Pen and ink detail

Dogwood blossoms

House Portrait in Pen and Ink

11 x 15 on Arches hot press watercolor paper

Frustrated

I suck at plein air painting. I suck at alla prima. I spent a good chunk of time this weekend on a landscape, and it looks like crap.

Sometimes my walnut ink or pencil landscapes look pretty nice, so maybe I just can't handle the colors. This makes me think I should try painting with a very limited palette--whenever I try it again.  Some day.

Hotdogs and asparagus

I cooked asparagus six feet from where I picked it.

Etch-a-Sketch by my 12-year-old

Not an elephant

A ballpoint pen doodle blown out of proportion.

Asparagus coming in...

I've been waiting.

Narcissus

These bloom after our yellow daffodils, which have now faded away to only greenery. 

Hopper

I've been unintentionally engaging in a behavioral pun by looking at a book on Edward Hopper just before Easter. I wonder if he ever painted rabbits?

I have always really enjoyed looking at Hopper's artwork. I don't know how much he has influenced me--I don't know if I have liked him because I enjoyed similar subject matter, or if I have drifted toward similar subject matter because I liked his work. But I find him an artist whose work is easy to like but difficult to love. His compositions are gorgeous. I love the way he uses architecture and angles. I love the spareness of many of his paintings. But he's also very cold and lonely in his subject matter. The people are isolated; they seem as aloof and alien as the inanimate objects around them. The only thing that really seems to engage the viewer with its personality is the light moving across landscapes or playing through interiors. This coldness also appeals to my introverted side. If you want sentimentality in your artwork, you better look somewhere else.

But his drawing skills, the way he applies paint, the unity the forms in his painting by color choices...all of them look so great.

 

Oil Portrait: Boy, Dog, and Poppies

 Finished last night. 8 x 10 inches on panel.

This was commissioned by a coworker. None of the photos I took captured the subtlety in the skin tones...it does look best in person.

Snow across the road

Acrylic on paper

Working on Whitehall in the snow.

Hawk

My daughters and I watched a hawk eating a squirrel on a branch overhanging the neighbor's yard. At least, it looked to me like a squirrel through my blurry binoculars. Mostly we could just see red and yellowish chunks being pulled off.

This branch is a favorite spot for the hawks. We see them there all the time, and have for years. I don't know if it is the same pair that is nesting in our neighborhood year after year.

Flooding at Chance

The lower level parking lot is boats only.

I played Blokus with friends in the morning...

...and Nerts with family in the evening. 

Things are happening in my yard

Acrylic painting: Charleston dock at sunset

Acrylic paint on canvas, 8 x 8 inches. This one was a commission. I am very happy with how it looks, though I never did get a photo that captured the subtlety of color in the real life painting. I guess that's just always the way it is.

Yesterday in Cloverport

It was an incredibly foggy drive, and beautiful.

House Portrait - Whitehall Historic Home, Louisville

I finished this last night. ( I think... I might do a little fine-tuning.)  It's 10 x 14 inches, drawn with my homemade black walnut ink.

Ballpoint sketch

Echinacea seed heads in snow

Drumming group sign

Oil on panel, 24 inches in diameter.

I think I am done with this part, though there is a smaller, simpler sign to accompany it that I need to work on.

House Portrait

Detail

House portrait

House portrait, 8 x 12 inches, drawn mostly with sum ink and a dip pen.

Game Night with Friends

Last weekend I was finally able to play a few games of One Night Ultimate Werewolf. My older daughter and I got it as a joint Christmas gift last year, but we only played it once or twice as a family, and no one else wanted to play it some more. I'm not sure why neither of my daughters were very interested; it seems like the kind of thing they would enjoy, and perhaps they would if we all tried it again with friends.

On Friday I was able to play it at a gathering of old friends, and I really enjoyed it. None of them had played it, but most of them had played regular Werewolf. Because there is only one phase each of day and night in One Night Ultimate Werewolf, it took some mental adjustment. It was hard to realize what to look for and not just how to figure things out, but what it was we should even be trying to figure out. After the first couple of games it seemed like it got easier.

The first game was made even more screwy by the fact that both werewolf cards were still in the center; all seven players were villagers. That's not exactly the smoothest introduction to the game. In other games, we had little kids (spectating) blowing their parents' cover, other kids playing (and doing quite well, I thought, despite being unfamiliar with what an Insomniac is and having to read the rule book to figure out what they were), and all players in general trying to figure out how their roles affected their knowledge of what's going on with other players. It was chaotic, but I thought it was a lot of fun, and it seemed like everyone enjoyed it to varying degrees.

I also played a game of Dragonwood with friends' children, and not only was it a fun and pretty simple card game, but it was a lot of fun interacting with the kids. I don't see my friends often enough, and I see their sons and daughters even less, and when I see them there's not a lot of one-on-one interaction. These are all friends I have known since college. Now that I'm thinking about it, the opportunity to spend a little time getting to know their children seems golden.

Game-y evening

Tonight was Dragonwood, then Spyfall, then One Night Ultimate Werewolf.

Trees

I have been continuously delighted by the beauty of this autumn's trees. It's been good. I feel like it's better than average. We need that.

Nice trunk