The Gas Station - Texas Chainsaw Massacre

We stayed two nights at the very site where they filmed scenes from the movie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  The Gas Station is located near Austin in Bastrop, TX.  What's really cool is we had the place to ourselves after the gift shop/restaurant closed at 5pm.  In the back are brand new cabins, a covered pavilion with picnic tables, and potential movie screen.  The cabins do not have their own bathrooms, you have to walk over to the pavilion for that.  But the outstanding quality and cleanliness of the air conditioned bathrooms/showers are a welcomed surprise.  The gift shop is really packed full of horror movie memorabilia.  Leatherface, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger action figures line the shelves along with t-shirts and hats. The kitchen serves up real Texas BBQ and it's the best I've tasted in awhile.  Kinda eerie to be there as the sun goes down, but we really had a good time.

Plein air painting at 8:00pm in 91° heat.

I took lots of pictures at different times of the day.  This is around 8:30pm.

The gas station scene from the movie.

Not the original van but close enough.  Yes, it still runs!

Neko Sleeping

I was wanting something to paint yesterday, so I took a bunch of photographs of the cat.  I finally decided on the one of her sleeping next to the window. 

Apples Study - Abstract

Apples study in the abstract. I set up a traditional stillife and dumped these apples off to the side.  After I wiped away my block-in of the traditional setup, I glanced over at these apples and decided this would be a better subject.

Ruth Chew Books

This is a painting from about seven years ago.  I painted this when I was doing one small painting a day.
Recently, I've started reading a few of Ruth Chew's books again.  I loved these books when I was a kid.  Whenever there was a reading fair at school (RIF- Reading is Fundamental), I bought up these books and took them home.  As a child with a wild imagination, these books really appealed to me. I loved the topics of witches and magic. I also enjoyed her artwork. She was an illustrator too. The older books have her artwork in them.
Opening these books again, I'm almost transported back to being a kid again, maybe by some sort of magic.