Award-winning Texas artist Ronald Thomason studied art widely, including at the Fort Worth Art Center, North Texas State University, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and extensive private instruction. In Pennsylvania he studied with John McCoy, husband of Ann Wyeth McCoy of the N. C. Wyeth family of artists. (See Ann McCoy's painting titled Hollyhocks also on view in this exhibition.) Thomason later taught in Dallas and Fort Worth and exhibited his works throughout Texas and the United States.
 
This painting is made with an art medium called egg tempera [tem pr uh]. The Tate Museum in England describes tempera as a painting technique using pigment bound either in a water-soluble emulsion, such as water and egg yolk, or an oil-in-water emulsion such as oil and whole egg. Traditionally applied to a rigid support such as a wood panel, the paint dries to a hard film.
 
Make egg tempera at home by following the link in the Explore section.

Continue reading to hear more from Thomason's handwritten letter, addressed to Mr. McLaughlin and dated December 5, 1967:
 
“The painting is on the Dizzy Dean Ranch near Aledo. Highway 80 bisects the property and the tanks and windmill lie to the north of the highway at the bottom of the hill going up to the farm.
 
“I had so many wonderful experiences while doing that painting—to [sic] much to tell, but I will try to condense it into an interesting story. 
 
“I started the painting in July after having to almost beg [the owner]…on bended knee to allow me in the pasture to work. His…main objection to my being there was that it would keep the cattle away from the fresh water. He also felt that a stranger would maybe run some weight off from the cattle. I could well see his reasoning and waited until he marketed the steers. …I could have four weeks between the time the cattle was out and a new bunch was in. 
 
“Well, the Good Lord stepped in because the sky took me over three weeks to do, and I was feeling awfully low. Two things saved me though. One was that this summer was so dry here that the range just didn't “recondition” very well and the other was that this being sandy land, the …rod went out on the well.
 
“…as time wore on and I nearly had sun stroke while doing the tempera, I decided that “Sun Baked Range” would be [an appropriate title]. This became more of a conviction when the well went dry [and] the water disappeared. The moss on the tank and wet spot were done from memory while I had to haul water to paint the water around the tank. 
 
“Anyway I tried to portray what a hot dry summer is to a cattle country and hope that you can see that thousands of cattle will come and have come to drink without actually showing the cattle there. I think you know and I know that in the evening they will all start to come in for water. And to heighten this feel that the animals are there, I used a device of composition to point the trail toward the viewer regardless of where they might be standing, left or right.”

Make egg tempera at home! 

Share your voice to help the Museum create the next long-term exhibition from the Diamond M Collection when it returns in 2024 to the Diamond M galleries. Your responses will be used to explore possible exhibition themes and artworks for future display. 
 
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