View of Lone Peak, summer

I did a lot of painting in Montana this summer but this is the only painting I finished.  The view is from the meadow at a house that's for sale which is actually about 6 miles, maybe even 7, from the base of Lone Peak.

The challenge of painting a meadow is one I tackled more than once with some success and a lot of "needs more study".  There's the issue of making the grass look grassy without the fussiness of painting individual plants; there's the need to show flowers but not every single one; and there's the way that light catches areas of grass or the tips of plants at different times of day.  And the look of a meadow is greatly affected by how dry the summer has been -- whether there's a tinge of gold or wheat to the lightest grasses.

In mid-July when I painted this, there were still areas of snow visible on the peak.  By August, they were gone.

I've shipped the unfinished paintings to my studio in Bethesda and I'll be working on either finishing them or using them as studies for larger paintings.

19 Years of Painting A House in Maine

2017, oil on multimedia dartboard

1998, watercolor

 I've been painting in Maine during summers for the past 19 years, always staying at the same house.  While I'm there, I paint lobsters, lobster boats, rocks, the ocean, the beach, adirondack chairs, the ferry across the harbor... and the 1880s Victorian house with the wrap-around porch that I rent.

19 years ago, I did a small watercolor painting from the front lawn and it may have been among the last times I took out watercolors and a soft brush.  Since then, I've painted the house from the front, the side, the beach, in the morning, at sunset, and any other time it has struck me that I can get a bit more familiar with the house.

Over the years, the house has been surrounded by more or fewer wildflowers, and drought has turned the grass to the color of wheat or wet summers have made it a lush green.  The landscaping has gotten a bit more elaborate, too.

My own exploration of paints, my palette, mediums and painting surfaces has resulted in some looser and some tighter paintings.   There have been times when I only have a short session in which to paint and other times that I have more opportunity to contemplate the scene.  Sometimes the spot I set up my easel gives me an angle that make the house look taller or wider, and I emphasize that.  The house's white siding can turn yellow in bright light or blue or purple in deep shade.

Artists paint the same subject over and over, not as a commercial strategy (although some do -- painting upon painting of an apple, then two apples, and so on), but as a way of getting to know and understand a subject or a place.  Jennifer Bartlett famously published a book, In the Garden, of almost 200 drawings in a range of styles of the garden at a villa.  Monet painted haystacks (and many other things) at different times of day.

And I keep painting this house.

Taking the pressure off -- working on paper (updated)

I've been painting in Montana for a few days now and it's a humbling experience.  It's beautiful and the weather changes at a pace that makes me paint in a frenzy.  I've been working by the Gallatin River where a stream comes through the woods, working on canvas and trying to warm up to being outdoors painting again.

Today I decided to take some of the pressure off -- working on "multimedia artboard" instead of on stretched canvas.  It's a paper-like substance, very stiff and heavy, and purports to support oil paint.   It allowed me to work more quickly, both because it's small 8" x 10" and because I set myself up on my deck (yes, that's the hot tub cover I'm using as a table) in case a sudden rainstorm hit.  I managed to get two quick paintings done between rain showers today.

Color Change-Up

It's those same flowers again, but I changed the lighting and my palette to add intense color.  I did move the vases around again. And kept it loose.

I love thinking about the different ways these flowers and their shadows can be painted.   Today, as their edges were browning, the tinge of red led me to this.

Loose Flowers

I think these flowers only have another day or so in them -- a good reminder to me to keep the paint fresh and loose.

Yesterday's palette was used again in this painting, but I added just a bit of cerulean blue both into the grays to make them bluer and into the hydrangeas and reflections.

Roses, Hydrangeas, Alstromeria

Summer in Maine I like to paint flowers.  It's a respite from working on a landscape that is so rich and vast that it's a relief to focus on a small space.  I'll be in Maine this summer (and Montana -- another big landscape to contemplate) so I've been thinking about flowers again.

I had a few vases with roses, hydrangeas and alstroemeria so I brought them into the studio to paint.    I  set up a very limited palette to help keep my focus and keep the painting from being overworked.

After 2 hours, I was at this point and decided to stop.  I'm going to call this one done and start a new painting of the flowers another day.

K Street in Georgetown

new painting in progress

original sketch

K Street in Georgetown is at water level; above it, the Whitehurst Freeway whisks cars past Georgetown traffic.  I've spend a lot of time under the freeway painting, and I went back to my other sketches and paintings to create a new painting of the site.  The views from each painting are different, some of which is due to where I set up my easel; other changes were made to compose the painting the way I wanted it.

The wall of the building that houses Ma Maison restaurant does have black paint on the upper half of its east-facing wall, but in the earlier sketch I found the black stripe and the prominent roadway girder right in front of it too intense and distracting.  In the painting I'm working on now, I've shifted the focus of the painting so you are led along K Street to its end.  I'll be working on more balance of the color and see how well I can add come variation into the deep shadow to add movement to the space.

Revisiting a Yellowstone Meadow

the second version of the scene 

This meadow is above Trout Pond in Yellowstone National Park.  The trail goes through the meadow and down to the pond.

I painted this scene first after visiting it last summer on a smallish canvas.  In my first painting of it, I shied away from the intense green of the meadow and I think the loss of a lush carpet of grasses and flowers made that first painting worth revisiting.   In this one, I let the saturated colors shine -- and although I painted it on a slightly larger canvas, I didn't go all out and paint this on a larger canvas.

Now with these two done, I think I may tackle a truly large painting of the scene.

this was the first painting of the scene

Fly Fishing Success

This is not only about the success of catching the fish, but also about finishing a painting I'd started months ago.   I hadn't painted any features into the shadow on the face, and I'd been thinking about how best to address the deep shadow cast by the baseball cap.

Yesterday I decided to work on this and I think I've got the face finished.  I also added the yellow sun-lit grasses to near and distant mountains.  The water may still have too much intensity as it goes into the distance and I'll tone that down ... and maybe it will be done.

The fish, by the way, is a rainbow trout.  We caught (and released) rainbow trout and cutthroat trout on the Yellowstone River last summer just a few weeks before the river was closed to fishing due to a concern about bacteria and warm water temperatures.  Today on NPR there was a report about how the native cutthroat trout are being weakened by breeding with the non-native rainbows.   Fishing is regulated, licensed, managed and monitored and it bodes well, I hope, for a plan for the future to protect the Yellowstone River and the native cutthroat trout.

Bison Painting -- Done (and work in progress, days 1 & 2)

The bison painting is done -- it's 3 feet by 4 feet -- oil on linen.

2nd day working on the painting

first day's work

When I was in Yellowstone in March, I had the amazing experience of seeing a herd of bison walking down a snow-packed path.  To be
on the safe side, literally, the group I was in on snowmobiles all got off and stood with the machines between us and the bison as they walked just a few feet away from us.  I took a lot of photos and brought the images into the studio to work on a painting of the bison walking.

This is just the beginning, where I'm trying to lay down the basic shapes and colors.  I may be adjusting the size and position of the bison in front to make him larger and darker, I have to work on that.

The white areas of the painting are just blank canvas showing through.  A lot more work to come.