If you didn't know already, Arkansans are storytellers.  No matter if things are good or bad, if it ends up part of a story, it's all good.  So here is a gem of a quote from the last workshop I attended.

 "It is a testament to your painting skills that you can work with such awful brushes."  - Paul Jackson

Hello to those in Fairhope, Alabama viewing the AWS Traveling Exhibit.  I am so honored to be a part of this exhibition.  I wish you could have seen the entire show.  But, let me reward your inquisitiveness with information you won't find anywhere else about this piece.  I admit I am a bit of a construction junkie.  The vantage point for seeing the construction of Crystal Bridges was a small overlook about 20 feet wide that was removed when the museum opened.  Now there is a new overlook constructed of stone in a different location.  The subject matter of my painting is now obscured.  What were my thoughts as I painted this piece?  As in all of my art, I want to convey both the emotional and the rational, but in this painting foremost in my thought process was clarity of the focal point.  

I had my latest painting "Unquenchable Thirst" scanned yesterday.  I'm struggling with my current work, and will probably put it away for awhile.  It works, it just needs...tweaking.  I'm out of this paper, so until I can get some more, this series will have to wait.  

"I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod, my shadow does that much better." - Plutarch

Again, hello to anyone looking at my painting in Fairhope, Alabama.  This painting fought me the entire way.  It took me four months to complete mostly because I kept putting it at the back of the closet and bringing it back out again. I had faith that it was worth the effort though.  Sometimes you have to believe in your vision even if nobody else gets it.  This painting is a testimony to perseverance and pig-headedness.  (No "Arkansas" pun intended.)  If you are interested in knowing the symbolism of this painting, look at my blog archives dated 3/22/12.  

I have finished my latest painting "Unquenchable Thirst".  I'm pleased with it, but it took way too long.  I will start my next painting today.  Still in the concept stage...not yet in the drawing phase.  Yes, it is part of a series.  

Did anyone else read the article in Watercolor Artist about Frank Eber?  I loved his landscape in the AWS show this year.  It looks so much like the area where I live.  But my jaw dropped at the number of paintings he finishes in a year - 200!  ! I'm afraid I'm more of the temperament to burn paintings I don't like, so I spend way to much time mulling them over in my head.  Standing with my paintbrush in hand just looking and thinking.  Would I change that? Perhaps a little.  But I own it.  It is just an outward manifestation of who I am.  Over-analyzing helps me to be more completely satisfied with a painting.  I will put this new series on the website when it is finished, but under its' own heading.  

"The fact that logic cannot satisfy us awakens an almost insatiable hunger for the irrational." - A. N. Wilson

For those of you seeing my work in Fairhope, Alabama, I'm glad you stopped by my website.  Hope you are enjoying the exhibition.  If you would like more information about this painting, look at the archives on 3/22/12 and there is an explanation of the symbolism.  I only wish you could have seen all the paintings.  

My youngest sent this text this morning:  "Wild dogs stole our bread!".   Okay, that is a good text.  

Let me just say again, that reading the newspaper is a joy you should not miss.  For example, this morning I found this little gem quoting the Mayor of Eureka Springs, Arkansas:  "I don't know what all the hoo-ha is,".  That is gold.  


"It is not in life, but in art that self-fulfillment is to be found." - Wilson Mizner

Finished my latest painting "Keeping Tabs" and will start a new painting today.  Hope the weather is nice for the music festival in Memphis this weekend that my youngest is attending.  

"Adolescence is a new birth, for the higher and more completely human traits are now born."  - G. Stanley Hall

Received news that my painting "Four Grays and a Girl" has been juried into the Mid-Southern Watercolorists Annual Exhibit.  Sue Archer is the juror for this show.  I hope everyone who sees it, enjoys it.  It is over the top.   I read that my friend Sandy Barksdale's painting was juried into Watercolor USA.  Way to go Sandy, well deserved.  

"Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit."  - Khalil Gibran