Cloud weather

Cloud weather...I love this time of year...dramatic skies and light, constantly changing. This beauty backlight by the evening sun. Trying to figure out how to paint it, but very difficult in watercolor.

Dogwood weather

Dogwood weather, 9 by 12 watercolor, 140 # d'Arches

The dogwoods stand out like lace against darker trees, as the spring clouds build up, bringing showers.

Abandoned dreams

"Abandoned dreams," 9 by 12 watercolor, 140 # d'Arches

A drive in the country this afternoon looking for interesting subjects (all the million dollar brick facades of cookie cutter houses springing up on the prairie aren't interesting) yielded only a photo of a broken down windmill, reminding me of a favorite farm house I like to paint. Thinking of it abandoned, along with the windmill, inspired this evening of a vacant farmstead, as the sun sets. My only solace is that soon those brick houses will decay also, but with far less character.

Watercolor spring

"Prairie spring," 9 by 12 watercolor, 140 # d'Arches

Spring bush 3 " by 3"

Spring is watercolor time it seems to me...colors and fluid life. These are studies based on hints and compositions from Ray Campbell Smith, the Brit artist. The third book of his I've bought arrived today, by "Royal Mail" from UK. I'm indebted to Ian McKendrick @WatercolourJrny for introducing me to his work.

Spring foliage, 4" by 3"

Facist America

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." 
-- Benito Mussolini
The Supreme Court 5-4 ruling legalizing unlimited spending by donors in politics is the end of democracy in America, and the firm establishment of a fascist state.
From now on, big corporate money will decide every important election, nullifying the individual's vote. The drift toward fascism is not new as elections became more and more expensive, plus the rise of super PACs, and the previous court decision making corporations people. Add to that the complete erosion of personal privacy with the NSA's unlimited spying on everybody. 

"Fascism is a worldwide disease. Its greatest threat tot he United States will come after the war, either in Latin America or within the United States itself."
--Henry Wallace
States are enacting restrictive election laws to deny poor, non-white people  the vote. On the local, state and national levels, corporations rule. Consider Oklahoma with its dominant energy companies getting anything they want, for just one small example. 
And most middle class and upper class white voters sit by and watch, because they don't think it affects them, and because they have jobs with those corporations, and they can vote.
But our votes don't count...only that of the corporations and super rich.
The comparisons to Nazi Germany continue to become more and more evident.

“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.... Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt