Beaufort SC

We made our way to Beaufort this morning. The first photo is of an old school bus that had been gutted and all the windows removed, making it a perfect vehicle for hauling watermelons! I might be odd, but I thought this was charming and just fun!

The Xterra is parked underneath one of the many Spanish Moss-covered trees here. That is some strange stuff! I walked across the street to the Federal Courthouse and found a wonderful Magnolia tree, with blossoms near enough the bottom branches that I could get some good macro shots. I love these flowers! They are enormous, and so waxy and beautiful.

We went to Hilton Head, also, but the only good thing we could find in our experience there was a wonderful bar-b-que place for lunch called Sticky Fingers. It was great! The beach area we finally found (after several trips around the loop) was so crowded that we could not have parked and walked down to the beach. I did get my first glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean, though, through some of the walkways we passed. This was one crowded, hard-to-navigate, place.

We may stick closer to the Walterboro area, which we are using for our home base while in this area tomorrow. There are lots of antique stores, etc., and I need to make a Wal-Mart run, too. The weather is still very warm and HUMID, but is was a bit cooler today than yesterday. It cooled off fairly decently last night and this morning was nice. That sure changes once the sun gets going, though.

Walterboro, SC

We have made our way to Walterboro, SC today. It is so hot and humid! We had to get caught up on laundry today, and you have not lived until sitting in a laundry room with four dryers going full blast while the temps outside are 93 and with high humidity! Oh well, we got it all done and should be good for awhile.

We plan on using this as our home base while exploring Charleston, SC, ...Beaufort and Savannah while in the area. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate.

These hibiscus are the size of a salad plate and just glorious! These were on the entry path to the RV park office when we registered so I came back with my camera while awaiting the interminable washers and dryers. No wonder these tropical flowers grow so well here, there is high humidity so often!

More later as we explore the various areas....

End of Boone in June

I went to the Boone in June trade show this morning and met up with Barb. There were lots of bargains and some free stuff and lots of people! I practiced some constraint (both due to money and space to bring stuff home in the motorhome) but still got some nice art goodies. We also attended a one-hour demo by an artist with Golden paints, which was extremely interesting. Lots of new ideas to inspire us! We asked a stranger to take our photo to show our bags of purchases and she got more of the ceiling than the bags, and of course my eyes are closed, but we only had the one photo, so this is it.

Barb and Charlie left right after the demo to head back to the Chicago area, then to Wisconsin and then back to Surprise. We are heading toward Savannah, GA tomorrow to explore that area. Lots of art stuff to repack this afternoon! The weather here has been so rainy and foggy that we will not be sorry to leave, and hope for sunnier weather in the next area we visit.

Yupo Workshop - Day Two

This is the only painting I completed today in the Yupo workshop. I have two more uncompleted ones that I will work on as we travel onward. Tomorrow is the big trade show, which I will attend, and then on Sunday will continue on toward the East coast, touring Savannah, Charleston, etc. and then up the coast highway and possibly on to Virginia, and a few more historic site there.We will aim for being home before the middle of July, but will hit all we can before then.

The workshops with Taylor Ikin were invaluable to me as an artist. They certainly gave some sort of validation of my artistic skills and increased my confidence a lot, which is a very valuable thing. She is a wonderful instructor and artist and an enjoyable person to learn from.

Onward and upward!

Yupo Workshop - Day One

This was the first of two Taylor Ikin Yupo paper workshops this morning. I am showing a photo of Taylor, Barb and I at the workshop, as well as the Yupo painting I did on the first day. Taylor was very complimentary on my painting, and I was pleased with it enough since it was a workshop painting. I generally don't do great paintings in a workshop setting. This photo is deplorable, though, as it is raining outside and I can't take it in natural light and without reflections from the flash. I'll have to retake the photo when it is not cats and dogs weather.

Taylor is an excellent artist as well as instructor so it was a good session. Plus, Barb and I had a nice time painting together, as we usually do. This is certainly a remote venue for us to be painting together, though! Another plus of this morning...to follow up on yesterday's blog entry regarding Cheap Joe....I had my book with me this morning and saw him again at the workshops and he signed his journaling book for me, with an additional hug! It has been a good day, despite the weather.

Tomorrow afternoon we have our last session with Taylor, then Saturday is the trade show. I will be interested in seeing what vendors are there and what samples, discounts, etc. they are offering!

Happy Day

Today we drove along the Blue Ridge Parkway and enjoyed it a lot, took lots of photos, and had a great morning before it started pouring rain. So, we decided to run back to Cheap Joe's to get a few more things for my workshop with Taylor Ikin tomorrow. When I arrived there, Joe Miller himself happened to be in the store. I told him how pleased I was to meet him, but disappointed to have missed him the two other times I visited the store, with this journaling book in hand, to have him sign it but he wasn't there at those times. Then, when I finally met him I didn't have my book with me! He said "Oh, I am so sorry that happened that way, but I would be honored to sign a piece of paper for you and hope to catch up with you and your book during the art festival". He then gave me a huge hug! Here is the note he signed for me and I will have his book with me at all the workshops and the trade show on Saturday! He is truly a nice guy. For those of my artist friends, you know that he is like a star as far as art supplies go and a lot of us depend on him for our mail order supplies. So, this was great!

As we were leaving the store, my friend from the Sun City Grand Art Club, Barb Lang, and her husband arrived at Cheap Joe's. They were vacationing in the area and we had agreed and arranged to meet in Boone for the festival and take the workshops together. So, it was a happy reunion for us, too. I was so caught off guard by their showing up when we were there that I didn't think to have my husband take Barb's and my photo there at Cheap Joe's....drat! I'll ask someone at the workshop tomorrow to do that and post it tomorrow night. This is fun!

Boone, NC - Day 2

We are in Boone still, will be here until Monday. We went to Cheap Joe's this morning so I could buy a few art supplies while they were handy. We also scoped out the venues for where the workshops and trade show will be for Boone in June. This is definitely a mountain town...we twisted around and around to find these places.

We will plan on going onto the Blue Ridge Parkway tomorrow to take some photos, so I will post some of those tomorrow. Weather is nice here, much cooler than in Phoenix....the low this morning was 58 and the highs in the low seventies. We even had about a 15-minute thunder shower this afternoon, which cooled the afternoon off even more.

More tomorrow....

Boone, NC

We made it to Boone, NC this afternoon. This is the campground we stayed in before, and made reservations in again. The creek in this photo runs RIGHT behind our motorhome. The campground is much more crowded this trip, we made the trip in 2005 in May, apparently June has more people in RVs out and about. We will spend tomorrow on housekeeping details (grocery store, some laundry, etc.) and then vegging out here at the motorhome. It will be SO nice to stay in one place in the motorhome for seven days....much different than being on the move every day for so long.

The weather so far in this part of the country is nice, highs in the seventies, which is so much better than at home right now. Starting Thursday will be the workshops for Boone in June and then on Saturday will be the Boone in June trade show. Supposedly this is a big event for Boone.

More tomorrow as we begin to explore....

Gem Mining in Franklin, NC

We went to a gem mine this morning and used sluice boxes to pick out gemstones. It was a lot of fun and interesting to do. I don't think we had any miraculous finds, but did well overall and we like what we are bringing home. The first photo is of some of the larger gems/some just pretty rocks we got. There are amethysts, turquoise, lapis lazuli, rose quartz, green quartz and lots I will have to research on the web to identify. The second photo is of the finer gems. The first pile on the left is made up of emeralds and topaz. The second pile is sapphires and rubies (only two dinky little rubies!). The largest pile is small garnets, got lots of those. The lower right corner is amethyst and the lower left corner are moonstones. Pretty cool, huh? I don't know if anyone will ever see me wearing any of these, but I am thinking of trying some wire wrapped jewelry since that looks really cool with gemstones.

We are leaving Franklin tomorrow morning and will head toward Boone. We will chill out for a few days before the art festival starts, which after having so many traveling days will be a good thing to just relax for awhile.

Alabama and North Carolina

The first photo of the tree flower is of a Mimosa tree...thanks Cia for identifying that for me! These trees are all over the place here, and are magnificent in large groups. We traveled today from Knoxville, AL through the width of central Alabama and on to Georgia. We made our way, carefully and frightfully, through Atlanta....not for the feint of heart! This was a frustrating and terrifying experience! We will probably never try that one again! I cannot imagine how anyone can do this trip through Atlanta on a week day...we did this on a Saturday afternoon and it was terrible. Of course, driving a 35-foot motorhome and towing a car probably was frightful on its own.

We will give the gemstone mines here in Franklin, NC a try tomorrow. I don't know how this is supposed to go, but if I end up with a bauble big enough to post, I will show you. One should always start out these ventures with high hopes! We will try to go on to Boone, NC on Monday and chill out for a few days before the art festival begins. After the last few days of pushing ourselves with travel that sounds great!

More tomorrow....Susan

Mississippi and Alabama

We left Lousianna this morning and have gone through the entire width of Mississippi and will go through the western part of Georgia tomorrow (including Birmingham, AL and Atlanta, GA) and will then head north toward Franklin, NC. We have promised ourselves a stop in gem-hunting country (as seen on the Travel Channel) and will do some hunting for valuable gems :>) for a few days. Then, it is on to Boone, NC for the art festival and workshops for three days and then....???? We will have to see how it is going at that point and decide where to go from there. We have had good traveling and good RV parks so far, we are hoping that will continue. All is well here, hope it is for you all, too.

Monroe, LA

We had a very good day on the road today, lots of wind but after we got out of Texas, it settled into a warm breeze. We stopped for the night in Monroe, LA, the first photo is of our campsite here. The second photo is of a magnolia plucked from the tree of our office person here at the campground, a friendly southern lady named Betty. This thing was the size of a dinner plate! We sure can't grow these on the desert! We will try to get across Mississippi tomorrow, and on to Alabama. Everything is going well so far.

Ranger, TX

No photos to show you today...driving a motorhome with a huge windshield through farmland in Texas, in the summertime, yields a very sticky windshield with bug splats, so no photos through there as we drove. We are staying the night in Ranger, TX where we will get a good start on Dallas/Fort Worth at a time AFTER the rush hour commuter traffic has smoothed out a bit. We are doing well, though not traveling as fast as we had hoped. We will head toward Boone, NC to get there by June 13th, that is our new goal.

Today is our wedding anniversary....37 years! Amazing, but true. We are usually on the road for our anniversary so this trip is part of our celebration. It is good to be still traveling, enjoying being on the road together, and looking forward to more trips to come together. Life is good.

I'll try for some photos tomorrow now that we are finally into some of the greener parts of Texas hill country.

New Mexico Pause

We decided to delay going through Texas by one day to allow the stormy weather ahead of us to clear, so we got a bonus, rest-awhile day. I decided to enjoy the morning by painting on our patio...had a wonderful session involving John Denver on the iPod, birds singing, a temperature of 71 degrees and painted five petroglyph small paintings. A morning doesn't get much better than that! We'll make a run at getting past a third of Texas on our eastbound trip tomorrow morning. It takes forever to go across Texas! Hopefully, the bad storms are past and we can make our way through and on to LA, ALA and GA for exploring before going to Boone. We may have to change our minds and head north before we go to those states if the weather requires more waiting. We are keeping an eye on Intellicast and proceeding with care. So far, so good. More later as we roost for the night in various places.

Home-away-from-home

This will be our home-away-from-home for the next month as we travel eastward to explore more of our country. There are many photos waiting to be taken! This photo was taken two years ago when we were in Boone, NC and we are revisiting the area again on this trip, staying in this same RV Park. It has a lovely creek running behind the motorhome and we have asked for that site again. I love the fact that everything is so green in that part of the country and all the rivers have water in them, as opposed to our dry washes and sand rivers here in the desert southwest.

I'll post progress photos as we travel and share sights and experiences, so drop in as you can to see what we are up to!

White Heron

I cannot seem to stop painting this weekend. We are having a quiet weekend due to my husband's accident and his need to recuperate, and I can't say I have missed any of the activities we might have done, it has been so nice to stay home and paint!

I am letting this marinate on the board for awhile while I ponder where to soften more of the edges, or detail the water more, etc. I submitted it to the WcW for critique, hopefully some of the wildlife painters in the group will help me decide if I am through with this or if anything else needs to be done.

Thanks go to Fred Reed for allowing me to paint from his excellent photo.

Marsha's Peony Final

Rhonda, one of my WcW buddies is working on this same photo for a painting, and suggested that the center of this needs to be warmed up with some of the warmer colors. So, after looking at the photo again on the computer screen I found that my print of the photo had printed mainly the cooler colors so I had missed that. This version of my painting is more representative of the original photo and I think I am calling it done.

Marsha's Peony WIP 2

Here I have added deeper colors to the shadow areas and have come closer to finishing the stem and whatever those things are that open when the buds open. I guess I should research more about plant anatomy!

Next, I will step away and ponder whether to deepen the sky color and add more darks. the peony petals are so translucent I don't want to lose that look, so I may be close to finished with this.

I'll post the final version when I figure out if I am finished.

Marsha's Peony WIP 1

I am starting another floral painting based on the photographic talent of an online friend, Marsha, who submits photos of her flowers for the group to use for reference photos. I am so envious of her ability to grow flowers like this, here on the desert we would never be able to grow them! She is also a fabulous photographer!

This will be the underside of a peony blossom and I have done the first three steps so far: Painting the sky area, tinting each petal with a pale pink and then painting the shadow areas with the same pink to establish where the lightest lights will be left. As I finish those little yellow-green thingies at the base of the flower I will start going in with the darkest darks, that is the fun part since it immediately makes the lightest lights even brighter and the petals more translucent-looking. It has been an evolutionary process for me to get over being scared of committing darkest darks to a painting for fear of ruining it. Now, I usually can hardly wait to get to that point since it always seems to be a magical turning point, taking the painting farther away from the awkward teenage phase and more toward the phases of a good, grown-up painting.

More to follow as I have time to work on this one.

Iris Macro Revisited

I added a bit more modeling shading to the petals of this and some more orange in the deepest part of the throat of the iris. I am not sure if this does it for me, still, but I can't say I hate it....it just isn't what I set out to do with this great photo I used for a reference. I have new subjects waiting on the drafting table so will just move on.

Iris Macro

I just finished this iris painting, I used a photo shared by an online group friend who took the macro photo from one of her irises. The photo was stunning, my painting of it just doesn't do it justice. This was a fun painting to do, despite the struggles. I love painting using wet-in-wet techniques. Irises are among my favorites from the flower world, they are just complicated to try to paint. I think I struggle more with roses and irises than any other flowers.

Aubrey at the Beach

I finished this painting of our granddaughter early this morning after painting the bulk of it on Mother's Day (apropos, huh?). I just love the toddler postures they all have at this age. This will go into my Grandma's Gallery of paintings.

Now, on to an iris painting I have been planning.

Magnolia

This painting was done by watching an online demo and a subsequent challenge by one of my online artist buddies, Cecilia (Cia) Price and the reference photo used was from her magnolia tree. She lives in Alabama so understands magnolias much better than this southwestern desert rat.

I was more successful this time than in any others in saving the white of the paper for the sunspots on the petals and branches, so I am proud of that. I like the technique of painting wet-in-wet by dropping-in of colors and letting them blend on the paper, I thought it worked well in this case. Some of my branches are a bit funky, but as far as I know this may be normal for magnolia branches? That's my story and I'm stickin' to it anyway.

Now, on to painting my grandbaby, Aubrey, in her race-to-the-water pose in the photo below. That one is just begging to be painted, so I will give in to the urge.

Beach baby

No art news to submit today as we are in Las Vegas (what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas!) but I received some beach baby photos of our granddaughter in some e-mail today so will share it. I didn't crop out her mama for any malicious intent, I just thought little Ms. Aubrey looked so precious striding purposely toward the water that I wanted her to be the main focus of the photo.

I am winning big at the casinos...I won $18.95 in nickels this morning! That has to be some kind of record for me to be on the plus side at all!

Madrona Tree - Final

I have deemed this one as finished as it will get. I am not as pleased as I had hoped to be with it, but it was a great learning experience and fun to do. I am trying to incorporate more negative painting of shapes into my paintings, so that will come along more easily after I do more of it.

Madrona Tree WIP 5/1/07

I think that every painting goes through an "awkward teenage phase" and here is my teen painting. At this point, I usually wonder if this will go into the round file or whether it will be saved. There is much to do to make this background acceptable, so I will press onward.

Madrona Tree WIP 4/30/07

I am able to work on this Madrona Tree painting today so will include another work in progress entry here. I have done the underpainting of the leafy background and will next proceed to darkening that area, hopefully with the intent of darkening that more to make the peeling tree branches "pop" more and remain the center of interest for this painting. More to follow.

Madrona Tree - WIP

Here is the Madrona Tree peeling bark painting WIP that I have done so far. I will continue on with this since I am having so much fun painting it. The background will be of green foliage and leaves, but the center of interest will be this glowing, peeling main branch and bark. These trees are specific to the Pacific Northwest and I was entranced by them as we drove through the mountain highways toward the Oregon coast. Apparently there is a disease which attacks them and they are a dying breed; so sad, as they are so colorful with their peeling bark and wonderful greens amidst the darker green conifers.

More WIPs to follow on this one. I hope to be able to finish with a lush background with greens, blues and yelows, but we will have to see. One more art sale this weekend and then I can work on this more.

Lilacs on Lace

This will be my submission for the online group's April project - lilacs. I tried to stay loose with this and, as usual, when I do that I don't care as much for it, but this is it regardless. It was fun to do and nice to be able to paint again this week.

I have started offering matcutting and archival printing services and had my first printing and matcutting jobs this week. It's enjoyable work, adds a few dollars to my art supply fund and keeps me out of the pool halls and bars. Can't beat that.

NC Tobacco Farm - corrected

I realized, after submitting, that we were in North Carolina, not South Carolina when I took the reference photo for this painting. I corrected that error, as well as following a suggestion from my online critique group (thanks, Rhonda!) where it was suggested that I darken the roofs to highlight the center of interest - the barn and drying sheds. I do like it better with the value shift now.

SC Tobacco Farm

I have had these three paintings on the unfinished pile for quite awhile as I had lost the time to work on them and possibly the inclination after the inspiration left. But, today was the day and I so enjoyed working on them and finishing them. Now, onto the new ideas without guilt!

This sepia painting was inspired on our trip through South Carolina two years ago. There were so many farms set among the rolling green hills, so peacefully. I assume this was a tobacco farm considering what I believe to be large drying sheds and buildings. I may be wrong, but they were pretty farms nonetheless.

Zoltan's Fishermen

The Zion painting has been assigned to the "think on it" pile. It may take that trip to the sink, yet. But, there is no hurry if that is its fate.

I have had this painting, for a family member, on the back burner for awhile as it was on the "think on it" pile, too. I did some refining this afternoon and think it will stand on its own now, for better or worse. It is from step-by-step demo from an old Zoltan Szabo book that I had done once before during the infancy of my so-called painting career. I still like the peacefulness of this scene and enjoyed painting it again.

Zion in Fall

I started this watercolor on canvas in the Thursday painting session and finished it today. It had to be either "punched up" in the color or washed back to white at the sink and start over. I decided to punch up the color and will await a critique to decide whether I make that trip to the sink. This Fredrix watercolor canvas is difficult to work with most of the time, it just gives me fits. I am determined to master it, though, so I keep trying.

Ocotillo

Our Ocotillo has always had nice "foliage" on it and it has grown to be about 12-feet tall, but it hasn't had very many nice blossoms in the Spring. This year it has the nicest blossoms of any year and I am sure some of these will have to find their way into paintings! I guess Ocotillos perform better after having a Winter with some hard freezes since our milder Winters have not produced as many blossoms as this.

Easter Sale

This is my table set-up at this weekend's Easter sale by the ArtChix. It was a moderate success and a lot of fun...a lot of work, too! The fun part is the sale itself; the preparation and setup/takedown aspects are the work part. Today's task is to get everything put away in the studio again.

Office finished

We have officially moved everything into the office area of the new room and, except for a few finishing touches this is finished. After my weekend ArtChix sale anything that doesn't sell (yeah, right!) will likely find its way to these virgin walls. I have decided to store my inventory of paintings on our walls throughout the house as they add color and are more easily viewable if anyone wants to see something. I couldn't show the end wall unit to the right of the one desk in this photo, but we have plenty of storage now which is a delight to have. We decided against going the built-in route. Aside from the expense of that after having the room addition built, from those who have gone that way I have heard that they lost any ability to change things around and rearrange as their needs change. So, I think this will be better for our uses and it is wonderful to have my computer tucked into one end of my art studio since I use the computer a great deal in my artwork.

Now, after the weekend art sale, we start painting the old office/new guest room Monday and will try to get that finished so we can reclaim our garage which has stored furniture, etc. for the duration of our studio build.

New Clayboard Tiles

I have been working on more of these petroglyphs on clayboard "tiles" in preparation for the next ArtChix sale, April 7 and 8. The top two of these struck me as being somewhat "alien" in appearance, but this is a truthful depiction of the petroglyphs found near Moab, UT in Thompson Wash. Although I depicted them as petroglyphs (scraped into the rock), they were actually pictographs (painted onto the rock, usually under a cliff overhang so they have endured for centuries) The bottom right figure was found at a site near Albuquerque, NM and I suspect it is of a chieftain figure and is one of the few petroglyphs I have seen that shows what appears to be a robe or covering. The bottom left figure is from the Fremont people, recognizeable because of the earrings and trapezoidal shape of the figure. These are all 5x7 in size.

Zion Workshop

This is one of our painting days alongside the Virgin River in Zion Nat'l Park. The group to the left is just part of our group, we were spread out over a larger area of the river on this day. I was standing on a bridge to take this photo. Wonderful weather and painting, all-in-all a very successful workshop experience.

Zion Day Two

This is the painting I did while sitting next to the Virgin River in Zion Nat'l Park today. After attending four workshops with Carl Purcell, I feel I am finally starting to "get it", and like the paintings I am doing while here.

Better weather today; pleasant, sunny and warm.

Zion Workshop - Day One

This is my painting from Day One here at the Carl Purcell workshop. It ended up being a miserably rainy, cold day;but I got a good start on this painting before I gave up, went back to the motorhome, put my iPod on Mozart, and finished it in comfort. So far, I think it is my best workshop painting ever, I get so intimidated when at these things that I forget everything I ever knew about painting. But, I am getting better at it and the results are a painting that I can like better.

More tomorrow.

More photos

Now that I can access the user portion of my blog I am going to try to catch up with some more photos.

The sand dunes photo is in Death Valley and was taken shortly after sunrise (yes, we got up REALLY early and were treated to wonderful colors as we traveled through the park to get to the sand dunes. I used my digital zoom and multiplier and was quite far away from the dunes, but with my braces and sore feet didn't want to traverse the dunes to get a good shot. The dunes photos with the multiplier lens makes it look like I had hiked out close to the dunes.

The pool with algae was at the Ash Meadows Wildlife Refuge. This is one of the few places on the planet where the Pupfish have endured, though they are on the protected, almost extinct list. They are only about 1-1 1/2 inches in length and an almost electric blue color, darting among the algae. The pools are spring fed and crystal clear. The reason the pool looks a bit murky in this photo is that my camera was focusing on the fish and blurred the background, plus it was a deep pool with clear water on top. Really was a surprise to see these pools amidst the desolate landscape surrounding Death Valley.

The third photo of the rock shows just a few of the contrasts in rock colors in DV. It was unbelievable how many colors there were at different times of the day. This really is a surprising place to visit.

Now, on to Zion!

Death Valley

I have been unable to submit anything to my blog since we left on our trip since Internet Explorer would not allow that. Tom has Mozilla Foxfire on his laptop so we tried it through that and it worked. These are two of the many photos I have taken in Death Valley and surrounding areas in the past week. Tomorrow morning we leave for Zion and my Carl Purcell workshop there.

We're having a fun and relaxing time, enjoying our first road trip in over three months. Death Valley is such an interesting place. We have been there during sunrise, sunset and sundown and all the times in between. The colors of the rocks change magically according to the time of the day. The photo of the rocks is at Artist's Palette, which is aptly name due to the different rock colors. The other photo is of a sundown trip we took through the park.

More later as I process more photos.

Arts and Craft Fair, March 3

A fellow art club member stopped by my table and took my photo at a recent art sale. My next sale will be April 7 & 8 at the Sun City Grand Art Club.