Boca Chica Beach

I'm going to head out to Boca Chica Beach today, leaving in about an hour. Boca Chica is one of my favorite places and I hope to get some great ideas for paintings while there today. If you are a little familiar with my work then you will have seen my paintings of the surf and the sand dunes there and maybe understand why I feel such a pull to the place.

Boca Chica is a natural beach down here in Texas and if you drive along the beach for about 3 or 4 miles you will come to the Rio Grande River mouth. Along the way are surf fisherman, sun bathers, families out playing with their kids and once you get to the river mouth there are usually net fishermen standing in the shallow water and Mexican families picnicking and enjoying the very same things on the other side.

It's Sunday so bound to be lots of people around.

I have fresh battery in my camera and I better go get my sketch book and pens.

Create

After 14 days of living in a fog of congestion and headaches I think I am finally feeling better and am ready to get back to what ever normal was. My creative side definitely suffered while I was sick but I did manage to finish two paintings and am working on a third. I have learned that when you are a creative person you have no choice, you have to be creating something. If I'm not creating I become cranky, miserable and even depressed but I can change the way I feel just by getting my paints out and pushing them around on a canvas.

This morning I am drinking from my new coffee cup and it reminds me to be creative. Written on the cup is this: Create joy, create happiness and create the life you imagine. I'm going to drink my coffee from this cup every morning and be thankful that I don't have to be stuck behind a desk trying to please someone else. I don't have to go to meetings every monday and make up some excuse about why I didn't make 45 cold calls last week. I'm going to drink my coffee every morning and know that I have made the best life for me and I don't have to please anyone else.

I am a creative person and I live the life I imagined.

Donwest Flea Market

We drove up the valley on Sunday. To my Non-Texas followers that means we drove west from Brownsville along the Rio Grande river valley and went to the flea market in between the towns of Donna and Weslaco. This flea market, like many all over the country was full of great stuff. Some would call it a treasure hunters paradise. Some call it old junk, but isn't it the absolute best form of recycling?

There were beautiful displays of fruits and vegetables and I loaded up with peppers, squash, radishes and tomatoes, but the best buy was B's. He is my loving partner and recycler extraordinaire and he found tires for his old golf cart.

Now this is a recycle story of the best sort.

B found an old Harley Davidson 3 wheel golf cart in the Sherwood Forest near Regina, Sask.
Elm bark beetles have nearly wiped out our elms and he was hired by the Sask. government to remove the dead and deceased trees before the beetles did any more damage.

The golf cart had obviously been there for a long time as the trees had grown in all around it. Being the kind of guy who knows a treasure when he sees one B asked the land owner if he could buy it from him. The old fellow, I'm sure, thought that B would never get that old cart out of the thick brush and since he had totally forgotten about it years ago said that he could just have it. B had to cut trees anyway so as he cut he dragged that old cart along with him. Being the recycle master that he is B put that old golf cart into his own tree row back on the farm and waited for the right time to dig it back out.

I call that tree row of his the Superstore because he can always find just what he needs for what ever project we are working on, drags it home all dirty and covered with who knows what, but once cleaned up it always seems to work and has saved us a lot of trips to town and a lot of money.

The right time, I guess, was this fall because he dragged it up into our utility trailer and we hauled it all the way down here to Texas.
I won't get into the situation at the border crossing.

It sat on our driveway here for a month, still dirty from Sherwood forest upteen years ago. 3 flat tires, old, scared and defiantly an eye sore, in my opinion, but I guess he was making his plan because he started puttering on that darn thing a couple days ago and since it keeps him busy while I get to indulge in my favorite pass time ( painting) I don't mind.

I have to admit that it is looking a whole lot better. It still has a long way to go. It will need a paint job and from what I hear that may be something never before seen on a golf cart, but I'm starting to see the potential and since the whole thing only cost him about $100.00 for batteries and tires and it is a great way to recycle I'm looking forward to seeing the finished project.

Red Eyed Frogs make me laugh.

Last winter I went to an Art show at the Brownsville Museum of Fine Arts https://brownsvillemfa.org/. I can't remember the name of the artist that was showing but her paintings left a great impretion on me. She had a beautiful exhibit of paintings showing large green philadrendom leaves, bird of paradise, great leaves of all sorts and in the paintings were little frogs. Their little legs were hanging down, their eyes were red and even though they were not the focus of the paintings they stole the show for me.

I had to paint one of those frogs. I found a little picture for a reference and did a 8 x 10 in acrylic. He was so cute and colorful. That painting sold at the Aurora Art Show in May, 2009. A picture of it is posted in my facebook site and I guess I wasn't the only person that liked it because I had a couple others ask abut it so this winter I painted three more. Those little Red Eye Frogs make me laugh.

While looking for more reference photos for the frogs I discovered an amazing book. Rain forest by the photographer Thomas Marent. He is so obviously passionate about the rain forests of the world and his photography. His images will take your breath away so if you have an afternoon to sit and browse thru an amazing album then find this book and enjoy yourself as much as I did. Meanwhile this www.dk.com/rainforest will give you an idea of his work.

Watch for frogs!

G-mabee Art's first Blog post ever

It's 2010, what a great number. Twenty ten sounds so smooth. Will the year also be?

Like I said in the title this is my first blog posting as G-mabee Art. I have been making art for a life time so that is not new to me but blogging is. You will have to be patient with me as I get my head around writing my thoughts down here for everyone to see. I hope not to bore you.

Where do I want to start?
Maybe a little history.

I currently live in 2 places. During the summer I live in the wide open prairie of southern Saskatchewan. Im surrounded by fields of canola, wheat, barley or maybe even peas or lentils depending on what is in rotation for that particular year. The skys are huge, they fill your eyes. I had a family of fox living under one of the old grain bins in my yard this past summer, a robin made a nest on my deck and a friendly moose came to visit my garden a few times as well. That was pretty much my only company all summer. Come November I head south, a snow bird. I am the youngest resident, at 48 in a 55+ retirement park in Texas. My partner and I moved here in 2007. It's been great fun. I look forward to getting away from Saskatchewan winters, seeing my winter friends and neighbours and doing lots and lots of painting.