Half-awake and walking out of my room to brew my coffee, I suddenly jumped at the sight of a frightening mask among the Halloween costumes flung over the back of the family room chairs. The kids, who attended a school party terminal night, need to tidy up a bit once they awaken. I think I jumped into the adjacent room.

Days are getting shorter, mornings are dark longer, and it's pitch black outside. The stars are still visible equally I quietly make my way to the porch, trying non to awaken my wife in the room next door. The odour of coffee is filling my lungs as the glow on the horizon begins, and it soon brightens the trees with an orange light as morning officially arrives.

Signs of Halloween

Crisp air, and the olfactory property of autumn — I'm in the mood for some fresh apple cider. I've already started dipping into the Halloween processed (yum!). And final Lord's day nosotros fabricated our way out to a local farm that has lots of Halloween activities — face painting, pumpkin etching, corn maze, and and so on. It's funny, the kids are teens and similar to human action grown upwards, yet they still love going there.

Football game in Texas. Amen!

It's football atmospheric condition. Football in Texas is almost a religion, and since our triplets are in the marching ring, nosotros've been spending our Friday nights at the games to support our kids and their schoolhouse. Though I've never been sports-minded, I have to admit I'm catching the disease. We're pretty energized because our squad is going to the playoffs, and on the way we beat a team no 1 has beaten in 11 years. Yay, squad!

Our stadium was used in the filming of the Television receiver show Friday Night Lights. It's the showtime loftier school stadium I've seen with a jumbotron. I take to acknowledge, information technology'south pretty cool, but a lot different from the rickety, rotting wooden bleachers at Homestead High School in Indiana, where I graduated.

Happy at Dwelling house

I'm grateful to be here. Though I dearest my travels and my responsibilities have taken me to some very interesting places lately, equally Dorothy said when she clicked her scarlet slippers, at that place really is no place like home. Yet before long, I'll head out for a marketing course I'k taking in Orlando because I desire to go on my ax sharpened.

In Nov I've got our new Figurative Art Convention & Expo (FACE) in Miami, which I'm really excited virtually. My two passions are plein air painting and figure/portrait painting. Nosotros've managed to put people together on phase who are unlikely to e'er be together again.

Heady and New

Later on the Miami FACE event I head straight to our Radio Forecast conference at the Harvard Society in New York, which is put on by my radio magazine (which is celebrating 25 years at the consequence). And then I'm off to the earth famous Salmagundi Social club for an event celebrating the 100th anniversary of its Fifth Avenue location.

That ends my travel for the year. And then I become to stay home with the kids for a calendar week while mama travels to a conference. I'm sure it volition be bubblegum, pizza, and cupcakes every nighttime! (I know she reads this, and she'south always concerned about how I feed the kids.) (Grinning.)

The year volition wrap upward with a couple more video shoots in our studios here in Austin. Then I go to stabilize for the remainder of the year before the insane travel begins again.

Sometimes when I accept a lot of events back to back, I don't have time to end and think about them until things settle downwards. I'grand notwithstanding processing the annual Radio Prove convention, plus an event I held at the Sorcerer University, and then the Fine Art Connoisseur art tour to Russia, my fourth dimension painting in Russia, and my Fall Color Week artists' retreat in Maine, which all came one right after the other. Thank goodness for my iPhone camera and so I tin can remember where I was last week!

Eavesdropping

Recently at Fall Colour Week I was painting adjacent to Barbara Tapp, an amazing watercolor painter from Berkeley, California (where our kids were born). While we were standing there, she struck up a conversation with a couple visiting the area, heard about how the homo had grown upward nearby, had been gone for most of his life, and finally came back for a visit. The identify, Schoodic Point, was but as he had remembered information technology.

I'm listening to the conversation when Barbara says to the couple, "My painting will be done in near half an 60 minutes. If you'll come up back then, I'd like to requite it to you. Would you like to take information technology?"

The couple was deeply touched. "You lot would do that for us?" Barbara explained that considering they had such a deep connection with the area, the painting would exist a nice reminder of their one-time home, and information technology would be a pleasure to give it away.

She finished the painting, signed information technology, put it in a nice matte, and gave it to them when they returned. Though they offered to pay her for it, she insisted that it would be her souvenir to them and that their joy was payment enough.

The Story of Giveaways

Later that evening, during announcements, I asked Barbara to come and tell the story, and I learned that her goal is to help the world by giving ane painting away each day. She has already given abroad dozens and had stories of others during Fall Colour Calendar week in Maine.

Each story was touching.

Well, the next twenty-four hours, this tendency had defenseless on. Rick Wilson and I painted, with permission, on a farm with an amazing view, and the owner was very engaged with what nosotros were doing. But she mentioned that people frequently stop, walk on her property without her permission to have pictures, and some set up and pigment without permission. She was thrilled that we had asked. So Rick said, "When this painting is finished, I'd like yous to accept it so you know not all artists are going to walk on to your belongings without permission." She was so excited that I ended up giving her my painting, also.

Though neither of us liked the thought of giving away a painting we wanted to proceed, we both felt very special about making an old woman's mean solar day. We both went dorsum a few days subsequently to exercise another painting from the same spot, and she already had Rick'southward painting framed and proudly took u.s. in to show it hanging in her business firm (mine was still wet).

Others in the group also brought in stories near giving away paintings. Everyone felt bang-up virtually their generosity.

Hmm. Possibly We Tin can Use This to Our Advantage…

The marketing guy in me suggested a couple of lines to use when giving a painting away, so that value is established. I suggested ane way to do it is to say, "I'd like y'all to have this. I normally sell them for $2,500 in my gallery. I want you to have it because I believe every home should have original artwork, and considering (your reason here)." Then you reinforce that all paintings are not gratis or cheap, and that original artwork is a adept thing.

Before we knew information technology, everyone was giving abroad paintings and had stories virtually special connections with people. Barbara reports that she hears from well-nigh people she'southward given paintings, and she's enriched her life with new friends, visits from people she has met, and a feeling that she is doing something special to assist others through her fine art.

Barbara Tapp may accept started a tendency.

A Spirit of Generosity

What if we all tried this? What if we all lived with a spirit of generosity? What impact would we take on the world? And how would it affect people getting excited almost owning more original art?

Though a giveaway doesn't have to exist every day, what if when you're out, you do a minor slice, knowing that y'all may encounter someone who needs to accept their 24-hour interval lifted, or to have a special retentiveness?

Everything in life cannot be nigh selling. If yous practice artwork, photography, something else … why not effort it?

My dad, an achieved photographer, takes a large disordered photo with him to every dinner party, every dr. visit, every special consequence. It enriches his experience with others and makes them feel special.

Giving Creates Gifts to Yourself

Though some will exist critical and recall giving things away will hurt their sales, nothing could be farther from the truth. Giving always results in other benefits more valuable than a sale. Barbara reports some recipients have actually gone to her website to buy something, though that is not her intent.

Is Generosity in Your Future?

What can you do to live generously today? It may not exist virtually a painting, or fifty-fifty a concrete souvenir at all. It may be virtually listening or helping or simply reaching out to someone who needs an ear.

One generous person I got to know on our first Republic of cuba trip is artist Nancie Male monarch Mertz, who stayed in the Globe Famous Artists' Cabin this calendar week at our firm to film a couple of astonishing pastel art instruction videos. Nosotros were thrilled to get to know her better and experience her generosity.

It'southward my wish that generosity will bear upon your mean solar day today. And be overly generous with the candy this Halloween 🙂