Desert Painting in the Dutch Tradition

It was time for a desert painting that emphasized drama over "prettiness"!

Even More ACEOs

This is a grouping of newly-completed art cards. I showed some to the local nature museum, and they want to buy ten of these!

So I finished up the seven seen here, and they already have three that I showed them when I talked with them last week.

Let's hope sales will continue to pick up!

More ACEOs

A long time ago, I posted some info about ACEOs (Art Card Originals and Editions). I still make these little guys, and I even have some on eBay right now.

Besides eBay, I managed to get the gift shop in a local nature museum interested in buying ten art cards from me! So Ill be busy trying to get these ACEOs done ASAP so I'll have some $$$ to put in the bank!

Above is a sampling of what I've been up to.

In the meantime, one of my galleries asked for a local (Palm Springs area) scene that would be really dramatic. It's a large painting, so I'm trying to get it done, too.

And I must be worn out -- I feel sleepy all the time. What's up with that?

Well, it'll all get finished -- hopefully soon, but eventually in any case.

Another Lizard

Another lizard painting, that is.

This seems to be a popular lizard around here. At the Open Studio tours two weeks ago, I displayed my first version of this little guy (or girl -- not sure which). Since then, I've made two other versions of that piece, making slight changes to the images, mostly by curving the tail.

By request, then, I painted this!

Autumn -- but Not in the Desert

Last Sunday, The Wiffee and I took a trip to the mountains for a few days. It's been very busy for both of us, and although I, especially, still had much to do, we agreed a change of scenery (and getting away from this sweatshop!) would be a good idea.

So we stayed in a cabin owned by a friend in the Lake Arrowhead region. While not an area that could be described as having utterly awe-inspiring vistas, it still was beautiful, and I could see paintings coming out of this in the future.

Even better were the fall colors we saw. Granted -- the colors were not as rich and varied as a maple forest in Vermont or as fluorescent as the golden leaves of aspen in the Rockies. In fact, oak trees ranged brown-yellow to yellow green. But they added another dimension to the dull greens of pine and cedar.

This picture shows a different species of oak that was planted in one of the mountain towns. Most of the leaves on this and similar trees were a deep rich red, suitable for Christmas if not the fall holidays.

While the desert gets fall colors of its own, they're nothing like this oak tree. As much as I love the Mojave, sometimes one needs to go where traditional fall colors shine in all their electric glory.