Wednesday Wanderings: More Plein Air Rockies

Every piece I completed at Plein Air Rockies has its own story. Every one is, for me, connected to the moment in time that I was capturing and to the unique character of each place I stood.

The following piece is connected to the perfect serenity of Rocky Mountain National Park. At times, I found painting there to be almost meditative. This piece, titled "Boulder At Rest," was painted beside the rushing water of the Big Thompson River, in a shady spot between boulders and ponderosa pines. The entire time I was working I heard the song of the river and felt the remarkable calm of things that have been still for a very long time:

Boulder At Rest
Oil on Panel
14" x 11"
Plein Air Rockies 2014

This piece on the other hand, is not connected to serenity:

Moraine Park Morning
Oil on Panel
16" x 20"
Plein Air Rockies 2014

Sometimes an idea for a painting just hits you in the face as soon as you see your subject. Other times, the actual painting hits you in the face. That's what happened with this piece. I was in Moraine Park, surrounded by grassland and towering peaks and WIND. It was an incredibly windy day, one on which I might have, under different circumstances, stayed in the studio. But in a timed plein air competition, every day matters. You have to take advantage of every moment that the light is catching your subject just right. It was the last day I would be able to paint Moraine Park in the morning, and I couldn't stand to miss it.

So I put my hat down further on my head, leaned into the wind, and painted. I had just finished the sky and peaks and was working on the tree when a huge gale simply picked up my painting and smacked it flat into my face. I had blue across my nose and forehead and grey on my cheeks. The worst part was that the painting then landed face down in the black dirt of Moraine Park. I suppose that's what makes a plein air painting authentic, though, right?

This piece holds memories for me that are different from the other pieces. This was painted at Lilly Lake, which has a popular walking trail around it. I was set up on the trail, and all the people who were out walking the trail would stop and see the painting and chat for a few minutes. It was a very social, engaging place and I could see that it was much beloved by all its visitors. Some of that fun community feel permeates this piece. There is a huge fallen tree with crazy sticking-out branches right beside the trail, which people love to climb on and comment on as they walk by. It had real personality and was a character I had to capture in paint.

Guardian of Lilly Lake
Oil on Panel
14" x 11"
Plein Air Rockies 2014

People who make scrapbooks or slideshow videos or keep journals of their travels know the particular joy and satisfaction of returning to that place and reliving a single moment of your experience there. It's like a gift. I love finding those moments again through each painting.

Rocky Mountain Plein Air Festival: An Epic Challenge

I'm having a great time here in Estes Park, Colorado participating in the Rocky Mountain Plein Air Festival. Rocky Mountain National Park is a National Park in the grand old style. It's the high country where the light changes fast and the views are breathtaking. 

Painting up here presents a special challenge as I try to capture this amazing place in its best light. We hiked up to Alberta Falls, and on the way passed through a stunning Aspen grove. With the light streaming down through the leaves, the place was magical. That's where I stopped to do my first piece for the festival: 

 When you're painting plein air, you have a limited amount of time to finish your painting, because the light changes as the sun moves across the sky and whatever you are painting looks completely different in a couple of hours.

That is something many people don't notice. Changes in light influence the color of what you are seeing, the contrast between it and everything around it, and the shadows that fall on and around it. Naturally, for a realistic painter like myself, plein air paintings are necessarily small so that they can be finished before the light changes.

But when I arrived here and saw Rocky Mountain National Park towering around me, I knew I was going to have to give myself a particular challenge. Though my small canvasses worked great for the small, intimate portraits of the landscape like the aspen grove (above), the front range (which is a row of incredible 12- and 14-THOUSAND foot peaks) is an epic view. In order to capture it like I really wanted to, I had to have a large canvas.

So I got up before dawn, set up in time to see the first light, and undertook the creation of an 18" x 36" painting of the front range:

And it was a challenge. But it was also exhilarating to race the sun and complete the piece:

Here it is:

And people really responded to this piece. It was as if the spirit of this bold and rugged place came through to viewers. The piece sold quickly, and tonight at the awards ceremony I received The City of Estes Park Award:

Everybody loves a big blue ribbon, right? This piece was a huge undertaking, and it tested my limits as a painter. Maybe that's why I enjoyed it so much. 

I actually completed many paintings up here and learned something new from each one. I'll show you some more of them in future posts.

Nocturne

Everyone knows Chopin's Nocturne In E Flat Major Opus 9, number 2  (or if they don't, they should). It's a beautiful piece of music. Many people don't know that there are also paintings called nocturnes. James Abbot McNeill Whistler (remember? the guy who painted his mother?) applied the term to painting, and, like musical nocturnes, they are inspired by the nighttime, evocative of it, or simply depicting it.

I am enjoying painting at the Rocky Mountain Plein Air Festival this week and they keep us busy with painting events. Tonight I participated in their "Nocturne Paint Out," where we all met downtown and created Nocturne pieces.

I chose this charming house for my subject because it was slightly lit by the streetlamp in front of it and because it had these strikingly warm lit windows, which complemented nicely the cool colors of the night. It was great meeting and visiting with the other artists, listening to the river rush by as I painted, and tackling the challenge of a nocturne piece.

Figurative Fridays: Pioneers and Plein Air

This has been a busy summer. We kicked it off with the Easter Show at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, which I mentioned yesterday, and then we had a lot of fun at the Plein Air Fest in Jackson Hole:

My wife Josi and I had a fantastic time in Jackson Hole at the Museum of Wildlife Art's Plein Air Fest! I arrived with a blank canvas and spent 4 hours filling it with the beautiful and scenic East Gros Ventre Butte.

Timed competitions are always intense, and this one was no exception. There was a great crowd, though, and the painting sold at auction that afternoon, benefiting the amazing Museum of Wildlife Art.

Capturing a little piece of the beautiful and rugged terrain of Wyoming added some perspective to the pioneer paintings I tackled when we got home. Those early settlers traveled so far and sacrificed so much. And, just last weekend, we spent a great time at Deseret Book in downtown Salt Lake City unveiling two of those new pioneer paintings and doing a live painting demonstration for Deseret Book's lunch and learn:

My beautiful wife was kind enough to pose for me in a pioneer costume. It really made Pioneer Day come alive! As many of you know, July 24th is Pioneer Day in Utah, a day commemorating Brigham Young's 1847 entry into the Salt Lake Valley with the first group of Latter-day Saint settlers who had crossed the plains. It's a day that represents family, and history, and culture, and reverence, and fun.

I've been working on a new series of pioneer paintings and I thought the Pioneer Day weekend, across the street from the Salt Lake Temple, was a great time and a great place to unveil the first two pieces in the "Come, Come, Ye Saints" series:

With Joy Wend Your Way
Come, Come, Ye Saints Series #1

Grace Shall Be As Your Day
Come, Come, Ye Saints Series #2

Another great model here, both for life and for paintings: Josi's mom, Carol, posed for this one. She makes beautiful quilts off the canvas, too.

Keep an eye out for some more from the "Come, Come, Ye Saints" Series. They're in the works. I've also been commissioned to do 6 murals for the new Monticello Elementary School, so that has me busy! And now, back to the easel . . .