Second Place

Good news to announce! I took my rose painting (shown in the Gallery section to the right of this message) to the Arizona Artists Guild (AAG) meeting last night for their Artist of the Month competition. After viewing the other submitted paintings I felt a bit out of my league considering the quality of art brought. I spoke with one artist whose painting of an African child was just so magnificent that I had to speak to her about it. When the winners were announced, the African child's artist was chosen as Artist of the Month and my rose was chosen for Second Place! How cool is that? This is a great group of artists from throughout the state and I feel privileged to be a juried member of the AAG, so having one of my paintings be chosen for second place was gratifying for sure.

Prickly Pear on Yupo

This is another Yupo painting I just finished, a project for the watercolor Workshop for October. It didn't turn out exactly as I intended, but there are parts of this I like very much; mainly the intensely vibrant colors achieved on Yupo. I intend to keep developing skills with this "paper", it is fun to work with although quite a challenge. But, as they say, "fools rush in where angels fear to tread" so I will keep on keepin' on.

Fall Foliage on Yupo

After the critiques I got on this were considered, I broke up that large green shape in the corner and tamed it a bit by adding some of the warmer colors from above. I like it better now and am considering this one finished.

Fall Foliage on Yupo

This is a Yupo painting that will go into a 24x33 frame. I was thinking I had finished it, but am pondering whether I care for that large, clumpy evergreen shrub on the lower right. I have submitted it to the WcW for critique, so I will see what the consensus is. I don't know why I can't see these things while I am making the clumpy objects, but I usually don't see anything bothersome until I see the photo on the PC screen. Hmmmm.

Fall Foliage - 2007

We took a planned trip up north today to see the Fall foliage, supposedly at its "peak" this week. We did not see any Fall foliage in Sedona or Oak Creek Canyon, indeed had to travel to over 8,000 feet elevation to the Snowbowl to see any color at all, then it was only the yellow of Aspens. I had hoped to see some oranges and reds in the mix, but it was not to be this year. Despite this, we had a great day with nice weather, enjoying eating breakfast and lunch "out" at restaurants and being together on these adventures is always so nice for Tom and I. We were planning on exploring a scenic loop somewhere near the Snowbowl, but never saw a sign for it and the smoke drift from a (probably) prescribed burn by the NFS would have made it difficult and too smokey for photos had we found what we were looking for. All-in-all it was a good day and I will add what few photos I got to my Flickr site shortly.