Regina Calton Burchett - Art in Progress

One of my neighbors came over to draw this afternoon, so we drew an apple today…………

I was out and about with my art friend Sally today and we saw these great red flowers in central Austin. Anyone know what they are?  (Thank you, Leslie - Schoolhouse lillies, she says!!)

Sometimes I look at various framed pieces of art that I did several years ago - and still have on my walls - and see so many things I want to change. Colors that I wish I had chosen differently, a pastel stroke (or many) here or there that I should have omitted or applied, or even the composition. But it doesn’t seem right to change them somehow.

In thinking about it today, it occurs to me that even though I will most likely never be a well-known artist, I should nonetheless have integrity with my own self and my progression of work.  Each particular piece represents the artist and the person I was during that time - my abilities, my experience, my choices.  And to remove it from the frame and alter it is like trying to change my own past.

Should we work to correct our art errors of the past?

On the pieces that have completely lost our original favor, should we destroy them? Sell them in a garage sale? Or just hide them in the back of the closet?

When I was in high school, my family had land outside of Kalkaska, Michigan. At the back of the property was a circle of trees where I liked to go and sit in the very center where the ferns grew and it was cool and quiet. I now live in Texas and used to drive by this smaller group of trees on FM 1327 south of Austin and it brought to mind those trees in Michigan. An escape - a place to rest, away from the brightness and heat.

They are gone now, since the state brought the tollway across that field this summer.

I drove to North Carolina with my sister and drew an imaginary road back home from the views I saw along the way in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana….

I just love clouds. I carry my camera at all times, mainly to photograph trees and clouds. These are a few of my photos of clouds from the last month here in Austin Texas:

Their variety is astounding. Clouds are the “Impressionism” of the Earth’s r’epertoire of art.

We visited the Congress Street Bridge (actually Ladybird Lake) at sunset last week and got some photos of the bats as they took off for the evening. I doubt that I would ever try to paint this, but it was a great sunset and so many bats it was unbelievable!  If you’d like more information on the world’s largest urban bat colony - 1.5 million bats! - click here:  
http://www.batcon.org

I just finished this and framed it because I wanted to have a new painting for my show at Barnes & Noble. And the book I used to prop it up after I framed it was… Seurat! I love his paintings, but wouldn’t want to work along those lines too much.

It looks darker on screen - and I have lightened it quite a bit - but if I lighten it more, the sky comes out too light. One of those difficult to photograph pieces. I took the photo in full sunlight- not sure how that would affect it showing up so dark.

The Creative Art Society has a new show that will be installed this week entitled “The Sound of Art” and I’ve been thinking for a couple of months that I wanted to try to paint something to music. I’m not very familiar with abstract art, but there are pieces I like, although I could never explain why. So I painted this while listening to my favorite belly dance album - Dream Dancer by Light Rain. It’s a beautiful album that has been around since 1993.

The primary song is “Dervish” and you can hear it on the link here ~ Dream Dancer

I plan on painting sometime in the next week, because I’d like to have another piece or two for my show at Barnes & Noble, but wanted to post these photos that Larry and I took over the last few days. The baby deer were thirsty and we didn’t realize that both the bird bath and their large water container were empty. They came up very close to the house.