Country House - watercolor

This is a watercolor study of a country house in the fall.  This is fitting as it is actually acting like fall here finally.  The trees are just starting to change and the temperate has begun to drop now.

Birds heading out

I did this watercolor awhile back of the oak tree and some birds flying away.  I thought it was peaceful and a good practice piece for watercolors.  Not much else going on, I am working on some new things but there are not ready yet.

My son James

A year ago you left us too soon, you will always be missed and never forgotten.

Rainbow Trout - Part two

This is a pencil drawing of a Rainbow Trout.  I figured I would keep with the fishing trend since it is the weekend.  This is from another Birthday card for the Dad.  My first fish was actually a Crawdad, but the first true fish was one of these beauties.

Rainbow Trout

Happy Friday, I spent a fair amount of my time as a young child sitting nears lakes in the Colorado Mountains in pursuit of these fish.  They count as some of my happiest memories.  I will occasionally daydream about them and the fun they gave me.  Hopefully, you have something similar in your memory banks from your childhood.  This is a watercolor of a Rainbow Trout done for my Dad's Birthday since he was the one taking me fishing.

Wild Horse Sanctuary - Paint Horse

This is a watercolor of a Paint Horse running at the Wild Horse Sanctuary in South Dakota.  My Dad is fascinated with the place and sponsors a Mustang there named Prairie Lonesome.  We visited the Sanctuary two weeks ago, and we saw his sponsored horse along with hundreds of others wild and free horse in the beautiful Black Hills.  I took a lot of pictures and will be producing art works based on what we saw.

Watercolor - Cottage on the Fjord

This is a watercolor of a cottage on the side of a Fjord.  I did this for the wife as she had admired a similar painting so I replicated it as best I could.  I have done a fair amount of these and trying different styles and techniques is part of the growth process as an artist.

Covered Bridge - watercolor study

This is a watercolor study of a Covered Bridge.  Like most paintings, you like some parts and don't like other.  That is why you practice and experiment.  I used this as a stepping stone for a better and more original artwork with pens.

Carolina Wren - and I am back

I am back from a two week Digital vacation and real vacation.  I went out west and visited some family and some scenery.  I will bring some of those things to the blog as I develop them.  Above is a Carolina Wren on a cat tail done in oil a few years back.

Happy Sunday

To finish the meeting thread of the last two posts, these are co-workers during presentations.   They mostly stayed still which is always helpful in the complete of a micro-sketch.  These are all pretty small and were about ten minutes to completion.  The mechanical pencil is brilliant for this type of sketching.

300th post and Meeting Madness continued

This is my 300th post.  I started this blog because my son died and it was a way to keep busy and to be disciplined about doing artwork everyday.  I guess you could call it post traumatic growth.  His passing was a wake-up call to the shortness of everything and a kick in the butt for me to do something with the images in my head and on the paper.  These are more fragments of my co-workers.  (Note the blank meeting stares, hehe)

Meeting Madness

I have reached a cycle at work were the meetings are starting to stretch and go one seemingly endlessly.  I have been resorting to the sketch/doodle to stay awake and in tune with the meeting.  I will doodle the weird sculpture from Africa in the room or the very still co-worker.  The mechanical pencil works better than the gel pen but, I will use what ever is at hand.

Canyon De Chelly - Maynard Dixon

Maynard Dixon is a Western Artist God.  He spent his entire life doing art and his oil paintings sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.  His sketches are the often overlooked gems.  If you have ever traveled out to the southwestern U.S. then you get how great the above sketch is.  If you have not traveled out there go soon or now.  Dixon would travel and sketch and paint.  Oh, how I cannot wait to emulate him and do the same.

Cloudy Valley - Franklin Booth style

Franklin Booth is an illustrator/artist from about 100 years ago.  He did these amazing ink drawings which are almost like engravings.  He did them free hand because he did not realize most were made on metal plates or were done craved into wood.  Since he was self-taught on his initial techniques he became very well known for this style.  This was my attempt at capturing the things he would do with a pen and ink.  I did this a few years back and I have improved but still I am not up to the Master, yet.

Rocky Mountain Pine Trees

This is another of cool Pen and Inks to capture the view of the Rocky Mountains.  It matches the past few days of posts and is still a great way to uniquely capturing a scene.  It makes up for crap regular work.

Mountain View in Pen and Ink

I am continuing to post some experiments in capturing the high mountains of the Rocky Mountains.  I am not sure the artist but I liked the style and put it into my sketchbook for future reference.