A Painting from the Ranch

This was painted about a month ago- I thought I would drive over to the ranch and test the mosquito quotient to see if there would be any more painting there for awhile.  They were swarming but I was ready with a t-shirt on and a long shirt over that with long pants and mosquito spray.

They were everywhere and while painting, I looked down and there was approx. 20 to 30 landed on the front of my shirt- a little unnerving I would say.  Well, I haven't been back but I'm thinking in a couple of weeks it might just be bearable and I will have to do the mosquito test again.

Hearts and Stars

As I have been in Denver for a large amount of the week and will be taking Erin back on Thursday, I haven't been plein air painting as much as I would like. I decided to try to get a small painting done for the Hearts and Stars benefit to end homelessness in Taos. The largest size of painting that they will take is an 8x10 so I painted this- it is a small copy of an 18x24 that I have hanging in my studio and I would have like to have made it a 9x12 but I still like it- now I will have to get another one finished within a week or so...

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.

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

Dancing Trees at Dusk

This small 6x8 painting was done very quickly as the sun was setting. I was trying to paint as fast as the mosquitos were trying to bite me. I finished quickly and ran inside.

Dog Food Thieves

8x10

These little birds sit outside my window every day and steal dog and cat food every chance they get. While other birds are hopping along the side of roads, eating weed seeds, etc., these guys are getting extremely fat on dog food. They go through it faster than I can keep the bowl filled. It will be alot cheaper to feed the dog in the summer.

Sunset

I was trying to order some brushes off the internet and as I ran downstairs to get my credit card I looked outside and the sky was absolutely amazing. I decided to paint a quick one and ran my easel outside, threw my wallet on the ground, and painted like a crazy lady- I'm glad my kids were too busy playing x-box to notice this wild woman running around and painting. Well, by the time I finished this I could not see my canvas very well at all and when I took it inside I saw that I had put the paint on much thicker that I usually do- I usually calculate too much when painting under normal - take your time conditions. Well anyway- this is what I got- a little sloppy for what I usually do but it was finshed very quickly.