Grapevine Magazine - Thank You

I am very excited and want to thank the Grapevine Magazine staff for selecting my artwork to be included on the  January/February 2016 cover with my retirement story about my art for the issue.  It is always amazing to see yourself in print.  I sent in my short story and then was honored to learn that they had selected me from all of the entries to be featured in a full length career cameo article that appeared on the inside cover.  

Due to the length of the article I won't copy it all here, but for anyone retiring I did want to share my last paragraph, because it is something I truly believe.  I was asked if I had any advice for those who would be retiring soon and starting in on a second career.  My advise to anyone retiring

"Follow your passions.  Don’t shelf them for some time in the future.  Like myself, many agents take on another career after leaving the Bureau, but even if you can only find a few hours a week, do it.  Don’t put it off.  The pursuit of the arts in our golden years is just as important as art programs are to our children.  There are many different arts, but whatever one you pick, be it  painting, sculpting, music, writing, photography, woodworking, acting…art will make your life richer."

1978 Green VW Van (sold)

Smalls_He Really Needed Some Shadows

If you are a painter and haven't done one, you should consider doing a daily painting exercise for a month or even a week.  Its amazing what you will learn.  It is an outstanding push some of us need (me).  We all know practice makes perfect, well at least it helps you improve.  I liked doing Leslie Saeta's January challenge because knowing I would be posting my paintings on her blog mentally held my feet to the fire.  For me, while it was a wonderful exercise to get me painting after the holidays, it also showed me that finishing a painting in only one day will probably never be me.  Hat's off to all you daily painters!  Everyone needs to do what works for them, so maybe even doing 15 paintings in 30 days is a better option for me!  While I was pretty happy with many of the paintings, I find I usually need to be able to put them away and take them out the next day (or later) and look at them with fresh eyes. 

My painting of my niece's dog Smalls was a good example.  The painting just felt flat, but I was off painting another painting the next day so poor ole Smalls was put on a drying rack and not picked back up until yesterday.  As a practice painting he was OK, but looking at him again he was very flat and needed more shadows and a few highlight to give him some dimension.  Plus looking again, I realized his nose was too small.  I'm much happier with my second day of painting on Smalls and I hope Christen is too.  

My January one day try.....

“"Smalls"”