Tribal Council

This week we here at SLB have done something a little different. We're going to vote one individual onto the island. That individual is John Edwards. His departrure from the presidential race leaves a void that neither of his rivals can fill.

Senator Edwards, please accept a hearty welcome onto the island. The tribe has spoken.

Saturday Painting Palooza Vol.129

This week we will be continuing the 10 x 10 scene of the creek and buttes in Sedona, Arizona. I will be using the photo seen directly below and using my usual acrylics.



When last seen, the painting appeared as it does in the photo directly below.



Since that time, I have continued to work on the painting.

I've concetrated on that gold-colored area above the water and below the buttes. Making their first appearance are a number of shrubs somewhat different than those in the photo. Speaking of photos, mine below is rather dark. I have not changed the painting other than the shrubs, my poor photography accounts for the darkend view. By the way, the shrubs are not in their final form. The current state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.



That's about it for now, I'll see you next week. As always, feel free to add photos
of your own work in the comments section below.

Tribal Council

Up for the vote this week is John Gibson of Fox News for his disgusting on air behavior.

Link

John Gibson Mocks ‘Weirdo’ Heath Ledger’s Death: ‘He Found Out How To Quit You’
Opening his radio show with funeral music yesterday, Fox News host John Gibson callously mocked the death of actor Heath Ledger, calling him a “weirdo” with a “serious drug problem.”

Playing an audio clip of the iconic quote, “I wish I knew how to quit you” from Ledger’s gay romance movie Brokeback Mountain, Gibson disdainfully quipped, “Well, he found out how to quit you.” Laughing, Gibson then played another clip from Brokeback Mountain in which Ledger said, “We’re dead,” followed by his own, mocking “We’re dead” before playing the clip again.

Mr.Gibson, for your inexcusable mockery of human suffering you are unanimously voted off the virtual island of Left Blogistan. The Tribe has spoken.

Saturday Painting Palooza Vol.128

Welcome back.

This week we will be continuing the 10 x 10 scene of the creek and buttes in Sedona,
Arizona. I will be using the photo seen directly below and using my usual acrylics.



When last seen, the painting appeared as it does in the photo directly below.



Since that time, I have continued to work on the painting.

I've further refined the buttes above, adding the shadows and highlighted areas. Note that the shadows are painted in a darker shade of the body color. I'm not quite happy with them yet but I'll leave them for now.

Also receiving further attention is the water surface. I've changed the shape of the rocks and reflections a bit to better reflect the appearance of the photo. I've also added some white highlights to the blue.

The two photos below show two phases of the piece. Note that the final photo has water ripples represented by scalloped areas in the brown reflections. The actual rocks are painted in a lighter orangey shade, the reflected rocks are more brown.

Oh, I almost forgot, the sky now appears with two clouds, one far in the distance.





That's about it for now, I'll see you next week. As always, feel free to add photos of your own work in the comments section below.

Snow

Here's a gift that mother nature left us the other day. It's only every once in a while that we get snow of the right weight to coat all the trees.

Saturday Painting Palooza Vol.127

Welcome back.

This week we will be continuing the 10 x 10 scene of the creek and buttes in Sedona, Arizona. I will be using the photo seen directly below and using my usual acrylics.



When last seen, the painting appeared as it does in the photo directly below.



Since that time, I have continued to work on the painting.

I've started by painting the area that will become the red buttes, now visually separated from the area that will become the green area above the water. Also newly started are the rocks sitting just above the surface of the water. These changes are seen in the photo directly below.



Not satisfied with this progress, I began the blue of the water surface. Additionally, the sky has received a new layer of paint, the same blue as the water. These changes are seen in the photo directly below.



That's it for my progress this week. However, I've provided a photo of the prior work, now framed, seen directly below. My poor photography does not show it exactly as I would like, but you can get an idea of the transformation.



That's it for now, see you next week. As always, feel free to post photos of your own work in the comment section below.

Tribal Council

Deserving of eviction from the virtual island of Left Blogistan this week is one Chris Matthews. Never known for self-restraint, he exceeded even his own loose borders of what is acceptable pundrity. His statements, in part, are seen directly below.

Link

Matthews: I think the Hillary appeal has always been about the mix of toughness and sympathy. Let's not forget, and I'll be brutal, the reason she's a US Senator, the reason she's a candidate for President, the reason she may be a front runner, is that her husband messed around.

Brutal is not the word. Having reduced Hillary Clinton to nothing more than the recipient of her husbands unfortunate actions, he has done her a great disservice.

Mr.Matthews, you are deservedly voted off the island. The tribe has spoken.

Pablo

We've had Pablo, seen in the photo directly below, for a couple of months. He actually belongs to the 9 year old boran2 boy. (But you know who actually does much of the upkeep.) He has become an integral member of the family. Upon seeing one of us enter the room, Pablo gets very excited at the prospect of being fed. He starts swimming quickly and banging against the glass of his tank. My boyhood turtle Clark did the very same thing. And no, Pablo is not posessed, he only looks that way in the photo. He's actually very sweet.

Saturday Painting Palooza Vol.126

Welcome back.

This week we will be an entirely new scene. I'm painting on a 10 x 10 canvas using my usual acrylics.

When we were last together I had completed the Sonoran desert scene and was intending to paint another one. At the last minute, I decided to do something different, slightly farther north in Sedona, Arizona. I will be using the photo seen directly below.



The scene is a famous one, used for a number of commercials and print ads. One day while there, we just missed the filming of a Japanese beer commercial. There is one other well known area of red rock and water, Lake Powell. However being man-made, it lacks the same kind of appeal. Additionally, in recent years it has been seriously diminished. Sedona's scenery remains singularly spectacular.

I've started with the underpainting, dividing the areas into 3 large sections, the sky, land area and the creek. Each has its own color, selected for no particular reason.

The current state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.



That's about it for now. I'll see you next week.

As always, feel free to post photos of your own work in the comment section below.

Going Back

Going back to work today after 4 days off was very difficult. Although I have spent considerable time getting to the place I am now (law school and many years of practice), it's clear that I won't have patience to this for an extended period of time. Oh, I'll do it for a good while longer, but I'm planning to do something else. That's one of the reasons that I push myself to paint regularly. With each new work I learn more and come closer to my goal of painting for a living.

I've actually been messing around with paints since I was a teenager, but it's only with the advent of my painting posts that I've kept a regular pace. There are many old canvases sitting around now, some of little merit. But my stock of good ones is growing.

We're planning to create a CD of these better ones to show some galleries out west. (They deal in the subject matter that I paint.) Hopefully this will be the start of things, the foot in the door, so to speak. I'll post about any progress that I have.