Old McDonald has NOTHING on ME

What a week...  We are now almost to 2 full weeks of lock down here in Nevada and what is an artist to do with all this extra time?  You guessed it!  CREATE! 

That is exactly what I have been doing and it seemed like the perfect time to start a new series of art.  While  I haven't picked up a paintbrushes much, my color pencils have been getting a real workout! 

A month or so ago,  I had taken notice of a very successful Etsy Shop that had the most adorable photographs of different types animals that she had Photoshopped into a claw bathtub.  It was really cute and my mind jumped immediately to an old galvanized steel wash tub. I decided to create a series of specifically farm animals taking a bubble bath in just such a wash tub.

And just as I suspected, this series has really struck a chord with many of my fellow Farmhouse Whimsy followers.  They have made my March a record Etsy sale month for me and I am absolutely thrilled. TAKE THAT CORONAVIRUS!

I've completed 5 drawings so far in the series and I am currently working on a Jersey Cow in curlers as my 6th design.  I really don't know when I will finish drawing these because 1. I'm having a blast and 2. There are so many more farm animals to draw.  I've got goats, horses, sheep, chickens and the list goes on and on.  All waiting patiently for their turn to take a nice bubble bath. 

Let me introduce you to the my washtub crew:

"HOGWASH"- My first drawing in the series was of this beautiful but rather portly smiling sow.  She actually has a look of contentment and relaxation on her face.  She isn't stressing and the cares of the world are melting away in a sea of bubbles.  ORIGINAL AVAILABLE

"SWEET & LOVEABULL"  is the 2nd drawing in the series and it really makes me chuckle to think about a two thousand pound Brahman bull soaking into a washtub.  ORIGINAL AVAILABLE

"WASH TUB DIVA" is my 3rd drawing in the series and probably the most popular design so far.  She just looks silly with her pink shower cap and her mouth moving, chewing her cud.  ORIGINAL AVAILABLE

"BERKSHIRE BUBBLE BATH" is number 4 in the series and it and number 5 are actually commissioned pieces that are now on their way to their new home in Alberta Canada.  I think I captured her sweetness with her little pig snout. 

"MOO LA'LA'" is the 5th drawing that I have completed.  She is a French Charolais cow and so that explains how I came up with the name.  I just had to make her a bit fancier than the others and so she has a very special pink polka dot shower cap and a rubber duck. 

I hope you enjoyed my little show.  All of these images are available in my Etsy Shop as prints, note cards and magnets.  I even have worked a couple of them into t-shirt designs (Wash Tub Diva and Sweet and Loveabull)

Could all this CRAZY be just HOG WASH?

This past week has certainly has sure been a crazy one and the last think I want to do is to get on that CRAZY TRAIN.  "I have enough toilet paper, thank you very much!"  I don't even want to go shopping for the next few weeks and it's not because of the germs I will encounter.  It's that CRAZY TRAIN that's pulled into station and everyone is jumping on board. 

My daughter was telling me a story last night about how my son-in-law went to the store to buy baby wipes.  After all, they do have 2 small children and wipes do come in pretty handy when you are changing diapers.  The store shelves were completely OUT.  As he was standing in the check out, the woman in line in front of him changed her mind about the package of small wipes that she had in her card and asked the cashier to remove them from her bill.  My son-in-law spoke up and told the woman and the cashier that he would like to purchase them if she wasn't going to.  Can you believe that another woman stepped up and grabbed them right out of the cashiers hands and quickly scanned it on her self check register. I would hate to think what it would be like if we had a true emergency to deal with.

What is there to do?  My peace comes from my faith in my Creator who is bigger than the NASDAQ or the World Health Organization.  A virus isn't bigger then my Heavenly Father.  So I believe in common sense here is what is needed, not panic.  I think avoiding large crowds is using good sense and of course washing your hands often is on the top of the any common sense list. 

Besides the obvious course of action, my second plan is to start a new series of color pencil art in my Farmhouse Whimsy style.  Each piece will feature a different farm animal taking a bath in a large wash tub.  We all need to find a place free of worry and panic and mine is my studio.  Here is my newest drawing and I'm calling it "Hog Wash". 

This new drawing would be a perfect to display in your country or farmhouse bathroom.  I have prints, cards and magnets available on my Etsy Shop if you are interested and want to check it out.  I have all kinds of great farmhouse out to look at.  Here is the link to HOG WASH       

Getting Up to Paint Morning Glories in the Morning Before the Chickens

This colorful guy has been perched on my easel for WAY TOO LONG!  I had initially started this piece almost a month ago and even had it listed on my inventory sheet to be part of my "Down Country Roads" library art show but ran out of time with all the distractions and obligations that sprung up on me in the past few weeks.

It also didn't help that I really struggled with the background composition.  Oh I had the rooster nailed down right away but everything I tried for the background, sunflowers, tall grass or a mottled paint treatment just didn't seem to make me happy.  I actually painted over it 3 times.  And that isn't easy when you have a giant feathered chicken in the middle of your canvas.  Honestly, I came upon this idea of having a very colorful and almost pop art feeling background just yesterday.  Combine that with my normal style and I think it really makes this guy pop!  I even woke up earlier this morning than I needed to just to start working on those morning glories.  

I guess at this point I need to make one more confession about this painting. I'm sure I am the only artist that makes glaring (no pun intended) mistakes and paints the sun in the wrong location.   I had the background perfect and was so excited in how it was looking when I took my normal position across the room where I can take in the whole painting from a distance when I realized that silly me had painted the sun in front of a much larger row of beautiful purple mountains.  The sun was actually rising between the grass and mountains and I hadn't even thought about how impossible that would be.  For just a brief moment, I considered leaving it and chalking it up to artistic license but mixed up some more pthalo blue and purple and so my mountain range shrunk to half its original size along with the bottom portion of the sun.  Pop art or not, it still needs to make sense.

This past week I had the amazing experience of seeing the whole of my "Down Country Roads" collection on display at the Whitney Library.  Here is a picture of me taken the night of my artist reception standing in the middle of all my focal pieces.  Even with the Pop Art background, this piece stays true to the rest of my collection and really shines with the bright blue morning glories finishing off the foreground.  I can visualize it right now hanging right along side the rest of them.

As my usual practice, I do a sketch in preparation for starting a new painting.  This helps me greatly with understanding the details I will be trying to achieve even before I grab a paint brush.  My sketches are usually in colored pencil and ink and are often available for hanging.  I matte them and hang them right along side of my other artwork.  This particular sketch I called "In All His Morning Glory" and I found it especially helpful when it came to painting all those tail feathers.

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN SEEING MORE OF MY ARTWORK OR POETRY THEN PLEASE CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT Julie Townsend Studio.com

A Stampede of Bovine Beauties

So I'm working like a crazy woman trying to get all my artwork together, framed, matted, printed, inventoried and yes, I'm still painting one last piece for my solo art show on the 28th of this month.  Today, I had to visit 2 different printers and drop off artwork at 2 separate galleries.  We put almost 100 miles on the car just driving around running all my art errands.  I'm so excited about this that I'm sure all this running around is going to be worth it.  

There is just something amazing about seeing all your work hung together in a solo show that makes you as an artist feel so happy.  It is kind of like having all your children home for the holidays or attending a family reunion when you haven't seen everybody for years.  I'm starting to line up artwork along the wall of my hallway and in my kitchen trying to maintain and organized approach as I have now less than two weeks to pull this all together. 

As I just walked past the hallway I couldn't help but notice just how many of my "Down Country Road" pieces feature cows.  It looks like a stampede of bovine beauties in my studio and so I thought I would share them with you.  And if I did the job I intended,  they all will         make you smile.

This is my newest painting and I just got it back from the printers and now am ordering a 24 x 36 inch giclee print made on stretched canvas.  Since this is the first time I have had a print made of my artwork,  I'm really excited to see how it will look.  So if you might be interested in owning the original or having a print of any of these beauties, just send me an email and we can discuss the details.  If you want to see my other works, check out my gallery on my website at JulieTownsendStudio.com

"Happy Cows"

"Always Greener"

"Fence Post Curiosity"

Who Needs a Tissue

"Good Morning Sunshine"

The Farmers Alarm Clock

Something to Crow About- 24 x 36 Acrylic

I remember my son Jason's 2nd grade class hatched chicken eggs in their classroom via an incubator.  That was a very special experience and if the parents agreed, then your student could bring home a baby chick.  I never had chickens as a child so I had to quickly education myself on what was expected of me as the new owner of a tiny chick.

We bought the scratch food and made a little enclosure.  We were so happy to watch our tiny feathered pet begin to grow.  That bliss lasted a couple months until one early morning I was laying in bed and heard a completely foreign sound coming from my back yard.  It sounded something like a very sorry example of crowing and it hit me that this wasn't the egg laying hen I hoped for but rather my chick was soon going to become a huge neighborhood annoyance.  Since we weren't really zoned for livestock, there was only one thing I could do.  We packed up the adolescent bird and drove to the local feed store.  We traded him for a nice looking hen to the relief of all my neighbor's.

With my recent focus on painting country scenes for the series that I call "Down Country Roads" I would be amiss if I hadn't turned my artistic skills to the staple of all farmers and homesteaders for hundreds of years.....The Chicken.  

I've finished a couple of pieces in the past few months that featured this feathered farm fowl and I had a great time painting and drawing them.  Last week I decided to write a poem that I'm calling "The Farmers Alarm Clock" and I thought it would be a good time to share it with my blog readers.  

I've actually been writing a number of poems this past month.  I think I've reached 8 or 9 in my folder I carry around.  I'm seriously thinking about turning it all into a book in the next year.  I even was thinking of titling the book..."Grandmas Too Silly by 1/2", but that is a bit premature I think since I have such a learning curve facing me.  Either way, I am really enjoying coming up with funny little verses to accompany many of my drawings.  After all my artist statement makes it pretty clear:  I'm an artist who loves Jesus-Trying to tell the story of His creation with some paint and canvas.  "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.  Colossians 3:23"

A Farmers Alarm Clock

By

Julie Townsend

Don’t cover up your sleepy head

It’s time to throw off your covers and get out of that bed

I guess I’m going to have to crow extra loud

All your animals are forming a crowd

Waiting for you to serve them their morning meal

I know you can hear those pigs starting to squeal

It’s time to open up your eyeballs

Milk those cows and clean those stalls

Everyone is waiting so don’t you delay

No matter that it’s cold and you’re cozy where you lay

You have to feed the world you know

So grab your rake and pick up your hoe

Plow that field and bale that hay

The sun is coming up and you’ve got to start your day

This has been our routine down through the years

Don’t tell me you’re using that pillow to cover your ears!

For I’m the farmers best alarm clock

And it’s time for you to pull your work boot over that sock

Give a goodbye kiss to your wife

It’s tough I know but this is your life

Grab some coffee and run out that door

But first you have to put your feet on the floor.

If you liked that little rhyme then you might want to see more of my fine literary works you can check out my Sketchbook Gallery on my website because I have added a number of poems there.  While you are there, feel free take a few minutes to look at all my work.  I won't mind a bit if you snoop around.

Have a blessed day!