Winter Rest

Winter Rest__6x8 oil on linen__for Passing America: The Great Plains _$490 framed
On a plains "drive-by" last winter, I painted this as we drove on a ridge in Oklahoma. As you read this, I am probably in the same area of the country, driving home from delivering about 130 other paintings for the exhibit in Nebraska's Great Plains Art Museum.
I really enjoyed my trip this weekend. First, my daughter drove from Texas to Nebraska with me. She got to meet my museum friends in Lincoln and David City, and we enjoyed the usual mother-daughter chit chat for hundreds of miles along the way! A few people commented, recently that they never knew I have a daughter, because I seldom have mentioned her. SHAME ON ME! But, I figured it's because she has been out on her own since I started blogging, and I have not been "responsible" for her athletics, activities and schooling for a few years, now!...Her name is Davie, and I had to fly her home so she could get back to work in Austin...

View to the Bottom

View to the Bottom___16 x 20 oil on linen for Passing America: The Great Plains
At the farm, we called the area where the water drained to, "the bottom"... It was always greener there, of course and the light seemed brighter and warmer in that direction, so I painted it often.
I used a photo and lots of great memories to paint this work. At 16 x 20, it is a larger one than most of the paintings for my upcoming solo show in Nebraska...as you read this, we are on our way to Kansas, to move my son into the dorms for college....GO GET'EM, SAM!!!

Hay for Something

Hay for Something_6x8 oil on linen panel__a "drive-by" painting for the exhibit Passing America..., Oct, 2011

Talk about a WHIRWIND trip through the Great Plains! It was decided at the LAST SECOND that we would drive to Kansas on Sunday morning! One purpose was to pay a visit to a college in Kansas that my son is considering for his college football career, and I needed to see it, so we went! Of course I will jump at the chance to do some work on my project Passing America : The Great Plains, so I brought the paints and did some "drive-by" studies along the way!

This little vignette was nestled in the corner of a large, dreary pasture in southern Kansas. The hay was damp, sagging, and probably baled a year ago or more. (As I look at the painting, I think I painted the bales a little bit too much "intact"...It made me wonder what it was baled for? Perhaps a small herd of livestock that had to be sold? The chilly, late winter weather made this scene especially melancholy to me.

3 of 24 Paintings in 24 Hours_"Round Ones"

3 of 24 Paintings in 24 Hours... One Last Day on the Farm_"Round Ones"...sales info soon!

From May until November last year, we had record rains, and yet there was no hay cut or baled, because our farming had come to an end. The other families had left the farm, but my family stayed on as we searched for a new home some place. I painted every day, and saw the farm "going away slowly"...the cows left in January...the egrets disappeared from the landscape, the hay grew and grew, and weeds began to choke the place. The hand of the farmer was gone, and the countenance of the place really suffered. By August, you could hear the constant drone of bugs in the brush, well watered and sheltered by the tall grasses. At least they symbolized "life"...and then, one day, some new cows appeared! Another farmer had leased the place for his herd! With the cows came the cutting of new hay...these are the bales that bring life back to this old empty farm!