The Deep Woods

 Here are a couple more plein-air studies from earlier this summer. This first one was part of a multi-painting experiment replacing Ultramarine Blue with Prussian Blue on my palette. I learned that even though I LOVE Prussian Blue (because it mixes really well with Transparent Red Iron Oxide and it's also transparent), when I didn't have a cool blue on my palette then my paintings always turned out looking like aged photos or something you see through rose-colored glasses. This painting feels scorched and dehydrated to me- I really want to put some Ultramarine Blue into it but then I'd have to repaint the whole thing or the blue would be out of harmony with the rest of the painting.

The second one was the first painting I'd done outside in months, and it was a warm-up painting and turned out tighter than I like, but I had fun with all of the opportunities for designing shapes in this scene. This was in Jewel Basin...in the top of the mountain range wall bordering Kalispell, MT on the eastern side. I painted it from a camp chair in our camping site while my toddlers "cooked" gravel and snow with all of my cooking utensils. :)

Home Again

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From the top of the big meadow on the Oftedahl Ranch, I painted this familiar scene. A doe wandered around through my Dad’s log decks behind me, inching closer and closer out of curiosity. Finally she came right up onto the hill in front of my easel, and pawed at the ground, challenging my right to paint there. I wondered how I would describe the sound a deer makes. I think I’d say it’s a cross between the word “shoo” and “chew,” whispered as loudly as possible. There’s never any end to the distractions when you’re painting, pleasant as they may be. But at least I have a supportive husband who takes turns with the kids and lets me go paint and talk to deer. 

Great Grandpa’s Garages

When I was a kid, I spent a whole summer in these sheds catching rabbits with my sisters and cousins, and  they provided a maze of good hiding places for the rabbits. Dusty, greasy, full of rusty iron tools and filthy old tires… Great grandpa filled them up with his treasures. But that's not why I painted them. I painted them because as Harvey Dunn says it, they “reflect... the glorious light of heaven.” 

 

Waiting Backstage

This isn't the best photo so I'll swap it out when the lighting's better, but here's the painting finished about a week ago. It was painted from a live model- a really great one. :) She was perfectly still, and multitasked- studying geometry from a textbook on the floor while modeling. I decided to make up quite a few things, like the fringe on the outfit, the hair sticks, and the background. I just didn't want to paint a dancer sitting in front of a chalkboard. So I thought, "What if she's actually sitting backstage, waiting for the intro to her song to come on? It's the final performance of the evening, and all of her family and friends are watching, waiting with the film crews for her to come out and be awesome! ;)"  So that's how I painted it. Better photo coming soon...

Waiting Backstage