Moving On

My website, which I have had for around 9 months has a blog integrated into it. I have been trying to post things in both places, but that is getting to be a lot trouble and very time consuming, different passwords, etc.  Sometimes I post something in one place and forget or don't have time to put it in the other place. It's going to be easier to permanently move my blog into the one on the website. I planned on doing this from the beginning but never got around to doing it. This blog will no longer have any new posts.  Hope you all move there to the new space. Thanks for watching. I hope it's been interesting.

http://kathreilly.com/blog

Eastern Storm

Next morning, I went back to try a sunrise again. The sky had a continuous band of storm clouds all along the horizon off to the east. Somewhere in eastern Colorado someone was getting some morning rain, but not us.  The sun took it's time climbing above the cloud bank, giving me more time to work without having to squint into the sun or having to put up the umbrella.
Eastern Storm, 8 x 10

Gray Clouds

 I went back to my favorite spot for looking at skies and painted another end-of-day painting.  This was a  little early before sunset, so there wasn't a lot of color but the clouds were very dramatic, and I liked the gray mixed with the back-lit edges.
 Gray Clouds, 8 x 10.

Night Sky

One day last week I wanted to go paint somewhere but it got late and was really too dark to set out. It seemed like a good opportunity to try doing a nocturne painting. I set up in the front yard next to the driveway and looked down the street toward the remains of the evening light. There was a quarter moon and Jupiter that seemed like they should go into the picture too.   It was a real problem trying to get a good scan of this painting and the one I got was the best I could get after much fooling. I used a lot of medium on this and it dries kind of shiny, unfortunately wreaking havoc with the scanner, especially in dark and black areas.
 Street Lights and Sky lights, 9 x 12.

Orange Sunset

Once again attempting to paint more sunsets, I went back another evening to the same place where I get a good view of the western sky.  This time there were plenty of clouds and a lot of color, unlike the stormy sunset of the other day. I set up in approximately the same location as the last time, but with a little different emphasis on the scene I painted. I worked on many sunrises last summer and fall and recently someone asked, "why don't you do some sunsets?"  They are a little trickier to paint in some ways because the sky keeps getting darker and finally the light goes completely. I plan to try some more of them.  Orange Sky, 9 x 12.

Stormy Afternoon

Returning another day late in the afternoon to Peschell Open Space I hoped once again to get a nice red sunset. There's a great view of the western sky from this spot. No luck - this particular sunset turned out to be a stormy one. The clouds were coming in pretty thick and rain was falling off in the distant west. But I liked how it looked with the dark clouds so I decided to paint it anyway. By the time I got back home it was starting to rain here. The red sunset will have to be another day. Afternoon Storm,  8 x 10.

Morning Clouds

Next morning I decided to go paint a sunrise for a change. The sun comes up so early (5:35) it's hard to get up, get there, and be ready to paint before the sun makes its appearance, so of course I didn't make it quite on time. I got there around 5:45 and the sun was already over the horizon so I painted facing south toward some interesting looking purple clouds.  The clouds steadily began to fill in until the sun was blotted out and indeed it became a sort of cloudy rainy day. But it was nice while I was there and here is the painting I finished.  I didn't take any pictures at the scene with this one - forgot.
Morning Clouds, 10 x 8.

Sunset

The sunset was so lovely the other day when I was trying to paint the nonexistent moon that I went back to try to paint a sunset. No lovely pink clouds this day, but instead a glaring golden sky. But it was pretty interesting looking like that too. We had a lot of haze in the sky from west coast forest fires which made the mountains more etherial looking.  Sunset at Peschell, 8 x 10.

Here's what it looked like as I was packing up.

Waiting for Moonrise

On June 18th we were set to have a full moon and I decided to go and try to paint it rising in the east. If all went well I would have the moon rising in a sunset-sort of sky while the it was still light out. Everything was going well except a band of ever growing clouds on the east materialized blocking any view of the rising moon. In fact I finally gave up on the moon as the sun was setting. Great sunset but not what I had come for.  Also a picture of the scene as I started and me painting.
Waiting for moonrise, 9 x 12.

At Hall Ranch Again

Here is the second painting I did at Hall Ranch. The sun was moving quickly and I wanted to have more time looking at the shadows so I came back a week later for another try.  Here are both of them. Already the green grasses of mid June have started turning into the golden browns of summer in just a week's time.
 Morning Shadows #2, 9 x 12

Morning Shadows #3, 8 x 10.

Here's a picture of the place I was painting, taken the first week after I had finished painting.