September 18, 2006
I drove up to Prescott yesterday and had lunch with Janet Childress (U of A art grad and Gamma Phi Beta). Prescott was slammed with tourists and the downtown area was jammed to the gills. Met Janet on Whiskey Row then walked down to her co-op art gallery and saw her impressive pottery. Also saw a cartoonist's space (he worked for Warner Bros for many years) who is making a killing by selling his sketchbook artwork. Hmmmmm. He puts out a booklet, all black and white, of the best sketches of a particular year (I looked at 2005 and 2004) and they sell for $20. He does a whole bunch of nudes, though, and perhaps that is what's driving his sales ("Hey Dad, can I buy an art book for school?"). Would you pay $20 for a sketchbook full of this?



We ended up at Genoveses Restaurant on Gurley and had a very nice Sunday brunch ($36.73 plus $7 tip I bought), then Janet drove me up the canyon to her impressive home, built by old bandmate and Kingman compadre, Terry Anderson. The house and her studio were quite impressive, very artistic and bold at every turn.

From Janet's I drove out to the Phippen Museum and picked up my cartoons. The Humor on the Range show came down Sunday. I drove home in a flurry of traffic, but got off at Carefree Highway just before the southbound lanes ground to a halt. Got home at five (184 miles round trip) and did some research, with Kathy, on visiting Creel, Mexico and Divisidero. Creel is at 7,700 feet high in the Sierra Madres and we are looking at taking the train from either Chihuahua or El Forte.

On Saturday I whipped out five cloud studies, and saved one piece from the Failure Pile. Here's how it looked as it went into the failure pile. I noticed the late afternoon clouds over Ratcliff Ridge, tipped with sunlight, but when I went in to put it on paper, it came out too bold and crude (happens a lot). So I put it down and came back to it the next day. Here's the bad version:



I'll post the later version this afternoon.

"Only a mediocre painter is always at his best."
—Vincent Van Google