Something a little different here.....Cobalt Blue and Burnt Sienna

My demo piece from yesterday's Logan Art Gallery showing.....  Not 100% happy with the result, but then again, it was a faster pace painting in front of 30 or so people as I was standing and working in front of a low table...not the best of painting situations, but a lot of fun.  So I take all that into account and it comes out as a positive....

This small painting I did a little while back..but don't remember If I had posted it or not...In any event, here it is...
I took 400# rough Arches' paper.....Gesso'd it.....added really fine sand while the gesso was still wet, and mixed it together while still wet and on the paper...after that dried, I regesso'd several more times and ended up with a sandpaper-looking texture......Then I painted this quick, small painting on it....
Another painting of the Cache Valley area in Northern Utah... Painting size is 6" x 12"....with a 3" mat that's at 12" x 18" for a frame...

A small  quick demo sketch  (7" x 10") ...watercolor

A small watercolor  ( 6" x 8")...... just another variation of some of the other winter contrast paintings that I've done that's posted on this blog...

"There is nothing in the world, More beautiful than the forest clothed to it's very hollows in snow.  It is the still ecstasy of nature, Wherein every spray,  Every blade of grass,  Every spire of reed,  Every intricacy of twig, is clad in radiance."  - William Sharp

Watercolor and Liquid Graphite ........  Painted this painting in more of an upright position and just let the paint flow and fall without too much concern....  On the left side I pulled out much of the liquid graphite to give an appearance of some larger pines in the background.  On the right side....added some wet-in-wet color, then work in some color when it was drier.  Tried to achieve a rainy, wet day in the mountains.   The foreground just happened because of the upright position of the  board that I was painting on.

                    Liquid Graphite and Watercolor on Gesso'd Arches' 400# rough paper

Watercolor Progression

  In Colorado for a day, driving from Utah...photo'ing and sketching along the way......

                                                           Graphite Sketch w/ Pastel

Watercolor Progression

Another watercolor demo completed.  As in this case, sometimes I just start out and don't know how it will really end.......I just paint.  Lately I've been painting a great deal of rocks and aspens..... trying to capture the rustic feeling of the mountain wilderness...  This painting is in my usual size range 9 1/2" x 13 1/2", and I think I'll mat it with a 3 1/4" off-white mat....giving me a frame size of 16" x 20"....

"Now winter nights enlarge, This number of their hours;  And clouds their storms discharge, Upon the airy towers..........."   Thomas Campion

Watercolor and Oil Pastel on gesso'd masonite panel.   This is another painting of southern Idaho, southeast of Pocatello, on Rt 30 ......wanted to try and capture an approaching storm against the low mountain range.....

                     

"Thru the Thicket-Across the Meadow-To the Woods"

                                 2nd attempt at "Summer Green" ....  Acrylic 11"x14"

Watercolor Progression

Same location as the painting in the previous blog entry... Pushed in a little more Raw Umber into this one...... Of note:  Windsor Newton makes two different Payne's Grays.....The Windsor Newton brand and the Windsor Newton Cotman brand of Payne's Gray.  I prefer the Cotman brand of Payne's Gray mixed with various earth tones.

                                                             Watercolor   9"x16"

                                       "Summer Green"  Acrylic on canvas.......11" x 14"

"All I want is to stand in a field and to smell green, to taste air, to feel the earth want me..."   Phillip Pulfrey; from Love, Abstraction, and other Speculations

                                                             Preparatory Sketches

"Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of earth are never alone or weary of life."   Rachel Carson

                                         Southern Idaho...watercolor and acrylic

      A quick watercolor sketch for color/composition.  I do a lot of these upright free-flowing paintings just to keep myself familiar with the medium.  This one however was accomplished on gesso'd 300# paper, using Derivan liquid pencil, Gouache, and some cobalt blue watercolor in the sky area.  I half-way finish them and then end up liking them in this loose unfinished look.

                                         This evening...a quick sketch from photo references

                                                         Oil and Oil Pastel on Canvas

"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out until sundown;  For going out, I found, I was really going in".     John Muir; The unpublished Journals of John Muir, 1938

                             

                         Winter with new growth pines .....Watercolor and Acrylic   (11"x14")

Working in the studio today from sketches and photographs.... This is another painting of the mountain rocks along Tony Grove Lake, Utah

"Ahead and to the west was our ranger station - and the mountains of Idaho, poems of geology stretching beyond any boundaries and seemingly even beyond the world."    Norman Maclean, A River Runs through it and other stories

"He, the Mountain.....
A beauty he is with his sparkling grey face,  looking up at the sun, his arms embrace..."    
Dahlia Pimentel  

This is the completed painting that I had posted earlier as an unfinished piece.  Not a whole lot of changes.... just added some color to that rocky left side of the painting and reposted it as a finished painting.   At some time, I'll make another trip to this location to do some more painting....

                "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin"        William Shakespheare

                                                                   Acrylic 11"x14"

This is my 2nd acrylic of this scene.  I painted one very similar to this one and posted it on this blog on 30 January.  I enjoyed painting it and liked the composition, so I thought I'd try another with a slight variation from the first.  On this painting I put down a little more paint with a pallet knife.

                                               
                                             Acrylic on 400# rough Arches' W/C paper

"Nature is man's teacher.  She unfolds her treasures to his search, unseals his eye, illumes his mind, and purifies his heart..."   Alfred Billings Street

       
           

"How strange that Nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude".    Emily Dickinson

A couple of watercolors from an area around Logan, Utah...Late February 2014