62. Rounding Up Strays, miniature

3x4 oil/canvas

Today's is really tiny! about 3x4... It was hard to photograph it without getting all the grain of the canvas showing.. it actually does look better in person.   Here's a size comparison.

61. Under a Texas Sky

5x5 oil/panel

This is a little one today, only 5 inches square... and dont ever think that smaller is easier!  It's not.. especially when you don't have brushes made for small sizes! I've been working bigger, so I did have a few moments of swearing trying to get my big brushes to work on this tiny panel.   

Anytime there is bright sunlight, you're going to have reflected light. That can be the thing that really pulls a painting together.. In this little study, check the white portions of this longhorn steer's coat.  There is the white in sunlight, then the white in shadow, and then there is also the white that has reflected light from the grass bouncing back up to it. Can you see that?

Try adding some reflected light and color in your next painting!

60. The Famer and the Rancher

8x10 oil/panel

I really liked the apparent good-natured conversation going on between these two fellas, who seem to 

typify their respective professions so well...  That old stock trailer with its fading, chipping paint was pretty cool too.

I did not do a "drawing" for this... just sketched in with some thin paint the basic placement of the figures, and then tried to find the right color for basic shadow, and basic light, on each object. I'm pretty pleased with the farmer, not quite as much so with the rancher... 

59. Slim Pickin's

8x10 oil/panel

Not much to say.. was just trying to pay close attention to values....

I always wonder when I see cattle pastured in these high desert areas how they survive.. there just isn't much real grazing out there.. but they seem to manage somehow...

58. Headed Back Down

oil/panel 11x14

I am really tired today, and I finally just pooped out trying to finish this, so I'm calling it done.

There is a lot going in here with light effect, and it required lots of concentration.  My brain is full, can I stop now?

56. Portrait from life, but I forgot to bring my paints....

Well, trying to get back into painting since the surgery.  We had to go to town and there was a free portrait session at the art center,  so I popped in.. had everything ready... except I forgot to bring my paints!  How silly is that?   and it wasn't even brain surgery!
Well, I dug around in my stuff and found one tube of burnt sienna. It's a color I do not use anymore - instead I use Rembrandt's Transparent Red Oxide, which is a much richer, darker, and transparent color perfect for creating lovely darks.   So I squeezed some of that out, and then one of the other painters was kind enough to give me a dab of white.   I don't know what kind of white it was... but it seemed to have no mixing strength at all.  Actually, I felt like I was fighting  with my materials the whole time.  I painted on a paper canvas, which is what I usually use for these studies, not wanting to commit to a more expensive support.. but it just seemed like the paint was soaking right in and it took multiple layers to just get the canvas covered.. Well anyway,
here's what I got for my efforts.. nothing to write home about, but always good practice working from life.
The lovely Chinese gal who posed for us was very sweet.  I never did quite understand her name, as the other gal who organized the session is Korean and speaks only broken English herself.