We Have a Winner!

Thank you to everyone that posted to my Blog in support of my 100th post. I am happy to say "Doug Clark's" name was drawn as the winner of my painting giveaway. I am also happy to say I know Doug in the real world, not just the cyber world and have painted beside him several times. Doug is also a great sculptor. and I encourage you to check out his Blog. I am proud to be in his collection.

Thanks Doug and everyone else for all the support and kind words.

Photo by Jim Rodgers

Waiting for You

"Waiting for You"

8" x 16"

This is not my normal subject matter, but I fell in love with the photo my friend Lee Brown took in a restaurant in Paris and I lucked out that he posted it in another one of his now famous painting challenges. Click here to see Lee's photo. Using Photoshop, I cropped the figure tighter and removed the shadowed figure in the right foreground and added a chair in his place. The chair back points up to the figure and helps direct the viewers eye back up to the girl and also also adds weight and depth to the bottom of the painting. I also use a filter in Photoshop called "Median" that blurs the details without losing the shapes. When I'm plein air painting the only way to achieve similar results is to squint at my subject.

I painted my painting only looking at my Photoshop image on my computer screen. I have to admit I was surprised when I finished it and looked back at the original picture because it had tons of details I had lost, but hopefully I did Lee's beautiful photography proud. Thanks for another fun challenge. Make sure you visit Lee's "A Day Not Wasted" blog and see the other entries and tell him "Hi" for me.



Behind the Barn

"Behind the Barn"

9 x 12

“I was so naive as a kid

I used to sneak behind the barn

and do nothing.” 

- Johnny Carson

Free Painting!

This is my 100th Blog post and to celebrate I will give a painting away. All you have to do is leave me a comment on my Blog this month. I will then use a random generator to pick a name from everyone that posted and that person will be able to choose from one of the paintings shown above. The paintings range from 8 x 10 to 9 x12 and are all plein air works from random Texas locations. Each painting was featured on a previous Blog post, so you can read more about them and see where they were painted.

Thank you to everyone that follows my Blog and supports me as a painter.
Here's to another 100 posts!

Work Truck

"Old Green Work Truck"

9" x 12"

I found this great truck parked at Nash farm by my house. I had my twenty year old son stand with the door open in the pose shown and used my painters creative license and magically transformed him into a elderly gentleman complete with red hat and suspenders. You can't beat plein air painting and actually being on location, but I will always change what I see if it makes my painting better.

Rusted Junk Heaven

"Red Tractor" 

9" x 12"

I saw this great red tractor in the same area of Fredericksburgh, Tx as my painting "Rusted Work Truck". It was a rusted junk plein air painters heaven. I could have painted a dozen more just like this one, just spinning in place.

Hummingbird Feeder Glow

"Hummingbird Feeder"

5" X 7"

I hoped to capture the hummingbirds quick movements, but what I was most excited to paint was the light hitting the right side and all the secondary reflected light. This was painted very quickly in around 30 minutes.


The light around the bird is the toned board showing through. My most successful paintings seem to be the ones that the natural glow of the board still shows in places. Once that glow is gone, it is difficult to paint back in.

Not Much, But It's Home

"Not Much, But It's Home"

8" x 16"

I 'm happy with this one and I have plans on painting it twice as big. This is not a small painting, but a lot of the scratched in branches and foliage tricks I did won't work on the larger size. The trick will be painting more detail, but keep all the looseness.

Wish me luck!

Rescue Me

"Rescue Me"

5"x 7"

This was a real quick sketch from my recent Ouray, Colorado trip. I saw this tucked away up next to a mountain waiting for a call. Thankfully nobody needed it's help.

Rest in Peace, Tractor

"Ready for Work" 

8" x 10"

Sometimes, a painting sits around for a few days and you find something you are not totally satisfied so you grab the brushes and go about reworking the places that bothered you and hopefully improve the painting. Sometimes you grab those brushes and no matter what you do things just get worse and worse.  I tried to rework the foreground and background on this painting and I'm sad to say, completely wrecked it. The photo above was prior to the new work. Seeing it again at this size, things don't look so bad and I wish I had left it alone.  After three attempts this painting is dark, dead and near lifeless. A hard lesson learned.

I won't give up because it had promise and is oil. I should be able to cover anything up, but I think it's best to put it aside and let us both rest for awhile.  

KEEP OUT

 "Hay Stacks"

9' x 12"

Went out with a couple of my painting buddies for some more punishment. You can just feel the heat radiating out of these photos and it was only 9 am! I did get some nice shadows and despite the heat had a lot of fun. We meet a man named Mannie that was working for real that day driving a forklift. He spoke only broken English, but was very excited to see our paintings. We found out Mannie was an artist himself after he showed us a large rock that he had decorated with a sharpie drawing various cowboy related doodles. I encouraged him to drop the sharpie and pick up some brushes. Hopefully Mannie will be starting his own Blog soon.

Glimpse of my palette

Wow, I'm dedicated!

Painting Challenge: Train

"Train Crossing" 

11" x 14"

This painting was done for an online painting challenge from my good buddy Lee Brown over at
A Day Not Wasted. Lee has a great site that features his beautiful photography from his world travels.
I dare you to visit and not get inspired.

This train passes close too Lee's home in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Follow the link to see the challenge photo, the other artist interpretations and to possibly join in the painting challenge fun. Thanks Lee!

This is my second challenge I participated in. Here is my first one.

When I saw the photo I knew it would be a challenge. All the detail caught my eye first, but what I really wanted to paint was the light on the left side and the depth of the distant background. I tried laying down a monochromatic underpainting, but this time I didn't wait for it to dry before applying the color. At first it caused me some grief because the color kept picking up the grey beneath, but in the end all it took was a second round of good clean saturated highlights to not have it too washed out.

How does it look?