Straight Up

 

"Straight Up"  (pastel, 5x7 inches)  click here to bid or buy

Here's one of the two paintings I did from my hotel room window, after wimping out on the cold Saturday afternoon at the Plein Air convention. I took tons of beautiful photos, and really was dying to paint. I'm just too much of a 'studio' painter to uncover my hands and stand in one spot outside when it's less than, say, 65 degrees!

Here was one view from our hotel room (the view changed very rapidly on Saturday!)

...and here was the painting I attempted to create from the awe-inspiring view:

"Weathered Range" (pastel, 4x6 inches)

I had to settle for a general impression of the range, and the feeling of temperamental cloud patterns, as various mountains appeared and disappeared with the clouds and rain. It was also a learning experience to realize how very high-key such a distant landscape really is when viewed with the eye. The photo shows it much darker than it really was. Still, I had a very hard time with the red of the rock; that was quite subtle and difficult. I was glad I hadn't tried this outdoors!
When I finally tired of keeping up with this view, I rolled my eyes in frustration and caught sight of the breaking clouds above. I instantly set to work on "Straight Up", which was much less trouble, as clouds still look like clouds even when they change position. This little piece of sky soothed my need for some sort of creative success on that day!

Day 11 - Passing Stormclouds

"Passing Stormclouds" (pastel on Pastelmat, 14x14 inches) click here to bid or buy

Day 11 of my 31-in-31 of January!

Golly, my artwork this month has been all over the place!

I started this last summer in Kim Casebeer's workshop. It's very loosely based on a drive-by photo taken out the passenger window somewhere between South Dakota and Kansas. I decided today I could finish it quicker than painting something from scratch (not really, but at least I finished it!)

Kim's workshop was awesome, but her style of working is difficult to imitate! I did one other painting in her workshop, see it here.

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Cloud 7

"Cloud 7" (pastel, 4x7 inches)  click here to bid or buy

This is the 7th small cloud painting I've done, most of the others were very long ago. There special thing about this one is that it's the same view as one I painted 10 years ago in the Maggie Price workshop at IAPS. This one I painted last week before the IAPS convention, when I was invited to go out and paint with my new friends Laura Pollack, Lyn Asselta and Maria Marino. It was amazing to be able to paint out with such talented landscape artists!

Lyn Asselta and Laura Pollack getting started

It was Tuesday morning and we went to the Elena Gallegos park in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains. Below is the painting I did of this same scene in 2007:

"Atmosphere" (2007, pastel, 4x6) sold

Away from the Overlook

"Away from the Overlook"  (oil, 6x6 inches)  click here to bid

Here's a better image of my one plein air painting in Nebraska. From last weekend after judging the Sand Painters Art Guild show in Valentine. Many of the Sand Painters group are devoted plein air artists and I so admire the dedication that takes, so I was excited to join a few of them on Friday evening. We drove up to a beautiful overlook with several views of the valley below. I found it all a bit overwhelming... so much information! So I settled on the simpler view of the pines, facing away from the overlooks. I do believe this is my first oil plein air. It was hard! All that getting situated and mixing paint, while the gorgeous cloud patterns that first attracted me disappear and the light fades! Arg!

I posted a couple shots from that evening on FB a few days ago, but here they are for you blog followers!

the scene

chasing the light

my improvised 'easel-free' setup

I know you're going to ask: I don't remember where I got the chair. I think I ordered it online somewhere, years ago from one of the art supply stores.. Just Google "chair bag cart with wheels" ;)

Summer Sky #2

"Summer Sky #2"  (pastel, 5x5 inches)  click here to bid

I sometimes have a few 'other' sky scenes in my sunset series that don't quite merit a "Sunset" title. This one was more of a late-afternoon, almost-but-not-quite-stormy day. Just like summertime.

Painted on a dark gray Art Spectrum Colorfix paper.

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Cloud Study 1

"Cloud Study 1"  (graphite, 7x7 inches) 

A couple days ago I was lost for a few hours in my endless file of sky photos, adjusting and cropping about a dozen compositions for potential paintings. This particular one called to me to draw it RIGHT NOW! It didn't allow me any time to sync the photo to my iPad or cross the 60 ft to my studio out back. So I opened my sketchbook in front of my computer and got to work!

(New note to self: Keep a spare set of pastels in the house!)

Straight Up - from the plein air convention

"Straight Up"  (pastel, 5x7 inches)  click here to bid

Here's one of the two paintings I did from my hotel room window, after wimping out on the cold Saturday afternoon at the Plein Air convention last month. I took tons of beautiful photos, and really was dying to paint. I'm just too much of a 'studio' painter to uncover my hands and stand in one spot outside when it's less than, say, 65 degrees!

Here was one view from our hotel room (the view changed very rapidly on Saturday!)

...and here was the painting I attempted to create from the awe-inspiring view:

"Weathered Range" (pastel, 4x6 inches)

I had to settle for a general impression of the range, and the feeling of temperamental cloud patterns, as various mountains appeared and disappeared with the clouds and rain. It was also a learning experience to realize how very high-key such a distant landscape really is when viewed with the eye. The photo shows it much darker than it really was. Still, I had a very hard time with the red of the rock; that was quite subtle and difficult. I was glad I hadn't tried this outdoors!
When I finally tired of keeping up with this view, I rolled my eyes in frustration and caught sight of the breaking clouds above. I instantly set to work on "Straight Up", which was much less trouble, as clouds still look like clouds even when they change position. This little piece of sky soothed my need for some sort of creative success on that day!

Road Sketch 18

"Road Sketch 18" (3.5 x 5.5 in., watercolor and white guache)

This was approaching Manns Harbor Bridge to Roanoke Island in North Carolina. There were some incredible thunderheads developing over the outer banks.