2010 Plein Air Season

Telluride Plein Air June/July 2010



Morning Light in the Aspens 6x12 and Columbines 8x12

Tipi #2 8x6

Morning Splendor 24x12 . Morning Spendor was done up at Alta Lakes, above an old mining camp. The 8x8 next to it called Falling Water was done at the bottom of Bridal Veil Falls with my good painting buddy Joshua Been who is just an awesome painter.

Tipi #2, 8x6, and Morning Lupines, 8x10. Morning Lupines was just featured in Southwest Art Magazine's Feb. issue.

Telluride is such an awesome place to paint. The mountains are ridiculous, the town is hoppin, the people are great, and this is one of 2 towns I know of in Colorado which has a "Free Box". What this means is that if you pull into town and you forgot something, or you have too much of something, you can roll up to the free box and see if what you need is there. Or, you can drop off something you don't need. what a great idea. You would think there are still hippies in town. I can assure you, you would be right. Above is Morning Lupines, 8x10, and Tipi #2, 8x6

why is this text underlined?

"Leftovers" 12x9, above left and "Through the Aspens" 16x20, above right.

Keep scrolling down. . . . . I am having a little trouble working with this working space in Blogger, and I seem to have a serious lack of word processing skills so my apologies. I also keep deleting images and can't get them back, have to re-upload, and they don't want to cooperate with where I want to put them.

Another view at right of the ridiculous mountains you are surrounded by in Telluride, at sunset (6x8 and still available at this moment but the aspens in the foreground got changed to their fall colors one day in the studio. Not sure what possessed me to do that, I kind of like it the way it is here)

A view of town from above, up the road at the back of the box canyon, 10x8

Couldn't resist painting this bike outside the gas station. "Speed for sale is 6x8

View of the west end of town, 8x10

Its definitely a bike town and the best way to get around. Driving is just silly if you CAN find a place to park and really seems to be discouraged. 8x8

The Sheridan Bar on the side of the Sheridan Hotel. They were really nice to let us paint inside on a rainy day. 8x6

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2010 Season of Plein Air Painting

I forgot. I had a blog. I don't know where it went but the link from my website disappeared and its taken me a while to notice. About a year. Ooops. I'm planning on loading up(or I guess that's "uploading") all the images from last summer's plein air events for you to see. All of this is occuring to me as I am updating my website and focusing on something other than painting(really? is this focusing on something other than painting?) I guess this comes under the topic "shameless self promotion", but I can try to at least believe that I am doing this so it's easy for all my friends and followers to see what I've been painting. Websites, facebook, Linked In, Blogs, Lordy Lord, I don't know what is the politically correct thing to do first. Aren't these things passe already? Isn't there something NEW I am supposed to be doing that I haven't learned how to do?

Ok let's start in order. Last years Season of Plein Air was not the Tour of Triumph but it certainly was fun. It all began in Sonoma, CA where I met a beautiful woman named Rebecca Otto among the grape vines at one of the local vineyards as I was painting. She is probably singlehandedly responsible for getting me out of my head (fear) and into the painting process. We chatted away while I poked around hoping something would happen to the canvas. Here is what happened.(the 2 images of the vines). And here is what else happened.

Sonoma Plein Air Festival May 2010

I have fallen in love with hanging around the vineyards. When its sunny in the spring, the vineyards can be a quiet place to paint. There is something really peaceful about being amoung all these green vines.
These 2 are both size 9x12 and 12x9

But.. . here is what happens when you stand around painting in Sonoma County long enough. Sometimes you get sun. Sometimes it rains. Alot. Some of these were painted sitting in the back of my car. Or cramped in the front seat with the steering wheel in the way. Like this one of the cactus on this hillside ( 6x8). . . . Or this one below(the silhouetted Eucalyptus trees) I started in the early morning sitting in a vineyard. It started rainging so I went into the car and set up to paint inside. Then it stopped so I set back up outside. Then it started raining again. Stopped. Started. Stopped. After a while I just staying in the car to finish. Sometimes you eat the bear. Sometimes the bear eats you.
This is an 8x10

The Square in Sonoma is a great place to hang out. Lots of great shops-very expensive shops. My favorite clothing store in the world is on this block. When I'm feeling brave, I even shop there. But most of the time I'm in the land of Steven Tyler's famous song. . . Dream On.

These 2 vertical paintings of the Square are 10x8's too. the small horizontal of the Square is a 6x8--this one sold to a very cool lady who I met among the vines.

This painting of the atmospheric fields is a 16x20.


The Sonoma Plein Air is put on by a bunch of great folks to raise money for the arts programming in the Sonoma County schools so its a great thing to support. I wish I could have made more money for them.








Rain Again. 6x8

California Haze, 6x8

This painting of the barn is an 8x8--it sold at the show to a neat lady who used to live on a commune and it looked like their common mess hall so it was a good memory for her. I really like this little painting and was sorry to see it go but I'm glad it found a good home. So did 4 other paintings.

Salida: Colorado Mountain Plein Air Festival, Sept 17-25, 2009

More on this later but for now here are the winning paintings, "Franz Lake Nocturn",11x14, (Best of Show) and "Morning on the Arkansas River", 8x10(Quick Draw winner). I had the opportunity to stay at Joshua Been's place (check out his website)and we painted a lot. The first few days were pretty cold and damp and I got snowed on about 5 times painting at about 10,000 ft. The rest of the time was beautiful Colorado dry Sept. weather and great for painting.There were a bunch of other crazy painters at this event too, including Connie Grant, Matt Klein, who I painted the nocturn with, and the ever nuts and hugely talented Carl Ortman. Josh, Matt and I went out the night of the opening and painted a few more nocturns on the Arkansas River under a clear and starry, half moon sky that was casting shadows and making a lot of the necessary values for a night painting. I'll upload the rest of the plein air paintings from the show at a later date.

Sonoma Plein Air May 4-9, 2009

Sonoma Plein Air, an amazing event I had the honor of being invited to, was a really great experience for me. We painted for 5 days, rain and shine, the beautiful California wine country hills and valleys. We were treated like royalty, wined and dined and introduced to collectors and art enthusiasts. I was able to stay with our good friends and travelling companions, Rick and Laura Tackett who live right there in Sonoma.

These first 5 paintings here are "When Life Gives You Lemons" (8x10, oil on canvas), "Tuesday Near Anderson Ranch" (6x12, oil on canvas), "The Strawberry Patch, Clearing Skies" (9x12, oil on linen), "The Night Watch At Sisters",(8x10, oil on linen), "East End of Town #2"(6x8, oil on linen).

ok, keep scrolling down for more images from Sonoma--I can't figure out how to get these closer together so for now, apologies about the format of how these look

"Sonoma Spring #2, Anderson Ranch"

8x10,

oil on canvas

Sonoma Spring #1

6x8

oil on canvas

San Sebastiani Morning

9x12

oil on linen

sold

Rainy Day Shopping

8x10

oil on linen

After the Rain

8x10

oil on linen

"Overlooking the Vineyards" (6x8, oil on canvas)

and

"Oak Hill Farms"

(9x12,oil on linen)

sold

"Monday Overcast" (6x8, oil on birch panel)

"Laura's Lemons #2" (12x9, oil on linen)

"Etre" (8x10, oil on linen)

"After The Rain, Anderson's Ranch" (6x8, oil on linen)