My artist friend, Susan Roper, asked that I post the paintings I entered in the fair so here are two of them.  I will have to photograph the other two and post them later.

The first painting is 'High Mountain Majesty'.  This is an oil on canvas and it is the one that won 'Best of Category' in the Professional Category as well as a First Place Blue Ribbon.  Living in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska has instilled in me a great respect for the beauty of our wildlife.  My hunting expeditions are always done with a camera.  This painting is one I created in my mind, not from a reference.  Somehow I think the young bull would be a bit disconcerted by the approaching 'old fella'.  In my mind, he paused only a a second or two before moving away from the approaching danger.  

 This painting is 'Childhood Memories'.  It is also oil on canvas.  It depicts my childhood growing up in southwest Iowa when in the fall of the year our parents would take my brother and me into the black walnut forests to gather walnuts for the winter.  Our Mother always made fudge and cookies and frostings using the wonderful freshly cracked walnuts.  The walnuts are encased in a husk and surrounded by a dark substance that will stain anything, including children, that it touches.  Just inside this particular woods there was an old, abandoned, one-room schoolhouse.  My brother and I loved exploring inside.  I recall there were some desks and books remaining inside the building which was beginning to fall down.  We were allowed to look at them but not to remove them.  Imagine what would happen to those treasures should they be found today.

I hope you enjoy seeing two of my favorite paintings and I would love to hear from you.  Both of these works are copyrighted so I ask that you not copy or reproduce them in any way.