Invocation of Spring, Sims Farmhouse, Montgomery County

Invocation of Spring, Sims Farmhouse

11X14, Oil on Panel

Available

 

 



Sims Farmhouse, Montgomery County

Sims Farmhouse

5X7, Gouache on Matboard

We finally got some weather that could be considered winter!  And it coincided with some of my plans to go out painting.  Actually my plans were for some painting and mountain biking combined into one trip.  However, I was planning on riding the Womble Trail in the Ouachita Mountains which is an IMBA Epic trail.  It's over 30 miles and traverses some very remote terrain.  I have been told not to ride it alone but that was my plan.  Had the weather been better I would have gone through with it and gotten in hopefully 5-6 miles and still had time to do a quick painting.  However, with temperatures barely expecting to get above freezing and a modest little windchill, I decided that it was exactly the type of weather in which people die from doing dumb things like riding difficult mountain biking trails alone.  I still went painting though and made due with the view out the front window of the car.  This was my second time to get out with the gouache for some plein air.  The first time was not terribly successful.  This time, well, just successful enough.

I stopped off in the small town of Mt. Ida just a few miles before this area to take pictures and in doing so ran across a brand new gallery in town!  It is called the Ouachita Artist's Gallery and has only been open a few weeks.  I dropped in out of the cold and talked painting with them.  

View from the front window.  I eliminated the large cedar tree.

The portable studio setup

Ola, Yell County

Ola

9X12, Oil on Panel

SOLD

Ola is a tiny town the sits between the Arkansas River Valley and the Ouachita Mountains.  This is not the most memorable view in Ola but I felt like doing some rural decay.

Helena, Phillips County - An Impromptu Paintout!

Helena, AR

On Sunday, July 10, I traveled east to the very edge of the state and the mighty Mississippi River.  Helena Arkansas was at one time instrumental in the birth of the grandfather of many forms of American music, the Blues.  Helena was the voice of the Blues starting in 1941 when King Biscuit Time debuted.  King Biscuit Time was a radio show which played the Blues exclusively, giving a voice to African-Americans during a time when they were afforded little to none in the popular media, especially in the South.  It was the first of it's kind.  In 1941, in Helena, Arkansas, Southern African-American culture began to be disseminated to the masses.  And the culture of America was forever changed.  One could certainly argue that this was bound to happen somewhere.  If not Helena, then Memphis.  But the simple fact is, it began in Helena.

 Helena was chosen as the subject of the day by Matt Lee, an artist whose acquaitance I had made via the Wetcanvas online artist community.  He also made arrangements for us to meet and paint with the curator of the Delta Cultural Center, Mr. Bill Branch.  We arrived at 10AM and met at the DCC visitor center.  Bill gave Matt and I a tour of their impressive facility.  Not only were the interpretive exhibits of the history of the Blues and the delta top notch, there was also some fantastic art on display from Hearne Fine Art in Little Rock.  After this, Bill gave us a tour of town.  Helena straddles the very end of Crowley's Ridge.  This landform is unique in North America, it a long ridge of fine soil that runs north-south from southern Missouri to the Missisippi River at Helena in the middle of the pancake flat Delta.  When I was in high school, I went on a gifted and talented program which spent 4 weeks touring the entire state.  At that time, the prevailing thought on the formation of Crowley's Ridge was that is was a deposit of windblown loess.  That seems to be in doubt these days as some sources say it as fluvial in origin or possibly that it is rising due to tectonic forces.  I still subscribe to what I learned many years ago, that it is windblown loess.

Helena is a far different place today than it was in 1941.  Most of the industry is gone and Cherry Street (Helena has no Main Street) is populated with ghosts of the past.  Empty store fronts are much more common than those with tenants.  Still, there is something different to Helena than other towns with this same problem.  There's a strong desire in Helena to rebuild the community.  There are thriving churches downtown and more history than you can shake a stick at.  Some of it is in sore disrepair but some of it is being restored.  I would say that the source of this palpable energy is in large part due to the Delta Cultural Center.   I feel that Helena is the front line of a decades long fight against the decay of small town America.   It has had one of the steepest declines in population in the entire country.  If this town can turn things around, then so can others.  With it's rich history, I think they have a chance.

We started the painting for the day on a boardwalk by the river with the US 49 bridge providing a backdrop.  The heat index was probably already well over 100°F.  I set up in what was a smattering of shade that lasted about 15 minutes at best.  We planned on working for about an hour and with that time constraint in mind, I chose a long-view that cropped out all the foreground.  As the sun moved out from behind a few leaves and fell directly onto my palette, the paint began to slump and all but refused to stick on my simply prepared panels.  I found myself wishing I used linen!  I made do, however.

Matt's first of the day

Close up of Matt's first

Bill's first of the day

My first simple little painting of the day

After this, we returned to the DCC for a light lunch and to refill water bottles.  Then it was time to hit Cherry Street and do some urban landscape.  I chose a building with a nice little striped canopy that Matt pointed out.  It was next door to a building with rusted iron features that I thought would also have made a great little painting but I wondered if I could get that in the amount of time I wanted to spend and from across the street where the best shade was.  The building currently houses Gist Music store and is on the west side of Cherry.  The sun was past zenith and cast a nice shadow across the first third of the canopy.  I quickly built my shadows and I'm very glad I did because the shadow on the canopy crept quickly across the full face of it and by the time I was done had engulfed the entire front of the street.  Both Matt and Bill chose much more challenging, full block scenes.

Bill Branch's second of the day

Matt Lee Works on his 2nd of the Day

Gist Music

In all, I'm very happy with the day.  I don't know if I've ever had time to even try to paint two paintings on location before in the same day, let alone make two that I would be willing to show!  My camera has suddenly decided it's done with it's life.  As soon as I get a new one, I'll post the cropped pictures of these completed pieces.

Searcy County Barn, Study

Searcy County Barn Study

9X12, Oil on Oak Panel

SOLD

I painted most of this one during last month's Argenta Art Walk.  It is based on a barn between Snowball and Witts Springs in Searcy County.  The actual barn is considerably more dilapidated than I'm showing it.  I'm seriously considering doing this on an 18X24.   There are at least 2 errors here that need to be corrected...anyone?

Prescott Hardware, Nevada County

Prescott Hardware

8X10, Oil on Wood
Available

Sometimes I drive through small towns and just have to ask myself what could have happened here?? Prescott was one of those. You can tell that maybe only a decade or so ago, this was a thriving small town with a beautiful little downtown area. Prescott is the county seat of Nevada County in southwest Arkansas. I don't recall seeing a Wal-Mart there so I don't think that can be blamed for the current state of affairs. It's probably just another case of rural communities drying up because the young folks can't find work and are forced to move to larger cities.

Our rual communities are in stress and there isn't a whole lot that can be done about it. At least some communities try and it looks like Prescott is doing what little it can to bring commerce back to the downtown.

If I were not so connected with the Ozarks of northern Arkansas and had enough regional and/or national collectors to support a fully professional artist life, I might consider this town. As you can see, real estate is dirt cheap. Two store fronts and the land for only $9000! Now, I wouldn't expect to get much(any) traffic to a studio in such a downtown but that's not the point if you have a stable of collectors is it? If you're in that boat, then geograpic location is pretty much a nonfactor. So...if you just happen to be a solid selling artist in need of a very low cost of living location with a lot of landscape to paint, maybe this is the place for you?

Deserted, Scotland Post Office, Van Buren County

Deserted

14X18, Oil on Canvas
Available

The little town of Scotland, Arkansas is almost dead. The school was consolidated several years ago into Clinton school district which is about 30 miles away. When I was in high school, I played a game of basketball in their gym. It was old as the hills even back then. The school was burned by arsons this past winter. Thankfully, we got pictures of it 2 summers ago and I may revisit this area with a painting of the school. It wasn't picturesque by many people's standards but then again, I can find charm in a lot of things.

This old post office has probably not been used in about 50 years and I don't recall seeing one of the new prefab post offices being put up in tiny rural towns these days.

In the midst of all this decay, there was a nicely refurbished old (though tiny) home right across the dirt road that was being used as a hair salon.