Month: June 2015

Trying to capture the way light changes the local color of things is such a challenge. It’s hard enough when the trees are green and the sky is blue. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone here and try to paint the atmosphere instead of the object.

Here’s a monotone painting of a small barn off Caney Road. The area where this barn is located has changed dramatically since we moved the area 11 years ago but this little spot has remained the same.

I’ve been wanting to paint in the Caney Creek Preserve for a while and finally had a good time to get over there. We used to live right by this park and there is a nice little creek that runs all through it. I brought Truman (the dog) with me and let him run wild while I worked on this one.

Whenever I get in one of these funks with color I tend to pull back and do a couple monotone style paintings to find my footing. I had also purchased some new linen panels from Wind River Arts and wanted to test them out before committing to a real painting. This board was amazing to paint on and it felt good to make some progress with one.

The thing about learning is that it’s not always fun. It’s like working out. Everyone like the benefits of exercising but the actual process – not so much. It stinks because I wish these were better, but I learn as much from the bad ones as I do from the good ones. Onward and upward.

One of the hiking trails inside Cloudland Canyon state park opens up into a field with a small pond. The day I was there it was incredibly still and the pond was almost like a mirror.

This one was pretty frustrating. I struggled like crazy with the edges of the tree on the right and eventually resorted to using it as a palette knife experiment. You can’t win them all…

I wanted to try this one again. My goal was to bring the values of the shadow and light sections closer but really push the temperatures apart. I was unable to do this and need to try it again.