Texas Hill Country

My family of four spent most of last week visiting my mother-in-law for the Fouth of July. She lives an hour west of Austin in the rolling hills of the “Texas hill country” and she lives right on a lake and she’s easy and fun to be around too. It was a great get away for all of us.
My husband and two children played golf one morning and I went out to paint. There is a secluded Ranch Road nearby so that’s where I headed with my supplies. I found a shady spot overlooking a beautiful pasture with some quiet low hills in the background. I had been wanting to paint some distance so this scene was perfect.
That was so much fun that the next morning I headed down the same road again intending to paint the same scene again. I parked the car and went to the same spot but just didn’t want to piant the same thing again. I thought I would learn something from painting it again. I’m not sure what, and I can’t remember the exact reason now, but I must have had some kind of reason. Anyway, I got back in the car and continued down the road. After just a couple of miles, I came up over a hill and there was a field sprinkled with bales of hay! Oh joy, what a pleasant surprise to find that over the hill.
I have photos of fields with hay bales, so many photos. Every time my family and I go on a trip and we see hay bales, we have to stop so I can take a picture. I have probably 100 from a trip to France. Another 100 from fields south of Houston. And every field between Houston and the hill country that ever had hay bales on it. I tried once to paint those hay bales but I was unsuccesful. So what did I do, I never tried again. How stupid is that? The lesson here is to keep at it. Anyway, it was a lot easier to paint with the actual hay bales in front of me than it was from just a photo.
I set up under some scrubby type trees, or maybe they were tall bushes, across the road from the field. It was a beautiful bright morning and I couldn’t have been happier, two hours passed far too quickly. I did take photos (like I needed more photos!) so I can develop more paintings of hay bales in fields using the study I did in the field.

Between celebrating two family members’ birthdays, watching fireworks over the lake, losing myself in a very good book, Winter Rose by Donnelly, and eating Bar-B-Q (though I don’t normally even like beef, maybe it’s all those cows everywhere. . .), I managed to get outdoors two more times to paint. I’ll post those soon.

2 thoughts on “Texas Hill Country”

  1. Joan the landscape on the top of this post is fantastic! So simple and believable. Something about that bush and it’s shadow, makes the whole thing work.

  2. Joan Breckwoldt

    Thank you so much Silvina. I am working hard to try and paint simple paintings, yet still believable. I’ve ventured off towards abstract for a while but now I’m moving back to more representational work. It’s a fine line for me!
    Joan

Comments are closed.

Scroll to Top