Moving On

Posted on April 16, 2014 by treshabarger

In my art classes, students start with The Drawing Course: Understanding the Use of Line, using vine charcoal. (That was a new term for me: vine charcoal.) Next is the Tone Course: Understanding the Use of Light and Dark, using vine and compressed charcoal.

In the middle of my last class, I finished the Tone Course. (Oh. I wasn’t expecting that.)

And started Beginning Oil Painting: Bringing Together Line and Tone using Oil Paint. (Definitely not expected when I walked in that morning.)

Alert the media.

A palette of two oil paints: titanium white and raw umber

Mixing for tones in oil paint

We begin the oil painting lessons limited to only two colors: Titanium White and Raw Umber. Good idea. All the course materials were written by the instructor, Elizabeth Locke.

Memory Tree

Posted on April 15, 2014 by treshabarger

My memories are housed in a backlit tree
A few branches almost as bright as day
Details dangle on the leaves and
Murmur in the background

The tree shrinks some memories so small
Its trunk conceals them in its woody crevices
Where no light reaches

The farthest twigs hold on to my distant past
Out of my reach, forever

Tree full of memories

NaPoWriMo Day 15

Weekly Photo Challenge: Monument

Posted on April 15, 2014 by treshabarger

Three monuments on the grounds of the Texas Capitol.

Texas Capitol Vietnam Veterans Monument

Tejano Monument

Texas Peace Officers’ Memorial

Weekly Photo Challenge: Monument

All Hail

Posted on April 14, 2014 by treshabarger

A storm came through this morning; the leading edge just after 7:00 a.m. (It inspired my poem for today, No Escape.) Temperatures dropped 30 degrees and the wind was fierce. A little after 10:00 a.m., the rain started. And then the hail.

Unfortunately for me, I was driving through the hail storm. The impact sounded like gun shots. There was no place for me to take cover. I really thought my windshield was in danger of breaking, the hail was coming down with such force. There was so much of it, the roads were totally covered in white.

This is the only photo I took, when we stopped for lunch about an hour after the hail storm ended.