April Update

Here it is: springtime in the Rockies. It's a lovely day. Outside the cabin window there is a blizzard blowing. It has dumped about a foot of new snow since daybreak so I think I'll stay home, throw logs on the fire and paint. (After the horses get fed.) All is well today. Last night was the annual quick draw for our local High School senior scholarships. They have a big fandango down at the high school and quite a few folks show up to watch artists paint for an hour or so. After that there is some other entertainment, good food and drink, then they auction off our stuff. I painted a watercolor from one of the photos I took of Leonard Bends who is theSun Dance Chief of the Crow nation. I was pleased to have the painting sell for $1000.00. Last fall I was fortunate to be invited to a Blessing Ceremony Mr. Bends did at the ranch of  my friend Jack Mowell and Jack commissioned a 24x36 oil of him in a different pose. (It is the last one of the big three I have been working on for a couple of months. )

The Quick Draw watercolor portrait is one I practiced a couple of times already. Last night's work and one of the practice pieces is up in the New Work section along with a few of the others I have been working on. The two that I'm trading for the jeep are there as is a little oil of Mary Donahoe's old log school house. Mary was one of our elders in the neighborhood and sadly we lost her a while back. This is where she started school. I painted it for some friends whose daughter in law is Mary's granddaughter. One of these days I hope to paint a picture showing the beautiful creek the cabin is on: Picket Pin Creek. Another of the new works is the Red Scarf #2 painted for a friend who liked #1. I do this a lot. (painting the same thing more than once.) Some people don't like it when I do this but there are never two that wind up the same and I learn things from each one. I do it especially if I like the scene or pose and figure if people don't like it they don't have to buy it. As for whether or not later paintings might decrease the value of one that is already out there I just don't buy into that. Like twin kids they may look similar but head out into the world with separate and different personalities. I would be open to comment on this, though. Well, it's off to split some wood and feed the horses. I hope your day goes well. I'll be back with the Blessing painting soon. Thankyou for being here.

    

Comments

[maxey megrue]

Thanks for your hospitality and your famous Montana breakfast, I will never get tired of the view from every one of your windows. It was great experiencing your "quick draw" in Absarokee with you, and especially fun to watch your painting get auctioned. (so speaks the proud mom). Getting up to huge snow flakes filling the landscape with about 6 inches of snow was something out of a painting, (I hope my pictures turn out) however, your remark to Scott as we left, "to step on the gas and turn into the bank if we start slipping" as we decend your switchbacks was a bit un-nerving. The good news is thatScott got that 4wheel drive truck of his to stay on the road and we even ran out of snow in the lower elevations.
mom