More Vacation Paintings

I'm at the end of week two of my vacation. I haven't been quite as productive this week, but still have been getting some painting done. This first painting is of St. Catherine Chapel located on the peak to peak between Allens Park and Estes Park. I've always admired this church and finally drove over there Monday morning to Paint it.

I painting this Tuesday. It is the Central City Cemetery located above Central City. It is over grown and seems abandoned and made for some great painting.

This is Caribou flats. At 10,000 ft and up above Nederland it also gave me a great subject to paint. I am quite pleased with the depth I am achieving in this painting.

This was painted along the Million Dollar highway on the north side of Red Mountain Pass. In case you can't tell, it was raining. I painted this from the cab of my truck.

This is also from the Million Dollar Highway but on the Durango side.

Here I am back at home in Boulder. These are some of the rock formations seen from NCAR.

And finally back to the Weds. night figure drawing where I painted this. I didn't like it when I first finished it, but it looks pretty good to me now. 

a painting vacation

You may have noticed I didn't post anything this past Sunday, the reason being I was leaving on my vacation. I have been looking forward to this for a long time. The plan is to drive around looking for good things to paint. I left Sunday stopping at Kenosa pass to paint this.

Next stop was just east of Buena Vista. The mountain is a 14er. But, I'm not sure which one.

I spent the night just south of Creed. I found this spot in the dark and woke up to this sight. I painted this in the soft early morning light. I think it shows.

Next stop Monday was this spot on the road out of Lake City headed up Cinnamon  Pass. The clouds rolled in and it rained on and off the rest of the day.

On the other side of Cinnamon Pass is this place called Animas Forks. There are all of these beautiful old mining ruins there. I painted the next three paintings there.

Animas Forks is a popular place for four wheel drive atvs and motorcycles. I had all sorts of people stop to see what I was doing. One guy asked for my email so he can contact me when he gets home to Missouri and buy this painting. We'll see. It did turn out quite well.

I couldn't resist this cool old house. I painted it way straighter than it was standing. It looked like a mistake painting the back corner as out of plumb as it is in real life.

This is my third painting on Tuesday. This was on the way up California pass west and up from Animas Forks. I believe the high point on the left is California mountain standing just above 1300 ft. After I finished the painting I drove the rest of the way up California Pass. You can see some of the road in the painting. 

Here are a couple of photos from California Pass

This morning I headed south out of Silverton and stopped on the side of the road to paint this picture of the Grenadier range. It was raining on and off so I set up some shelter with a tarp to keep out of the rain. See next photo. I am growing more and more confident every day. I know I have much room for improvement, but it feels great to have my paintings turn out as well as they are.

                   

three pleinairs in a this weekend

I painted this Sunday morning. My friends Jim and Sharon were there painting with me. We found this wonderful secluded spot in a field south east of boulder where I painted these first two paintings. This is a view looking south. I chose it for the nice shadow shapes in the trees.

This may be my favorite plain air I've done so far. The light orange and red shapes to the right of the trees are buildings in the CU campus. If you look hard you can see Longs Peak in the back ground.  I am pleased with the brush strokes the values and the colors. I don't mean to blow my own horn, but I feel like I am really starting to get somewhere with this painting. 

I painted this from our drive way. I wanted practice painting trees and the distance of the things behind them and through their branches. Again I am quite pleased with how this turned out.

Paintings from New Mwxico

This is my painting from last weeks Weds. night figure painting. If you look close you can see some pretty strong blues and reds in the shadows.

I went to New Mexico this past weekend to visit my Aunt and Uncle. They have all sorts of really cool stuff including sculls, antiques, native American relics, and other works of art. This cow scull is on their front porch. I think it is sitting on a wagon bench. Notice the cool color of the bone on the lit side.

This is the third of three paintings I did this day. I set up on the edge of this deserted town.It turned out to be not quite as deserted as I first thought. I had several people stop and compliment me on my painting. That felt nice.

 This is the second of the same day. I set up on the berm of the road going by this church. It was early enough that the traffic wasn't too bad. This turned out quite well. The values all seem to be working well with each other.

This was the first of that same day. It was very early so the light changed very fast. I was not happy with it at all and was not going to post it, but time has somehow made it look better to me. I like the splash of sunlight out in the distance.

This is another scene from my Aunt and Uncles. I got this start early one morning and was planning on finishing it another day, but it was wet every morning after this changing the whole feeling of the scene, so I left it as is. I think it works pretty well.

Driving home yesterday I stopped along a really lonely stretch of highway and painted this. I absolutely love this part of New Mexico. Living in the Denver area I get so worn out by the constant stream of people. So, when I get to a place like this, I breath a huge sigh of relief.

Attempting to capture fleeting light

This is of course from the Weds. night figure session. I feel like I continue to improve. with the figure. I hope to graduate to more than just the portrait before too long.

I've painted this old house twice before. I think this may be my best yet. The light was moving fast, but I forced my self to keep the shadows where they were when I started.

I painted this Sat. after noon  the storms were rolling in so the light was constantly moving with the clouds and all. I saw the light briefly shinning on the background mountain and stuck with that thought. It started raining, so I called this one done after only an hour of painting.

This is from this morning. There where clouds about, but all in all it was pretty sunny. My main focus here was to capture that glow in the back ground mountains. The locals call those mountains the slumbering giant. 

I painted this in under an hour. the clouds were moving so fast. I was practically throwing paint at the canvas to try to get down what I was seeing. I think I got a little lucky. Plus my friend Sharon was there to tell me when to stop. I think she was right.

This is another one done almost as fast. I really wanted to hold onto that sunlit mountain contrast over the in the shadows of the cloud mountain behind.

portraits and pleinair

Today we painted at a place called Sawmill ponds. Our friend from class, Jim joined us. This is a view west of the Arapaho Glacier. I'm thinking it turned out pretty good.I can see now that I still have to be careful with my values. The back ground is just a tad too dark. 

I am including this photo so you can see what we had to paint from. It's not such a bad place to spend a Sunday Morning.

This is a portrait of my friend Randy. It doesn't look very much like him, but the point of the painting was to see if I could incorporate what I have been observing painting from life into a painting done from a photo. It turned out far different from what I would have done a year ago. The colors are much more pure and the values aren't as washed out. In this painting I also tried to work on my edges, trying to soften them in places.

This portrait was done Weds. night in figure drawing. The edges are a bit sharp. I also want to improve on my brushstroke quality. 

more pleinairs and a portrait

Sharon and I went back to Veili lake this morning. We stayed long enough for me to get two paintings. This one I didn't quite have enough time. The sun went away and it loked like it was going to storm.

This is my first today. I think you can see the bright morning light on the flatirons.

This portrait was done this past Weds. Our model was having a hard time staying still. So I had a hard time getting her eyes just right. However I think I am slowly getting better.