Bristol Head Mountain on a Windy Day

Since I will be heading off to Wyoming in a week and have to make a quick trip to Ft Collins today, I thought I would post about this particular painting which will be in the South Fork show.  This is a larger studio painting (22x28) from the Sowards paint out- I did an 11x14 study of this peak.  This was a difficult painting to execute.  First of all, the colors are so cool up above Creede.  I am still contemplating on whether to do a golden glaze over this just to warm it up a little- I just don't know.

I will have approximately 7 to 8 paintings in this show and a good friend of mine (Yvette Cooley) wil be my docent.  Yvette is so much much fun to talk to- so if you are going to the show in South Fork, stop and say hi to Yvette.

Soward Ranch paint out

On the last post I ahowed a picture of Bristol Head Mountain from the west looking at the mountain.  Well, we drove to the Soward Ranch and this is the view looking at the mountain from the east.  It was really obscurred by fog and honestly, very dramatic.  Here is a better picture of the mountain-----

I decided to give it a shot for my first painting for the paint out-- the weather had been rather rainy but was clearing fast so I really thought I could pull this off-- I never seem to get to paint mountains as much as I'd like so decided to do it when halfway through the painting the wind started to blow-- HORRIBLY-- I was standing by David Montgomery and he wisely moved close to some shelter.  I couldn't because I was painting with a pond in the front of me and had decided to put it in the painting- so I was stuck.  My umbrella flew off- and I retrieved it and just kept painting..  It's funny- when painting outside I have developed some type of concentration that earlier in my painting years, would not have been able to keep.  Also I am fortunate to have a Soltek easel that is like a rock in the wind..

I was finally able to finish..

As you can see- I pushed the drama of this mountain and I am now working on a larger version of this painting. .. I noticed that my painting is much lighter than the picture of Bristol and I really was able to see much more into the shadows than the picture shows- that's why I hate to paint from pictures.. Afterwards I tried to hang out by this cool building..

And get a little out of the wind before I started my next painting.

Plein Air Painting from Santa Maria Reservoir

Coni and I were overwhelmed by (too many things to paint syndrome) We finally settled down to painting- I painted into the light which I tend to do often.- Coni painted some of the Beautiful cliffs to the north. The mountain to the right is Bristol Head Peak.

A Plein Air painting trip to Creede Colorado

Coni and I decided to go to Peggy Morgan Stenmark's show at the Creede repertory theatre. We also decided to turn it into a painting trip. This is a picture of the North Clear Creek Falls.

This is a picture of my cruiser sitting directly at the bottom of Bristol Mountain. I am standing at the edge of Santa Maria reservoir to take this.

Here is a picture of Sam Keith talking to Marsha and Tim Gallagher about art of course.

Peggy talking to a patron with her beautiful paintings in the background.

Another picture of Peggy- it was a very nice show. I love Peggy's ink resistant method in her paintings. Yes, we did paint and I will post that soon....