Adding Zest to a Landscape Painting

  Like many artists I am always questioning what subject and style direction I want to go in. I love painting outside. I love learning about new and exciting places to visit and seeing the true colors that a camera cannot capture. My landscape paintings however rarely give me the same excited feeling that the scene provided.

  I also love to paint wild animals and people. Since wild animals rarely stay still long enough to paint I must paint them from photos in the studio.
 
  I was contemplating my artistic dicotemy the other day and looked at the cover of a Southwest Art magazine. This painting by Edgar Payne really grabbed my attention. 
 The landscape is very nice but it is the figures and horses that make this painting interesting. Perhaps I can spice up my plein air painting from last week at the La Luz Trail area of the Sandia Mountain with some kind of animal or figure!





   There was a large rattlesnake that came to visit while I was painting but I don't want to scare the viewer. While painting I had thought about other wild animals in the area - chipmunks, bears and mountain lions. That big rock in my painting looked like the perfect spot for a mountain lion to enjoy the early morning sunshine.

I did some sketches, in black and white and in color.

  Then I put my lion into the painting.


What do you think, is it a more interesting painting?

Workshop weekend with Michelle Chrisman

I had a fabulous weekend of painting and learning. My painting style had been getting pretty tight lately and I wanted to loosen up. Harwood Art Center was offering a workshop with Michelle Chrisman that looked like just what I needed. With only six students I got tons of personal attention. Michelle has a very calm, positive teaching style. I practiced using a pallet knife and finished the top painting of a Corrales front yard, 18 x 24, in just 3 hours.

Grand Canyon in "Monsoon Season"

The travel books are right, nothing prepares you for your first view of the Grand Canyon. We stayed on the South Rim for 3 days and were leaving as the Labor Day visitors were streaming in.
 I got to paint twice with my buddy Peg Usner who was visiting from Louisiana. Both times were in the afternoon rain but the rangers were very accomodating and let me paint on the lodge porch and in the geology museum.

Down By the Abita River

For this weeks class we met under the Rails-to-Trails bridge in Abita Springs. Just a block away there is the noise of a small town with big trucks barreling through town but here it was quiet and peaceful and we could just enjoy the moment.

October Plein Air Painting Class

Thursday was my first time teaching plein air. There were five students in the class and we met at Fountainbleau State Park. After a week of rain we were lucky to have a lovely sunny day. On Monday and Wednesday I had done some practice painting. I find rainy day paintings a little gloomy but several people liked my darkest version of the scene.

New Mexico Art

 I am privileged to be juried into the Placitas New Mexico Holiday Show and Sale the weekend before Thanksgiving.  I've got a little stockpile of art at my house there.
 The churches of New Mexico are always eye catching to artists. They are also wonderful to visit, especially the one in Chimayo. On a recent visit we met the priest who has been there for 50 years. What a wonderful giving man. He escaped the communists in Spain and has dedicated his life to the parishioners and to improving the sanctuary

grounds ever since. He pointed with pride to all the trees he had planted.

Fun with Torn Paper

In the Carol Nelson workshop I took this year we learned to create colorful papers and then turn them into paintings. At first I found it frustrating but now I am enjoying it. The first step is an acrylic underpainting. Once I am happy with the painting I can start glueing torn paper in matching colors on top of the painting. This probably takes 5 times longer than the acrylic underpainting did but the result is so cute and original

!