Rocky Slope at Rabbit Mountain

Here's the painting I did while being bombarded by grasshoppers. It was a very hot morning and the bright sun was a challenge. But I really wanted to try working on rocks and this is a good place for looking at rocks. We've hiked down this draw many a time on winter hikes. Rocky Slope at Rabbit Mountain, 8 x 10, sold.

Bugs!

When I'm painting outside it always seems that bugs can't resist flying onto the canvas and getting stuck in the paint. Yesterday I had three of them attach themselves on a couple different pictures. I scraped each one off but more came along and got stuck. Sometimes it's just easier to pry them off after the painting has dried for a day or two. Other pests are the grasshoppers who seem to think they have to climb up and traipse around the palette a bit - maybe it's an adventure to them. And when they weren't hiking across the paint they were springing back and forth in front of my face from all directions. And don't get me started on the mosquitos.  Today I went to Hall ranch where I had large horseflies coming to my painting, but happily they moved on.

I'll post copies of these paintings after they are dry and I can scan them.

Cattail Pond

I painted here a couple weeks ago with the plein air group and wasn't happy with how the picture came out so I decided to go back to this place last week and try again on my own. It was pretty empty and peaceful there except for a lot of complaining Canada geese. I guess I was in their home turf and they didn't like it. It was a somewhat overcast day and at one point I got caught in a short but heavy shower of rain. I had to shake the rain drops off my palette before I could finish the painting.
Swallows at Cattail Pond, 10 x 8, sold.

SAWHILL POND

The local plein air group went to this location a few weeks ago but I couldn't go that day. I had never been there so I made a trip last Friday and painted there. A very nice set of ponds.
Sawhill Pond, 8 x 10, sold.

Painting on a hot afternoon

Here's a relatively quick painting from the top of the hill at sandstone. The day was extremely hot and I set up in the shade of the restroom building. An interesting storm was building
over the mountains and by the time I was done it had clouded over and a few rain drops were falling.
Advancing Rain, 8 x 10, sold

Flowers at Sandstone

I haven'y painted flowers much at all and thought I ought to work on that. Here's the third painting from Sandstone done on the 4th of July. This one, 8 x 10.

Painting on the 4th

I did a couple paintings back at Sandstone on the 4th of July. Here's one of them.  It was a very bright day with intense light.  It's a small paintings, 6 x 8.  Just trying to keep it to the basics, no time to get bogged in details. Next I'll try it on larger  8 x 10 panels.

Agricultural Center

This is one I did on my own a couple weeks ago. A southern view of the farmhouse and kitchen garden. 8 x 10. I really like the 8 x 10 size - it's just small enough to get finished before the light changes too much. Farmhouse, 8 x 10.

At Mac Lake

Workshop at Macintosh Lake. We had a big wind/rain storm come through in the middle of the afternoon. The weather began to deteriorate rapidly. Heavy rain and lots of lightening and thunder too.  8x10.

painting at Sandstone

Here's my second picture from the day at Sandstone - the old ice-house. 8 x 10.

workshop paintings

A few pictures from a workshop I took are going to get posted here. These first are from

Hall Ranch on a very foggy overcast morning. I did another but light kept changing and I didn't save it.

The first, 8 x 10, second one 12 x 9.

Melting Snow

Someone asked me about this painting last night so I thought I'd post a picture of it. It doesn't appear in my previous posts.  I painted this in 2009 and it's been shown several times around town. The scene was a winter view along highway 36 between Boulder and Lyons. Melting Snow,  18 x 22, sold.

Hall Ranch Wash

Here is a close-up of one of the pictures I currently have at the Muse.  I have wanted to paint one of the gullies at Hall Ranch for a long time and finally did it with this picture. I worked from photos I took in January. There was no snow at the time. Hall Ranch Wash, sold.

New Website Changes

The new website is up and running. I ended up getting frustrated with Wordpress and went back to constructing it in Dreamweaver again, but adding a few new widgets to it. So now at least I have slideshow capability. However I decided to sever the blog from the website. From now on the blog will be featuring my landscapes. The website will feature my other work. A chance to see how it looks:
Website  It's actually not too radically different from before, with changed colors, some things moved to different pages, some things removed, some new pictures.

Hill paintings

Here are several new pictures done in the last month. One scene is from a local place called Hall Ranch where we often hike,  the other one called Socorro Hills is from a place we passed through in New Mexico. These will be on display at the Muse Gallery in May.

Socorro Hills, 12 x 16

Shadowed Hills, 12 x 24

Horse Shed

It's been a long time since I posted. I am in the process of changing my website which might take a while since I'm not the greatest at Wordpress. The new site will incorporate a blog within it so this will all be transferred to the new site when it is ready. The year has been busy with various weddings and the website just fell by the wayside.  Here is a sample of one of my newer paintings.
This was a horse shed on a cold and overcast January morning west of here. Lingering patches of snow added to the atmosphere. Horse Shed, 8 x 16.

Rabbit Sunset

So - here's another ditch picture. This one is 12 x 16 and basically, an experiment to see if I could get the kind of sunset I wanted and to show the muted light.  I have to let it sit awhile and look at it some more, and then maybe I'll change something.  It's a view roughly 180 degrees from the last picture on this blog,  different time of day. Rabbit Sunset, 12 x 16. It sold right away.

Water for the Plains

Here's an irrigation picture - the ditch near Rabbit Mountain. It's so terribly dry but we all survive because of water like this. "Water for the Plains", 9 x 12. This is a favorite picture of mine.

Chama Pass

Now that the show is up I am using the time to get in a few landscapes . Here's one of them. Chama Pass, 16 x 20. This one sold.

Morning Light

Another painting from last weekend. Morning Light, 6" x 8." This one sold.

North Park Stream

Another new one - this one called "North Park Stream", 9 x 12, sold.

Storm over the Mountains

Here's the first of a couple smaller landscape painting I have been working on between larger paintings. "Storm over the Mountains", 12 x 16, sold.

It's Back!

A local car dealership had one of those "push-pull-drag" events and I liked the big headline. I thought the lemon was fitting. Worked on this while waiting for another picture to dry. It's Back, 9 x 12.

ANother new tomato picture

This one, Garden Produce, is 9 x 12. There is something about these partially ripe tomatos and all their variability of color That I really like.

Tomatos

The garden is brimming with unripe tomatos, and since we've had several frosts already they will have to be picked or will freeze on the vine. It has been a big tomato year. Here are a few of them getting ripe indoors. Unripe Tomatoes, 8 x 10.

Blue Scarf

It's been a long time since I posted anything.  I've had a lot of distractions such as visitors coming and going and dealing with the gardening and just never got around to the blog updating. It's hard to update when I've got a garden bed out there ready to get weeded or watered. The biggest distraction however has been my working on a massive overhaul of my art database and mailing list which has taken weeks to update. Whole weekends in May and June disappeared doing it and I am still not finished. I am using the program called Artist Butler. Although it is is fairly unsophisticated it's good enough for my uses. Going back through all the scraps of paper I have in file folders to glean info and finding and making the digital pictures all uniform has been a huge job. Trying to get it all into the right order is a real project.

Painting-wise I've been working on some large paintings lately. The small ones have gone by the wayside for a while. Here's a little one I did work on that never got put on the blog before.

Below,   Blue Scarf, 5" x 7", (sold)

Another Shoe

Here's another shoe painting. Shoe 2, 5 x 7.

A Shoe

Here's a little shoe painting, Shoe 1, 6 x 8.

Sugar

Here's a little painting I have been laboring over.  It's another shadow picture, 10 x 8.  Sometimes it's time to just quit and start something else, so here it is for now.

Shadows

As January rolled around again this winter the early sun once again began to highlight the kitchen wall with interesting shadows where the pots hang. I couldn't resist doing another painting of the pots and their shadows.  Kitchen Shadows,  12 x 16. Last year's is below (sold).