Austin's New Skyline, Frost Bank, 360 Condo, and Seaholm Power Plant II

Here is the second of my paintings from my two hours of free time on Sunday. I noticed as I was leaving at 3:30 that the light was just getting dramatic enough to help me make heads and tales of the skyline.

My daughter has been sick on and off since October 7th and I've just gotten my fever and flu symptoms today. I can only pray this means we will have some sickness out the way this winter.

Austin's New Skyline, Frost Bank, 360 Condo, and Seaholm

Painting makes my brain hurt.

I painted "en plein air" yesterday for the first time in a long time. It was like an out of shape person trying to jog and play chess at the same time.

Some folks I know focus a lot on the loss of old Austin, and while I am always a big fan of the classic, and will forever miss the original Las Manitas, I have a great respect for some of the new buildings that make up the new Austin sky line. They sometimes remind me of NYC. I mean this as a compliment.

In this painting I've got a piece of Frost Bank, the 360 condo (which reminds me of the Chrylser Building), and three stacks from the old Seaholm power plant (which is the bit of old Austin that reminds me most of Providence). Texas meets NYC meets RI...

I was sitting there on the side of the Lamar bridge painting, getting a sunburn in October, chasing away bees and red ants, using a brush that was just a little too big for my tiny canvas, wondering why I put myself through this suffering. There was no way anyone could pay me enough to make all this worth it.

Today, as I went back to my day job as a graphic designer, and completely romanticized my paint out, I hit me that I wasn't doing it for the money.

Signs of Fall in Austin: Butternut Squash at Sunset

The artist I share my studio with, is very neat. She is a dancer not a painter. I don't know about the rest of you painters out there but I cannot paint unless my whole house is clean, and my whole house is never clean. There is always something else I could organize or clean, and thus I found little time to paint. But this new studio, I walk in, and it's clean, and the light is lovely, and it shines through the window onto lovely things, like butternut squashes, which will always remind me of my mother.