COLD, COLD and POSSIBLE SHOWERS

Whoa, today was a harbinger of what's to come.Tim and I started at 8:30 A.M. for the days plein air painting. Breakfast was the usual 'The Brakeman' at the RR "dorm". Eggs over,dry hash browns,dry bacon, dry toast,and Joe. I drove and Tim bough today so it was a definite great way to start the day.But the weather predicted showers and cooler temps. Tim wanted to know where we were headed today. I thought the orchard would be cool. A family owns the place over three or four generations.The Doud's were horticulturists second to none. Actually I don't care for apples except in pies. Yeah that's ala mode. Hey Joe if you're reading this I'm laughing with you. Tim likes pies too in fact Tim and I like just about any thing that is food. But I digress. We were headed for Doud's but arrived to find the site pretty boring artistically. O.K. where now? I said we'd drive west and look for something challenging. Just down the road I pulled into a field gravel apron for combines or other farm equipment. Let's start here.You know find something interesting from the vantage up the road west or down the road east. Tim seemed uninspired by the views but decided he could find something art worthy. Me, I liked the round hay bales stacked along the fence line up the side of the road. The weather was nippy and windy. I setup in the lee of the Scion. Tim parked on the west side facing the farmhouse. We worked for several minutes before we both started complaining of the cold. I was working on a large sheet of rag print stock meaning it was cotton paper 22"x30". Tim's pastel paper was about 9"x12" pastel stock. The wind and low temperature was causing my fingers to lock up in the joints. Nevertheless,we stayed with it for another hour and a half. We loaded up and Tim suggested the heater on high. As our fingers thawed the cold in the joints actually stung like hornet stingers. Ouch. But Tim nailed it and I was pretty happy with the abstraction of laying in impasto color like a barbeque brush. Hey Joe, BBQ!

Awesome piece Tim. It even looks cold!

MAKE MINE A DUMP TRUCK ON AN TOASTED ASIAGO BUN

RED vs YELLOW

LOOKING THOUGH SPACE

A day we thought might not come arrived. The day before we drove after a moderate and almost healthy breakfast everywhere in Cass and Miami county. It was a beautiful day and we headed north towards Rochester taking all the back roads in search for that special landscape inspiration...it never came but the drive was nice so we continued to drive until the noon whistle sounded..quittin' time! Hey even today after the thirty minute rule we kept looking. But a piece of cherry lattice sour pie and ice cream beckoned. Neither of us felt much like painting. Today we tried again since I had my classwork all finished for Thurs. and Friday. We ate and got on the road immediately. Jared that guy who lost all the weight at SUBWAY inspired us to have  breakfast..a bacon, egg and cheese on grilled Asiago 6" bun and for Tim Black Forest ham and cheese on a flatbread.  I don' think the ham was ever near the black forest except in the little piggies minds. We headed for New Waverly an old car junkyard which dates back several decades and very cool.

We wandered around collecting 'sticktights' on every cloth surface and decided for me and old dump truck and Tim a twin collection of adjacent pickup trucks in red and sunny yellow. We noticed very few mosquitoes and worked at a frantic pace to complete before the announced afternoon rainfall of 1/4 ". Never came ,in fact, it cleared up. as we were leaving some old guy stopped us and said this was his land, at least the easement was his. Sorrrrry. We were just painting a few old cars. The owners had given us permission but Grumpy was intent on letting us know we were lowlife trespassers regardless of our reasons. After all you know how artists are....bohemians and 'shiftless shonks',to quote old Dick Tracy.