Art Journal

Here is a plein air painting from May - I've really gotten behind on this blog but I will really try to catch up. Now that the weather is nicer I've been going out a lot more to paint and neglecting the website.

This painting is from Sawhill Ponds. Sawhill Ponds is a collection of ponds and reservoirs near Boulder.  In this painting I was trying to capture the greens of early spring. Green is always a problem. You don't want to get everything too bright green in the painting as it seems to kill the picture, but instead want to look for all the other colors, warm and cool in the trees and grasses.

The pond where I set up had an interesting edge of chartreuse-colored algae, along with a lot of different greens in the newly budding trees. It only lasts this way for a week or two before the colors change for a more mature green. Spring at Sawhill, 9 x 12.