La Musica de la Noche Tom Dickson

I thought I'd post this latest oil of mine just finished last week, so .............. here it is. We put it in the gallery window and it seems to be stopping a lot of people cold on the street. I'm also working on several other night scenes of San Miguel and will post them when they're done. We've had a lot of people in to ask the price of that one ( 3200 U.S. ) but people are pretty keen to hang on to their pesos these days. All the same, that one is not going to last long. I like doing night scenes so will probably try to keep one or two in the gallery in future. Speaking of the gallery and galerias in general in San Miguel; ours ( Galeria Los Laureles ) has been more or less just floating since mid April. The summer is usually slower than the winter here but this year has seen the fewest tourists in town in many years. There are many reasons for this and the Mexican people are feeling the pinch at every level. It certainly is not the optimum time to be in the business of selling art but all the same I must report that our gallery has made a healthy profit over the past year and we intend to keep at it as long as the discerning art lovers out there make it possible. However, we do find ourselves looking wistfully forward to those halcyon days of winter these days......... Donna's art classes continue to attract a lot of students as her reputation as a top notch teacher expands. She loves the challenge and her students love her, - she certainly has a way of bringing the best out of them, - some of the more serious among them have shown tremendous improvement over their studies and it's greatly rewarding to D. as well.

In the Courtyard 15x11 ins. watercolor Donna Dickson

Manana Nueva 14x18 oil Tom Dickson
SOLD

Calle San Francisco 16x20 ins. oil, Tom Dickson



Another sampling of what the two of us have been doing lately. I've been working in the studio a lot lately and doing a lot of experimenting. I keep going off on tangents ( something I haven't been doing a lot in recent years ) and have much unfinished work piling up against the studio walls. I'm happy with the ones I've actually finished though and the two of mine above are examples. "Manana Nueva" was started in the Jardin a week ago and fussed over 'till yesterday. Calle San Francisco was a studio painting all the way. I get more and more interested in clouds as time goes by and am finally feeling that I'm getting somewhat "in touch" with the subtlety of them................ but like in the song they're tricky devils - you can look at them from both sides "up and down and still somehow" you don't really know 'em at all. They have in fact, been one of the biggest challenges of my painting career. They can be a great asset to the atmosphere of a picture, or, if done poorly they can suck the life out of an otherwise decent painting. I can remember doing the odd sky where the treatment of the clouds would have been more suited to bags of cement ................... some painters avoid the problem by just not "going there" but I think they are missing an element with a lot of potential if they don't.
Donna's summer students have been returning in the last few weeks, so she's been busy with them but still managing to get some painting time on her own in. She's done a few interiors lately that have been very nicely handled and the one of hers above "In the Coutyard"is a prime example. Things at the gallery continue to be pretty slow as tourism is way down. People have been scared off of Mexico by the swine flue, Mexican drug wars, kidnappings -in short, a lot of bad, largely undeserved press. The Great Depression #2 doesn't help much on top of it all of course. ............... we're keeping our fingers crossed ............