Wet Paint and the Runaway Cockatiel!

Home and totally on the mend!  Thank you, one and all, for your outpouring of well-wishes and concern!  Last day of antibiotics and I am back onto solid foods but drinking lots of water and taking all of your great advice on kidney wellness!!

Doug still has the plein air bug, however, and has been getting up at the crack of dawn to go paint!  (ahhhh, that phrase reminds me of my dad who used that often growing up as my mother's name was Dawn!  He was such a kidder!  "I wake up at the crack of Dawn EVERY morning" he would say!)  Monday morning he went out to Farr West and painted this beautiful little piece:

"Storage"
8 x 10

Ah - I can just smell that hay!  Heading out in that area, it reminded me of a story I forgot to tell you!  Doug has a cockatiel named Nigel who is a "studio bird" and keeps Doug company throughout the day.  He comes and hangs out while Doug paints and occasionally thinks it's fun to "fluff" his feathers in paint!  Anyway, a few weeks before we left for Door County, I got a frantic call from Doug one evening just before he was heading to come home.  Nigel had responded to Doug's whistle in the kitchen and had flown out to see him.  But instead of landing on Doug's finger, which he usually did, he flew right past him and through the next room, out the open door to the wood shop and out THAT open door to the wide open world!!  What???  Doug frantically followed him out and tried to "whistle" him down, but he circled him two or three times 100 feet in the air before he flew up over the trees and headed west.

We walked several blocks west and whistled everywhere (I'm sure everyone was thinking we were seriously crazy) but to no avail.  We had a few cockatiels whistle back at us in their own cages but no Nigel was to be found.  It was a sad day and we came home with our heads down and looked somber as we stared at Nigel's empty cage.  Doug was pretty distraught and Wesley put it on our local "KSL Classified Ads" that we had lost our bird with his picture but to no avail.

About a week later, on a Saturday morning, Doug and I had just gotten back from a Saturday morning errands run, Wesley came and said he had something to show us.  He brought us over to his car and opened the door.  I thought, "ahh, Wesley has gotten his Dad a new bird."  Sure enough, inside the door was a cage and inside the cage was a bird, and wow, this bird also had paint on his feathers!  Just.  Like. OH MY GOSH, YOU FOUND NIGEL!!

Someone had called Wesley and said "Wesley, we think we have found your bird.  He has paint on his feathers!"  He had been found in Hooper, a town about 5 miles west of Sunset, clear down by the Great Salt Lake!  Their kids thought he had marker on his tail feathers!  Wesley said, "nope, it's paint!"

Nigel - happy to be back!

We were so happy to have him back and he is getting his "whistle" back.  He does a "mocking" whistle  that sounds like "pretty bird" and also does the "WOOT WOOT" wolf whistle that he likes to whistle WITH you.  Doug has built him a perch near his easel and he also has a cool cage in Doug's painting area that has some awesome sticks and some "steps" that he uses for exercise!  haha  No more vacation time for you, big guy!!

So anyway, back to Doug's plein air bug.  He had it again this morning so here's what we got to enjoy today!!  Doug headed to Huntsville where he painted Fox Point.  Call me if you think either of these or both of these paintings would look fabulous on your wall as they're looking for a good home!!

"Fox Point"
8 x 10

Have a great evening!  Hey, we reached 50,000 hits on my blog!  Thank you thank you!!  You keep hitting, Doug will keep painting and I'll keep writing!  

Cheers!!  

J'net

Wet Paint left it's mark in Door County!

There is no doubt Doug left his mark in Door County this year.  hundreds, probably thousands, of people were wowed by this "newby" to the area.  Amazed that he came clear from Utah to participate in this event, they were awestruck by this last quick-draw painting on the pier of a cold and windy morning.

It was probably 40 degrees and a pretty stiff breeze blowing.  I guess Doug was feeling right at home.  I had a chair set up but I stopped at a coffee shop up in town to get warm and wrap my hands around a warm cup of hot chocolate!!

The foghorn blew and they all started at 9:00 sharp.  I thought to myself, "no one is going to be walking out on this pier to watch these guys paint.  It's just too stinkin cold!!"  I was blown away at what Doug took on as subject matter and thought there would be no way he was going to finish this painting in two hours with all those boats.  I thought maybe he'd work on one boat.

The temps started to climb slightly by about 9:30 and I was actually thinking some of the clouds were starting to separate a little and maybe, just maybe, some sun was going to peek through them!!  I was hoping.  A few people started trickling out onto the pier and I walked around to see what other artists were painting.  The drawing was pretty much sketched in and yeah, there were going to be a few boats in this painting.  Good luck there, maestro!!

Indeed, the sun did peek through those clouds and the temps started rising.  Nice!!  But, for a rookie plein air painter, that's an incredible challenge!!  I'm thinking - hmmm, what's going to change on this painting now?  The sky is now a different color.  The water is now a different color.  And the boats are different.  In fact, one of the boats started up it's engine and scared the living daylights out of me!  I thought a few easels were going to fly into the water!  bwahaha!!

Well, Doug takes this stuff in stride and soon the people started swarming around him, ooing and awing as it started taking shape.  "Look at the detail!"  I would hear.  A dot here, a quick line there.  A boat pulled out quickly and I said "Quick Doug, get that boat!"  5 seconds later, I said "Ah, you missed it."  Everyone laughed.  I'm sure people were thinking I was just heckling this poor artist!!

I ended up handing out the rest of the cards that I brought.  I think I brought close to 200 business cards and at least 200 of the bigger cards that had a picture of either "Court of the Patriarchs" or "Calf Creek Corridor" on one side and all of the website/blog info on the other side.  I kept one last one so people could at least take a picture of the info on the one side!

At 90 minutes, people were stopping to ask about the board and how it was set inside the "cradle" that he mounts it in.  He seriously was just taking his time - stopping to show people how it worked and how the frame worked.  He actually had drawn a picture on his easel because so many people ask about it!  The final painting was the best of the entire week!  One guy said "That's by brown boat right there!  No one has ever painted my boat before!"  It was just a couple of paint strokes but it was definitely his brown boat.  So cool how so many boats were identified by so few strokes.  In the last 15 minutes, the sun was out the the sun was shimmering on the water.  He did a couple of big bold strokes through the water and the "baby blue" strokes through the sky changed.  It was seriously just magical how it transformed from this "dismal" morning to this bright shimmering day.

The foghorn sounded at 11 and everyone stopped.  Here's the final product:

"Dockside"
8 x 10

We had 30 minutes or so to get this baby into a frame and back to the tent where the 40+ paintings were waiting to be viewed by hundreds and hundreds of people to be auctioned off.  The tent was filled with anxious buyers.  The coordinators strategically chose a painting that showed a lot of interest from buyers and guess whose painting was auctioned first?  Braithwaites.  Lots and lots of bidding action on this!  They started all the bidding at $300 and this went for $1,200!  Wish I knew who ended up buying it.  I couldn't even get close to the tent it was so packed but whoever it was, congratulations!  It was the prize piece!  (Love the two people on the dock on the right side and the American flag on the left).

So all in all, an incredible week.  Doug definitely left his mark in Door County.  He didn't win best of show but hey, when you win it all the first year, what do you have to aspire for the next year, right?  I could not have been more proud of him.  It was so wonderful to meet so many incredible artists as well as some wonderful people who were gracious enough to buy the art there and encourage us to return again!  The staff at the Peninsula School of Art who put this all together were just amazing.  Probably the most well-run event we have ever participated in (and we have been in a lot of them!)  Huge Kudos to Cathy, Kay and the whole staff at the Peninsula School of Art.  What an incredible job you did.

We are now meandering our way back home.  Stopping off in Minneapolis - maybe for a day or two.  Doug is actually out taking some pictures or painting this morning, I'm not sure which.  As we were traveling across Wisconsin yesterday, I got his camera out and was taking pictures.  I'd see something I thought he'd like and he'd say "Oh you missed that - that was good light!"  I'd say "huh?  I thought THIS was good light."  He laughed and humored me.  I still don't get it.

I finally got some wifi here in my campsite and Max is curled up by the door waiting for Doug to get back!  I'm going to post this along with the painting below of the last painting he did on that last morning that I missed showing you!!  Another beautiful "backlit" painting that is so hard to capture and paint.  You painters out there appreciate how hard this is!

"Sunrise"
12 x 16

Thanks for your faithful following of our blog and our website.  All of his paintings are on the website now!  I love love love your feedback.  Send me an email if you'd like to be on my mailing list for workshops, updates to blogs, etc.!

all my best,

J'net

PS - Doug just returned!  OMG!!  The painting he did made me cry!  Seriously!!  I can't wait to post it!

Wet Paint on the Fox River!

The final day of the workshop couldn't have been better if we had custom ordered the weather!!  It was fabulous!  A cool breeze took us down to the Fox River Valley for Doug's demo starting at 8:00 am.  The Fox River is beautiful and home to this darling gaggle of geese (notice the two babies hitching a ride on Mama's back!)

Doug's demo was on the bank of the river looking up the river at a bridge that crossed at Main Street.  Max was thoroughly enjoying the smells of every kind and the people watching as well!  

"Fox River"
8 x 10

Here's the group L-R Doug, Scott Shearer, Ken Davy, his wife, Joanne Davy,
Jeff Kennedy, Karyl Shields and Joy Richmond. 

Doug, as usual, kept his hands very clean of all paint, chemicals, etc. while painting.  He's a neat painter, I'll tell you that!  

We took a quick lunch break and came back to the river and spread out a little.  Doug made his way around to everyone but we were wowed by the paintings that came out of that last session.  Very impressive!!  

I think everyone felt much more comfortable and, as Joy mentioned, she made some "breakthroughs" that helped get her to a new level in her painting.  Here's some of their paintings that came out of that session:

Joy's painting:

Jeff's painting:

Karyl's painting:  

Ken's painting:

Scott's painting:

It was a really great day and we were so proud of everyone's work!!  Mostly very grateful to have met new friends and share our love of art and painting!!

To add to our fun circle of friends, Doug being the outgoing soul that he is, went and introduced himself to our RV "neighbors" the night before and seriously, they were the cutest couple ever!  Gaby and Brian and their two cute "kids" (two black labradoodles!)  As Grandma Griffin would say "we visted and visted!"  The next day, they came and found where Doug was painting on the Fox River and watched him paint for a while!  Then, they were gracious enough to BBQ us some delicious steaks for our last night in Illinois and we just laughed and giggled into the night!!  Who'da thunk??  Well, we already know that some of our favorite people have been met under what seemed to be very random conditions but I was indeed grateful that Doug walked over to say hello.  What delightful people we have met thus far!!  Not sure what we've done to deserve such wonderful friends, but thanks to all of you who follow our blog, our painting "stuff" and allow us to call you our friends.  We love you!!  

We got up early Sunday morning at o-dark thirty and were here in Egg Harbor, Wisconsin by noonish! And oh my, Scott, you were right.  This is beautiful!!  We went to a fun "welcome" dinner last night and met some neat artists and sponsors and everyone was ready to hit the ground running this morning!!  Doug was out early and I'm here at the campground up near the pool where I can get wifi!! 

 

Max is like, what are you doing?  aren't you supposed to be working??  

Okay - Doug will be back soon and we're heading over to do another painting at a gallery - I like how I say "we" are going to do a painting!  haha it's such a tender thing how we share everything!  

Talk soon!!  Wow - two posts in one day!  This is record-breaking!!