Saturday painting

I got up early again and went down near the river, in time to catch the pink sky reflected in the river heading off into the distance. Having some old paintings that I no longer want,  I've thought about throwing them away or redoing them. I saved some to paint over and this is one of them. It gives a different texture to the paintings.   Rosy morning, 6 x 8.

Without the Fluff

So here's the painting from a few days ago without the fluff, none the worse for wear after falling in the dirt. This was another almost predawn painting. Waking Up, 8 x 10.

The White Shed

Another painting from last weekend done in a late morning session at Sandstone Ranch. The white shed really stood out like a spotlight in the morning sun, especially as it was surrounded by all the muted browns and greens of the barn and trees surrounding it.
White Shed, 8 x 10.

Fluff

So I went this morning to paint but wasn't quite prepared. I thought I was. I had all my gear, packed and ready the night before, checked off on everything, didn't forget my paper towels or rubber gloves. I was so anxious to get out there and get started that I neglected to step outside first and evaluate the weather. It was pretty close to freezing which I didn't expect since it's been so balmy, and I definitely needed more layers, and gloves would have been a big help.

Pond reflections looking west change pretty fast in the pre-dawn so I wanted to have time to get set up before the light started coming up. The chill started to settle in on me and by the time I was done painting an hour later, the sun was creeping over the east horizon creating a gorgeous dawn, and I was standing there frozen stiff hardly able to appreciate it. My numb fingers fumbled putting my stuff away and the painting went flying, flipped over and landed face down on the ground. It came up with dozens of little dandelion-type fluffs all over it and small clumps of dirt and a few tiny bugs. Here's me picking off the fluffs at home after I've warmed up (a hot shower helped a lot). It survived fairly well in spite of everything. I'll post it in a couple days after it's dry.

Looking the Other Way

Often on these morning paintings I paint facing east toward the sunrise. On this painting I looked west. You can see the mountains in the background catch the early morning light and the first bits of sun hitting the houses on the other side of the lake. A big cloud of noisy redwing blackbirds took flight and headed out away from the pond as I set up my gear.  I called this "First Light," 9 x 12.

The Sun is Back

Two days later - the rain had moved out and the early morning sun was back. A pale crescent moon was fading over the eastern sky as I started to paint. There were nice pastel colors in the sunrise that morning with a low cloud bank and a high cloud bank with turquoise sky in between. It was a challenge. I got there a bit later than I wanted and had to play catch up really fast before everything changed too much. I didn't have the luxury of time to make some color mixes at the beginning of my painting, but just had to start painting as quickly as possible.
Crescent Moon, 9 x 12.

A rainy dawn

This is from last Tuesday, a mostly overcast dawn. I hoped to be able to see the sun coming up but the horizon was too cloudy. I chose to paint looking north. The foggy trees in the distance looked interesting to paint. I did several paintings last week and they are all finally dry so I will be scanning them soon and writing about them here.  This one, 9 x 12 - Rainy Morning.

Aspen Season

The past two weeks were the "peak aspen season" here in the mountains when all the leaves turn gold before winter sets in, so we went up to Rocky Mountain Park hoping to catch some of the color. It was also elk bugling time which is very popular. Everybody from the Front Range seemed to be there and we faced a massive traffic jams getting out of the park at the end of the day. But the scenery was great. I brought along my painting gear and did one painting.
 R M aspens, 12 x 9. 

Back to Painting Again

October seems to be Breaking Appliance Month this year. We had a water heater decide to break so that took a lot of time to deal with but we finally got that fixed and out of the way, and then the oven broke. All these things take away from "painting time".  But  I managed to get out and paint two paintings.

The first was another dawn painting. I got there a bit early but a cold front with excessive clouds had moved in and the dawn was bleak and gray. Instead I painted the other direction, almost a nocturne painting of the lake looking west. Here's that painting -  Predawn, 8 x 10.