Sunday 25th May 2008 - El Monte Sagrado

Tis was a charity fundraiser event that took place in El Monte Sagrado Hotel and Resort. We were raising money with the Lion's Club for Kidsight and Scholarship programs. A banquet on Friday, another event on Saturday and on Sunday local artist came to paint in the lovely grounds of the hotel. There were about 20 of us in all.


I stood painting in the shade of a willow tree with my friend and fellow painter, Clarence Medina. He was painting the water lilies and I was painting the waterfall and the bridge. People were wandering through watching the artist's at work, asking questions. It was a lovely way to spend a sunny afternoon.

Bridge at el Monte Sagrado - 8 x 10" - oil on canvas - $295

Saturday 24th May 2008 - Chrissie

I really enjoyed doing this painting! Chrissie has lovely colours in her skin and it was enjoyable to capture them. I don't normally bther with patterns or details on clothing, but I enjoyed putting in the embroidery on her blouse and I think it looks quite effective.

At the end, a fellow painter and I were saying how angelic she looked so I implied a halo with my fingernail to highlight that mood.

Angelic - 16 x 12" - oil on canvas - $575

Wednesday 21st May 2008 - Danea

I really enjoy the Wednesday painting/sculpture group with Melissa Moe. This week we had Danea who is now 8 months pregnant in this wonderful pose.



Pregnant Danea - 16 x 20" - oil on canvas - sold

Monday 19th May 2008 - Arroyo Hondo

This is a favourite spot of mine. I also sold a painting I did here during the bank show in March, so maybe a lucky spot too - are artist's superstitious? Shari and I had a great morning's painting before the wind kicked in - typical for this time of year. I would rather paint in the cold or the rain than in the wind.



I was focussing on being more directional with my colour; not just reproducing what I'm seeing but pushing it a little. The mauve in the shadows of and branches of the sagebrush for example and heightening the oranges in the rock. I was enjoying painting a little more thickly, with fat juicy brushstrokes.

Arroyo Hndo - 20 x 20" - oil on canvas - $1,200

Wednesday 14th May 2008 - Laurie

I decided to try a completely different approach this time. I've been feeling that my paintings could have more contrast in them, that I don't take them as dark as maybe I could, so I primed the canvas with dark chocolate brown and came up from there. it was an interesting experiment.

It was also a very difficult painting to photograph as the light reflected off the shiny surface no matter what i did - if anyone has any advice on how to do that I would be very grateful!

Laurie II - oil on canvas - 30 x 15" - $1,350

Monday 12th May 2008 - Irises at the Blumenschein

It seemed like Shari and I hadn't been out plein aire painting together in a long time! We met up in Queznel Lane as I had liked a tree in full pink blossom in front of a pretty adobe house that I had seen a couple of days earlier. It just shows that if you snooze you lose, because the wind had blown off most of the flowers. Shari suggested some trees in Kit Carson Park but when we got there we found they too had had most of the petals blown off.

We took a walk around the Ledoux Street area and found these first irises under a lilac tree in full bloom and this was definitely the spot. I have to be excited to paint a subject, for it to turn my eyes on, so to speak, or the painting is flat and lifeless and it's all a big waste of time and paint.

Irises at the Blumenschein - oil on canvas - 20 x 20" - sold

Saturday 10th May 2008 - new gallery!

On Saturday morning I went to the portrait group and turned out something so bad (in my opinion) that I'm not posting it. It was the busiest the group has been in a while and we were all a little spaced out due to the turpentine fumes (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it). I comforted myself with the fact that I was really pleased with the painting I did on Wednesday.

In the afternoon I went to see Donna Campbell at the Spanish Steps Gallery at it's new location and we got on really well. She felt that South-western style paintings were underrepresented in her gallery and she took all my gorge, old truck, hollyhocks and adobe and pueblo girl paintings - a massive 16 paintings! I went back the next day on an errand and was sorry to miss her and then I noticed that the full front window display was 2 of my large paintings! If you can see past the reflections in the windows, the one on the left is a square Gorge painting and the one on the right is a painting of a girl from the pueblo in full ceremonial attire.

Very exciting!

Wednesday 7th May 2008 - Laurie

You may recognise this model from the short, quick paintings I did a few weeks ago. After painting on smaller canvasses in Kauai, I enjoyed stretching out on this big canvas, the figure is nearly life sized!

Laurie - oil on canvas - 30 x 24" - $1,750

Saturday 3rd May 2008 - Danea

The lovely Danea modelled for us this Saturday. We've been good friends for over 2 years, since I met her at the life drawing group. Having drawn and painted her so many times, it has been both strange and amazing for me to watch her body transform with her pregnancy.

Yet again, with my poor photography skills, the painting is in sharper focus than the photo!

Pregnant Danea - oil on canvas - 16 x 12" - $575