The Flower

Starting to do one black and white pen sketch a week

A Little Progress

3 Day Weekend Break

Still getting adjusted to my new home and my new studio space. With this 3 day weekend for Labor Day and no real plans to speak of I'm hoping to get a nice chunk of work done. My goal is to have 5 paintings done. There must be 12 or more paintings that I have started but now (with a month to go before Cottonwood) I need to start finishing my paintings. Don't think anyone would want to by a half completed piece of artwork. In addition going to use part of my weekend to organized my artwork and see what I have to show/sale at the festival

Slowly Getting Back on Track

A Look at my New Space

Getting Started Again

Sorry that I still don't have any new pictures of the place up on line. I have been taking a bunch. Still trying to get the new house organized. Currently only one computer has connections to the net and I'm still missing the camera cord. Which I know is in a box some where around the house.

I have finished the simple remodel of the shed/art studio in the back yard. When I bought the house half the shed was shelves, leaving little to no work space. I spent part of last Sunday taking out the shelving, which had been installed using 6inch nail that were sunk into the wood. I spend about 3 hours in the morning and another 3 hours in the afternoon. I did use my very limited carpenter skills to convert on of the large shelves into a work bench. Then last night i took the time to remove all the mess that I had made out of the shed. So, I can get started painting again this weekend.

NEW SPACE

In case anyone was out of the loop I just closed on a house roughly a 1.5 weeks ago. It's been a busy time for me. It took Christine and I - 2 full days of walking up and down 3 flights of stairs to move the bulk of my stuff over to the new house (and 2 guys from Apple Moving to move the bed, dressers, 6 foot bean bags chairs). That drained our batteries pretty hard that weekend. The following week I took it pretty easy, not doing much around the house other than getting used to my new area. Then this passed weekend I had to purchase a lawn mower, edger, and refrigerator for the house. The refrigerator had a small issue. I needed to adjust the cabinet on one side so that it could fit into it's new home (by move, I mean cut into the cabinet). And Christine took a hedge clippers to our landscaping in the back yard, cutting away anything that touched the house. 7 large bags later and she was done.

Preston Road

For the last 4 year (the whole time I've been in Dallas) I've lived on Preston Road, as far north in Dallas as you can go without being in Addison. But it looks like with a little luck I might be in a new studio space in the near future.

A World of "To Much"

When is enough? While at Best Buy today I took a look threw the DVD selection they had there. I noticed how many things they had on there shelves, how much of it was duplicated. There were 3 different DVD's for the movie TROY. They had a DVD of just the movie, a DVD with extra 30min. and a DVD for collectors. The prices ranged $9.99 - $29.99 (roughly). Do we really need that many copies of 1 movie? It wasn't just this movie, most movies now have multiple versions out on DVD. And it wasn't just this section of the store. While looking threw the video game selection I came across a number of version to the GUITAR HERO. They had about 5 different options of the game, the game itself, the game with a guitar, the game with 2 guitars, the game with a wireless guitar, etc.... We live in a world with to many options now. It's not hard to figure out why no one can make a choice anymore.

Finding Away

I am still looking for away to combine my love of art along with the freedom that I feel while running, cycling and swimming. Something that sounds so simple has given me a hard time. Pretty sure that I am over thinking it (as usual). At a local running store here in Dallas, Luke's Locker. There is a really talented artist on staff that has been doing Luke's window displays and a few pieces of art around the store. The works are very loose and free in form, using simple words and bright colors. Not sure what I will decide to do, but I'm working on it.

Life Never Slows Down

Still trucking away at getting ready for the Cottonwood Arts Festival. The Hardest part for me is setting aside the time to crack out the artwork. I have a bunch of ideas in my head but not enough hours in the day to get them all done. On top of the festival I have a lot of other small things going on (that have been fun) like THE DARK KNIGHT in IMAX, a friend's going away party, buying a washer and dryer set and a friend giving me his outdoor grill. There is one other big surprise that I have up in the air. Hopefully I will have taken care of that one by next Monday. Then I will have some more free time to paint and get ready for the festival!

Welcome the Weekend

Looking forward to getting off this afternoon and getting going again with my artwork. I have about 9 to 10 paintings started (very rough starts). Still have a number of other simple images I want to capture on canvas, sun flowers, humming birds, magnolia flowers, more things with wings, etc..... My simple goal for this weekend is to get another 5 ideas on to canvas. Then in the following weekends start getting some of these done & completed

Making a Mess 101

Using the 4th of July weekend to my advantage, I got started getting paintings ready for the Cottonwood Arts Festival in October. My thinking for this festival is to do roughly 10 to 20 smaller (16inches X 22inches - roughly) original paintings to be priced lower. I prefer to do larger pieces of art but think these smaller paintings will be easier to manage & transport to the festival this go around. Plus, if they don't sell there easier to store or give away as gifts for the holidays.

Cottonwood Arts Festival

Just received an exciting email yesterday morning about the Cottonwood Arts Festival that I applied to about 3 weeks ago.
I GOT IN!!!!!

You can check out the link here
Cottonwood Arts Festival

It's a 2 day festival that takes place in Richardson, TX (just north of Dallas). It's very exciting to find out that I was able to get into the festival and a little worrying that I only have 3 months to get a collection of work together.

Also, I've been trying out a new idea for my artwork, drawing onto race numbers. I'm looking for a way to combined my exercise & artwork together.

Austin Texas

I've lived in Texas for almost 4 years and in those 4 years this was only my second trip to Austin. My first to Austin wasn't much more than a drunken 2 night stay. When we got there we started drinking and continued drinking until we left. This trip was a major shift in a healthier direction. I still had a good time. Made it to the Gingerman Bar and The Hooters. BUT I also took part in the "Keep Austin Wierd 5K " road race. I was expecting the race to go threw down town Austin and past a number of WIERD bars and/or shops. Sadly that wasn't the case. The 3.1mile race stayed along the Lake in Austin and there wasn't all that much weird to it. Having said that there was a number of runners in costume. I saw Indian Jones, a Magician & his bunny dressed helper, killer bees and "The Cat in the Hat" along with all his friends (even Thing 1 & Thing 2).

The highlight of the trip was just wondering around town. I'm not a big fan of Texas, most of the cities here are a little full of themselves, NOT Austin. There were small shops all around, even a a streamline camper that sold huge cupcakes. A number of the places I was able to visit my girlfriend had tracked down. The coolest thing that I got to see on my weekend get away was the congress street bridge at dusk! That's when all the bats fly out. It's the weirdest thing to see. A steady stream of bats just start flying out of the cracks under the bridge. It's not just 1 or 2 but hundreds. It was like being in the batcave. All that was missing was a man walking arond in a cape.

Another highlight during My Austin trip was getting to see Lance Armstrong's own cycling shop called, "Mellow Johnny's". The shop wasn't anything special. The nicest thing about was the coffee shop that is attached to the shop. Which was really cool. The Shop was just 3 blocks of the cycling path that goes threw Austin and just 3 block over from the Gingerman Bar (a great place to drink).

Starting of good. Made a huge mess in my apartment this morning. Trying to combine my enjoyment of running with my art. So, I painted the bottoms of my bare feet and started walking all over un-stretched canvas, followed by painting the bottoms of my old running shoes. All was going OK until I moved the canvas off the floor to find out the paint bled threw to the floor. Luckily I did this part of the project on the tile floor in my apartment. A little sprays form the cleaning gun and all was fine. Now I need to figure out what I want to paint on the top. Currently I keep sketching a foot with wings so I may start with that. I also have a good friend, who for the last year has asked me to paint a sailboat, sailing in rough seas. That may also be a good starting point

Getting going again

Trying to make a honest effort to set time a side to focus on new art projects. This means not only starting new art project but also completing them.