A month without blogging. How did that happen? For the first half of November, Sterling and I were away at a workshop. Since coming back, Sterling has been working on two seascape commissions in Carmel and another one in Dillon Beach. Here are the Carmel commissions before Sterling puts the final touches on them in the studio:
  

While in Carmel, Sterling revisited Carmel Fine Art Gallery at 6th and Dolores. They are in the process of expanding and accepted two of his paintings, Majestic Cypress and Cypress Quartet. We are very excited to be in a Carmel gallery!

  

Stepping back in time, at ARtrails in mid-October, we sold a second painting from Sterling's January Carmel seascape series.. The first one was Variety of Rock. This one was Asilomar Rocks. Cypress Quartet was also from that trip. Three other paintings have sold since ARTrails: Moss Landing, On the River and Barbe's Back Barn. Barbe's Back Barn was one of the last acrylic paintings Sterling created before switching to oils about five years ago. The barn belongs to John Barbe, a neighbor of Sterling's dad. After considering it all this time, John Barbe decided to buy it.

Our last planned show this year is the FrogSong Holiday Arts & Crafts Fair this weekend at our studio, 8280 Old Redwood Highway. This will be a small show featuring artists from the cohousing community that we live in.

Well I’ve just been notified that my painting, “Legible Cascade” has won the best of Show award for the Estes Park Plein Air paintout. The painting is a 16” x12” Oil and painted on canvas panel. During this event, I was painting mostly in the Colorado Rocky Mountain National Park. It is a beautiful place and I can’t help but let the paintings paint themselves. Here are the other paintings I painted. Several of them are now on sale at the Cultural Arts Center in Estes Park.


"Back to Pool" 12"x16" Oil


"Bierstadt Lake" 16x12" Oil


"Dream Lake" 16"x12" Oil


"Enchanted" 16"x12" Oil


"To Dream Lake" 12"x16"  Oil


"Historic Friend"  12"x16  Oil


"Ouzel Falls"  16"x12"  Oil


"St. Malo" 12"x9"  Oil

Yesterday I painted on a dairy in beautiful Marin County. The hills are still green and the wild flowers
are showing up nicely. Some of this ranch land has been preserved by the Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT.) Hopefully this area will last for many generations to enjoy.

My subject is this old WW2 era GMC truck that has not run for many years. It was used on the dairy for spreading manure.This what I have for now. I think I'll look it over in time and edit colors and edges. Normally I would have stayed and painted to my satisfaction but the wind was whipping around pretty hard so I called it a day.

Sterling and I spent the weekend at a B&B in Marin County. The relaxing lodging with hot tub was our gift to ourselves before the start of the art festival season. For Sterling, it was a painting trip. He painted two 12" x 16" paintings and one 9" x 12" at and around McClure Beach in the Point Reyes National Seashore. He plans to come back and paint at the restored ranch there as well. Although it was quite windy where we were near the coast, we enjoyed beautiful sunny weather with no fog. For me, it was a chance to relax and read. On our return route home, we drove up the eastern edge of Tomales Bay and scouted out other possible painting locations for his Marin/Scapes paintings. Sterling is especially drawn to the boats in Marshall as well as some of the surrounding scenery in that area. For a long time, he has been wanting to repaint the Dairy Truck in Chileno Valley that he painted in 2005. That painting sold in 2006 at the Salute to the Arts Festival in Sonoma where it won second place.  Today Sterling is back painting in the Graton area where he regularly paints on Monday while my son takes classes. I am trying to get out our spring postcard mailing and e-mailing plus get together cards and prints for our first show in West Portal, San Francisco this weekend.

Well today I got to enjoy a sunny day of painting on a farm outside of sebastopol (same location I painted "Chicken Run".)

As I painted I was surrounded by friendly...yes chickens. I had to watch where I stepped being that I would often find my little friends milling around and between my feet.

This time I included goats into my painting. One of them seemed to pose for me while I painted. She must have known that I was admiring her for art sakes. I'm always happy to find a willing participant.

Yesterday was one of those magnificent painting days where everything worked out right. The lights and shadows lit up and I was able to capture this in my painitng. This is a victory that I would like to celebrate. Cheers!