Farm Burger

 Friday night's art walk was a lot of fun. Many thanks to George, Jason, Terry, Sean, Olivia, John, Jared and the rest of the group at Farm Burger and Fowler Farms for their support.

A big thank you to everyone that came by the show. It is always such a great feeling to share my work and see everyone's response. One unique thing about this display was the fact that very possibly, people were viewing a painting that depicted their dinner that night. And yes, I did use that joke a lot Friday night.

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As I was preparing for Friday's show tonight, I realized that I hadn't posted one of my Farm to Canvas paintings. And luckily, my camera is back from the repair shop and I have a great new lens. I got a Nikon 35mm/f1.8 fixed lens and it is much easier to photograph my artwork with it. 

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Farm Burger is featured on CNN

. Check it out!

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 Yesterday I went back to the farm that supports Farm Burger and Farm 255. I got to meet John and Holly Ivy, who own and live on the farm. They were super hospitable and I got to learn a lot about the place I've been painting lately.

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 I spent another day at the animal farm owned by Farm 255 and Farm Burger. Kate joined me and we spent several hours in a cow pasture in the hot Georgia sun. It was a breezy day, so it was nice most of the time. We both worked on some good farmer tans, too.

We started the day by driving to Athens and eating brunch at Farm 255. It was our first time there and we loved it. Kate had the rustic eggs with grits, and sausage. I had a braised beef, egg and cheese biscuit. The biscuit was one of the best I've ever had. It was served with pork braised greens. I'm not the biggest greens fan, but those were really good. Not sure if it was the pork flavoring or the fresh, local greens... 

So this scene is from the middle of the cow pasture. The cows did a very nice job moving around so I could choose from a lot of poses. The barns are the two main barns on this property, and the yellow emblem on the barn on the left is of the sun. I painted this on a 9x12 canvas panel so I could suggest a panorama.

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As I've written many times before, I find it awesome when I am outside painting. Even when it is hot, flies buzzing around and smelling like manure, I easily get 'into the zone'. The zone where time has no meaning, and I get lost in my work. Even if you aren't a painter, I'm sure you can imagine the process I went through today. You focus on the task at hand - the task of handling the paint, light and shade, color and value.  You evaluate the spaces and decide on the composition. You weigh out the main subjects, and gain an appreciation for the energy and life around you. Dark violets over there. Sunny yellow greens here. Repeat that nice pink and umber hue. Capture how the sunlight falls and the the trees make those nice transparent shadows. Make your best effort to translate what it is that you feel at this moment, in this place. Step back and realize that your painting features a hog's ass.

The fine folks at Full Moon Farms sent me an email after my last post! To help me with my "Farm to Canvas" series, they graciously gave me access to their farms. Today I went to the animal farm. I can easily find hundreds of scenes to paint there. They have several acres where they raise pigs, cows and chickens. The place has several nice old barns, big trees and wide fields. So expect to see a lot of pieces from this place, and I expect I'll tackle a few of the subjects more than once. In fact, I wouldn't mind doing a painting of the other side of that pig.

It was actually a real treat to hang out with the hogs. They w

ere very friendly and came up to me when I first got there. A side benefit when painting with animals around, they quickly get used to you and you get to observe how they behave normally. These pigs have it great. They have a lot of forest to roam around freely in, with several great mud pits where they can cool down.

Many thanks to George, and Jason for their hospitality. Special thanks to Jared for showing me around and the recommendation on where to paint.

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 Kate and I have been really getting into the 'farm to table' craze, which focuses on locally grown food. Most of our favorite places in Atlanta use local meat and produce, with much of it raised naturally and organic.

Our new favorite is a place called Farm Burger in Decatur. They grow a lot of the food themselves, and all the beef is natural and grass fed. The burgers there are just amazing. I went Friday night and I am already anxious to go again.

I'm such a believer in the organic and local food movements (pause while John Kuehne makes a joke), that I decided to start a series I'm calling "Farm to Canvas". So today I set out to find and paint a scene at the source of Farm Burger's mana, Full Moon Farms. 

Full Moon Farms is near Athens, GA. I arrived at the address I found on the internet, only to find that you couldn't see any part of it from a public spot. Since today was Sunday, I knew that I wouldn't be able to get a tour, especially on short notice. So I used my iPhone to see if there were any other eco-friendly farms and found out that Full Moon had moved to two locations. I set out on the one location that I could find an address for, Flat Rock Farms.

Actually, I'm not sure if I found Flat Rock Farms. I was at the address I found, but didn't see any sign or other indication that I was at the right place. But nevertheless, I found a great scene to paint. I set up in the church parking lot of Johnson United Methodist Church. It was a very enjoyable day, and I even had a couple of nice folks stop by to see my work. One was another artist who asked me several questions about oil painting (and if you read this blog, please send an email or comment!). It helped my painting a lot explaining some of the aspects of plein air to her. As she drove off, I thought about how I needed to apply my own advice. 

So these cows may or may not be raised organically. I can vouch that they ate grass when I painted them.

Now that I know the area, I plan to see if I can get access to some of these places so that I know I'm painting an organic farm. I really would like to see the operation at Full Moon Farms. And I really want to visit Athens and trying their other restaurant, Farm 255. 

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