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.

San Luis, Colorado

From a recent trip returning from Taos, the light was wonderful on this colorful barn and trees. I had to stop and get photo references so I could paint it. That glow from the orange trees (even in winter they are orange) and blue shadows gets me every time I pass through this colorful town.

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.

Two more peaks

I did these two 1-20 and 1-21. The clouds were moving fast this morning, creating abstract form with rapidly changing soft and hard edges.

Fresh Snow

Fresh snow on the peak, the little clouds above can be blowing snow with a wind, or real clouds. This morning they are real clouds, with a welcome blue sky!

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!

Snowing on the Peak

This is #7 in the series, 3 more to go. Hoping for more snow on the peak, this morning its mostly granite. This was just a little dusting at 3:30 pm on 1-4-11.

Twin Peaks

First one at 7:00 am, next one at 7:40 am, same subject, different light. I've always been in awe of this mountain that towers over us in Colorado Springs, and how it looks so different in different seasons and weather and times of day. There is not much snow yet this year, so the rocky crags appear and disappear into the shadows sometimes in a few seconds time. It's a good study.

Peak out My Window

This is my view of Pikes Peak, while I'm sitting here (minus the foreground of street and houses.) It was so pink at 7 am, I decided to paint it. In the time I got out my little canvas and paint it changed dramatically, then again in another 10 minutes. It probably didn't even take that long. Painting this fast is a challenge, but a canvas of 4 inches by 6 inches helps.

Portrait of a Pine

I did this little guy (6 x 8) in about an hour looking out a window. Didn't know how much could be accomplished from inside, but I had fun playing with the design and light, and the small format allowed me more time to tweak the colors and brushstrokes at the end. It was fun.