Today's favorite is my artist friend Craig Gould. I met Craig a few years ago at church playing softball. Our team wasn't real good, but we had fun. Craig and I hit it off early once we both realized that we both did sports art. It is always something Craig had done on the side. He had some work in the gallery out at the Ball Park in Arlington years ago and had done some work for his alma mater: SMU (he played football there). Craig began to paint full time a little over a year ago, and has been knocking out countless paintings ever since. His work ranges from sports to landscapes and everything in between. You should see his Harley Davidson stuff! Outstanding! He has recently done some work for the TCU athletic department commemorating their legend football players. Craig is extremely talented and helps me out with questions that I have dealing with painting. I'm going to a show of his at DFW Audi tonight in Euless...it should be great. Make sure and check out his website for a full scope of his work. He does commissions as well. Above are two of my favorite pieces by Craig: "Rage" 30 x 40 oil & "Earl" 16 x 20 oil. Earl Campbell was my childhood hero. I won the 2nd grade art contest with a picture of Earl Campbell of my beloved Houston Oilers.......

This is my favorite spot to fish in Colorado. This is the Rio Grande river about 20 miles from Creede, Colorado. My family has been going there since 1980. There are some big brown trout in these little pools. Here is one I caught in that spot last June.

Here are some sketches I did yesterday in a meeting at work. I think I will watercolor them later. They are drawings of San Jose and Espada missions in San Antonio, Texas. If you've never been down to see the missions in San Antonio, I highly suggest it.

A couple of years ago my wife and I were trying to select a destination for a week long trip. We got it narrowed down to Savannah, Georgia / Charleston, South Carolina or Portland , Oregon. We went with the southern trip. Boy, were we pleased with our pick! Both cities are rich with history and have some of the most beautiful architecture that you have ever seen. We stayed downtown in a nice bed and breakfast called the Green Palm Inn. We did lots of walking around, took a ghost tour, a city tour, and ate at some outstanding restaurants. I also took tons of pictures. Did I mention I love to take pictures?? Savannah is a great city to take pictures. Everywhere you turn there are great photo opportunities. There are tons of old monuments, gravestones, and old homes. The layout of Savannah is incredible. Every 3-4 blocks there is square with benches, fountains, and humongous trees. The pictures above are some I took while in Forsyth Park. I took them in black and white to capture the full range of values. Maybe you remember it from the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil ?

OK, call me crazy, but I stood in line this morning for 45 minutes in the 30 degree weather with the wind blowing 25 mph to get some free books. I wasn't the only one. Every Saturday morning from 9-2 , the Dallas Half Price Books Distribution Warehouse opens its doors to teachers and lets them take whatever they want for free. They give everyone some boxes and open the doors! Most of the people are looking for children's books, which they have 1000's of. Everything is neatly organized. Every subject is clearly labeled and easy to find. I've been doing this for years. I usually go a few times a year. I usually have two goals in mind......#1 get some books for my classes (art, reference materials for collages, cool images etc.) #2 get some cool books for me, to add to my library of random knowledge.

Here is a small sample of some books I picked up today:

For my classes I picked up 30-40 art related books and some old math, foreign language, science, and reference books with great images and text...these are great for collages!

Let me know if anyone wants to head down there again......I'm always up for it. Free books are great! You never know what you can find.

PS They also have hundreds of National Geographic magazines and cassette tapes from all your favorite 80's bands.

Today's Friday favorite features one of my all time favorite artists......Jennifer Cavan. Jennifer usually focuses on southwestern scenes from the New Mexico area. She does a lot of churches, old barns, farm houses, and mountain scenes. Her media of choice is oil pastel. As you can see from the above images, bold colors are not a problem. Jennifer uses colored paper in some of her work to give it an automatic undertone. Jennifer travels the country displaying her work at art festivals, shows, and events. She comes to Dallas a few times a year. She is a very sweet lady and is always willing to show you some hints and pointers......which I usually ask for. I've even had my classes do some Cavanesque type oil pastel landscapes as projects. She is a frequent artist at the Cottonwood Art Festival and Artfest. You should check out her website and go check her out at an upcoming spring festival.

My wife and I really enjoy going to antique stores, flea markets, estate sales, etc. It's one of the things we do together a lot. While visiting family in Castle Rock, Colorado over the Christmas break we decided to head to downtown Castle Rock to do some junkin' as we call it. In one of the antique stores we saw some really cool refrigerator magnets made out of old wooden U.S. puzzle pieces. So what do we do? Get on EBAY of course! Did I mention that I love EBAY? I always look there first for anything I want to buy. I also sell stuff. junkytrinket is my screen name. Save me as a favorite seller. Anyways, I find this old puzzle from the 1940's or 50's....end up winning it for $7.95. This map is old! It still shows the Philippine Islands on there! My son and I put it together last night and Ohio and South Carolina are missing.........oh well, I can do without Ohio, but SC....come on! Long story short.....my wife and I are going to make some state magnets. I'll post them when we finish some. Also, let me know if any of y'all are interested in any particular state. I can maybe send ya one. Sorry but I'm calling dibs on Texas, California, Colorado, and New Mexico.

The famous Hotel Paisano in downtown Marfa. When we were there a couple of years ago, we had the pleasure of staying there for a couple of nights. The rooms were really small, but they were real nice. We were lucky enough to get one of the rooms that had it's own private balcony with chairs and tables (as seen in the picture above). I guess when you reserve your room 6 months in advance....you get the hook up. They also keep track of all of their reservations by hand in a huge book! No computers! So when you call to make reservations, they actually hand write it in the ledger. The Hotel Paisano is best known for hosting the cast of the movie Giant back in the 1956. Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean all stayed there during the filming. Ask a worker at the hotel to show you each of their rooms....it's pretty cool. It's a must see when you are in town. The lobby is decked out with a cool western decor.