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It was exciting last night to open email and find that "Spring Lamb" was accepted into the prestigious "Best Of America! 2012" Exhibition of the National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society!  This national show will be displayed in two galleries in Missouri in October. I'm hoping to attend, then visit my aunt in Fayetteville, AR.

This piece was a learning experience!  In the last year or so I've begun to comprehend color temperatures and values in a new way.  Wow!  What was so hard to learn to see before is becoming more observable as my eyes get practiced at seeing.  As usual, I owe much to my buddy and "coach"—Mark Gingerich!  Thanks, dear friend!

I owe another Gingerich, Mark's daughter, Allison (who struggled to keep the energetic lamb under control and posed in so many less-than-comfortable positions for us) a hearty thanks, as well.

——Jim

Do you have those "responsibilities" that seem like a dark cloud hanging over your head that follows you around so that you have a hard time enjoying anything else?  This was that.  I had agreed to take part in a 200-year celebration for our city—Columbus Public Art 200—a project that aims to place 24 outdoor paintings at various locations in the downtown/Capitol "neighborhood."  Although there has been much revitalization of our downtown, it still does not have a suburban ambiance, if you catch my drift.

I really don't like big cities.  Although Columbus isn't huge, it still numbers over a million in the metropolitan area.  Sights and smells are not like Kansas, Toto, nor is the landscape.  So I was a bit nervous about the passers-by that might loiter about.  The other odd thing about this project was the "plein air" aspect: we were to paint a scene viewable from the spot of our prepared surfaces on the side of buildings.  Not my usual cup'a tea, and unfortunately, like the others, I ended up shooting some photo references and working from them in combination with the "man-on-the-street" view.  This led to weirdness because my nice photos were of an afternoon scene with some supportive cast shadows.  But to avoid the glare of sunlight on my west-facing wall, I had to work earlier in the day.  Thus, the scene I was looking at wasn't lit anywhere near the way it was in my photos. 

Adding to the "enjoyment" was the necessity that the painting be done in acrylic, transporting me back into "yesteryear" when acrylics were my medium for producing razor-sharp wildlife painting.  It's been almost 10 years since I worked with them on any sort of regular basis, having moved on and fallen in love with the sensuousness of oils.  Thankfully, Golden Paints graciously supplied each artist with samples of a two-of-each-primary-color palette and white in fluid and heavy-bodied form.  With a good bit of praying as I painted, that lingering dark cloud has dissipated, and the sun is now shining again!