First completed oil painting

I completed my first painting today. I could noodle around with it forever, I guess, but sometimes it's good to quit while I'm ahead.

Indian Market 2011

Michele and I went to Indian Market 2011 on Saturday. We got to Tia Sophia's just as it opened and enjoyed breakfast burritos by the window. With our engines stoked, we hit the Plaza, not necessarily to buy anything but to visit with some of our favorite vendors and to observe the passing scene. Walk along with us, won't you?

"I'm in the middle of the square in Santa Fe! There seems to be some sort of fair going on. I wonder if I can find one of them dawgs lookin' up."

A sash is always a nice accessory in the Southwest.

The early morning was overcast, and if you don't have an umbrella, a hat will protect you and most of the crowd from rain or sun.

Let's talk about the scale of the jewelry in proportion to your size.

This woman was sitting by the Institute of American Indian Arts. She was reading. She was snacking. In the middle of Indian Market. I do not get it.

Here are some colorful folks.

And the winner in the Best Boots, Nontraditional Overlay Subcategory, is . . . .

A beribboned shirt is de rigueur for the man about town.

And a fringed skirt is always appropriate for the ladies.

"F*ck me" shoes are great if you can spend only a few comfortable minutes at the market.

Hey, that bird has a woman on its ass!

We were on Old Santa Fe Trail when Michele gave me an elbow in the ribs and said, "Check out the woman with her dinners hangin' out like a whore's." By the time I got the lens cap off, she had turned around.

So we went to the middle of the street in front of Packard's and, in a diversionary maneuver, Michele pointed at the top of a building down the street. But she moved out of the way of the picture and a person with a hat blocked the area of interest.

We continued the quest. She was turned away from us again. Dash it, woman, will you just stand still? We gave it up as a bad job.

But then we saw her again later in the morning. Success!

Oil painting without happy trees

In the oil painting class I continued to build up the masses of color in the landscape and add some detail. Here is what I did this weekend. I used a fan brush to add some yellow highlights. Big mistake. I got "happy trees," so I reworked them.

Today I started on the water in the stream and continued with adding detail.

Painting a landscape

Last week in the oil-painting class we worked on a landscape based on a photograph. I chose a river scene near San Jose, New Mexico, that I photographed in August 2008.

Using pigment thinned with Turpenoid, an odorless paint thinner, I first sketched in the basic shapes. I didn't have a camera with me, but you can see below part of the sketch of the river.

Then we blocked in the masses of color.

The next part is to work on building the masses of shapes and adding detail.