For once, a painting without a lot of fall color!

Of course, there is fall color in it as that is what I do, but no aspen leaves this time. This is an interpretation of the view at the top of Lizard Head Pass, near Telluride. I was there in September when the leaves were at their peak, but the pass has a lot of pine trees too. I really liked the color of the distant trees and my goals were to get that color right and to make the foreground interesting, which is something I find difficult to do. This is a fairly large painting at 29x24.

Getting ready to go to New Zealand

This painting sold this week....yaay! It seems that art sales are picking up again. I have heard good things from a lot of different artists.

I have been too long delayed in posting something new, but I haven't had much time to paint. My sister Adele and I leave in two weeks for New Zealand and I have been on full speed trying to get everything done before I go. We are doing our scouting trip for the watercolor holiday that she and Joe Garcia will be conducting a year from now, in February/March 2012. I get to go along as chief cook and bottlewasher :)

The trip this year is to make sure that we like the cabins we have selected for our lodging and want to be certain we have alternative places to paint if (or when) it rains. We also want to check out the restaurants and bakeries that we are planning on using, to make sure that they are still in business and still serving good food. Yum! We have to check on transportation as we think that we will hire a small bus rather than driving two vans ourselves when we do our daily trips. That is undetermined until we talk to the bus company. It seems that New Zealand businesses just haven't got the hang of doing business on the internet. They are bad at answering emails and websites often are pretty sketchy. But that is ok, I don't mind checking it out in person!

We will have 18 to 20 people on the holiday; just over half being painters and the rest spouses and partners wanting to also see New Zealand. Deposits are due in by the end of the month and we have a waiting list, so if some drop off, it looks like it will still be full. We will probably do another workshop the following year, in 2013, and may bring in guest instructors too, so we can cover both oil and watercolor. New Zealand is a fabulous country, and so paintable!

One fine day

Combining two of my favorite themes, fall color and water. I love to paint reflections. I made a conscious effort on this one to not do purple mountains! At this time of year they get gold and even red as the tundra grasses change color, so why not? Purple and blue mountains sometimes seem a bit trite, but most of the time the color is dead on. This day was different and that is why I liked the reference photo I used for this painting. BTW, if you would like to read a good article about plein air painting, my sister found a great article in Huffington Post, of all places. http://adeleearnshaw.blogspot.com/2010/12/painting-plein-air.html

The Trail West

Another in my series of the landmark mountain in our county, Buffalo Mountain. I have been trying to approach it from different angles and in different seasons. I have hiked this mountain three times now, and saw mountain goats on it twice. I have lots of photos! I am attempting to paint the goats too, and so far have not produced anything worth posting. I am not much of an animal painter, but will keep trying and might post one, one of these days! This is a little larger than I have been painting in the past, at 11x14. I have been working on some 12x16s too and do like larger pieces for a change.

Another river painting (or two)

This is just a little study I did in preparation for a bigger version of it. It is only 6x8 but it really helped me figure out what needed to be important for the 16x20 version (which sold this month. Yaaay!!) I find that doing a smaller one first helps me with composition, drawing, color and anything else I need to work out. The second time through I gave the river more of a curve and emphasized the fall colors. I may have already posted it here, but here it is again. Although the second one is probably the better of the two, I prefer the looseness and spontenatity of the first one.

Wildflower season

There is nothing like summer in the Rocky Mountains. Because our summer season is so short, the flowers are spectacular as they are all blooming at once. I love to paint them, but have to remind myself that masses of flowers paint better than individual single flowers. Letting the eye of the viewer figure out what the individual flowers look like is more interesting to me than painting every little flower by itself. Besides, I hate noodling a painting and I find myself doing it too often!

Changing Colorado weather

June 13th, and we woke up to snow this morning! It has mostly melted now, but we expect cold temperatures tonight so my tender plants are inside. Typical Colorado! It made me think it might be a good time to post this painting that is titled "Weather Change".

Finally, summer is here!

Summer in Colorado is fabulous, when it finally gets here. I photographed this flower container in front of a Victorian style house several years ago in Redstone, Colorado, and decided that this would be a good time to paint it. Redstone is a wonderful little artsy, historic town not too far from Aspen and Glenwood Springs, but you find these type of flower displays all through the mountains. Breckenridge and the area I live in have some of the best! Colorado summers are really nice because our temperatures are cool (no AC needed) and the sun is strong, intensifying colors. Everything seems to bloom at once because it season is so short. It is a great time to live here!

A quickie

I got home late yesterday afternoon and only had about an hour of good light left. I had been trying to get to my paints all day but my work just got in the way! I don't like painting under artificial light, so I did a little quick 6x8 and finished it just as my light was fading.

This painting looks a little lighter on my monitor than it actually is; it is really rather dark. I named it "Last light" as it is a scene I often see as I drive home when the sun is setting, catching the tops of the mountains with the last rays. I thought the name was appropriate as I painted it with the last light too.

Good news!

Last November I entered two paintings into a competition for poster for the Breckenridge Music Festival. It is called "Bach Beethoven and Breckenridge" and even though it has a music theme, landscape paintings have often been used on the poster. I found out about it two weeks before the deadline and quickly got a couple of 18x24 landscapes painted and entered them both. One was selected as a finalist and I was thrilled!

Rather than the Music Festival doing the poster, it was produced by a person who had the contract to make the selection and pay to print the poster. He would pay the artist for the work and get all rights to the image. After donating a certain number of prints to the music festival (along with the original painting) he would then wholesale the posters to other print stores and galleries in the area. They have always been good sellers, and you often see them on the walls of local homes and businesses.

This year, that guy went out of business. He closed his store and is moving away. I thought that the poster project was dead and that even though I came close to winning, it would never happen. Yesterday I got a phone call that the Buffalo Mountain Gallery has bought the program and will be printing the poster using my image! It was a lovely surprise and I am excited that it is finally going to happen.

As you have seen from the work I post on this blog, I like color and I like to paint Colorado aspens in the fall. That is what this work also is, and it has the really original name of "Colorado Color." It probably could have used a better name, but sometimes I just run out of ideas. Hopefully it will reproduce well as a poster. Luckily they are not relying on my photo of it for the poster, but will have it professionally photographed.