I never know what to use for a title on my random musings posts. Most of the time if I don’t have a specific topic in mind, I just start writing and then organize the jumbled mess into some sort of order afterwards. Here’s a few of the things I want to touch on, though: Taking Commissions, Our new farm dog, Ghost, Original Art Update, and the Subscriber Mounted Print Giveaway.

Taking Commissions

I have one in the process of preliminary sketching and brainstorming, so can’t start another one right away. But I wanted to let you know that I’m back to the painting now that homeschooling is done for the season. If you’d like a custom painting done, please email me to start a dialogue. Keep in mind that my palette is earthy and there are no bright greens and no blues at all. If what you want can be done within the confines of my Paleo Paint rainbow, I will do it! Or I will let you know I don’t think I can do it, if it’s a subject I’m not confident in. If you’ve seen my art, you know I do nature art and if you’ve seen my self-portraits, you’ll know that’s probably off of the table.

Here are some of the custom paintings I’ve done in the past:

Meet Ghost, our new farm dog

Badger and Bobbie Sue are both gone from the farm now. Badger died in November last year and it was a pretty traumatic loss for me. I didn’t think I’d ever get another dog because it was just too hard to risk that kind of pain again. But the bad memories finally receded enough, and this pup needed a home away from the highway. Ghost’s existence in the world is a bit of a mystery, and the timing of his arrival is uncanny. His momma was about nine years old and had never given birth before. Her owners, Little Bird and Wampia, didn’t even know she was pregnant. Then one day in February she delivered a single pup. I loved him the first time I met him in March, but still pushed him away, because he reminded me too much of Badger. But the other day he almost was hit by a car on the road that passes between his house and the barn. And so I brought him home.

Original Art Update

So excited to say that I’ve sold all except for ONE of my original paintings from 2018. The only one left is the Twisted Tree No. 1 titled “Old Man”. The fox sold earlier this week and was shipped out the other day. It will eventually reside all the way across the Atlantic ocean, in London! I’m pretty chuffed to have a work of art in the UK now.

The exhibit in Oklahoma is over with now, but there is some confusion over how artists are going to retrieve their paintings. I’m waiting for a reply back from my email about shipping. One way or another, sooner or later, I’ll be getting the red-tail hawk “Destination Unknown” painting back. I now have too many paintings propped up against the wall in the living room, so I’m going to have to start hanging them to get them out of the way. We have a lot of wall space, it’s just going to require a ladder to reach it.

I have a painting of Felkins creek in progress that I want to get back to work on soon, but a commission painting that will soon be in progress. I wish I could just switch subjects and paint on and then the other, but I can’t. So until I know if it’s a go or not on the commission, I’m going to hold off on working more on my landscape. For the Felkins creek one, it’s on a primed board. I haven’t done enough on it to know if I’ll be able to get the colors the way I want them, or whether it is just going to lift as I try to layer. So it’s an experiment. Right now I’m liking the way it is looking.

Since there’s no telling when it’ll be economical enough to go to art shows or fairs again, I’m going to just focus on trying to sell the art via my website. I haven’t added a listing for commissions yet, but might do so.

Newsletter Subscriber Print Giveaway

It’s almost time for me to announce the winner and put out the next newsletter issue. I’ve been doing pretty good at staying monthly with it this year so far 😀 This month’s giveaway is the 4 x 6″ mounted print of “Working the Dark Waters”. After that, there are five of the mounted prints left to give away. Once I’m done with the mounted ones, I may start giving away a 5 x 7″ regular print, but by that time maybe most of you will have already gotten enough art stuff and don’t need any more on your walls.

That’s it for now

It looks like we’re going to have nice weather for a few days, for a change. I have to get outside this weekend and weed eat the fence lines so I can move the horses to the other pen. So much to do and not enough time in a day to get it all done. I go out there thinking I’m a lot more able and quickly remember I’m not a spring chicken anymore. Stay safe and sane!