Wind at the Sand Dunes

My brother and his girlfriend came to the Valley for a visit and decided they wanted to go to the dunes . As it has been raining almost everyday, I thought well, we'll see how bad they really want to go. The day scheduled for the dunes visit was Friday and not your typical dunes weather but they wanted to go anyway. I decided to not climb the Sand Dunes so I painted. I and the mosquitos took refuge from the wind in some trees and this is what I painted... I was lucky I finished this before the rains came.

Conejos

This morning, I cleaned out my refrigerator. "What does that have to do with painting?" you ask. Absolutely nothing... other that how now I can open my refrigerator door without things falling out and along in reducing the clutter in my fridge, I am reducing the clutter of things to get done in the back of my mind; chores that have to be done. Sometimes you have so many trivial little lists in the back of your brain begging for attention that it starts affecting artistic performance. Dentist appointments, doctor appointments , wash the dog, clean the toilets, well you get the idea. I wish I had answers to deal with this problem- but I really don't. I'm just happy I got one small thing out of the way- Now if I could just take care of all of the other 50 things screaming for attention I could be at my artistic peak.

Painting above- Coni Grant and I went to the Conejos on Hwy 17 outside of Antonito to Josie Perea's house to paint. Sadly, Josie couldn't paint with us. We sat our easels up along the Conejos River and painted this very subtle rock scene. I prepared with a dark purple underpainting- which might have added to the somber feeling.

Looking through trees

24x36

I have been trying to get some studio paintings done lately- here is a painting of the San Juan mountains. I truly enjoy painting fall.

Near the Dunes

I decided I wanted to get to the backside of the sand dunes and having a lapse of common sense I thought I might be able to pull it off. I had some very old maps and never mind that the whole dune field is off limits to vehicles; I still thought I could get close enough to see the dunes from the back without actually being on national park ground. Of course, there is the Nature Conservancy immediately to the west of the National ground but I was hoping for some cool little road that would go between the Keep off zones and I in fantasy land thought that I could just toodle along and maybe get slightly close to the dunes. Well I didn't accomplish my objective- oh there is a road out there but being "little miss follow the rules all the time person" I chickened out. This is as close as I got- a small mini dune with Mount Blanca in the background.

Poppies

"Poppies" 8x6
Well the San Luis Valley has been unusually cold this year and with that, all the flowers are blooming later. The poppies were blooming and I knew that I needed to get them painted since I like to do at least one poppy painting per summer. This is quite a small painting- the flower beds are beautiful thanks to my wonderful daughter for putting in the effort to eradicate ALL of the weeds and making them such a joy to look at.

My painting studio

This is the barn directly behind my studio- love it!

I planted some lavender right next to my sidewalk that goes to the back entrance of my studio. You do know it is a cardinal rule that painters have to have lavender planted outside their studios-- right?

These poor trees just didn't get enough water before I moved in - I will probably have to get them trimmed soon.

My studio- the grass is starting to fill in which you would think was amazing if you saw the pictures of this grass last year about this time- so progress really has been made.

I did this painting very quickly before going to a Taos plein air PAAC paintout. The location is very close to San Antonio Mountain - probably right on the New Mexico border. A storm was brewing and gave some great atmosphere to the scene.

"Baby Rocks Mesa"

When we drive to Arizona, most of the time we drive through Kayenta, and the view of Baby Rocks Mesa never ceases to capture my attention. I slowly pull out my camara, stealthly, ( I don't know if that is truly a word) getting ready for the minute we drive by because I always take pictures- one right after another; my husband looks at me. "Haven't you taken enough pictures of this place already?" I say, "No I haven't- the light is a little different right now" and then I just ignore him and take as many more I can take before it is completely out of view.

There is something about this place that is magical- and then I always feel a tinge of sadness because it looks as if there had been a thriving trading post which is abandoned and I always wonder "how could anything not survive when existing at the base of this really cool mesa, with it's spires and rocks shooting up everywhere.

Well, this is the result - I changed it quite a bit as you can tell there is no highway running right by. It is 24x36- I seem to like painting on that size of canvas and I submitted it to the Western Regional OPA- I guess we'll see what happens. Yes, I know, this is a plein air site and this is not plein air - sorry.....