Aspen Energy

I've been waiting for months to paint this, from Rampart Range when the aspen were turning for the last time, what a beautiful drive. There is a series I want to do of this, really looking forward to painting more. The energy of the color was fabulous. I just read in Frank Waters book "Colorado" how settlers sometimes thought the bright sunlit aspen were a forest fire. The colors are the same, brilliant reds and yellows and oranges just glow with the afternoon backlighting.

its August Already!

Confession:I have been painting and not blogging. Life always seems to speed up in August, and this year is no exception. In June, we had a wonderful paint-out and art show for the Pikes Peak Plein Air Painters at 7 Arrows Gallery in Woodland Park. I was thrilled to win an honorable mention award after painting for a week on location

with many talented artists from across the region. This is my submission of aspen on Rampart Range, which I've painted before on location, but never in the evening. The trunks turned really purple with the changing light, and I wanted to capture it. This year, in retrospect, I've noticed most of my paintings contain trees,and I've been drawn to them. I've just learned trees are a symbol of feminine energy. I need this gift from the trees. I'm humbled to realize we intuit more than we know, if we just pay attention.

Aspen Overlook

This one is large, 24 x 30. It still seemed too small to fit in the grandeur of the scene. If this was part of your commute between offices, wouldn't you do it on a Sunday so you could take all day to stop and enjoy the views. I did.

Even a day isn't long enough, you just want to be there and stay there in that visual feast of color and light. (Fall 2007 between Durango and Ouray.)

I've wanted to paint this for awhile, and the size of the canvas made me think I couldn't do it all at once because you can blend edges better if the adjoining paint is also wet. I learned that I could do the lay-in, then finish the work in sections, the trick was to have enough paint and work the edges accordingly.

Aspen and Pikes Peak

This one I just completed from a smaller plein aire I had done in the summer and a photo reference I had taken on site. Amazing how the plein aire gave the more accurate colors and the shadows were really off in the photo. This is why painting on location is so hard and so good, you get the real information!