View from New Sweden Church

This is a view looking down New Sweden Church Road, near Manor, Texas. We parked near the church, intending to paint it, but this is what caught my eye. It was cold and windy, and hardly any traffic passed by, except for some giant farm equipment I couldn't identify. (In the afternoon I did paint the church, looking back up the road--it'll be in the next post.)

The two dots in the sky are gnats that got blown into the paint--after it dried, I brushed them away. The swallows nesting in the porch of the church might have eaten them anyway, had they lived, but I'm sure they never intended to sacrifice their lives for art.

It's been a beautiful spring, and it was good to get outdoors. This is the San Marcos River, where the Plein Air Austin group painted a couple of weeks ago. Later in the day the river was crowded with kayakers, tubers, swimmers, sunbathers, firemen practicing water rescues, fishermen, dogs, and kids swinging from ropes. But you'd never know it from this picture. Maybe next time I'll paint faster and put them all in.

Huihan Liu Workshop

(I'm sorry if you've received this post already; I was experimenting with editing older posts and discovered that they disappear completely unless you repost them.)

In February, I was lucky enough to attend Huihan Liu's workshop in Sugar Land, TX.
It was quite inspiring. I did a lot of bad paintings and one good one, which is
the only one I'll show you here. If you're not familiar with Huihan's work, take
a look at his website, http://www.huihanliuart.com/. He is an amazing person, painter,
and teacher; his wife, Weizhen Liang, is an excellent artist too.