Denver Plein Air---Brrrrr

It's been awhile since I posted on my blog. I've been busy painting, painting...attending the Weekend with the Masters in Colorado Springs and running Art on Mountain. This has been a good fall, a little cold, but very beautiful scenery to paint out there!

On September 21st I spent the day in Denver at the Grant Humphries Mansion in the cold, wind and rain painting away. It was probably as cold as it gets in Colorado in the Fall. I'm surprised it didn't snow!

Here I am with my five layers under my plastic rain poncho, it was drizzling, which is not so good when you are painting with soft pastels!

I got a couple of paintings out of it, but it wasn't easy!

And, isn't it just a privilege to be an artist doing plein air! Yup.

Thaw on the Poudre, Pastel, 16 x 20.

Rolling into Fall in Colorado

Well, this has been one of the busiest summers ever! I just finished a two week workshop with Susan Ogilvie which was held in Longmont, CO. Wonderful teacher, two great classes, since I was in charge I managed to get in more than five days of these classes. We spent most of the morning out painting. It was HOT, hot, hot. Thank goodness, Susan brought us in to paint inside for the rest of the afternoon. Just got a little too toasty out there. We painted a couple of beautiful ponds, a museum farmstead and a friend's house and yard. I got about four pretty decent paintings out of it, they are mostly studies, but after a couple of days of trying to under-stand exactly what Susan's techniques were about, I kind of grasped the concepts. Although I have been painting forever, every class you take seems to open up new doors into the greater understanding of art.
I was very excited to learn that my painting "January Thaw on the Poudre" was accepted into the Estes Park National Show, Lines Into Shapes. This was a painting I worked out getting ready for the Quick Draw up in Cheyenne this Spring. I did about three paintings before arriving at one that I could paint in 45 minutes! This wasn't one of them! In fact, it was the first one I did, 16 x 20, and I just kept on adding and adding until I realized that there was no way I could even attempt to paint this one again! I guess you could say I got carried away!
I love snow, even though it is a different environment here in Colorado, it isn't like living in North Dakota.

It seems like I spent weeks creating this Nocture of the Front Range for the National Pastel Show, only to have it not accepted. Oh, well, I got the painting "Serene Reflections" in but this one is really dear to my heart. I'll hope for the best for it and send it off again, one of the jurors for some show HAS to fall in love with it, right? Maybe it's just me, but I think paintings like this have mystery and beauty that can be created by the viewer, not much is spelled out, but it's all still there. My intrepid mountain climbing friends can name all these summits from south to north. Round Mountain is pretty noticeable but the others are a little more remote. We see this scene driving up and down highway 287, are we lucky to live here or what?

Independence Day/Serene Reflections

I am so excited that my painting, "Serene Reflections" was accepted for the Mile High National Pastel Show for 2009. I also really liked the other paintings I did for this show...that didn't get in, but oh, well!! If you can get at least one painting into National Shows you are way ahead of the game, and...this show is close by, in Longmont, so I can drive the painting there. Having to ship paintings is not good, it costs so much to enter, so much to have your piece framed and photographed that by the time you have to ship it there...and, if it doesn't sell, ship it home, an artist is w..aaa..y into big time money. And, didn't we do this just to enjoy painting? Right?

I just returned from a 10 day vacation to the West Coast of California. It was really a thrill to see the coast line north of San Francisco. I visited my sister, Debbie, who lives in California and has a vacation home in Gualala. This is a really cool area to visit, beautiful rough seacoast and a different type of foliage and weather than you see down around LA and San Diego. I took about 250 photos and did three paintings. I have decided that my theme for the next year or so will be flowers and florals in the landscape. For about the last three years I have concentrated on water, lakes, reflections and I think this will be a fun, enjoyable series and get my juices flowing again.

Two years ago on this day I was painting away in Italy! Dale and flew to Florence and I celebrated my birthday in Florence. Is that a great thing for an artist or what?
Here we are in front
of our fattoria, Italian farm house, one of thirteen houses owned by a Contessa who was 94 years old and had the most amazing and frightening German Shepherd! He was called Princey and we were well warned never to feed Princey in case we ended up part of the food.

What a Memory!!

Back at work, busy, busy

January on the Cache La Poudre, Fort Collins

2009

Life has been one really busy whirl lately. I have been teaching painting, teaching marketing, evaluating galleries (cleaning, painting and redoing our Art on Mountain gallery) and jurying a show. Since my knee surgeon decided it was time to inject my knees that has slowed me down more than I ever thought possible, also.

I was really excited to receive an Honorable Mention on my San Jose Mission Arches painting at our Celebration of Color Show last week. Also, I have put 17 paintings in the Western State Bank in North Fort Collins and 9 paintings in the Reader's Cover BookStore. Next week we rehang a new show in Art on Mountain for which I have five paintings ready.

One of these, January on the Poudre is featured on this post. I painted this as a sample painting and a study for my Quick Draw at the Cheyenne Spirit of the West Show. It turned out pretty well and I love the area just down from our house a couple of miles where I have painted this scene many times.

In December, Dale and I did a quick trip through Minnesota and this painting is from a photograph I took while we were driving through a blizzard to visit Dale's parents. Very interesting drive...NOT. But I do like the painting!