More new paintings

The only thing to do when everyone is going crazy is what relaxes you which is painting for me. Here are four new ones. One I call Old Town Pueblo, Sorrel in the morning ( maybe I'll paint some more horses), and two on 5x 7 inch panels, Big Bend TX and spring in NM

My recent paintings

Here's a fun piece I call "Tribal" 8 x 10 acrylic with some Southwestern symbols mixed with a couple more familiar religious symbols. Then there's the "Flaming Cottonwood" also an 8 x 10 acrylic. The "West TX church" is an 11 x 14 so my scanner does not show the entire piece. It is missing most of the cholla on the right side and half the mequite tree on the left and some grass in the front of the painting. Took a photo of this little church in my wanderings last November while in TX, thought then it would make a neat painting.

10 acres in Snake Capital of the world

OK it is 10 acres with paved road frontage and electric lines running through it on an old ranch that was parceled out some few years ago. It apparently hasn't been grazed in forever as the impenetrable jungle of mesquite would indicate. Aside from that it is secluded (nothing within 15 miles or more in any direction) and if the mesquite were cleared off looks like a pretty decent view of the tail end of the Davis mountains.

Do I want to retire where summers are 95+ (it's a dry heat like being in a convection oven) and rattlesnakes don't hibernate. Something to ponder.

Back To the Grind

OK so perhaps sometimes I overdo things. For example 10 days after my surgery out came the staples. I had the van PACKED and hit the road from the surgeon's office in Nashville heading to Arkansas, spent the night with a friend took a leisurely sort of drive to TX the next morning ( after walking my dogs that were along for either a reason or just because). So now we're up to Friday and I was headed for McKinney TX where another friend lives. Friday night spent in McKinney and Saturday we are up early for a big adventure on my route to even more adventures. A Rarities dogshow. Now 12 days after surgery I probably really didn't need to be running around a ring with a dog but I felt OK and it turned out to be a nice little sidetrip with the little dog I brought picking up half the points towards a title. That's him, me and the judge in the photo to the right here. Only once did I feel like my "innards" was coming loose.

After the show I drove on down to my friend Sherita's ( whose blog is linked here), took a little over 3 hours and the sun was going down just before I got there so I managed to capture a pretty colorful photo of the last of the light over the Santa Anna mountain which is just north of the little town of Santa Anna that Sherita lives in. Local story is that Gen. Santa Anna camped there when he invaded the US. Like Sherita says though all small TX towns have a local story, they may all have sunsets like this too.