Progress, Events and Musings...

This morning I got up and headed over to the river, this pretty river is just down the road from where I live.  Every time out I'm trying to learn and get better.  For this one, the goal was to simplify.  I've been so inspired by several paintings I've seen other artists do recently, and I really want to learn to get better at creating simple masses, large shapes, working with large brushes and adding in spots of detail later on, at the end.  It's a real challenge to capture evergreen trees, unless you leave it as simple shapes, and just indicate what's happening very loose.

This week I took a 25 mile loop 3 day solo backpacking trip into the Goat Rocks wilderness area in the Cascade mountain range in Washington.  Such a beautiful location.  It was a very hard climb (at least for me).  I also recently purchased a light-weight plein air painting set-up from ProlificPainter.com and was anxious to try it out.  It was a pretty amazing trip, with gorgeous sweeping vistas, and beautiful wildflowers in bloom. 

Here's a shot of a large river painting I've currently got on my easel.  Making good progress on it I think.  Pretty much only painting a few hours a week, so I do move fast on it when I get the chance. 

The idea for this one came as I was running along the trail by the river, and noticed this spot with some really deep areas and such clear water.  I could tell there were large rocks, but also just a lot of depth that I thought looked really interesting. I wanted to go large with it, to really pull the viewer into the water and the mystery of what might in there.