Cruciform armature

20x24

I have been studying Ian Roberts book about compositions. I find that I always pick up ideas from reading- even if I have learned it time and time before- I guess I just need that extra beating over the head with information. Well, this book is entitled "Mastering Composition" and it is well written and I am enjoying it. I decided to not only just read the book but actually try to make it stick a little better by active participation. I took the cruciform composition and decided to apply it to a picture I had in my archives. The painting above is the result. Usually I find myself adding way too much information into the painting and I could have done the same with this , but I wanted to keep the bones of the armature without destroying it with lots of little distracting shapes. I took the saying "Keep it simple stupid" and applied to to this painting and liked the way it came out. I have a larger painting that I am currently working on and I am finding that I am having to delete shapes to make the composition stronger- too bad I just didn't put them there in the first place! Well, I am going to work through this book and only plan big masses for my painting compositions and see how it goes.

I worked on a studio painting in a 12x36 format- from a picture I took in 1999. It took me a long time to get this painted didn't it? Well, I had fun painting this- it is a beautiful sight when Mt Blanca has just received a dusting of snow and it is the only thing that is lit by the setting sun. The painting has more contrast than I could show with this picture- I truly am not that great at editing pictures. Below is a close-up of detail.

Plein air at First Light

I got up early and went to the ranch as the sun was rising. Actually, sunrise really isn't that early anymore. The light was beautiful - hitting the trees - making them appear as if they were stained glass.

I had an audience as I painted early in the morning- they really were a pretty quiet bunch until they decided to take off and thrash through the willows...

Fall Color

11x14
This is a view to the west from my backyard painted on Sunday afternoon. There was a nasty looking storm which provided great color for the the backdrop of this stand of trees. Tomorrow I will be heading to the Colorado Mountain Plein Air festival to get Coni and my canvases stamped and hopefully a couple of good paintings done

12x16
This was painted at Rock Creek - south of Monte Vista, Colorado. The colors will be changing soon so I decided it might be nice to get some summer paintings before it is too late. There were a few visitors to the area but I pretty much had the place to myself.

A Dune Painting

I finally got back from taking my kids to college- one is excited about learning and the other is excited about setting up the satellite system for TV. I delivered Coni's and my paintings for the DIA Dunes exhibit which will start in September and culminate in January of 2010. I really truly enjoy painting the dunes- actually I love painting the Sand Dunes. The painting above is currently on exhibit at the Great Sand Dunes Visitor Center.

Art Show- Keeping the Rio Grande Grand

This is a plein air painting that I did from the overlook of the Headwaters of the Rio Grande above Creede- I painted this at 6:30 in the morning. It is 11x14

This is a plein air of The Alamosa River Canyon - this one was in the Nomadas Show in Santa Fe at Sage Creek Gallery. Size is 9x12

This is a studio painting of some aspen in the high country- I decided to make it more about design than realistic- Size is 24x30

This is a fun painting. I did this studio piece from a plein air I painted over in Sulphur Springs by La Veta- it is 24x24 and is called "A Colorado Vacation"

This is a big one- 24x36 called "Fall in the San Juans"- I was experimented with this one by starting with a dark background of purple and painting all of the negative shapes in light

I got back from Cheyenne, Wyoming yesterday and it was a good week- I will be posting pictures of paintings from that shortly. The Cheyenne show is not over yet though- the quick draw will be this morning and the art show will be tonight. I really hated to have to leave early and miss those events but I have another show in South Fork tonight - Keep the Rio Grande Grand to benefit land conservation.The paintings above will be in the show.

A House by Westcliff

I loved the simplicity of this scene and worked up a painting from a photo that I took in the fall. I love the Sangres from the east side; there are so many beautiful views and it's just a little different on the other side of these mountains.

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.

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.

Sand Dunes

I will be taking this painting over to the Sand Dunes today to the exhibit they have in the visitors center. This is a painting from my imagination. The paint is extremely thick on the Chamisa bushes in the foreground and it has taken over a month to dry- I use a yellow green paint from Grumbacher and it takes an incredible amount of time. The picture I took of this has caught a little bit of glare on the surface- I should have taken better pictures....... Well, anyway, this will be in the visitor center for the summer and yes, it is for sale- I also had two paintings selected for the Dunes DIA exhibit in September.

Back from Taste of Creede

Well, I'm back from the Taste of Creede and I can honestly say that I had fun. I met up with Coni and we just kind of took in the atmosphere at first and hid out from the rain in the OMI for awhile. It was rather rainy the whole weekend but not too cold and the quick draw was quite an event. We had an hour to do a painting and then put it up for auction to benefit Creede Arts. I was stressed as for plein air one is usually allowed 2 hours for the painting time. I was even more confused when every artist pulled out these huge canvases. I was only painting an 8x10 for goodness sakes! Well they pulled it off quite well and I survived. Above is a picture of Stephen Quiller and Charlie Ewing talking about Charlie's painting (you can see it in the background.) The painting I did was the small red truck below- it resides on the north end of Creede- starting up the canyon.

Arroyo Hondo

This is a painting of Our Lady of Sorrows Church at Arroyo Hondo - what a cool village! We were going to paint this church at the fire station with Patrice but they were working on the fire engines and we would have been completely in the way so we sat up directly in front of the church and painted. I can see a few tweeks will need to be made with this one- but not too many...

The Taos Gorge

The fun about paintouts is going to places and learning about where the good views are that we would never find otherwise-thanks to Patrice, Kemper and Peg. Coni and I followed out little map and ended up at this beautiful spot on the country club road on the south side of Taos. It looks as if there are quite a few people that use this area for target practice but they weren't up as early as the painters. This is a 16 x 12 and was just getting finished up when Coni came by and said the wind was blowing horribly over by her view and so we packed up- heading for the Ranchos de Taos and setting out for a different view as we have painted there before. We knew the wind would be an issue so were hoping for the best.

Back from Taos

Well I'm back from the PAAC and NMPAP paintout in Taos New Mexico. I will be posting more pictures of paintings later but I am going to Denver for state track in a half hour and need to finish packing. This is a little gate in the back of the San Geronimo Inn-

Church at 7 mile Plaza

I decided to get out bright and early to paint this morning as the clouds to the west were rolling around and looked quite interesting. I looked at this little church always trying to find a way that I could paint it to make it work but I always try to paint it from the other direction which doesn't work very well- I decided to climb this little hill behind it- and as there was a real estate for sale sign on this property and I happened to know the realtor I drove the Cruiser up a four wheeler path and parked. It was a great view to the church from this point and the weather held out til about 11:30. I drove home and by 12:00 it was raining-finished just in time!

Sand Dunes Exhibit 2009

I had to submit my images to the Denver International Airport for a show they are sponsoring at DIA in the fall featuring the Sand Dunes. I painted the above piece last January and got just a smidgen of the dunes in it. As I look at this painting it's amazing how much I can recall about the day; I had tried to get as close to the east range as I could and then- ran into a locked gate- there is nothing worse than going for miles, thinking that you are finding a great new solitary spot and then WHAM- there's a locked gate. So I just stopped and painted there, it was also very cold- slightly breezy in fact- you just can't remember those details when you take a picture.

No, this is not a plein air- I painted it in the studio before I got sick; I might have shot this a little dark and I think that I will want to do some adjustments to this- later....

I did this painting quite awhile ago but I still like it-- I took off on the Medano road and at the tire air filling place, I caught this great view- the Sand Dunes are so quiet in the winter since there really aren't too many visitors so it's great if you are searching for the peaceful solitary scene. I submitted these today - since today was the deadline- nothing like waiting until the last minute.....

Alamosa River Canyon

Coni and I decided that we really needed to get out and paint so we decided to drive up the Alamosa River Canyon since it has great shadows- even in the middle of the day since the canyon is so narrow. But as there were tracks on the road it was obvious that it was being used so I knew that parking on the road was out... We wondered around and took some great pictures but no paintings this time... We could have painted down the canyon further but it was a little windy and I just don't think we had it in us - just one of those days. This is a picture of some old barns and cabins grouped together- the snow is beautiful but I am really tiring of it. Oh well, we had fun gabbing all the way up and all the way back-- and Coni finally got to see the very small town? of Jasper.