Getting back into RICIMER mode ... BUT MEANWHILE ...

Let it be a challenge to me.

We left him at age 12 with almost the whole of his very active life ahead of him.

He's got places to go, things to do, people to see.

Protege of Aetius, along with Majorian and Aegidius, Ricimer's Destiny is not going to be an easy one.

In between us abandoning Ricimer in the days of his youth, Our Characters have taken the bit in their collective teeth and skipped ahead to when they journey to America in the year 1600. Two of the AINE Books are written and in print (and on Kindle). Then we skip ahead yet again to meet the lot of them in the 1800s - in America's Wild West. That they bring their own Wild Ways with them is a given since the Young Ones show up (Colum, Saorsa, Marra, and Mamm the Younger). IF you've met them already, you don't need to wonder that the American West might be just about to get a little more wild than it already was.

This is the painting I used for the cover of the 'Go West!' book that has Our Characters moving from western Kansas into eastern Colorado, and then preparing for their next western move - to the Colorado Rockies.

So ... it's going to be a toss-up between RICIMER and these Characters of the American West (along with finishing the rest of the AINE Books) as to which will manage to get done in what order.

Stay tuned.

CATCHING UP WITH ARTWORK

These three were painted for the 2019 Las Animas Art Show in conjunction with the annual Santa Fe Trail Day Celebration. The 2019 theme was TRAILBLAZERS AND STARGAZERS.

Titled 'Go West!' this depicts an early morning leave-taking by a small group of covered wagons. 

The piece is 2' x 2', acrylic on fabric.

I titled this one simply 'Grandad', used a photo of my grandfather riding a bronc, 

paired it with a background of an early spring morning,

and used acrylic and texturing on really rough canvas.

aka 'Trailblazer'

Here is the 'Stargazer' part of things. 

The 'ghostly silhouette' effect is because this is the back of the original.

I messed up the front sky & couldn't fix it, so flipped it.

Acrylic on fabric.

So those are the pieces for that art show.

Going back a bit further:

Someone from Denver commissioned two pieces, both fairly large.

Here's the mock-up for one of them:

Acrylic on rough canvas, this little piece is probably about a foot by a foot and a half.

Here's the finished piece sized 5' x 2':

It's resized her to 30% of the original photo size.

Here's the reverse of it, just because ... 

The 'because' is that we wanted this one to be able to be back-lit.

Used very lightweight fabric stretched very tight so the pigments would bleed through.

This back view of the piece has an abstract look to it. 

The foreground is Not overlaid onto the background.

The other commissioned piece turned out to be two back-to-back on the same piece of fabric (the same lightweight tightly stretched as the above piece, only with many layers of paint); one side textured, the other side not ... same essential scene but very different looks. The story behind that is that the front (textured) side had me so frustrated that I needed a break from it. So I flipped it and let the flip side relax me enough to re-tackle the front. 

When I get time I'll do a post in my artwork blog about the process of getting this 6' x 3' piece developed. For now, here's the front:

It's an early morning dawning from up on a mountain,

looking south toward another range.

Here's the 'other side':

Same view, different mood.

And again a bit further back - these next two are from 2018 December - about five feet by two-and-a-half or so.

ASPEN QUEEN (one of the variations) acrylic on cotton; designed to be back-lit.

Don't mind the shadows - these photos were taken hurriedly 

as they were being loaded into someone's vehicle.

This one has a tri-color base coat: 

cobalt blue top; off-white center; dark lower.

Then over-painted.

You want more?

Okay, we can do that.

Here's one I did just for the fun of it - on that rough canvas:

Texture with acrylic.

Coming back to the present, here's a set of hand-painted note cards. I painted a lot of them outside up in the mountains. Parked my vehicle on a pull-over along Phantom Canyon in the Colorado Rockies, pulled out my ancient little card table and newer camp-chair, unpacked my artwork 'go-kit', and ... just painted ... Others were done in my sister's cottage-studio, wood-fire keeping it toasty.

These next couple are waiting for over-lay.

There are a bunch more similar to these in various colors/combinations, so I've got some over-laying to get done! I may use paint; I may use ink ... we shall see what we shall see !! I'm just grateful to have this time up here to spend on this.

Does it feel a mite odd to be going from big paintings to little ones?

Yes.

You've already seen one of the texture/acrylic pieces on 100 year old cedar shake - there are more of them, and more plain acrylic on plain wooden plaques - but their photos aren't going to get added today!