a little plein air

Good morning!

Yesterday I met my friend Barb Clark at a 

beautiful local vineyard.

It was so quiet, no one was there, the birds were chirping,

the breeze was swaying...

I hadn't painted on location since before all

of my tooth issues, so it felt so good just to be outside!

We painted from 9am to about 11am,

then it really started to get hot.

I packed up, came home, ate lunch, and crashed out.

I felt so weak from just that little excursion.

I came away with these two paintings,

which I'm kind of proud of.

The top one is a palette knife piece and the bottom is

just the view of the mountains and flowers all around me.

Today I am working on varnishing and framing some

paintings to take to the gallery.

And I'm making cookies!

And I might go for a soak in the spa.

And I have to take a shower.

Most definitely that!

So I hope you enjoy these two paintings.

Where will my next destination be?

 

#99 "SUNFLOWER PATH"

"SUNFLOWER PATH"

8x6"

oil
$100

The second painting of my newest Challenge series.

This is a late summer private garden.

For purchase information,

CLICK HERE.

Corrales, Bernalillo, Algodones

I went looking for the gold.

Autumn Gold. New Mexico Gold.

I spent the last two mornings driving and shooting photographs.

My destinations were Corrales, Bernalillo, and Algodones.

I think I could still spend another eight hours driving down little dirt roads

and not see everything there is to be seen.

Here are some of my best shots:

 Beautiful old cottonwood

 Fall Harvest Decorations

 The Old Church Road acequia

 Virginia creeper and adobe

 Loved the light on these prayer flags

 Dried corn stalks against the mountain

 Harvesting the apples

 Oh my gosh, the cranes were out!

I saw them in several fields.

They noticed me but I was very quiet.

 An old tractor put out to pasture.

 Beautiful horse

 The cranes are everywhere.

 The old church with a little fall color

 A warm adobe against the fall colors

 Cactus pear fruit

 The old peace sign near the Milagro Winery

 Pumpkins are still in the field!

 Sweet peas are still blooming!

 The last of the red leaves on an old shrub

 Actually right near my house.

Oooh, scary.

 Also near my house.

Even scarier!!

 Headed out to Bernalillo

 Along the road, a nice sweet little stream

 with the Sandia mountains as a backdrop.

 Beauty in the fall colors

 Stored hay for horses and cows

You can see the Algodones plateau on the right.

 The Algodones plateaus

 An old abandoned camper under the cottonwoods

 A very brave unescorted chicken

 Beautiful dry arroyo

 Virginia Creeper and old shutters

 The Albuquerque Open Space (yes, I went there too).

Serenity with the ducks

Hope you enjoyed this photo tour.

I have a craving to take as many pics as I can

these next couple of days because the gold is fleeting.

WOW!

SEPTEMBER 1ST

I can't believe it's already here.

I have SO much to do before the 26th, it's not even funny:

finish the 150 - box

finish the ornaments

finish the large paintings

send out another postcard

prepare press releases - mail

prepare the back of all paintings for hanging

create a flyer/poster for Weems - deliver

make a list of food for the show - buy

I'm sure there's more, but right now all I

can think about it getting the work completed and ready to hang.

Meanwhile, I painted in Corrales this past week - plein air!

I was so excited to be back out in the field, it's been 7 months

since I touched a tube of oil paint.

I only got to go out three times for about two hours each time

but I came back with three paintings that I love.

One was painted sitting in a big field of sunflowers during the 

hottest part of the day, surrounded by bees.

The second was painted at the Corrales Winery during the last light of the setting sun.

what a beautiful and peaceful place - hanging out with 29 other plein air painters.

The last was painted at the Corrales mercantile portal.

I was sitting under the portal, looking at a big pot of flowers and also 

painting the little adobe across the street - which was separated from me

by a big main road of traffic.

These paintings are all available for purchase.

They will be going to the Corrales JAZZY STARRY NIGHT event in a few days.

If you are interested, email me at dshadowtail@aol.com

Meanwhile, back to work!

Thanks for watching...

 "AMONG THE BEES"

8x10"

$285

 "SANDIA SHADOWS"

11X14"

$425

"UNDER THE PORTAL"

10x8"

$285

A Day in Corrales

 A Day in Corrales

I am among thirty other painters participating 

in the first ever Corrales Plein Air event.

We have descended on the village of Corrales for five days of artist bliss - 

finding the perfect spots to paint,

lugging all of our painting gear around,

a kick-off party on Monday evening,

five days of painting,

a Quick Draw competition this wekend,

and an exhibition opening at Gathering Artists Gallery on Saturday.

A few scenes of life in Corrales:

 red chile ristras, of course

 an old red truck - gotta have one of those

 a view from my car of one of the long winding Corrales dirt roads 

 This is the first spot I picked to paint - the old Corrales church.

 My beginning block-in. 

I ended up taking this painting home and scraping it all off.

It just felt really washed out and blah.

 Some of my fellow painters

 The Sandia mountains and the chile fields

 I'd like to say this is a meadow but it's not.

It's a beautiful planting of cosmos in front of someone's house.

 My favorite house in Corrales.

I painted it!

 One of the ditches overflowing with native sunflowers

 A cool old wagon

 Now this is what I call free range chickens!

This guy came out and his chickens all ran to him.

He started throwing grain all over the yard and those chickens went crazy.

I'm thinking he had about a hundred chickens. 

And a really cool chicken coop.

 A beautiful panoramic view of the Sandia mountains.

 I peeked into someone's gate, very very pretty.

 More painters, these artists are painting in the courtyard of Casa San Isidro,

a really old adobe house filled with all things vintage New Mexican.

 Another painter near the old church.

Sunflowers that I painted today.

All paintings are supposed to be 80% plein air,

which means I may do a little finessing in the studio in the next few days.

 Corrales always has the coolest scarecrows.

I couldn't NOT paint him!

One of the houses I painted.

These are not my usual colors.

Oh, they are the same paints I always use.

They just mix differently when you're out in nature.

Takes some getting used to.

Tomorrow I will talk more about my tools and my plein air experience.