MUDBUGS

The so very talented, Jean Townsend selected detritus as the theme for her Texas Moleskine. I struggled quite a bit with the subject matter. I wanted to be original, but did not have a clue what to paint until I thought of painting crawfish. Hailing from SW Louisiana, I know a thing or two about the ever popular crawfish boil...served on a heaping pile of newspapers and with the crawfish and vegetable remnants left behind you have the perfect pile of detritus. I usually begin with a sketch, but since I did not know where to begin with this tangled mess of legs and tails, I "drew" a few lines with my brush and then just jumped in. It was cropped "rough" so that you could see my own detritus in the making. Thanks, Jean...this was fun!

Thank you so very much for following my blog, despite my absent postings, your e-mails, comments, and encouragement mean a lot to me. Here's to painting and posting more in the upcoming year; Happy New Year!

ZOE, AGAIN

8x10 oil on gessoed moleskine paper

Some of our Some Texas Artists Like to Paint artists have decided to exchange moleskines. I still have two moleskines to paint in for The Flying Moleskins and am sad to see it come to a close, but so excited to be a part of these wonderful Texas artists. If any of you are interested in doing this yourself, I strongly encourage you to get a group together and do it, you will not regret it!

In trying to decide what to paint on my introduction page of my moleskine, I thought it best to stick with a subject I knew and knew well. One year ago this month, we lost our sweet schnauzer, Zoe. She had been our family pet for 15 years and was most definitely a loved member of our family. She had many funny ways and expressions, this was the look I got from her when she knew she was in trouble. I thought there was too much contrast between Zoe and the background, so I warmed up her beard a bit, but forgot to re-photograph it before mailing my book to Jean Townsend. I am thrilled to begin this new project and cannot wait to see the treasures you all create! You can follow our moleskine exchange at Texas Moleskin Round-Up; please join us!