Pumpkins, Orange Drink and Cow paintings are finished! Red and yellow birds and the master copy still in progress. The floral is a new image. I found the flowers at the local farmers market, $5 for the whole bunch! Normally I wouldn't work on the flowers and neglect the rest of the painting but in this case it's important to get the flowers before they wilt.
The landscape is about 90% there, just some tweeking in the lower right and possibly on the cows. The figs are complete. Our local fruit market had them and I couldn't resist. If they still have them this week I may have to do another painting. I'm feeling pretty good about the progress on the gas can still life. There are many hours to go but I think the start is good and solid. The last is an old master copy I started a while back and just brought out to finish. It's mostly for practice but also pleasure,
The pumpkins are finished. Getting ready for the fall season...
This still life is inspired by memories of my Grandpa Ken. He had a shed on his property that housed all of his tools. I loved the smell of gas, oil and lumber as you walked in. There is a feeling of possibilities when you're surrounded by the tools and materials needed to fix and build things. 
These are some studies and plein air paintings from August. It's amazing how spending time really looking at what happens to light and atmospheric changes the way you see the landscape. I took a workshop from Jim Lamb and really appreciated the ideas he discussed about simplifying and editing. 
We just arrived home a couple of days ago from camping. The weather was gorgeous and we were surrounded by breathtaking vistas.
As you can see, I've been getting outside to paint. The four small paintings were the result of a workshop taught by Jim Lamb on plein air painting. We spent five days painting in Kittatas (sp) area, which was absolutely gorgeous. It's so helpful to paint on location, all of the nuances that are lost in photos are there for us to see. The atmospheric perspective is especially interesting.
are from my studio. They are all in progress. I hope to start on some new still life and landscape this week, as I'll be finishing up these paintings.
All of the major forms are blocked in and light and shadow for the most part mapped out. Now it's time to slow down a bit and work in all of the subtle variations of color and light throughout. This is the fun part, frosting the cake so to speak. On Saturday I will visit the family and take photos of the pets to add to the compositions.
