Autumn River in the Driftless Area

Another scene inspired by my Saturday drive to the Driftless Area of western Wisconsin.

Morning 06082014

This piece is acrylic on canvas, 16 X 20". 

 What a busy day I had yesterday, helping out at the Kiwanis Brat Fry, Art day with Kathy and then dinner (small plates) at the Twisted Willow Treehouse with Kathy and Karen.  

I was determined that this piece would be brighter and lighter.  Out with the dark and in with the light!  I worked on it yesterday for a couple of hours.  I was not satisfied.  I asked Kathy, "what do you see?"  She said "a lake and hills, a meadow".  Well that was not what I had tried to paint but since I wasn't happy with how it was turning out with my idea, I took Kathy's interpretation and ran with it.  Now we have a lake, trees and meadows-plus 2 horses and the sun rising out of the morning mist and clouds.   Oh, yeah the river was there all along.  

06/04/2014 Sunrise Color Reflections on Water

Sunrise Color Reflections on Water

McHenry, Illinois

This painting was done in my hotel room in McHenry, Illinois.  Again the lighting was crappy!  I turned every light in the room on and had the curtains open for what little daylight I could get!   This canvas has a ripple in it on the left side because I had it in my carry bag and something hard and round pressed in to it.  I decided it to use it anyway since right now I am just trying new things.  I like this one so I am trying to get that ripple out!

Chasing Spring

When you drive from Wisconsin to Louisiana in March you go from winter gradually to Spring.  For us Spring didn't start until we got south of Memphis.  Then we noticed the grass, then the trees and finally in New Orleans we had flowers!  Of course the return trip reverses the process and even after being gone 9 days, we still came back to snow on the north sides of roads, houses, yards and piles of snow in the parking lots.  I did this piece in our hotel suite at a window that looked out at an empty brick building.  I didn't realize how bad the light was until I found myself with this dark little painting, which is not what I set out to produce.  Actually this is the 3rd reincarnation.  The first one, I didn't like much so I painted some more.  The 2nd version reminded Karen of Big Bird (she wasn't totally wrong) and so I painted some more and got this dark little piece where it seems we are looking back along the route that we took as we chased after spring and finally caught her.