See the Thunder 2

See the Thunder___24 x 30 oil on linen___$4500 framed at Wind Way Gallery, Rockport, TX

A few weeks ago I posted the study for this painting. H.L. purchased it, and graciously let me hang onto it while I used it for reference to paint this larger version. I will show this one in Rockport, TX at Wind Way Gallery, where I have a special exhibit as their guest artist for the next couple months...unless you ask for it first ...

As a plein air painter, I often take my outdoor works and use them as studies for larger versions. One of the things I teach in my workshops is HOW TO create a large painting from a smaller study. ...BUT, my next workshop is all about sketching, drawing and grasping a glance quickly with a drawing instrument. It's called Chiaroscuro and Chocolate...see info below __________________________________________ 

Here are some locations for a few of my workshops. email me if you want more info on any of these...

See this SPECIAL ONE.

I can't wait to see the water go down the drain BACKWARDS there!

September 6, 12, 20, 27__Austin___ "Chocolates and Chiaroscuro" contact V...,. 

Sept. 15, 2012___Salado TX, Contact Belinda Walker__1 or two spots open!

Oct. 28-30__Texas__at Fredericksburg Artists School

2013___New York City, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania...

2014___February 23-March 1___New Zealand

**BE SURE to tell me if you sign up! I like to send things to my students to get them ready, keep them "seeing", and thinking, and talking about it!

From His Canopy

From His Canopy___6x8 oil study on panel__for Fire House Show, Colorado

Another one from our drive through Taos on the way to Santa Fe. I painted this in the car, just as we left Taos, headed south...each day we have been in southern Colorado, we have had a little bit of rain, at least!...we are really hoping that since water runs downhill, some of this will end up in Texas soon!!

Here are some locations for a few of my workshops. email me if you want more info on any of these...

And here is a link to a SPECIAL ONE.

I can't wait to see the water go down the drain BACKWARDS there!

July-August ___weekly__Austin___ "Chocolates and Chiaroscuro" 

Sept. 15, 2012___Salado TX

2013___New York City, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania...

2014___February 23-March 1___New Zealand

**BE SURE to tell me if you sign up! I like to send things to my students to get them ready, keep them "seeing", and thinking, and talking about it!

Russell Sky Study

Russell Sky Study__7x5 oil on cotton panel___$100
Yesterday's post showed my "quick finish" painting for the Russell Art in Action, a benefit auction for the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, MT.
Please see that story and the TV interview! I give the "chamber of commerce" quote of the day!!
...One interesting thing about such an event, is that artists plan very diligently so that their work will hopefully come out good, ESPECIALLY as we work in front of hundreds of sophisticated art patrons! I showd how I arrived with a plan and a start on my canvas, but changed my mind once I got there....this study above was 'Plan "C"'!...I sketched it out on a small panel the night before, but didn't use it for the big canvas. It is a true little study, at a nice little price!
More to come, so please see my schedule!! I will be in Wickenburg, AZ this week!

Lit Up Cloud Tops

Lit Up Cloud Tops__6x8 oil on linen panel__$350 while wet!
There was rain predicted for each day of my workshop here in Nebraska, but somehow we managed to avoid it! These little cloud tops were in the east as the sun set at our backs on the Moravec Hilltop. I forgot the point I was making to the students when I grabbed this small canvas and put in the color of the cloud tops....maybe it was something about the complementary colors in daylight...
I am in NE for the opening of my long project, "Passing America: The Great Plains" at the University of Nebraska's Great Plains Art Museum...it has been well received, so far, and will be up through mid December! Click link to see all 154 works

#91 - Thunderhead Glow

Thunderhead Glow___6x8 oil on linen _for Passing America: The Great Plains_$490 framed and shipped
This one was my last drive-by of the day last spring when my friend Barbara C. drove me on the entire circuit of the Texas Plains Trail...I have some interesting posts to put up about that trip...they were LONELY roads in wide open farming places, but so few people in the towns, including Crosbyton, TX, where I painted this one. I hate to say it, but we got a creepy feeling at the hotel there, and moved on down to Lubbock for the night. It was not the town itself ...towns can't be creepy, people are, and there was a strange character checking into the hotel ahead of us, so we "moseyed"...even though we were REALLY tired and it was almost dark...PLEASE stay tuned for some news about my upcoming show. I have a lot of things to "unveil" and many of you have been following along all these years...I REALLY enjoy your input...THANK YOU!

See a special feature about my upcoming solo show at the University of Nebraska's Great Plains Art Museum in this month's issue of Peaks&Plains Magazine.

Sign up for one of these two workshops!
http://bonecreek.org/pdf/Vaughan%20workshop.pdf

http://www.fbgartschool.com/2011_classes.htm scroll down this page to V....Vaughan

Click to see SPECIAL piece of artwork to benefit a Texas fire victim. A fun way to help if you can!

#88- Panhandle Span

Panhandle Span___8x10 Oil on linen panel __for Passing America: The Great Plains_$590 framed
Location: Texas Panhandle, along the Texas Plains Trail on the span of plains, under the span of sky.

See a special feature about my upcoming solo show at the University of Nebraska's Great Plains Art Museum in this month's issue of Peaks&Plains Magazine.

ALSO...PLEASE see what you can do to help a Bastrop, TX fire victim...My good friend, Linda....(below)

Flames of Life

A SPECIAL REPRODUCTION to benefit a Texas fire victim___various sizes

To see the sad story, and photos click here...PLEASE pass this along to ANYONE who might help!

For order/size info, click here http://www.reallybigcanvas.com/content/flames-life

Plains to There

Plains to There___6x8 oil on linen panel___for Passing America: the Great Plains
For the next few weeks, I am gathering together all of my "drive-by" paintings of farms across the plains. Here is one I painted RIGHT at the beginning of my project. I seem to have a number of paintings created along the edge of the plains (where the edge is OBVIOUS: next to the Rocky Mountains). I am intrigued by the CONTRAST: one side is flat as far as the eye can see, and the sky almost matches the land...featureless, while directly opposite are the mountains with great towering clouds and the upslope which catches light and shadows....this one is at the southern edge, near Santa Fe. The summer sky builds like this every day, watering the mountains, and leaving the farms mostly dry...But the water is there! Available to the farmers for irrigation.
So I am rounding up the small works, to varnish them, tweak the rough ones, clean up the edges and put them in frames. The rest of my frame shipment comes in this week.

My Schedule...
August___Painting the Plains...I will be ALL OVER The place, finishing my project which opens on Oct. 7...
October 7___Passing America: The Great Plains. Lincoln, NE...Reception and Gallery Talk in the evening
Oct. 8-13___Nebraska Workshops...painting farms en plein air
Oct. 18-Nov. 17___Remembering the Farm, Solo show at Inspiration Gallery at Riverbend Church, Austin
October 27___Remembering the Farm Reception and Gallery Talk 5-8 pm. Riverbend, Austin
Nov. 9-11___Fall Workshop at Fredericksburg Artists' School
June 11-13, 2012___Spring Workshop at Fredericksburg Artists School
Summer 2012 Workshop...early August, 2012! TBA!

High Plains Gathering

High Plains Gathering-state 2 ___24x24 oil on linen___for Passing America:The Great Plains
A few days ago I taught a one day workshop in Smithville, TX. THe group had worked with me a month earlier, and I gave "homework" for them to "START" a few canvases. TTHis time, I showed how to work up one of their "starts" to a larger canvas. The version below was state one of a large canvas I worked up from the small. This demo took about an hour (not counting my talking time....plenty of that!!!). The idea was to lay down the largest, simplest shapes of color. State two, above is the next step....I see things that I need to refine, before calling it DONE. This one is posted especially for the "gang" in Smithville....would love to know your comments and what you think I will probably do to call it "done" :)

A Study for...

San Xavier Monsoon - study____8x6 oil on linen___available when I am done with it __$190

I like to work out my paint problems on a small scale, before diving into a large canvas. This painting has been "brewing" for a few years as I have traveled through Arizona...

I am working from my own reference: photos of the Mission San Xavier, pictures of monsoon clouds in Colorado, and sunset pictures from Arizona...it is a work in progress!

Took a quick trip to Kansas this weekend...do any of my blog friends know anyone in Salina, or Wichita, KANSAS...just curious!

:)

Sugarcane Sky

SugarCane Sky___6x8 oil study on canvas panel___$150 (click image to see detail)
The painting below is the first "version" of my first sugar cane painting! Driving back to the hotel from seeing my son off to football camp there were sugar cane farms on both sides of the road. The fields to the south had great backlit thunderhead skies...probably floating over watery marshlands of this south Louisiana landscape....but then....as the sun got low in the west, and the clouds started to spread out, it all changed, and I FELT LIKE changing the painting... Actually I ONLY changed the sky...if you see a difference in the sugar cane field landscape, it's caused by the camera or exposure...The painting below, only exists in this photo, now...
I am fascinated by this landscape: Cane farms, rice farms...is that cotton, too??? ...and LOTS of old mossy oaks and HUGE pecan trees....and egrets!
Tomorrow I will explore the area with my camera and paintbox, and head up to Baton Rouge for a visit with the friend I have known the longest! We were 4-year-old trouble-makers, Rhonda and I...long long ago!...
I have enjoyed listening to local radio and TV...hearing what THESE folks say and think about the BP oil disaster...the lives and jobs lost...and their futures!...both this trip and my trip to ARIZONA a few weeks ago have taught me the VALUE of local leadership, and local news...closer to the source!!!

Crosbyton

Sunset in Crosbyton, TX____6x8 oil on linen panel__for Passing America: The Great Plains__exhibit 2011

Over 1300 miles this past weekend....we drove a circuit on the Texas Plains Trail. If you like the open road and great LLLLOONNNGGGGG Vistas, you would love this route. Every mile of it was an example of the theme of my project "Passing...the Great Plains": desolate farm houses, empty small towns, huge industrial farms, great feed lots. Much of it was unfenced!

The painting above was a REAL quick study as the sun's last light illuminated one of the thunderhead clouds south of Crosbyton. We had planned to stay in that town, but the one hotel there seemed a little bit suspect, so we drove the 30 miles or so to Lubbock, through clouds of mosquitoes which sounded and splashed like rain on the windshield! There has been a LOT of rain in our usually arid Texas panhandle. The farmers seemed happy!

I will talk more about this trip (and the one I will take on Thursday!) in the upcoming days...all in all I painted a pile of canvases, some of which need an "oil change"...(that is, adjusting certain elements of the oil painting!)...My pick-up truck also needs an oil change after the trip...here is what my grill looked like after the mosquito showers...with a few butterflies, sadly!

My New Ford Truck conquered clouds of mosquitoes!

Isolated_thunderhead, landscape, storm, Texas sky

Isolated____6 x 8 oil on linen panel____$150 if you are first to ask for it :)
Driving in rush hour traffic a little while ago, there was a BEAUTIFUL "Isolated Thunderhead" in the distant east. I was giving my son a ride home from the auto repair shop, and asked him to shoot a picture of it for me..."Mom, you already have cloud pictures..." It turns out that I had left the camera at home, anyway (first time EVER!), which probably saved an argument. But when I got home, I decided to paint it from memory. It was remarkable to me, because the foreground jasmine (or whatever the yellow flowered bush is) was INTENSELY bright, while the cloud was in the shadow of other clouds, so it had no real contrasts...I am not sure I pulled it off, but it was fun painting from memory!
vvaughan8@yahoo.com