First Update

As part of the terms of being an Artist In Residence I have to do community outreaches back home.  Well the first one came quickly!
In April I was asking at one of the local Art Leagues if they might want to hear the report when I got back, so Scottsdale Artist League has scheduled me as their July speaker on July 11!
I am hoping to find a digital projector as most of my tale is images.  If not, I guess I will have to paint more....
I finally am at the first stop of my piece about the mule deer that walked above the casita one dawn....

I fear the photos is not showing well, and the piece is not quite the mood I was going for... but it is a pretty good sense of how I felt that amazing morning looking over my refrigerator in my kitchen!

I will keep showing pieces as they come and update you all about any events or follow up activities.

My plan is a presentation to the park in October, when I am on the way to my annual trip to Denver.  Poetic balance, I think....

Science Experiments

Having plenty of enthusiasm for finishing #43, I tried a seemingly elegant way to stabilize my sandstone from parts up and down route 66 and 180, Dismal failure.. so I spent the AM scrubbing off the "transparent" surface, and went for a simple fixative to see what would happen.  I prepped some up to demo my transfer method during the long weekend.  

Then went hunting reference for paintings... rocks or paper?  My hyper kicked in... Below are the rocks in progress and my experiment on paper for a painting... ONE of hundreds I have in mind.  NEVER make a dent in 6 days.

I have a beautiful idea for the scene of the four deer I caught on camera last week from the casita.  The stripes are the first round of dawn out here.  Very often cloudless and there is an amazing transfer of color from dark at the top and gold at the bottom.  So that is coming...
Here is a drawing for the big piece I think may wait, as the experiment above is so perfect for another, more intimate but similar piece...

As a reward for all the work... and how I felt I had wasted a really BEAUTIFUL day, I walked across to find the WiFi working like a champ at PDI!  

While typing, four more unfinished projects hit me.... back across and hopefully, to the PDVC to get a couple of prints made for my rocks of the ground squirrel and ram....

I can paint when I get home, but I really sort of hate it when my brain goes into overdrive here!  I can paint in the dark... the scene from the patio is perfect!  The weather is PERFECT...

Does NO ONE want to adopt a permanent Artist In Residence to live and work for them?  Somewhere that you can open your windows from June through September???

*****

Forgot this... Up way too late, nearly counted on tomorrow, the first experiment was successful.

Prepping

Friday is our demonstration at the Holbrook Historic Train Depot.

I got up very early and came into the PDVC to find a great connection, uploaded yesterday's blog and actually found I could download some podcasts!

Amazing.  Then I pulled out my watercolors, as the day was barely chilly and I could paint with my jacket on.

I got most of my birdy done but need some masking liquid to do right by the background, so I am putting it away.   But the people were great!

I met the couple who had parked in PDI for two nights while they camped.  I was worried.  Rarely do cars stay there with camping permits more than a day and the weather was pretty wet.  They were brave and skilled and having a great time!


I met a gentleman who was enamored of the feeling of the place.  He had a lovely boxer and took my card.  Thought my pet portraits were a GREAT bargain!!!



And I met my model for the demo tomorrow.  She said she was tired of being"from Pennsylvania"

 her white hair was tied up in a Navajo knot and you could feel the yearning for the desert.
I spent the better part of the afternoon throwing coffee grounds around.  I got the pencil lines started for the event.


Tomorrow I will be doing a bit of McDonald's while I try to update myself for a couple of hours before we all meet at 4.  I am hoping this time to have the actual list ready and buy what is on it!  Lots of cans, as I will be having to leave it in the car for a few hours during the demo or come back to the park late... oooOOOoo... Nope.  Not into it.




Tonight is inventorying the various things I will have on the display.  Also prep for the weekend.  I need a little practice on my decals!

And the sunsets (they are everywhere!!!) were quite lovely...

Day was perfect,  BUT cat needed to be in the bathroom.  Oh well, he can't be perfect all the time!

Productive Doesn't Look Productive

Last night, sitting with my computer on my lap, updating posts jumped on the PD wifi I was so excited - did so much!
But when I looked through my photos... I was working, not snapping.  No photos today of the Petrified Forest Museum, or gift shop.  I felt very much at home down south.  Aside from the hour round trip, and high gas prices in here, the drive would be the main order of business every day!

So, morning....
NOW he is my hairdresser!  Last night I took a nice bath (the heater only warms exactly half of that seductively big tub...waaa) and I guess the cat belives that clawing my hair will get me up faster.  Grrrrr.  Again, as dawn turns the sky red, he is letting me know it is time to rise and shine.  Like Tom, in Glass Menagerie, I am not thrilled.  But it was fine.
I did see a jack, but the photo was horrible and he left.... so here is one of our morning bunnies instead:



Officially the sun rose at 5:30 and my great plans of getting to the RFM early and setting up for 8 when they opened WOULD have been OK, but Steve, the guy on duty, got their plenty early and left the doors open.  So in came the tourists.  And if you know me, I don't shut up...
First exciting meet was the Lees...two Korean women, one of whom was an artist.  I LOVE MEETING PEOPLE!  I had just set up and they were great to talk to.  I am going to have to have that clip board tied around my neck! I keep forgetting to take the pictures!
I next met a wonderful woman from Utah that took my PET card and seriously wanted my contact info... (fingers crossed).

Challenging myself is one thing, and I sort of proved I could DO art (I have horrible blank canvas terrors if I am not backed up with pieces getting ready or finished on the easel for other people.  I have NO idea which of the millions of ideas in my head will capture the fancy of others and keep a roof over my head.)
Were the cholla not so mind numbing, I had a great day.  Painting is so automatic and Steve was a good guy who was really lonesome having lost his 3 pound chihuahua only 6 months ago.  He had great tales to tell about his brother and the agate magnate!  How ingenuity and seeing the bigger picture parlayed him into definitely one of the richest men in Holbrook if not THE.  I loved the story of how he watched a guy gutting some old buildings and after the workers left found pounds of old Wells Fargo stored ledgers and checks!  After a few donations for history, old cancelled checks were going for at least $20 a shot and he had a DUMPSTER full.  I would loved to have a few ledger pages for toned backgrounds.
One mans trash...(again, no photo, but HE will be a colorful character in the series...)

The wind picked up good at about noon. I really wanted everything in the car, so I didn't risk it blowing away... but I totally forgot about the wifi.... what wifi!  It was on and it worked.  Stayed after loading the car, as I didn't want artwork sailing down the road, to catch up... not much I really needed to know.
Came home and made lunch from the bran flakes left by a previous AiR (thank you)  and my milk from the store and set to work trying to get  finished of this painting. Listened to NPR, until my eyes got blurry, then drove over with camera about 5 to see the cloud shadows.  MIGHT HAVE TO MAKE A PLEDGE NO MORE PD PIX.  I am daunted and it is not helping.

But I took the computer and drove over to sit in the parking lot for a little while to post the sunset in the blog.
Came home and, having taken out the contact lens and going sans correction, worked some more on it.  Pretty much grass and grass and grass...much like fur I guess
DID see a really fleeting rainbow!  Pale but spectacular.

With tomorrow's wake up call, I tried an early to bed.  ha.
I learned that the cat is obsessed with the moon or changes in the clouds.  He has tried to climb into the window overhead a few times, so I closed the curtains.  Now he is chasing moths.
BUT before we turned the lights out, I will say I have something that can be put away for a while with some satisfaction:

Less than a month

Although I hope this blog will be a visual journal, I find the month counting down is very nondescript.  I am trying to think ahead and shut things down at home. I have cancelled cable.
This is heart-stopping!
Cord cutting is not part of the requirements, but as I know there is no entertainment and I might have limited internet, I might as well see what my tiny laptop and phone data can do for me on the road.
(I will not be FULLY disconnected as I signed up for the online cable offer, so ..... I may be found in a Holbrook McDonalds loading missed episodes into my head over a burger)

I have had a lot of friends encourage me with my landscapes.
This is NOT my thing.
I am not thinking of clothes, as one might for a month on the road, rather whether to pack a lot of canvas or paper and how to keep it safe on the road and from my roommate (a cat who believes furniture keeps items from their natural home ON THE FLOOR)

...and whether I should do all water media, bring the pastels or/and oils?  This is like figuring how to put your house in your trunk!

Below is a sketch from my trip last year of the pronghorn in the park.

I hope there will be a LOT of visitors with feathers and fur to keep me busy, but I have to work hard to let the experiences to come, flow over me.
I am the sort who tends to push the river....

BRAND NEW ART

EVERYONE knows I am not a landscape painter.
I paint anything with eyeballs.
So although it will be fine to follow through on my plan to do portraits: of Rangers, of volunteers, of willdlife, visitors and even prehistoric people, I decided to take a class that features wildlife art and elegant, loose vignetted landscapes with Morten Solberg.
It is mind boggling.
Yesterday we worked on waterfalls.  Something I doubt I will have much opportunity to paint during the Artist in Residence, but I was excited about the versatility of only using two paints and white!  So I put in a little wolf.

It had so much potential.

Today, we learned a very creative technique, which I frankly failed like a ton of bricks.... BUT it was a completely different approach to how to  use paint.   

Instead of the exercise, I had a brain stop.  I just could not do it.  Realizing I had only 4 hours sleep the night before and woke up three hours before class (to put in my tiny wolf....) I took a break, ate lunch, which I had forgotten, and came back with a photo from my visit to the park last year.

You may not find it exciting, but as these were both 6"x 14" paper sheets, I THINK I came up with a way of using the essence of the land, but not the usual, tight, representative style that is me!    PERFECT for the little bits behind my guys:

Ah the fun of being an artist!!!  I still cannot wait!!!