Update

I can't believe it's been over a year since I've posted a blog here. Sorry about that. I've been posting elsewhere. Let me try to bring you up-to-date with Farley Graphics.

In March of last year, as you'll read in my blog archives, I started painting again. And in April, I communicated to you that I had a desire to write, illustrate and have published a children's book.

Much has happened since then!

I painted my first painting in many, many years last March. I dragged a good friend of mine, Jess Coleman, who is an art professor down to the Colorado river and set up a pleine aire painting of the river. That's all it seemed to take to ignite a rather dormant creative side of me that I haven't seen in over 20 years.

So, in May of last year, I completed my 2nd painting of Lake Buchanan. That acrylic painting took a little over 8 hours to paint. After I finished that one, I started on the bridge painting that took over 35 hours.

I entered the Bridge into the Austin County Fair and won 1st place Grand Champion best of show. I was so pleased and encouraged, I wanted to paint more.

So I started a 4th painting of a pond I photographed at a local retreat center. I spent over 70 hours on this 16x20 acrylic painting. UGH! That painting seemed to last forever. I kept thinking I wasn't ever going to get finished with it.

Finally, I finished it and just this month entered it into a juried art show. The Live Oak Art Center in Columbus, Texas sent out invitations for artists to enter the show. The artists were required to reside within a 150 mile radius of the gallery (which includes Austin, Houston, and San Antonio).

This past Saturday, May 19, the show had a reception and announced the winners of the show. Melissa Miller is a University of Texas art professor and renowned painter who has permanent displays at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and in several other major museums throughout the country. She was the "Jury" (and single Judge) of the show.

The winners of the show were mostly the abstract artists who are very good indeed and well-deserving of their accolades. The Ken Turner/ Mark Chapman gallery also sponsored several monetary awards also of whom were mostly abstract artists.

The show had a great turnout and many people visited on Saturday. Those that visited also had an opportunity to vote on their favorite work. They called it the "People's Choice" award.

Ms. Pat Johnson, the proprietor of the gallery, gathered everyone together in the main exhibit hall and announced that my painting had one the People's Choice award! I almost fell backwards from shock! I was just so honored to even have been selected for the show. Over 150 slides of work had been submitted to the judge of which only chose 39 works to be in the show. I was so blessed! God is good!

If you are in the Columbus, Texas area between now and July 14, please stop by the Live Oak Art Center and you will see what I mean about some great artists. It's a wonderful show that really goes across the board from abstract to super realism. You will really enjoy it.

So, as you can see, although I still keep my hands in the "commercial graphics" work, my main focus lately has been painting and as they say, "finer art".

Even more recently, I've been dabbling in watercolors. You can see my latest work (Chateau Chillon) at

http://www.farleygraphics.com/fineart.htm

And for my last update: I'm working in collaboration with a friend of mine who has written a children's book and has asked me to illustrate it. I have over 21 illustration to do in 8 weeks plus a full-color book cover.

Thanks for reading today. Hopefully, it won't take as long for my next blog update.

Kevin