During Nov. and Dec.  I'll be displaying and selling my work  at 7 Adkins Drive in Erin, next door to the court house.  I worked most of the day today moving artwork across the street and around the corner.  I'll be working tomorrow cleaning up a little and making the place look nice.  I've been working on some smaller works to sale that would make nice gifts for the holidays.  

I returned yesterday from painting plein air in Monteagle and it was the perfect week for painting.  I met some new artists and I reunited with a friend from high school.  Susan and I were in art class together and had to draw each other's portrait.   We had a wonderful, fun time. 
Grundy Lakes was one of our favorite spots to paint.  Grundy
Lakes is the site of the Lone Rock Coke Ovens where locally mined coal was
converted to coke by convict labor until 1896.
http://www.landscapeimagery.com/grundylakes.html

I will be painting for four days in the Monteagle area this next week.  A friend from Clarksville will be going with me and that will make it that much more fun.  I'm painting with acrylics this time, I'm leaving the watercolors at home.  We will see how well I do with that.  

Monteagle is beautiful this time of year.  I just hope the leaves aren't all gone. 

Last night I went to a demo by Michael Shane Neal http://michaelshaneneal.com/ at Richland fine art in Green Hills.  It was a great learning experience for me.  Now, I really want to try doing portraits.  I enjoyed watching him paint, I enjoyed the entire evening. 

While unpacking boxes I found a lot of old sketchbooks. I really need to be working in one everyday, but I don't.   I like to find photographs of people and draw or paint them in my sketchbooks.  Just quick drawings no longer than 11" x 14" , like the one on the left.  I really enjoyed this study because of the colors in the skin, the tints and  tones were beautiful in the photo, I just love this sketch.  I did frame this one.

I think I'm going to try to paint my sign myself.  If it doesn't work, I can scrape it off.   You can see I've been playing with cut out letters.  I have four windows and I'm upstairs.  So, being in Erin, I thought a nice emeral green would do nicely.  I had the white letters in place and they didn't show up at all from the street.

I unpacked this painting today.  I did it a long time ago, I always liked the figure but the background is just awful. So, I never really finished it.  Can anyone give me some ideas on how to fix it?  It feels so unbalanced, like two different paintings. 

Annamarie is an artist, she happens to be kin to me by marriage.  She and I got back into art about the same time (two years ago).  This was the first time I had seen her studio.  First of all, her home is beautiful, beautify decorated.  Her studio is a bonus room over the garage, and it too, is beautiful.  She has different work stations, one for pastels and one for painting mostly oils and another area when needed.  She had a commission on her drawing board and it again, was beautiful.  Pastel and the colors are amazing.  I really enjoyed my visit and learned a few things to help me out in the studio.  Here is Annamarie's web site.  She is the one who put me on to FineArt America printing.
http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/annamarie-sidella.html

  

 

I went out riding around the county, and I found these beautiful and amazing bluffs.  They are rounded and tall.  I took these photos looking up so they are much taller than they look.  Houston County is just a beautiful area. 

Also, I did make it to the studio four times this week.  I finished on commission, made a sell, and I got two more commissions to do.  I would say I had a very good week. 
 There are more photos of the bluffs on my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/jfeltsart?ref=hl