More Plein Air workshop pictures

A picture of my workshop girls- Front row from left- Rosey Steffens, Heidi Algrim. Top row from left, Dee Bartee, Margaret Jones, Carol Watson, Gina Quintana, Boots Rogers, and Josie Perea

The last day of the workshop- sadly the weather reacted on us again and so the day was spent in the studio- painting from pictures. We had a good day however and the paintings were very well done. We had a critique on the last day and talked about the paintings - above.

This little guy was hoping for handouts while we were out at the La Garita Church.

Color Studies

The other morning, the clouds to the north were so dark greyish blue and provided such a beauitiful back drop for the golden trees in my front yard- I had to paint them- I had just rained so I added some water reflections- they were perfect complements so...

I decided to do a study of complements in red and green- this is what I came up with- the color on this painting is a little of with my photographt....

I then decided to do a yellow and violet study -just for fun.

Colorado Mountain Plein Air Festival -another painting

I had major issues trying to get even close to the paint out on Wednesday- I ended going up Peterson Creek - past Villa Grove and headed up a little dirt road - looking back to the east there were some great views of the Sangres but they were soon obscured by clouds. So I drove up the road just hoping for enough time to get at least one painting done. It snowed, then the sun came out and over and over again- I finally in desperation picked a small- not particularly inspiring - stand of aspens and painted them- this is the result. I was just happy to have finished a painting at this point...

Plein Air View from Lobo Point

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Today I went to my gallery in Pagosa to change out artwork. I had wanted to paint up the East Fork of the San Juan River on the way home but was detained by a very nice lady from the Forest Service. She told me that they were working on the road as there had been a horrible landslide in the winter of 2008 and they are currently fixing it. I am elated because that road has some beautiful views. She told me to try further up Wolf Creek pass to take photos- I don't think she realized that I was actually planning on painting on location. I ended up going to the summit of Wolf Creek Pass and there was a overlook on the north side of the road. Never having been up that road, I took it and was I glad I did. After driving 3 miles to the top-the views were beautiful - all 360 degrees of them. The wildlife was friendly and all the visitors that drove to the top, and believe me, there were plenty of them, mostly left me alone to paint. It was a good day.

Plein Air Painting in Chugwater, Wyoming

9x12

"Chugwater Bluffs"

The next day in Wyoming; Coni and I drove to Chugwater to paint. Rich Gallego told us it was a great little place with some cool grain elevators, bluffs and ranches. He was right . We left at close to 6 to get there for the "good" light and saw these beautiful bluffs. I painted it with a yellow sky- it just felt yellow to me.

12x16

Later the same morning, we set up on right in front of the grain elevator and I saw this charming ranch scene with a VW bug in the field. This is appropriately named "A Bug in the Field" Both of these paintings are at the Link Gallery in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Wyoming Plein Air- Day One

Wyoming Plein Air- Well it was fun and I was sad because I had to leave early and missed the show on Saturday but the painting was good and Coni and I had a great time. These are the paintings I completed on the first day of the show- the top was a train parked by the tracks - done in the afternoon - it was leaning to the left which helped create a sense of movement. The lower painting was the first of the trip- I started this at about 9:30 Sunday morning and was impressed with the shadows on the foreground buildings- I really enjoy painting down by the tracks in Cheyenne- so much history.

A Plein Air of Evening Wheat Fields

I decided it might be beneficial to paint sunsets for awhile. It is almost Wyoming time and Coni and I plan to paint many sunsets and possibly a few nocturns. This was looking across our wheat fields . The wheat is slowly starting to ripen.

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.

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.