Creekside.....

"The Creek"; 8x10; oil on panel

I love returning to subject similar subject matter in different light...

Drawing, drawing, drawing....

"Prairie Valley"; 8x10; oil on panel

Still-life and landscape a day.....almost....unlike my landscapes, I prefer to let the underpainting on the still-lifes dry completely.....

Double down

"Halfway"; 6x8; oil on panel

"Wetland"; 6x8' oil on panel

Back at the easel....

"Call Me Irrigated"; 6x12; oil on board

Finished moving my studio....happy to be finally back painting....

(Not even going to talk about Jan Brewer "pointing" at the President)

Catching up......

"Small Creekside"; 8x10; oil on panel

"Early Winter Hills"; 8x10; oil on panel

Flirting with winter.....

"Early Snow"; 6x6; oil on board

Felt a bit more like winter today....

Playing with Alizarin some more....

painting tally: 29...28 days

Alpine Spring....

"Sunlight"; 8x10; oil on panel

Eating out today for my wife's birthday, I asked about the seasonal ale selection. Shay (!) informed me that it was a Spring ale.........???? It is still January.....isn't it?

Sam Adams Alpine Spring Ale -- pretty darn good any time of the year......oh.....and the glass the company advertises with the little laser-etched thingamabob on the bottom of the glass.....it actually works.......try it

Seperate.....

"Together But Separate"; 6x8; oil on panel

Holidays over....

"Three Over"; 6x12; oil on board

Okay....festivities over; national ho-hum championship over.....time to get back to work

50x50 painting count update tomorrow

Full House Slough.....

"Full House Slough"; 12x6; oil on board

The Blind Side.....

"The Blind Side"; 6x6; oil on board

Okay gang, I went two days without trumpeting this repeatedly....but I couldn't hold out any longer.......

The Oregon Ducks are Rose Bowl Champions for the first time in 95 years!!!!

Midway II.....

"Midway II"; 10x12; oil on panel

New Year

"Midway"; 12x24; oil on panel

I wasn't going to post today. Or --- horrors of horrors --- paint either. I told myself I would take two days off this season, New Years Day and.....Rose Bowl Day.

Okay, okay......now before anyone deletes me off their favorites list (hah,ha), let me explain. I suffered through the worst years of the Univ of Oregon football program. Before the wacky uniforms, before the state-of-the-art training facilities, before Nike stock turned on the movement of LaMichael James and Darron Thomas.....there was a large group of people who showed up every Saturday, rain, shine or polar ice on the Omniturf, to watch the Ducks get manhandled by (shudder) the likes of Fresno State and Colorado. I was part of that group.

I've also been part of the group that has watched them slowly ascend the ranks of the NCAA to be big enough that they now deserve to be investigated every time someone sneezes in front of the wrong booster. I've earned this year's game-watching moment -- especially after enduring the debacle last year at the hands of one of the shadiest individuals to emerge from college sports since the Fab 5 at Univ of Michigan (see Wikipedia: March Madness).

So Monday afternoon, I'll be guiltless-ly plunked down in front of the TV with an Oregon microbrew in one hand and some kind of homemade treat from my lovely (and reluctant college-football-loving) wife, praying that this will be the year that the Ducks not only make it to a BCS game...but win one.

Lord, please don't let us be the Minnesota Vikings of the NCAA --- sorry, Dad...it had to be said.

Happy New Year!

P.S. What about today? Today is a Star Wars marathon.....so.....you know.........