Last Saturday's art fair in Dover, NH was pretty good.  My giclee prints were well received but I wasn't able to sell  any of my original paintings.  I guess, that with the current economy, no one seems to want to put out the big bucks.

One of the visitors to my site was a pet goat.  The gentleman's goat is a pet, house broken and even sleeps with him.  I'm not too sure about those horns and hooves on the bed with me a night.

My oil pastel "Texas Gothic" won first prize in the associates division of the international Oil Pastel Society.  It's on 11 by 14 inch archival canvas panel.

I will be erecting my canopy and art walls at the Apple Harvest Fest in Dover, NH this Saturday.  At least I hope I'll be able to participate.  I've thrown my back out and I hope I'll able to have the pain down to a tolerable level by Saturday.

We'll be at the McConnell Center which about a block from the main venues.

I've been informed that one of my paintings has won an international award.  The official notification will be tomorrow........

It's like waiting for Santa Claus.

I'm way behind in keeping up with my blog.  I've been painting furiously and have a good number of painting that I've been adding to my art fair inventory.

It's an 11 by 14 inches, oil pastel, on canvas.  This is one of my favorites.  I'm not a vegetarian but I won't eat lamb nor veal for that matter.

It's been a busy summer.  I normally do 6 to 8 art fairs a year but I've built up so much inventory, I've scheduled 20 art fairs from June until the second week in December.

Since it's going to be a rainy weekend here, I lucked out and had this weekend free.

Next Saturday, I'll be in Dover, NH and their Apple Festival.  The art fair protion is a new show on the fringe of the Apple Festival.  I hope many of the Festival goers find our location.

Oil Pastel blending tool

We were having a discussion in the Oil Pastel Forum, of the Wet Canvas Web Site, on the tools we use to blend our oil pastels. I prefer paper stumps but one of my WC friends recommended using pipe insulation as a blender. I gave it a try but I still really prefer my paper stumps. I found the insulation to be a bit unwieldy. It kept knocking off things off the table, my brush holder on the floor among other problems. I also found them difficult to use when trying to blend a delicate passage. However I found that if I held them a bit farther back along it's length when attempting to draw, it automatically created an abstract.