Art Show Success

My painting Stepping Out juried into the 2014 CFD Old West Museum Western Spirit Art Show and Sale. This show runs between March 1 and April 13, 2014, in Cheyenne Wyoming.

Stepping Out
Oil on Board
8x10
$300

Art Award

My painting entitled Jocito placed third in the Pastel category at the RSVP Art Festival in Cheyenne Wyoming. This show ran between November 18-December 19, 2013

Jocito
Pastel on Paper
9x12
$300

Winter in Cheyenne

Two of my most recent paintings of a pagoda in the park.

Pagoda Snow Trails

Pagoda Z's

Baby Love

More from the pasture ...

Baby Love

Painting black objects

Took a pastel painting course last weekend. I was concentrating on painting black objects without actually using black or grey. Here is an example of a still life I whipped up in class.

Faces Black and White

Colt in Pastel

This little guy is so cute I had to paint him again. What I'm showning here the process in pastel. You can see the same painting in the previous blog post in oil.Here you can see the photo, getting the colour down, and the final painting. Both pastel and oil are great because I am able to blend the colours together into a smooth description of the subject.

Serious painting biz

I've finally come to realize that wind turbines of doom will not be getting me into any big juried art show around here any time soon, so I've branched out to a subject with a much greater likelihood of success - horses!

These are what I'll probably enter into an upcoming art show. Please let me know what you think ...

Standing Guard

Red Foal

Funny Face and her Baby

Stepping out

Root Canal

The long-dreaded day arrived - I was told I needed a root canal. I was shocked to hear this because, as I explained at least 10 times to the dentist who told me this, I brush my teeth three times a day and floss every day, for the explicit reason of - you guessed it - avoiding to have a root canal.

After my dentist explained that even she - a dentist - had to have a root canal, and discussing the pros and cons of just pulling the tooth, I decided to, yes - bite the bullet (sorry about that) and get this thing done.

Quite a few other people explained to me that the root canal procedure is no longer as agonizingly painful as it once was. One friend even said she had one and it wasn't so bad. Steeled, I headed to the specialist today and went under the drill. I will confess that the tears streamed down my face in fear of what would get even worse. The root canal procedure itself hadn't even started - this was just the injection stage and my mouth had already been frozen with some other rinse stuff.

I blame this on my childhood experiences with dentists and the video I watched this morning about firemen resuscitating a kitten.

Then, the root canal procedure started. Nothing - no pain, no sensitivity, all that worry and embarrassing crying for nothing.

I then got curious and asked for a mirror so I could watch but I guess the dentist figured that because my anxiety level was so high before it would probably be best to keep what was going on inside my mouth a mystery.

I did, however, get the before and after x-rays. In one you can see the roots, veins and nerves (which were apparently, and luckily for me, dead). In the second one you can see how he filled up the now much wider 'canal' with stuff to keep any infection out. He also put in a temporary filling and I need to get a crown soon. That, I kno, won't hurt !

Ann Coulter?

Although I have nothing against Ann Coulter, anyone who thinks I write like her has not been reading what either of us has written. http://bit.ly/16eXUCb

Still Life in Red and Orange

Winter is a good time to set up bright scenes to paint in pastel.

Teacup Temptation

Like Red Orange Tomatoes

 

Orange Extravaganza

Orange Reflection

Orangest

Dad in Watercolour

Dad's half-sister Heidi Richter,  who lives in Germany, painted a picture of my Dad.

Painting the Runaway Train

Cheyenne is a historic stop on the Transcontinental railway, a railway funded by the federal government under Abraham Lincoln to help settle the west. And here we thought that only happened in Canada!

Train Arrival

Train Running Wild

Snow Train

Rail Yard

Midnight Train

Writing Awards

I won three awards last month at the Wyoming Press Association conference. First prize for three press releases on the same topic, second prize for my commentary on the bogus budget cut charade, and honorable mention for one press release on a single topic. I have to thank our legal team (Steve Klein and Ben Barr) for the help and interest in doing the press releases.

Gotta like it.

Maureen on KGWN-TV re lotteries

As Maureen explains in this KGWN interview, government is addicted to spending and a lottery won't solve its spending woes.

http://wyliberty.org/videos/maureen-bader-talks-lotto-addiction-on-kgwn/