November 26, 2008
Woke up to rain. It's snowing up north.

Last night Kathy and I met Deena for dinner. Fun hearing about her adventures in Central America with Frank.

As I returned home, I noticed the night sky as I turned down Old Stage Road. It was cloudy and the lights of Phoenix (unseen, over the ridges) gave the clouds a warm glow. Got home and went out to the studio and whipped out this study from memory:



What caught my attention were several big holes between the clouds and the black night beyond reminded me of the ice holes I had been rendering all week. I realized that sky effects are quite similar to water and ice (makes some sense since one is reflecting the other). Kind of zen like, no?

And speaking of ice and snow, I finally finished the "One Last Obstacle" painting:



This is El Kid contemplating his next move (perhaps this is the cover as a metaphor for the economy?). The frozen creek is too wide to jump and too thin to ride over. This leaves him with one alternative:



This morning I had a dental procedure called Zoom. It took two hours and while I was lying in the dental chair being zapped by magic light, I kept gazing out the window at the gentle, gray clouds rolling in overhead. They were so subtle, like this:



"You can't make music unless you have something to play. You can't make music unless you have something to say."
—Richard Avedon quoting Willie Nelson, in the English edition of Harper's Bazaar