The Stand 18x12, Darkness Falls 18x12, Over The mesa 24x12

Fresh off the easel...

A MArsh, Serena, Near Mammoth

It's that time of year.  Wetlands are calling and I can't help but answer. There is a certain bifurcated essence to the work I do. On the one hand there is the fantastical and romantic. A lot of trees and billowing clouds mysteriously make their way into the paintings...well, more than just make their way, they are the featured players.  Yes, I know, it's almost a shameless indulgence of color and forms, edited from nature's own God-spun, made to fit the squares and rectangles of canvas and please the simple soul and the weary eye of the painter. The other are the tonalist styled earth-tones of grey and brown, dreary, leaden skies hanging over bleak and sparse land peppered with forlorn cattle, shrouded moons and silhouettes of live and dead vegetation.  The monsoon season is ending.  The season of bog slogging is at hand.  As my dear uncle Bob Dylan said recently "I feel a change commin' on" 

Iris...My favorite flower

These were all special order. It's nice to make something other than landscapes once in a while.  I haven't posted too many pictures of  the great pile of commissioned works I've been doing lately.  Is that by design?  Am I holding back the best for private consumption?  Maybe I am.  Secrecy and sublime subterfuge are my new marketing schemes.  The more unknown I am the more my work will sell. Right?  Well maybe this technique will go the way of "Asparagus on a Stick" and deep fried goat tongue (two of my favorite treats) They didn't really take off (yet) but somewhere in an obscure county fair someone is trying to proffer  these delicate wonders...much how I would describe my paintings.  I probably just have to figure out how to get them  in the deep fryer... and maybe add some bacon.  That usually sells.

Inside The Artist's Studio...an intimate look

King snakes of southern Az. They are so tame in the wild a child can pick them up and play with them yet, put them in the presence of a rattlesnake and they devour the thing with a crazy ferocity. Immune to the venom and not bothered at all by the fangs (the rattlers strike and bite at will) the king snake wraps a strangle-hold around the heart and begins to eat the viper head first while it's still alive!

Twilight Vines, Wind & Water

Here's a couple of new ones that are/ will be up for auction this week. Hot weather has kept me sluggishly slaving and sweating, tied to the easel with a large cup of ice water or a diet pepsi at the ready. My only indulgence has been to leave the confines of the cool (relatively) shop to check on the ducks, chickens and pigeons out back.  There are only a few things that really should be kept "at the ready" in this life. I'll illustrate here. One very early morning last week a hapless coyote came a bit too close while I had a trusty, lever action repeating rifle across my lap. I was sitting in my favorite outdoor chair, fresh-lit pipe dangling from the corner of my mouth, Bible in my right hand and a cup of tea in my left. The rest is history as they say. This little story serves as a list of things that every desert dwelling, livestock-raising man should have close at hand.