Extreme Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . at the Class M planet Nearest You

Here I am, getting the last word in "plein air" painting, thanks to good friend and fellow painter Eldon Warren, who is himself, a little other worldly.
Check out his work at his website www.eldonwarrenarts.com.

Art for the Endangered Landscape

This September 29th paint-out will focus on conservation and land use in our part of Colorado; always a hot topic.
The San Luis Valley Eco System Council and Community Partnerships of Adams State University are hosting this event on Saturday, September 29th, starting at 9. a.m., to raise public awareness to a proposed wildcat oil well exploration site that is within a residential site surrounded by public land. The purpose of the event is to celebrate the existing conditions of the area; Sue McCullough, David Montgomery and myself, will all be taking part to document the area en plein air.
Artists of every type and interested members of San Luis Valley communities are also being invited to take part, adjacent to a proposed drilling site on San Francisco Creek south of Del Norte Colorado.

If this kind of event rings your bell, either as a supporter of wild lands or as an artist/supporter, come out to enjoy a fabulous fall day in Colorado.  Go to their website at slvec.org for directions and more information.
The San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council is a non-profit advocacy organization for Colorado public lands.

Peak Weekend

Today is the first day of Autumn and the San Juan Mountains wear a garland of yellow like a necklace across the front of the range where aspens grow thick between the pine trees. A most beautiful time of year and the most nerve wracking - where every plein air painter wishes they could be in several places at once to snatch the fleeting color. Due in part by a warm, dry summer, the trees were changing in the high country back in August - YIKES!  Now it is here, full blown, and we will try to catch some of it and pray that a deep freeze or fluke snowstorm doesn't cut the season short before its time.

It can also be a time of hard choices: where to go, choosing to go to a competition/event- or not, it's a great time to be IN a show but a better time to paint out . . . . and every day the window of opportunity gets smaller. In years past Sue McCullough and I have painted all over the the Arkansas River Valley and Collegiate Peaks as part of the CO Mountain Plein Air Fest competition . This year however, we are choosing to skip the event circus and head into a different part of the state near Lake City. This is supposed to be the PEAK weekend for color, so we will take aim and hope to come up with the goods. Hopefully, more about the outcome - later.

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These paintings are all Autumn pieces that have sold recently. From the top they were painted at the Rio Grande River in Alamosa, Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, Cottonwood Pass, Colorado and along the border of Colorado and New Mexico.

Winner: Artist's Choice

This last weekend at the Women of the West Show my painting "Bending Water" was honored as the Artist's Choice Winner. Yippee!
It is always nice to win an award, any award, but I would have to say - this is the one I most covet because it is determined in a vote by the other artists in the show. And of my works in this show - this one was the last I would have selected to win. You just never know.
Thank You to the other artists. It was a good opening and a lively night in Boulder. Thanks too, to Ron and Ann Wilcock's who put the show together at Earthwood Gallery on the Pearl street Mall in Boulder.
As to the award itself- I am sure other artists have different criteria for how they select their Artist's Choice but when I make my vote,  it is for the painting in the show that I most wish I had painted.

Women of the West 2012

Tomorrow night, Friday, September 7th, I will be in Boulder, Colorado at the opening of Women of the West 2012, featuring work of the women represented by Earthwood Gallery in Boulder.
Join us for food and art at Earthwood Gallery on the beautiful Pearl Street Mall, just a short drive from the Denver metro area.

This show comes right on the heels of a week of painting in Rocky Mountain National Park that culminated in the Western Light show that opened on Friday, August 24 in Estes Park and will hang through October.
Paintings hung in these two shows represent my very best work from this last Spring and Summer.

Highlight of the Week!

All Spring we, Sue McCullough, David Montgomery and myself, have been talking about hiking in the high county during out time in Estes. Our show, Western Light 2012, opened the night before, so with most responsibilities behind us we headed up to Loch Vale, a high country destination about 3 and 1/2 miles in from the Bear Lake trail head. Dawn Normali, friend and fellow painter joined our merry band and we headed UP from the trail head at 9,475' to 10,465' - where you see us in the photo above. I am not sure where Dave found the air to play that flute.

What's a Painter to do?

I am all for documenting what's in front of you but find very little to inspire in layers of grey atmosphere. With such smokey air quality in the whole area we found ourselves looking for short views and more intimate scenes - like: canyon waterfalls, small streams, tree groupings, and the lily pond below- complete with koi.

We went out Moraine Park (part of RMNP) one morning  and I painted this aspen group. On another day in that same area we spent time spying on a huge herd of Elk not 20 feet from us. They did not seem bothered by the air quality but it sure put a damper on my inspiration.

Copeland Falls was another kind of "short view" and we perched our easels on a big flat rock and painted the upper cascade. David Montgomery's painting and easel are there on the left. Sue McCullough had already closed her box and put her piece safely away, and my unfinished piece is on the left.

Are We Even on the Same Planet?

The time painting out in Estes Park this year was, - I hope, unusual. These 3 photos were all taken at very nearly the same location, early in the morning, high in Rocky Mountain National. The top 2 are from years past and the bottom one is the view that met us on our first morning out. The area around Sprague Lake was almost unrecognizable. Smoke from fires east of Colorado made for less than ideal painting conditions and I found myself looking for more intimate scenes like the trail that through the woods and around this huge Ponderosa Pine.

'12 Western Light Show, Estes Park, CO

August has just flown. I was in Nebraska last week, Frasier Colorado before that, Westcliffe Colorado before that and painting out morning and evenings with my class all of July and August. It never feels like enough, tho'. All the places, all the paintings that get stacked in the studio for future fiddling - sometime between gigs. . .
Speaking of,
Sunday, Sue McCullough and I will head up to Estes Park, CO to paint for a week as a lead up to the 2012 Western Light Invitational Fine Art show.  YIPPEE!!  This is a highlight of the summer plein air season and we spend most of the week painting our way around Rocky Mountain National Park!
The '12 Western Light show will open on Friday night August, 24th, 6-9 pm at Earthwood Collections in Estes Park, CO.  If you are in the Denver area, it will be worth a drive up to the mountains and beautiful Estes Park for the evening.
The show will feature the best work of western artists from Colorado, California, Arizona; a perfect hurrah for the end of summer.
These 2 pieces if mine will be part of the group of pieces that I will have in the show.

Class Notes: Plein Air in the Hood

My plein air classes wrapped this last Thursday; at least until September.
We parked ourselves in a lovely grassy spot behind the  local Safeway and found more than enough that was interesting and paintable.
The Adams State University campus is only a block a way, charming houses poke in and out of trees and flower gardens are blooming. This is the time to be painting neighborhoods, when trees are leafed out and serve to frame shapes and create compositional ideas.
Painting ideas are everywhere: a row of trees that frame a dappled
sidewalk, flowers against a fence, - my personal favorite is
trash cans waiting for pick-up.
The motto is: simplify, simplify, simplify.
Focus on a
simple scene,
simple shapes,
and simple brushwork.
Then ask the really hard question: What is this painting about?

Choose one idea and stick to it. Look for large shapes of light and dark and create a composition/sketch where you can figure out ways to connect those lights and darks like you are putting a puzzle together.