in a field of bluebonnets. This is a true Texan picture.  But I don't have horses or bluebonnets or a large stone house.  I'd like to live in the pic, though.  

A Neutral Beginning

Beige and blue are the background colors here. This is soothing, not exciting.  A calm river on a hot summer day. . . a welcoming doorway into cool, enchanted spaces.  Even a desert can be restful with the monochromatic blending. The sky has a washed-out look over the sparkling sand. 

I paint in order to calm myself down and escape other tasks.  There are always dishes, laundry, and lesson plans.  For the same reason I read mysteries, I paint.  It's an escape into another land, another life. 

Think "Winter"

You wouldn't know it in Houston, but winter is coming! The high was 93 one day this past week.. 

I'm working on adding figures in order to humanize my painting. This castle is actually a take-off on the Chicago water tower, which sparkles with Christmas lights in December. I think that lady has lions with her, although they resemble dogs. 

This messy canvas is a repaint of an inept beginner pic. I filled it with Christmas trees. My middle daughter said, "I want to be right there in that picture." So here you are, KG. 

Colors,of Autumn

This turned out to be an easy paint with a simple, clean look. The one below was more ambitious. I did a little sponge work on the leaves. The mossy stones were harder. I still have some shadows to fill in. 

Fall

Pumpkin coffee, bright leaves, cool weather-- all dreams in Texas. So here is my tribute to autumn further north. 

When I fact, this is what's happening in my neighborhood:

New projects

Several of my friends have birthdays, so I am cranking up the paint projects. 

Still obsessed with old doors, i'm learning about shadows and rocks and when to quit. 

I got a new paint table. It's actually a drafting table from World Market. 

It's supposed to be used tilted, but I use it more often as shown above. 

It's a handsome piece of woodwork. So naturally, I've covered it with a cheap plastic tablecloth so as not to get it all nasty with acrylics. 

This is an unusually large picture of blackberries. No one likes it but me. I adore it. Maybe it reminds me of blackberry pie? Yes, Mom's blackberry pie.  We used to go in the woods with our boots on and longsleeved shirts, buckets belted around our waists.  You could pick buckets and buckets of berries at the right time of year. 

This is a painting of an old grist mill. It reminds me of the ruins of an old powder mill that used to be behind our house in New Florence, Pennsylvania. 

Our house was up Furnace Lane road, several miles out of town.  We had 50 acres in the middle of State Gamelands.  If you hiked to our upper field, then took off through the woods, you'd come to huge rocks, a briskly flowing stream that was almost a little river, and the ruins of an old powder mill. Some old-timer told us when we moved there in 1972 that it had been a place where gunpowder was manufactured during the Civil or Revolutionary War. There were big rocks that formed a sheltered area, which, it was rumored, had been inhabited by Indians years and years ago.  

Any way, this mill reminds me of that area.  A little nostalgia with fall colors. 

Reworking the Sky

I want to capture the sky.  The blues and grays of an impending storm, the perfect indigo of a still autumn day, the azure of a tropical paradise. Skies are variable and tricky. 

My earlier paintings suffered from my lack of knowledge of the behavior of paint on canvas.

Here, I have a nice sketch of a lighthouse. I used my small brushes almost dry, more like a pencil sketch than a painting.  This summer,  I've been working on architectural details, and making some progress.  However, I've also learned a great deal about skies.  For a clean, believable sky, you need water and globs of white paint with a few shades of blue. Most importantly, you need a smooth, wide brush. 

Take those globs of paint and the brush and freely stroke and blend.  Fear not. Jennifer says that the top corner should be a deeper blue to lend credibility, while the ocean horizon is almost always lighter and more grayish than the foreground or the high background. 

I've made some bursts of paint where the waves are crashing against the lighthouse. 

And there is my new backdrop for the lighthouse in the storm.  It's no big deal to redo the lighthouse.  This time, I'll have a better sense of proportion and perspective.  This is a battered, bumpy canvas, one I've chosen as a learning canvas.

Just like one must kiss several toads to find a prince, I apparently have to mess up a lot of canvas to learn the sky.  The whole process makes me philosphical. 

Jennifer says

Jennifer noticed that I was painting two and sometimes three canvases at once. 

"Why are you doing that? Are you trying not to wast paint? 

That was truly part of it.  When I worked on several paintings at a time and I had gotten just the perfect shade of sky blue, or if I found a new way to accomplish shading, I transferred my new skill to the second landscape.  

"Another way you can save paint is to use a palette with a lid," she said. She explained how she took a tupperware or lidded container, put a sponge in it, and kept acrylic paints wet for days at a time. 

She's right!  I had a pie plate with a plastic lid. I put acrylics in it, went away for 9 days.  When I returned, the paint was still liquid!  This will save me so very much paint. 

Like toothpaste, once acrylics are squeezed from the tube, there is no putting it back. 

Tropical inspiration

Plein aire painting is new to Valarene and me, but not to Jennifer.  There is something magical about painting from a 3-D view right in front of you, not a flat painting.  "Don't worry so much about making straight lines.  Crooked lines drawn free-form are so much more interesting," she advised.  

Overlooking the sea, light, shadow, sparkle on water invite one to capture on canvas. 

If only we could incorporate the bird calls and wave splashes! 

Summer Doors

I'm reworking some old paintings and trying others with architectural details.

Here's a close-up of the grillwork on the door. 

I added in the light gray tree branches.  Hmmm, I think the flowers need to pop more.  It's funny how photographing a work shows all the little issues more clearly. 

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I can see that this door is a little crooked. I'm pleased with the the bicycle and the overall feel. The play of light on brick turned out well. Shadows baffle me sometimes!  

This one was really easy and fun as the perspective is straight-on. 

A Teacher in Summer

We've been out of school for a week, and I'm just now finding my balance. It might surprise people to know how long it takes. It's like recovery after a long illness.  I begin remembering who I am when I am not immersed in students, grades, state testing, and mountains of paperwork.  Even in summer, I am hard put not to think of every experience, "My students would love to see this!" I am remembering that I am a wife, mother, grandma; a painter, a cook, a (pretend) lady of leisure.  I don't have to rise at dawn's early light (but I do.)  I don't have to set the coffeepot and lay out clothing in order to dress in the dark and leave the house by 6 AM--but I still maintain all except leaving the house.  

I believe that if we all take time to breathe, to talk, think, relate, and yes, to paint, we will go back to work as more decent human beings.  And those frantic prayers on the way down the freeway?  Especially the ones for safety and well-being of my students?  Let's deepen and expand those prayers.  Let's take time to listen to God's answer.  

Lovely Doors to Secret Gardens

I am starting a couple of pictures for my daughter's new place.  She likes doors.  She is not into the fall tones and earth tones that continually show up like unexpected guests in all my works. So here goes, something different.  

Here's my beginning:

I need to get the white bicycle in there. Keep it light, don't get overbearing.

I like the palette, although Krystal says the flowers to the left of the door are too blue.  And the bicycle looks a little off. I like the wisteria.  The doorknob is too high. There--the flowers are lightened up, the bicycle is straighter.  Tomorrow I'll blacken the tires and add shadows. Let it be noted that I'm not an art teacher, but I visit the art room frequently! Hmmm, I don't like that bike.  Let me finish the greenery, further straighten it out.  

Summer Essence

Yesterday was the first official day of Summer.

K. and I were zombies.  Still, we ran errands, shopped, bought Taco Bell for lunch. 

I bought a new dress for a graduation. 

She turned in her loan forgiveness for 5 years of teaching science in a Title I school in Texas. This one small thing equals years of finding oneself, finding a profession that is, in truth, a calling.  I have experienced the same transformation, but my loan forgiveness was in the area of special education.  Spending 5 years with such students in such a school grows deep roots in a person.  It's a heart, should, and mind shift.  

Last night, I dreamed that S. and I were in a dead sleep.  (In reality, we were in a dead sleep.) I think we were at Leakey. 

A knock came at the door.  A friend and his kids were in sleeping bags on the front porch. The painting below reminds me of the dreamscape outside the house. Paisley fields and fragile trees. 

I brought them all in. Meanwhile, our house guests (whom I did not know) came out.  By now, I desperately needed coffee.  I fumbled for the components of the coffeepot.  I accidentally threw oatmel in there, then the pieces didn't fit.  My thirst and caffeine craving grew. 

By now, I was truly awake and in dire need of coffee...and it is magically perking. I'm going to have some.  I'm going to live this day.  But first, there will be coffee.

My goal this summer is to paint tropical themes; to improve my animals; to rework some paintings that I can better finish now.

This one lacked definition. I added brown and smoky branching brush.

The above painting was one of my very first efforts. K loyally hung it above her couch. I'll rework it for more depth and subtlety. Good grief! It looks like a field of lollipops or balloons! Maybe I should use that and add frolicking unicorns. 

In acrylic, I hope to capture my dreams. Maybe not the shark dreams, or pajamas-at-school dreams, but the never ending houses stocked with treasures and mythic creatures.  Those dreams.