If at 1st you don't succeed...

try, try, again. Sigh.

Aspen glade, 6X8 watercolor

The first time I tried this one, the aspens turned into some other deciduous tree with dark bark. This time I remembered to use some masque. This time it's not snowing, too much was going on for to me to keep track. Still life has been my main thing for a long time and a friend advised me to try landscape and portraiture too, it would help all phases of my work. It's true. Have something you do mainly, that's fine, but keep trying other things, what you learn will make all you do better.  Just don't get discouraged during the learning curve. Sometimes I do.

Work in Progress, early stage

WIP P Massif

A few days ago I mentioned my nephew who climbs rocks. Big ones. He also takes pictures. He has hiked and climbed around the glaciers in Patagonia and I've painted from some of his photos. This is one of the really big rocks there, and I happened to find a picture of it with the sun slanting on it giving it an orange glow.
I've blocked in the peak and some of the surrounding rock. There is more lavender in the sky than shows in the photo, but now I'm working on the foreground. I've blocked in some of it, but it still needs some modeling. I'd also like to hi-light the snow with some of the orange light and shade it with a bit of purple.
There is still a problem with the rock looking "soft." It would be good to look at other painters works to see how they have handled rocky landscapes.
Time to look up some mountain painters!


Here is an earlier painting of one of my nephew's photos:

Paine Massif  peaks

It's framed in bright silver, photographed in warm light.

Back to my roots

Well, some of my roots. I was raised as a rolling stone but an important part of my early life was in the American southwest. Sometimes I still feel like I'm still getting used to low round hills with grass and trees, and all these people out here in California!

Grand Canyon, winter sunset 8X10

There are so many aspects of the Canyon, times of day, seasons of the year, it's never the same. I wanted to paint COLOR. Sorry, didn't mean to shout. Too often I get caught up in accuracy of detail, so this time the rich red of the sandstone in the low angle light kept me on track. There were times I sure wished I'd picked a simpler shape, or at least simplified the shape of the central butte.

Navajo Shepherd family 8X10

This has less color, it's from an old photograph, and it's Monument Valley. My mom was from Arizona, and this is more as she would have remembered it. Her early memories were of a small mining town a long way from anywhere. In fact it took a long time to get nowhere, then you went from there to somewhere. When they moved to Miami, AZ it was like moving to the big city. Yes Virginia, there is  a Miami, AZ.
Back to the picture. Some of the sheep are quite brown, so they show up against the snow. It was a bigger flock, I took out my Artistic License and used it to pick and choose which sheep to include. Snow is an interesting challenge, and I need more practice, I've just never seen much of it. Lucky me?

Almost Spring, but I liked yesterday better!

It's so much easier to scan or take photos of watercolors. (I'm whining again, huh?) This is an 8X10 acrylic of a photo my nephew took of the Paine Massif in Patagonia. Looks a bit fuzzy, doesn't it? He does his tourism vertically, hence the earlier painting of Kilimanjaro. This was a different challenge from painting California, there certainly weren't any bushes or trees.

The plein air season is on it's way. It's such a wonderful way to paint, competing with the constantly changing light, the wind, dust, but it's a very vital way to paint and I need practice. Watercolors are an excellent way to go, but they dry out so fast. Acrylics dry out very fast too, and can't be re-wet, but a wet palette can really help ameliorate that. Perhaps oils may be the ticket. Evidence of my inexperience.

Once again breakfast became a still life, this time in acrylic.