Cool Hat

This was the main drawing for a life drawing demo tonight for the art association. Great crowd on a night with a lot of other local events happening. Katie C was the model and posed in a tutu, jean jacket and a cool purple hat. I decided to paint it red for a pop of color. 15-20 minute sketch, conte and pastel.

Old Paint

The Newnan horses are finally out on the square and I can blog about it. This is a fundraiser for the Newnan-Coweta Historical Society. They want to create a children's museum. 25 artists painted horses and colts. Mine is a gift for a man that had a Civil war battle on his property. I put events and people specific to that particular history on his horse. He is a Dr and specializes in breast reconstruction for breast cancer survivors. The horse is called "Survivor"... a nod toward war horses as well as those who have fought cancer. My sponsor was Evelyn Jones. Great project to be a part of. Approx 42 hours to finish.

Twinkle Twinkle 2

Working on a painting of dancer Emily T from an earlier life drawing. Dark blue dress covered with sparkles or sequins of some sort. I made it a brighter blue. Love the pose...knew it was going to be good when she took it. The painting is 20x24, a little smaller than normal but I'm trying to build up a body of smaller works...always good to have a less expensive option for buyers. It can also be better for limited wall space. Not sure I'm 100% finished but I'll look at it for a while see. As usual, the darker works are difficult to shoot and this one is no exception.

Beach Girl

This beautiful child was named, in part, after Grayton Beach, FL. She is shown there in this recent portrait. Portraits continue to be the most challenging subject for me to paint. They combine my love of painting people with my background of painting commissioned subjects. This one is 24x30...makes me want to head for the coast!

AP Night

Four AP art students from local schools joined us in the drawing class tonight...it was a great crowd...glad they were there. Laura H did an outstanding job posing...bright yellow, flowing costume. Some nice drawings were the result. The reclining pose shown is one of those poses dancers will take sometime that most ordinary humans couldn't manage to get into much less get out of. They can be challenging to draw as they don't follow normal proportions and if you're not careful, it might look like you've really lost all ability to draw the figure. I'm glad to say, after the 15 minute pose was over, she had no trouble moving on to the next pose.

Twinkle Twinkle

Emily T in a "sparkly" blue dress and pointe shoes. Very nice poses. This one may turn into a painting later on. The sparkles cover the dress and did not lend themselves to a 15 minute conte sketch but should be fun to experiment with in paint.

They Blew Up Yuchitown

Years ago, I did a painting of a prehistoric Creek Indian village called Yuchitown. The site is located near Columbus, GA. Recently, I was asked if I would allow a copy of the painting to be part of a permanent display at the Atlanta Airport(Hartsfield). "A Walk Through Atlanta History" is located between concourses B and C. You'll have to skip the train and walk it but you'll get a little exercise and maybe learn something along the way. Many of my paintings for the National Park Service find other uses beyond their original purpose. Some have ended up in textbooks while others are displayed in museums to show general themes in history. In this case, they cropped it at the top and bottom and blew it up to what appears to be 10-12 feet. I have not been able to go see it yet as it is in an area that is not accessible by any one that is not flying. The close up photo was taken by my daughter recently.