Art Journal

Lafayette CO has an exhibit planned to feature art of scenes from Waneka Lake, which is a park area in the town. Here are a couple of the paintings I did of Waneka Lake, in gouache. One is of the old granary and the other a scene of the park buildings as they look from  across the lake. Both are quite small, around 6 " wide.  Gouache is a lot of fun to work with and great for doing small studies while planning larger paintings. It's almost a cross between watercolor technique and oil technique as you can go from dark to light and can paint over previous passages, and wipe things off with water.

Here are a couple more gouache sketches done recently. I finished a larger painting 16x20 of the first sketch, am waiting for it to dry so I can photograph it. I am planning to start a larger painting of the bottom sketch very soon.

There's an old sugar mill in town that's now mostly abandoned. It used to process all the sugar beets that were grown around here in the past. Now the beets are all shipped elsewhere to be processed but the mill still stands. I went there to paint some small gouache sketches.  Here's what I came up with.

Sugar Mill 1, about 4" x 6", gouache

Sugar Mill 2, about 4.5" x 6.5", charcoal

After completing an oil painting at Pella Crossing I also worked on a gouache sketch of a different scene, some trees along the pathway. Here's a photo of that sketch. This one was kind of experimental. I was trying many different sketches in 3 values with markers and altering the scene to find the best layout. From the sketches I did I chose the one I thought had the best composition and then did this small gouache painting. This one will be on sale at the Boulder Studio Tour starting today and tomorrow, Oct 1-2 and also on October 15-16. Feel free to stop by.

4949 N Broadway, Boulder 803-4, go in door 190, go up to studio 280, 12 pm to 5 pm, Oct 1-2, Oct 15-16.

Pella Crossing Pathway, matted in a 16 x 12 frame

Here's a gouache painting sketch I did at one on the PAAC plein air group gatherings at a local farm in Niwot. The owner conveniently put out a load of colorful laundry in case anybody wanted to paint the scene, so I took advantage of the chance. Gouache is a great medium to do little painting sketches in a short time. This one will be for sale at the Boulder Studio Tour this weekend October 1-2 and also October 15-16. Stop by to see it in person.

4949 N Broadway, Boulder 803-4, go in door 190, studio 280, 12 pm to 5 pm, Oct 1-2, Oct 15-16.

Laundry, matted in an 11 x 14 frame, sold

Here's a scene I saw coming back home at sunset the other day. The clouds were spectacular and gave me the idea of doing a painting of what I saw. This is a drawing of a possible composition I might use  - not sure yet how I will do this. Also below a small color sketch I did trying to figure out how I want to paint this.

On the Road, 11 x 14, and a gouache sketch