Tracy Miller Gallery

This is the most recent painting sold by Tracy Miller at her gallery in Manitou Springs, Colorado. I have shown work there since 2015-ish. Tracy has decided to close the gallery and concentrate on her own work. It was a good experience and thanks to Tracy for having me and working so hard on my and all of her artists' behalf.

This is "Jackrabbit and Rocks", 24 by 18 inches, acrylic on canvas.

Dallas Art Fair

Dallas has an annual art fair that attracts galleries from around the U.S. and the world. Ro2 Art, my home gallery, has had a booth in it the last two years, and this time my work was included, since I joined them this year.

Below are photos I took while visiting the Fair. Some are my wall at the Ro2 booth and some are pieces that caught my attention. If I know the artist I've listed the names, if not I haven't. Apologies to anyone overlooked.


Here I am with the paintings...


...and here are the paintings without me.


This is "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", which I'm happy to report sold at the Fair.


I enjoyed seeing this piece, by one of my favorite painters, Wolf Kahn.


I don't know who did this, but I enjoyed the Velazquez reference.


This beautiful portrait is by an artist also unfortunately unknown to me. I should take better notes.


I loved this painting of hikers, "Walkers on Ladle Hill" by Benjamin Senior.


I don't know who did this, but I think I see a rooster in there.


Again, I don't know the artist, but I do like the painting.


Ditto.


Some small but amazing urban landscapes by Rod Penner.


I also liked the minimalist landscape paintings by Gregory Botts.


And finally, this unfortunately out of focus piece by Ro2 gallery mate Erica Stephens. My photography is often found wanting, but I wanted to included it anyway.

Thanks to Ro2 Art for including me in this year's Fair.

Happy holidays

Whatever it is you celebrate, if anything, I hope it's a good time.

This is an image I made, with some process pix along with it.




The piece started as a pencil drawing with intentional smudges. I scanned the drawing and with Photoshop turned the smudges into a half tone pattern.
I added the skin tone and hair as layers. They are scanned watercolor washes.


I added the color of the wing and the bird, also scanned watercolor washes. The robe texture was a photograph of a wall, as was the background. The clock is from a photograph of the court house in beautiful Crockett, Texas.
The gold leaves seen in the final version were from a photograph of a pattern on an antique window.
This piece exists only in digital form.





These are the textures I used, from photographs I took and watercolor washes I made.

Mixed media with watercolor

Okay, I'm a bad blogger. Nearly two months of posting nothing; I have no excuses. A lot has been going on, and I'll try to get caught up with posting it here in the next few weeks, if not days.
To tell the truth, I've been pretty active on my Facebook page, on Twitter and most recently I've joined Instagram. So I guess that's why I'm behind here.

Here's the first catch-up item.
Tracy Miller Gallery in Manitou Springs, Colorado is having a holiday show called "100 for $100", a title that's self explanatory. The idea is for represented artists to show work that is available for that price. I decided to use 5 by 7 inches drawings which I scanned and printed on a laser scanner on 140 lb Arches watercolor paper. I then added watercolor to the printed images. The piece is attached to museum board and that is attached to wood 6 by 8 inches. Below are images of the pieces.

The show runs from November 29 through December 31.






















This photo shows the "Bull" piece on the wall, to give it some context and scale.

Rooster Plate

I painted the image on this ceramic plate to be auctioned at a fundraiser for a local arts service. It's a place where people who are interested in art can take informal (in the sense that there are no, as far as I know, grades or great pressure to perform at a certain level) classes in painting, ceramics, drawing, and other subjects.

I have many friends who work and participate at this facility, so I was happy to make a small contribution in the form of this plate. The auction event is called the "Blue Plate Special". Get it?

Anyway, I entered into this project with some trepidation, since I'm not at all familiar with the materials and glazes used to make images on ceramics. I didn't take ceramics in college and have had no interest in it, or really any 3-dimensional medium. But I gave it a try and this is how it turned out. Not knowing how glazes translate after firing in a kiln I decided to keep the color flat with a simple outline. I know it's possible to achieve very sophisticated color effects and gradations. But I don't know how to do that and it would take considerable practice and trial and error, just as it did while I was learning to paint, to reach a level I felt comfortable with, outside of this simple approach. The background started out sort of abstract then evolved into an organic pattern. Through research I was able to figure out how the colors I was working with would appear after the plate's firing.

While I was happy to support the efforts of this and other worthy causes, the practice of artists giving their work to auctions is a little controversial. Some artists feel exploited, as they are often assigned subject matter or, as in this case, media outside of their usual materials. Their work is taken and auctioned at prices that may or may not reflect their proven value in the marketplace. And often they are unable to attend the events where their work is used to raise money, due to high ticket prices they are unable or unwilling, since they have contributed to the potential success of the event, to pay.

My first understanding of this particular event was that the artists could only attend if they paid full price for tickets. Then apparently this policy changed, since my wife and I were offered tickets gratis to attend. We were intending to attend the event, as I'm always interested in seeing how my work performs in such an environment, for the not insignificant reason of determining if the auction prices hold up to the retail prices I ask for my work in the marketplace. The reason for my concern isn't that I think so highly of myself, as much as it is out of fairness to those people who are generous enough to buy my work for its retail asking price. There could be some resentment if the work is sold at a lower price than I ask in the market. So while supporting good causes is a good thing that is not the only consideration. I have, I must add, had good luck usually in having my work bring a price at auction equal to its retail price. Since my piece wasn't to be included in the actual auction we decided to not attend, letting the tickets go back into the hopper so they could be sold for full price.

What makes these situations frustrating, other than a low selling auction price, is when the work donated is not used in the way that it was said it would be used. This plate, I'm told, won't be on the auction block, but will instead be given as a sort of prize to those people who paid a premium ticket price to the event. Another word for this might be "party favor", but let's not take that snarkiness any further. If there are a limited number of pieces to be auctioned, then the number of pieces solicited should, in my opinion, be limited to that number. If more funds are required to be raised then other options should be offered. For the auction officials to create a hierarchy of work, based on whatever criteria, especially when that intention isn't made clear at the solicitation point, only feeds more resentment in the population of donating artists, which leads to less work being donated to that or other otherwise worthy causes. Such practices, however innocent and well meaning I know they are, are counterproductive for everyone involved.

Regardless, I do sincerely hope whomever ends up with the plate I donated wants and enjoys it. Maybe one day they will look me up and let me come see where they put it.

Below is how the plate looked after painting, but before firing.

Enough already.

Thank you cards

During our recent trip to the Texas Coast then on to Austin, we found ourselves in need of a place to stay, when our original plan didn't work out. Our niece and her roommate were kind enough to offer a room in their cozy house and we were saved from sleeping in my small two-seater car. I made these thank you cards for them. I'm no master of watercolor, but I do like to play with it.

Happy Valentines Day

The art blog Altpick.com is celebrating Valentines Day by showing my mixed media/digital piece "Sing", along with work by many other artists.

If you want a valentine I hope you have/get one. I recommend it; I've had the same one for 26 years.

Simple gift

I wrote about Buffalo George Toomer on the occasion of his passing several years ago. I was surprised and honored last week to be gifted with his paintbrush box, complete with his partly smoked cigar and 4B pencil.

Thanks to his son for this honor. I was and I still am pretty much speechless.

Happy New Year

My resolution is to try to say something on this blog at least once a week. Not that there's a huge audience for it, but because I want to put things out there.
I hope everyone has had great holidays and will have only the positive in the new year. See you on the other side.

Happy Solstice!

If it pleases you to do so on this Winter Solstice watch this little animation I made based on this 30 year old(!) illustration. Have a happy whatever it is you might celebrate at this time of year.

The original image:


The animation is at this link.

"A Feathered Affair"

These are photos of a bluebird house I painted for an auction. It was part of a fund raising event presented by the Gay & Lesbian Fund for Dallas on behalf of the Trinity River Audubon & Dogwood Canyon Audubon Centers. Obviously my interest in nature makes this a perfect project for me. The event was last night, October 19, and while I didn't attend, I understand my contribution did well for the fund raiser.

El Rey de Oak Cliff

My neighborhood of Oak Cliff in Dallas, Texas, has long been ignored by the larger city government in favor of more, or actually less diversified, tony areas in terms of (positive) development and infrastructure. That has started to change over the past few years in no small part due to the actions of activists like Jason Roberts.

Jason's accomplishments are listed as being a father of two young children, he ran for Congress in 2011, founded Better Block - which helps communities rehabilitate underused spaces, started Bike Friendly Oak Cliff to encourage biking in his neighborhood, co-founded Art Conspiracy which brings artists together to raise money for non-profits, started the Oak Cliff Transit Authority in an effort to bring street cars back to Oak Cliff and served as the lead singer and guitarist in The Happy Bullets.

While improving our neighborhood Jason battled cancer and won. His medical bills are still substantial, though, so the Kessler Theater, a former movie theater fallen to ruin and reborn as a popular music venue, is having a music and art event to help raise money. I was invited to contribute a piece for the art auction and so here is my humble way to try and help out a good guy.


"El Reyna de Oak Cliff", 10 by 8 inches, acrylic on canvas.

Roosters were once ubiquitous in Oak Cliff, but a few years ago were made illegal. One can still have chickens if they're "properly" contained, but not roosters. Makes for quieter mornings I guess, but some of the neighborhood's funk and originality is missing as a result.

Folk typography

My father, gentleman farmer/rancher, was also apparently an amateur typographer, evidenced by this aluminum name plate he made for himself back in the late 1960s or early 1970s. It's as fine a piece of folk art as I can imagine.

Hands

These drawings of hands clasping are for a painting I'm sending to an invitational show at the end of this coming week. More about that when I post the painting.
I was listening to Miles Davis' "Sketches of Spain" while I was working on the sketchbook drawings. That fact is unrelated to the subject, but "Sketches of Spain" is always good drawing music.

Happy Valentines Day

This "Neo Retro" style piece from a few years ago is included with many other interesting and beautiful images on the Altpick.com blog, Altpick Connects.

I hope everyone has a great Valentines Day, regardless of what form it takes. This year is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first date with the beautiful love of my life, Becky.


Ain't she gorgeous?
"Yes" is the right answer.

Below is a piece I made for her when we first met. "A Dozen Roses", acrylic on canvas, each about 7 by 5 inches.

"Strokes of Genius 4"

Strokes of Genius 4 is a collection of drawings published by Northlight Books. Here's a photo of me holding the page with "Urban Still Life", one of my two pieces selected for inclusion in this edition. The other drawing is "Oak Tree".
I'm obviously gratified and flattered to be included.

The Lunatheists

The Lunatheists are a Moon worshiping cult who don rabbit masks for their Full Moon rituals, paying homage to the rabbit shape they see on the face of the moon.

And no, none of that is true. I made it up. It's what I do.

Oak Cliff Studio Tour, The Denouement

I know, the title of this post is pretentious. But it was a bit of an ordeal to get ready for the tour last week, since we always over extend ourselves. This year we decided to fix up our practically demolished bathroom (a remodeling effort was begun years ago and has never been completed), since closing it off in the last two years' tours didn't keep anyone from wanting access to it, gross as it was. Of course, if someone asks to use it you can't say "no". Still I felt bad for anyone who had to go in there. But while it still needs to be gutted and redone, it looks a lot better than it did. But that and getting ready for the tour itself was hard work, so after it was over we were exhausted and still are, really, two days later. Still, it's great fun to participate and we had a nice steady flow of visitors. I took down a large painting and replaced with a selection of my various favorite subjects, as seen in the photo below.

Roosters were represented this year by a series of acrylic on wooden bowls. They proved to be pretty popular, as did the greeting cards. The same can't be said about the "South Texas Palms" serigraph with hand spattered acrylic colors. But that often happens with work that's outside of what's expected from me. Still, we have to put out new approaches, whether or they're financially successful. Here's a photo of the "merch table", as my wife Becky calls it, with some visitors looking things over.

Below are more photos of visitors and the layout. This year we decided to show off some of our personal collection, too. It includes other Oak Cliff artists and still others from all over. I called our stop an unofficial "Oak Cliff Museum of Art", but I don't know if I could get much of a consensus on that.