This is a painting of the Maroon Bells south of Aspen, Colorado that I did several years ago and have dug out to do some revamping. It reads a lot better than it did.
11"x14" Oil Painting

I think I have finished this Oil Painting, 16"x20". After looking at it for a week or so I may do some touchup but for now...

Spring is so long in coming to the high country and I have posted my observations of that fact on my latest OUTDOOR ADVENTURES blog.

The finished painting framed and ready for the auction. It is a 11"x22" image size, Gouache Watercolor. The auction was very slow and I was a little dissapointed in the results for all the artists. Sales were OK for the silent auction miniatures but prices were way down. First time in years I did not have a sellout of those paintings. This economy is scarey.
My gallery pardner also participated as did gallery artist, Dan Andrews. I will be posting more pictures on the gallery blog. Silversage Gallery.

Last night was the annual Petroleum Club of Casper show which featured a Quickdraw event where each artist participating has one hour to complete a painting which is then auctioned off. The artist receives 50% of the proceeds.
Yep. Thats me working on my piece.

This morning I was up befor dawn and drove up to the Glacier trailhead photographing a beautiful morning that included watching Bighorn Sheep through my binoculars and watching and photographing a zillion Mule Deer. By 8:00 am I was back home crossing the bridge into my yard when I spotted this Mule Deer doe getting a quick drink from the river. Best picture of the day was from my very own yard. Go figure.

Hallett Peak 14"x18" Oil Painting.
Back at work I have finished this Colorado scene of Hallett Peak located in Rocky Mountain National Park

After two weeks of pretty intensive work on the gallery doing some construction, and rehanging we are open and back to painting. I have even been back to Montana earlier this week and yep. got to visit again with the barking pig.
Tammy caught Tom and myself in our corners by the front window painting away. I have posted a number of photos of the gallery and our new additions and preparations for the season in the Silver Sage Gallery blog accessed from this site. Hope you will check it out and see what is new.

I finally have the Wilderness Art Challenge blog up and running. Hope you will check it out and participate.
Now I gotta' get mine painted.

I am not going to get much painting done for a few days as we are in the process of getting the gallery open for the season. Tom and Tammy are back from the Arizona show and are rehanging their gallery wall. Today we rehung Tom's wall and mine. Tomorrow we will begin work on rehanging other artists. We are moving things around a little and building a new Bronze display shelf which will be pretty nice. What with rehanging and some new touch ups it will give the Gallery a fresh look for the season. In spite of snow falling outside and winter storm warnings for tomorrow we even had a few folks in.

By popular demand here is Rudy the barking pig. The wagon is one my folks had at the ranch that we used to neighbor in [for the most part]when I was just a little fellow. It was miles to a neighbor made closer by this horse pulled freight wagon. it had been in early stages of disrepair and I had begun to try and restore it when Clay, my son-in-law took it upon himself to finish the job.

I asked my daughter to send me a picture of the fountain with the cowboy. I will ahve to ask her where this is installed as I don't know. The one I had seen featured this cowboy [smaller version]with a bronze background of waterfalls over rocks and water pouring out over the hat back into a small pool that the horse was standing in. I had not seen this particular one.

I took this photo outside the shop of another monument sized bronze by D Michael Thomas. Unfinished it depicts an old time cowboy who has reached down into a pool of water to fill his hat with water for a drink. Water will drip out of his hat back into the pool. It is designed to be a fountain if you will with the horse standing in the pool and water continually running. A background of rock and a falls accompany the bronze. I have seen one of these set up and it is quite impressive. As you can see I am accompanied by Mitze who considers herself extremely important. The kids have several dogs and a pot bellied pig who all run out to greet you. The pig thinks he is barking along with the others and seems quite excited about everything.

This is a small version[maquette]of the monument-not yet put together nor patinaed.

The bronze monument will have a guitar as a base that the bucking horse and rider will be set on. It is over 6 feet tall.

Back from our little trip to Frannie, Wyoming and into Montana. We took our daughter, husbsnd and son out to celebrate her 41st Birthday which involved a 120 mile round trip drive to Red Lodge, Montana for the event. Next day we were in Billings for business then back to Frannie. Vicki was set up by our daughter, Janet for a checkup at the Lovell, Wyoming hospital where she runs the emergency room as well as working as a surgical nurse. Small hospitals require a do-it-all for nurses. With that under our belts we did the return trip running into a wonderful snow storm on the way home. Snowed all day yesterday and this morning our spring temperature was +6 degrees.
Our son-in-law runs a finishing studio which is a large shop where he does welding and patina work on bronzes. I took a few pictures of his current project which is a monument of Chris Ledoux, the famous world champion Bronc rider and western-country singer who died way befor his time of cancer. The bronze is by D Michael Thomas who uses Clay to do all his bronze work. This bronze is over 15 feet tall and will be installed in Kaycee, Wyoming which is where Chris was from. It is being financed by the Ledoux family. Quite an undertaking.