Art Journal

This one was started as a plein air, but then it got too dark and I finished up the next day from photos I had taken. It was an extremely hot evening and getting darker quickly and I thought I was going to cook trying to finish it up on site. The problem with a painting like this is you get stuck with all the detail of the buildings, etc.  But that's what I was trying to show here, the buildings. So I consider it an exercise rather than a finished painting to be sold or displayed.

Mill Sunset, 8 x 10

Here's the last painting I did for the Boulder Plein Air event. I ended up not using this painting as we were only allowed to enter three.

It's from an early morning adventure out at Sandstone Park. I left at 5:30 AM and went out to get that early morning light and painted the trees on the hilltop.

Hilltop View, 10 x 8

Here's one from a couple days ago. I had a friend visiting next to my easel off and on. He didn't seem to be bothered by me painting near his favorite perch.  My scene lost its reflections and the trees lit up as the hours went by.

Early at the Pond, 8 x 10

Here are a couple paintings from late May done at Pella Crossing.  The second one was a half hour quick painting.

Spring Trees at Pella, 9 x 12.

Pella Reflections, 10 x 8

Here's a drawing I did during the Boulder Plein Air Event that I did not use. I drew this farm before during the winter so here are the two drawings to  compare. Slightly different viewpoint, different time of day.

This is a studio painting done from a plein air painting I did earlier in May. I wanted to change the colors and the layout a bit and explore the patterns of the foliage. Here are the new version and the original version.

Ridgeline View, 12 x 16

Here's the original, Foothills Trail 8 x 10

This show is currently going on at the Great Frame Up in Longmont CO and will be there until August. I have two paintings in this show.

Closing Down, 16 x 20

Winter  Sunset, 16 x 20

Also another May plein air painting. This time it decided to start gusting 5o mph winds partway through. Many of the artists packed it up after easels were blown over and equipment ravaged. I managed to hurry up and get this done before packing up and heading out.

Fenceline, 8 x 10

Lumpy Ridge in the park has rocky cliffs, some aspen groves and some scenic views across the valley toward longs Peak. It's a fairly good place to go and paint with lost of subject variety. I went there in May and after wandering around a bit doing some sketches decided to paint the aspen grove nearby. I loved how the aspen went from dark to light from top to bottom while the ground plane went from light to dark making for a lot of contrast at the bottom and minimal contrast at the top.

Morning in the Aspen, 9 x 12

On June 3rd I participated in the Loveland Plein Air event which is a fund raiser for a local charity. Artists are given a choice between painting at a local park or painting in the downtown area and I chose the park. The event finishes at the end of the day with an exhibit in which each artist gets to enter one painting and all the paintings are auctioned off.

I did two paintings and chose the second one for the auction.

Under the Bridge, 9 x 12, turned out to be time consuming and not the best thing to attempt for an event like this. I also wasn't sure anyone would want to buy the picture of the underside of a highway bridge.  Even though it was a very interesting scene with lots of nice color... So I did a second painting.

The second painting is below, Reflections, 8 x 10 which was auctioned off. I liked how it came out.

The only photo I have is the one taken by my phone at the auction. So the colors might not be right. It was done rapidly as I used up most of my time on the first painting.  There's a lesson that could be learned there in time management. Maybe someday I'll learn that lesson.

Here's the second piece of art I did at Jamestown, this time in oil,  for the Boulder Plein Air event. I did not enter this one. There was a small blue house perched on the edge of a cliff  with the racing clouds behind it and that became my topic. The wind picked up and occasional rain drops fell but I managed to finish this quick little painting. 

The Blue House, 10 x 8.

Cloud Drama at Jamestown,  the drawing I did there.

 The first day of the Boulder Plein Air event was a day at the Yellow Barn Farm. Here's my painting from that day, although I did not end up entering it as one of my three.

The Road Up, 12 x 9. The hillside behind this farm was burned out in the CalWood forest fire in fall of 2021 and these trees are pretty much dead now so the decision was: show them dead or show them alive? I had a discussion with another artist who told me of her experience. A local gallery received many complaints from customers that seeing dead tree paintings from the fire area was traumatizing which caused the gallery to remove the paintings. A lot of local people were directly affected by these fires and had their homes burned.  And then recently we had the terrible Marshall fire that burned up so many more homes. So fire-burned trees is a touchy subject these days.

On my second day of painting I got up at 5:30 and headed over to Stephen Day Park and the Spring Gulch Trail hoping to get some morning sky. It wasn't the sky I was hoping for but still was interesting. There was a large cloud bank hovering over everything in the east making for some interesting light.  It often happens that somehow I forget some important ingredient when I go to paint. One time I dumped over my solvent right at the beginning, so no solvent. One time I forgot my white paint, one time I forgot the blue.  One time I forgot to bring my canvas boards. So this trip I forgot to bring the paper towels. That meant I could not clean out my brushes or wipe them off. Not wanting to go back home and miss the chance, I decide to forge ahead using only the palette knife.  I had one measly paper towel sheet I found in the bottom of the pack and used it to wipe the blade occasionally. So as result this is a very textured painting, not exactly what I was planning but so it goes. This one I did put in the show.

Morning Clouds, 11 x 14

This is from a place in Lyons at the Riverbend Resort where the river winds around high sandstone cliffs.  Painting the rocks in shadow was tricky as I wanted to get all the colors in the rocks without changing the value. And since the cliff was in shadow this was difficult, because everything had to be dark. And since I was painting in the shade the colors all looked darker. Occasionally I had to move it into the sun to get a look at it and then move back to the shade. I painted here last year, same subject. That painting got scraped, but this one turned out a little better.

Riverbend Cliffs, 12 x 9

Here's a scene that I have painted many times before, each time with a slightly different layout or time of day or portion of the scene. This is the first time back there this year. May is just about the only month when the bushes are actually green. They soon fade to brown in the summer.

Hall Ranch Cliffs, 8 x 10