Saddle on a Chair

Over the years, my paintings have been a conduit to life-experiences. This painting, done in the late 1970's, was sold to H. C. Lewis of Lubbock, thru a gallery in Santa Fe. That event began years of wonderful, intense, and even tragic, relationships with the lives of many out in the ranch country on the great plains of Texas. Maybe I'll put that in a book someday. (About the painting): approx 16"x20", acrylic on stretched canvas. The model was a warm-up saddle in a riding stable at Stroud, Oklahoma. It is now in a private collection.

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Charlie Rich, shoeing an appaloosa near Capitan, New Mexico. This painting won a Gold Medal for Watercolor at the National Western Artists Exhibit. It was published on the cover of the American Farriers Journal.

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Sid's Soles - Watercolor. Somewhere in Southern New Mexico.
The Workout - watercolor - subject at Ruidoso Downs New Mexico.
Cow Talk - opaque waatercolor. approx 18" x 30". Depicting ranch life in Panhandle Plains of Texas.
Watercolor on smooth board. A study.

Watercolor on smooth paper. A study for larger painting.

memory doodle

I was digi-sketching using a wacom tablet and this turned into my old studio and house in New Mexico.

my half-pan palette

This is the Winsor & Newton half-pan travel kit which I used for the last painting post. At one time in my life, back in Little Rock, we had a loose knit group of outlaw artists who started the American Society of Half-Pan painters. We all scattered as usual, and now I think we should revive this bunch and go virtual.

Another found painting

I painted  this watercolor circa 1975 of a man from the Taos Pueblo. I recently received a nice note from the current owner in Louisiana, and it is great to know that the painting has a loving home.

Tins

Watercolor - a study in color temperature.  8" x 10" circa 1977. I remember doing this little piece early one morning in my cabin studio in New Mexico with a wood fire going in the pot belly stove. I always had to thaw my frozen watercolor paint from the night before, because I had no other heat but wood. Those were good days. I found this image on AskArt.com. It has probably been re-sold several times. I do not know who owns it now.

matted pieces

Barn at Picacho. A study

This is a 5" x 8" (actual size when clicked) watercolor on Satin Arches 140 lb paper. A bit dark maybe, but a larger painting to come, will be more controlled. I worked from a small pencil drawing which I made on location.

My Watercolor Workstation

This is where I need to spend more productive time....2009!

Wagon at Taos

18 x 30" Watercolor on board. A view from behind the Taos Pueblo church.

Stone Lithograph

Blood, Sweat and Steers  -  Another lithograph which I drew on a stone in Santa Fe and hand-printed in an edition of 20. I have ONE (artist proof) left to sell.

Detail of Cradleboard painting

close-up of brush strokes.

Apache Cradleboard - watercolor

One of my favorite paintings I have done. It is only about 6" x 9" painted on wc board. The actual cradleboard was in my collection of artifacts and is shown hanging on the cedar wall in my studio in New Mexico, 1982. I acquired the cradleboard from a native on the Mescalero Apache Reservation near Ruidoso. Some Apaches still use the cradleboard to carry their babies....much like we carry them in high-tech carriers, strollers etc. here in the "city."

Mallard - watercolor on board

I did this painting as a donation to a Boy Scout council in Little Rock. It was reproduced on a poster promoting a wildlife event. Model compliments of Little Rock zoo. circa 1991

Detail of Waterfall (previous pic)

Close-up showing brush strokes.

Waterfall at Alto, New Mexico

Watercolor on board: approx 10 x 18". circa 1990 - Private collection.

Spurs and memories.

24" x 36" acrylic on canvas. Private collection. These spurs were worn by my late friend, Larry Bownds, of the Chimney Creek Ranch. This painting was my homage to him and to my memories of those days, when we rode horses, ranch roads and highways, together. The leathers were made by another close friend, Bob West, of Spur, Texas, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot. Bob also made a couple of pairs of custom leggings for me. Maybe I can post a pic of those later. RIP, my friends.

Branding the 7V

That's me on the right....making all the smoke. This was a time in my life that today, only seems a fantasy. I was living in the middle of 40,000+ acres and playing cowboy. What kid (of my age) didn't dream of doing that! My rational for being there was that I was doing research for paintings...but my heart (and sore muscles) said I was hiding from reality. I got to saddle up, bath in the horse troph, ride around in pickup trucks and look at cows....and generally savor the essence of a life most of us only saw in a movie. I was no cowboy...but I sure enjoyed the life of the land and most of all, the people of the true earth.

Dancer. Watercolor

An exercise in brushwork! Painted on 300lb Arches paper. This piece is almost calligraphic. Very controlled brushstrokes, wet on dry as well as wet in wet background. Pushing the color to it's limits. How could I miss with such a great model.

Dusty Saddle Watercolor

If I am not mistaken, (and often I am), this painting is in the collection of the Great Plains Western Art Museum in Lincoln, NE. I actually owned this saddle at one time. I am actually rather proud of this painting. I was pushing the "temperature" of the color. Notice the blues and violets on top and the bit of red hot along the back side of the cantle. That's about the time that my friend Oleg Stavrowsky and I were sharing studio space and he was the master of hot and cold running color! He would tell me, in his Harlem accent, "Gav-ry (for Gary)...it don't matter if you put the paint on with a mop...if it is believable and the temperature is right, you have succeeded." Thanks, O.

Colorado camp watercolor

There was a time when some friends and I would venture horseback into the wilderness areas of Southern Colorado. We hired an outfitter who would use his winter elk hunting camp to humor city slickers like us in the summer. It would take one extra mule just to pack in our beer and other human-comforts. (that would be Southern Comfort, in my drinkin' days.) So, while my buddies were pickin', grinnin', cookin' trout in an iron skillet or just taking siestas....I would do little watercolors like this one. I think I was in my John Singer Sargent period when I painted this...notice the Sargent-like calligraphic shadows on the ground lower left. (yes, John painted brilliant aquarelles!) Notice the "leaning" trees? My question was answered by the natives, that the young trees grew that way from the weight of the winter snows up here on the Continental Divide.  Who woulda knew?

Tiny field study

This little watercolor was done (actual size)...using a Winsor and Newton half-pan field palette. This is a mission church in the Hondo Valley of South-Central New Mexico, along the Rio Hondo.

Easel

A couple of small studies sitting on my easel. I have dragged this old skeleton around the country for many years. Notice the brand burned in the upper right? That is the 7V ranch brand from when I lived in the bunkhouse at the Chimney Creek Ranch in West Texas. That story could fill volumes. I heated the iron in a mesquite fire in the bunkhouse hearth and burned it on the easel for memory's sake. If that easel could talk!?...it might say some things you wouldn't want to hear.

Saddle-Oil Painting on Canvas

9" x 12" Oil painting on stretched canvas. Sold this little study at Benson Gallery in San Patricio, New Mexico. One of my favorite paintings. Wish I knew who owned it. As a footnote, I painted hundreds of saddle studies over the years. There is something special about re-creating the work of the saddle-artisan as well as the stories behind their owners and users. A cowboy's saddle was one of his most prized and liquid assets. As the story goes: If God had wanted man to walk, he would have given him four legs. As it was, he gave him only two...one for each side of a horse.

Tealights and onions

I had been to the market and just tossed a few veggies on my drawing board and went to work on some little studies. I was working on a slick plate-finish paper for effect. In the private collection of my youngest daughter.

Small field-study

I painted this study while sitting on the tailgate of my old blue pickup truck at Concho, Arizona. It was a fairly quiet morning and I could hear the nuns singing while working in their vegetable garden behind the church. One was hanging clothes. This was a very quick sketch on an Arches pad using Winsor and Newton tube colors and a John Pike palette.

Coe Ranch

A nice wet in wet watercolor example. This is the famous Coe Ranch in the Hondo Valley east of Ruidoso, NM. Billy Bonney reportedly hid out from the law at this ranch during the Lincoln County wars. 

Church at Taos, NM

Watercolor on Arches 140 lb paper. 11"x 14". I did this painting as a class demo at Oklahoma State University where I was teaching a watercolor class.