Art Journal

On a trip up to the Clagett/Rey Gallery in Edwards CO to see the Josh Elliott show  (which is great by the way)  we stopped on the way to do a little painting,  perched along a dirt road with a spectacular view towards Copper Mountain. The scenery was beautiful and many of the mountain wildflowers were in bloom. Here's the small painting I did of the view across the valley. Clouds slowly built as we worked and by the time we left the backlit trees were shadowed under a cloudy sky.

Vail Pass View, 8 x 10

Here's a photo of the scene

My artwork "Farm Roads" has been selected to be part of  “Art Inspired by the Land,” the upcoming City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks Department art show.  The show will be at the Boulder Public Library Canyon Gallery (1001 Arapahoe Avenue, Boulder, CO 80302).  The Canyon Gallery is in the North part of the library, near Canyon and 9^th Ave. 

The exhibit will be on display from Friday August 5 – Sunday September 16, 2022.  The opening reception will take place on Thursday, July 11 from 5-7 PM. This year there will be a performance night for artists who will be presenting music, songs, poems, or videos. It will be on August 18 from 5:00 -7:00PM.

The show is described to be "a celebration of the beauty and healing powers of OSMP natural areas".

Farm Roads, 12 x 12.

  This painting was completed at the Teller Farms North Trailhead  and the scene portrays the trail as it heads north past some local farms.

Yet another exercise for a class I'm taking.  In these sketches the point was to try different color schemes and layouts to develop an idea for a painting. Two versions of this. These are in a kraft paper tablet, not sure I'm thrilled with the oil spread from the paint but it seems to fade over time somewhat. But I think these are a really good exercise to do.

Fog is such a rare occurrence - so when we had a really foggy morning it was something to take advantage of for a painting opportunity. This one was done at Sawhill Ponds. By 8:30 AM it was mostly burned off.

Foggy Morning, 8 x 10

I used to do a lot of sunset painting but kind of stopped doing that, daily life interfering, and now that it's summer I thought I ought to take advantage of the late evenings and warm weather to get back to doing it again more frequently. This was done at Macintosh Lake. We've have a few cloudy evenings but this one stayed clear.  Painting at sunset time is always a race against time - a challenge to see what you can get down before it gets dark.

Lake Sunset, 8 x 10

Below, some scenes from the lake.

Here's another exercise from an online course I am taking. Here we were using roughly 3 values and changing the color within the shapes without changing the value. Here are two of them that I did. Notice how the green and yellow patches on the trees disappear in the b/w version and seem to be the same gray color. Also the road  in the upper left sketch appears to be the same value as the yellow grass on the roadside. Getting colors the same value is tricky. Most interesting to me is blue on the bottom left corner of the bottom left sketch turns out to be the same value as the yellow next to it.

Below some photos of the scene, not very inspiring as a view but I was working on trees here. I took advantage of this picnic shelter to get out of the sun, also handy for laying out my gear as I worked.

Summer Afternoon, 8 x 10

Two views in progress

Here's another painting done at one of the Boulder PAAC Thursday paintouts. I've painted in this place before in other years and was attracted to the play of the light over these trees and the field of flowers. Here's my take on the scene from this year.

South Mesa Trailhead,  10 x 8

Here's a picture of the scene

Here's another plein air painting done as a tree study at a local park. The sun was pretty intense and it was a very hot day.

Summer Light, 8 x 10

Here are some more tree exercise painting sketches for the Adventure of Painting class I am doing.

In this set I was working on trees, studying their shapes, and working on variations of color in the shadows, without changing the value too much.  These are four on a 9x12 panel, so pretty small, all done plein air.

Here's a painting from the Estes Park PAAC group paint out. We were situated at the old power plant along Fall River. I once again attempted to do some rocks and water. Here I focused on one rock near the shore and the colors reflected in the stream.

Along Fall River, 8 x 10

In this set I was working on trees, studying their shapes, and working on distribution of variety in light and shadow areas. These were assignments for the Adventure of Painting class I am doing which is an online course by famed painter Scott Christensen. Here also are some of the two value tree sketches done for the class.

I went to Buckingham park to do some water painting and found the stream near it's peak from snow runoff with a lot of whitewater instead of the slow meander it has in late summer. Here's the painting resulting from that. In the process I lost a brush in the high grass - amazing how camouflaged they can be when they fall. I went back and did a search but never did find it. But it was a nice day for painting and cool near the water.

Water & Rocks, 10 x 8

Here's a picture of the place where I was painting.