Keith Shafer-Renaissance Man

Crossroad In Time

Crossroad In Time

Many years ago I took an adult-education class at our local community college on novel writing. Like most writers, I’d had an idea running around in my head for some time and I used that idea in the class. Below is the chapter I wrote for that class. It was just an introduction to our work and style but was well received by the instructor.

I went on to write and re-write the novel over several years and then it sat. I’m not sure why, but now seems like a good time to finally introduce it to the world at large. Maybe it’s because of the nature of society today and the fact that we seem to be so divided and hopeless. Perhaps this feeble attempt to write a story will brighten someone’s life and, God willing, help us all to remember to “Love your neighbor as yourself”. God Bless. Read the rest of this entry

Blue-Green Door

This week I decided to get a bit rusty. As my friend and watercolor coach said, “Of course, every watercolor artist loves to paint rust and old wood.”

There’s just something about how rusty metal and old wood seem to inspire me to paint and sketch. Maybe it’s because I’m a history enthusiast and seeing old things rotting and rusting away makes me want to wish those old items could talk and tell their stories.

Take the Blue-Green Door here for example. This photograph was taken by a fellow I follow on FaceBook who goes by Finius the Skinniest on Quartzite Happenings. Read the rest of this entry

World Watercolor Month is in the can! It’s done, finished…over…

Crape Myrtle

As I mentioned back in July in my article Quantity-Quality-Or Both, participating in challenges such as World Watercolor Month gives me an opportunity to produce a number of watercolor sketches—quantity. As I reviewed them this weekend I noticed that, as I thought, some were higher quality than others.

I also noticed that as I got closer to finishing the month, quality seemed to go down…until that LAST painting. My first painting last month for World Watercolor Month was the Crape Myrtle on the left.

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One of Two-Wet on Wet vs Wet on Dry

This week I spent some time working on sky studies. Clouds and sunsets, colors and techniques to improve my landscapes.

Prompted by World Watercolor Month for clouds last week, I decided to spend more time getting to know skies a bit more. After all, I’ve spent a lot of time up there and I certainly have seen some beautiful skies.

Two of two Wet-on-Dry

Steve Mitchell, The Mind of Watercolor, had a good tutorial on clouds the other day working in both wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry techniques. As you can see in these to photographs each has its own merits depending upon the affect I’m trying to achieve. Naturally I didn’t want to waste the paint and time so what do we to with two cloud/sky studies? We add a landscape of course!

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The union oyster house Boston 11 x 14 cold press watercolors by Matthew Mc

After several weeks of World Watercolor Month #worldwatercolormonth, it’s time to get serious about painting. Now…don’t get me wrong, I’ve been very serious and taken my time and done my best on many of my paintings, but…

When I see a painting like this, The Union Oyster House, by Matthew Mc I realize I still have a long way to go when it comes to composition, value, and color in my work. As I mentioned in my post Quantity-Quality-Or Both, I’ve been pumping out a quantity of art, especially this month, to practice and learn but once this month is over I’ll need to concentrate on quality. Read the rest of this entry

First layer…somewhat loose

I thought I’d give everyone a bit of a peek behind the curtain this week when it comes to my paintings and sketches.

On the right is my first layer of a painting I did for #worldwatercolormonth sponsored by www.doodlewash.com, whose daily prompt was “Blossoming”. As this is a “loose” painting, meaning I’m not trying to make it a photo-quality work, I used a large quill brush on 300# cotton paper. The idea is to just get a rough outline of the subject.

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Pink Crape Myrtle

I like to experiment with different techniques of pen & ink. Recently I bought a dip pen with several nibs and went to work on a couple of botanical studies.

On the Pink Crape Myrtle painting to the left I penciled in the overall outline before going to the pen & ink. Usually when I’m using a fountain pen I tend to just draw out the sketch without first penciling in the outlines.  Freely inking the sketch forces me to concentrate more as I draw my subject. Read the rest of this entry

Photo and work in progress

Is quantity, quality, or is both that are important when it comes to learning to paint with watercolor or sketch with pen & ink?

Learning a craft is much like playing a sport—to get good at it, one must practice, practice, and practice some more. Sports legends like Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, and Tiger Woods spent hours, days, and years practicing their sport to get to the level they have all achieved. Read the rest of this entry

Texas Bluebonnet

Wow! Has it been almost four months since my last post…my how time DOES fly!

February 2019 is almost in the can and that means we’ve been in Fredericksburg, Texas now about four months…and that’s the longest we’ve been in one place since we went full time in our RV back in early 2017. In those four months a lot has happened.

1. We bought a house. Yes, we bought a house and will now base our travels out of Fredericksburg. Since Texas is pretty much in the center of the USA it’ll mean we’re not traveling coast to coast every year. Of course that means more time to stop and smell the Bluebonnets!
   
   
2. We’ve gotten involved. Ilene’s joined the local Native Plant Society of Texas, I’ve joined the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Ex-military Flyers, and we’ve found a wonderful church to attend, St Thomas Antiochian Orthodox Church.
   
   
3. We’re staying busy. We’ve both attended local classes on fly fishing, gardening, egg tempera painting, and Texas forensic archeology. Later this month we’re also looking at volunteering at a local historical site, helping to start a local flying club, and I just attended my first Urban Sketcher outing as part of the Die Kunstler von Fredericksburg group. Read the rest of this entry

That’s it, Inktober 2018 is in the can! Today I finished the last of 31 days of pen and ink drawings for Inktober 2018.

As I mentioned in my post last week it’s been a stretch. I decided to stay with the prompts and challenge myself to draw/ink pictures I might have otherwise avoided.

Some of the drawings I’m very happy with…others, I’m glad I did them but can tell I was rushed or didn’t spend much time planning the art. But that’s OK! I’ve learned a lot and can now concentrate on improving my work.

As you look at these pieces please understand how hard it can be to try and come up with a work of art from a single word prompt. Some ideas came to me right away…others, not so much. One of the fun things this month though was sharing the art on Instagram and having the chance to see what other artists came up with.

If you click on the pie you can see the whole month’s efforts. Compare them with the prompts and see if you’d have other ideas…I’m sure you would.

I hope you enjoy my art as much as I enjoyed the process of creating the daily pen & ink drawing. In the future I’ll work on my photography skills so my pictures will be cleaner and more indicative of what my pieces look like on paper.

Now I’m off to the next challenge—I wonder what it will be?

Shout out to Steven B. Reddy @steven_reddy, Alphonso Dunn @Alphonsodunn, and Steve Mitchell @mindofwatercolor for their guidance and inspiration.

Happy Trails, Safe Travels, and Make Art!