For all my friends out there in the Art Blogging world. HAPPY VALENTINES DAY
This old bronc is still waiting for me to get back into the saddle.

I spent the better part of Friday and some of saturday working on drawings for the Deer painting that I have been discussing. After all that time I sat back and looked at what I was doing and told myself that I was getting away from the story I wanted to tell. I had drawn the Deer too big for the painting making it a Deer Painting rather than Deer within a lasndscape looking for an escape route from an undetected danger. So I am back to drawing them smaller. Well. Maybe tomorrow I'll start. I have been also thinking about this old Cottonwood that is up on the East Fork. It has so much character and color in it from the fall two years ago. It is begging to be painted so this morning I have put a quick wash of Acrylic on a 11"x14" Canvas. I'm all ready thinking it should be a larger painting but I'll stick with it.

This morning started out overcast and snow flurries falling at 16 degrees. It has since cleared off and my wife is talking about going for a ride up country if I am up to it. I have been fighting a chest and head cold but Cabin Fever also. Sun is bright. Sounds like a plan to me. Back to the easle tomorrow.

I have worked a few more hours on my Platte River gouache painting. It is coming along pretty slow but that is O K I am not in any hurry with this painting in that way. I didn't like the size of my Buck Deer against the cottonwoods so I spent most of my time enlarging him. I think it is looking a lot better now. I had taken a paper towel wet but not dripping and wiped out the deer and some of the immediate background. repainted him back in to the size I wanted paying close attention as to the wetness of the paint. I didn't want to get it very wet or work the paint at all or I would have picked up the underlying colors and it would have turned to mud. Is best to just put the paint on and leave it. If not right wait to let it dry and then another nearly drybrush application over that until I got it to where I want it-at least for now.

I have been working on this most of the day to finish things up and think I pretty well have it. After a few more days of drying I will put a few more touches to it but I am going to call it finished. PINNACLE MOUNTAIN STREAM 15"x22" Oil Painting. Odd size that means I will have to build a frame special for it but since I build most of my frames anyway that should be no problem.

SOLD

I worked on this Oil Painting most of yesterday afternoon and have pretty well finished the left side and the water. Today I plan on finishing the grasses and brush on the right side and the rocky little bar at the bottom.

I spent some time working on my Gouache. getting the trees in and some forground water. I did sketch with paint the Buck Deer that I wanted along the cottonwoods.

This is a series of thumbnail sketches that I have done portraying various ideas for placement of the deer I have been discussing. I still like the idea of the deer climbing a steep ridgeline sensing danger from some undetected source so that they are looking everywhere as they slowly climb towards the timber at the top of the painting. In the photos I took for this idea there was a huge fallen Limber Pine but I am afraid it may be too much and to make it look right might take away from my story idea so I think I will just use trees instead. So it is the lower left sketch that I am leaning towards. I redid it a little at the bottom of page and now will go into more detail as far as sizing and placement of the deer still using paper but maybe to the size of the canvas it will all be done on. I'll try and get some of that worked out in the next day or two.

I worked all day on my PINNACLES STREAM Oil Painting working my way down towards the bottom building up my detailing as I go. Upon finishing I will still go back in and do touch up where appropriate to pull everything together. I didn't get to my Gouache as I had planned but feeling ever so guilty I did do a small Gouache that I posted on my painting-a-day blog. Not quite getting one-a-day. Guess I am having too much fun working on these larger pieces. Still working in my mind the Deer painting I have in my sub concious. I really am ready to start doing some sketches on it. Maybe I can get going on that today.
This is the day I get to go to the Dubois House of Horrors for continuing foot exercise. To heal they tell me I have to want to be in pain. Ouch!

I have been working on this Gouache watercolor for several days. I have thought about it for a while and working off several photos of an island on the North Platte River south of Saratoga, Wyoming near the Colorado border which is very near the headwaters of the North Platte. This painting is 18"x28" image size. After starting I decided to also put in a Buck Deer. He will be showing up very soon.

Worked on this painting for a while yesterday. As usual am working top to bottom and from left to right so as not to get my hand into my oils. So why do I have paint on the underside of my hand? Well. I try to stay out of it. Will hit it again today though I am also working on a Gouache watercolor that I am also posting.

Still doing some planning out in my head on the Deer painting. Will post some drwings later.

Our suffering to the winter weather woes are nothing compared to the rest of the country. We could really use some of the snow the rest of the country seems to be getting. This morning was cool at 8 degrees and overcast with low clouds and several flurries falling at the rate of a trace in two or three days if it keeps up that long. Early this morning my two welfare cottontails were waiting at the far end of the yard when I opened the door with a carrot for each. They are in full stampede to get their carrots. We have created monsters. Every now and then our resident Great Horned Owl thanks us for feeding those cottontails to make a nice fat meal for themselves. Natures way.

I am still in the thinking stage for my painting of the deer on the ridge line that I posted. I am leaning towards stacking them in an overlapping fashion up the hillside in a vertical format and as they were in the photographs I took, a little wary about what was going on. My thought is to pose them with the realization that something is not quite right and have them all peering in different directions trying to pinpoint where the danger is coming from. Next is to begin some sketches.

In the mean time I have blocked in this painting 15"x22" Oil. This is a painting from several years ago when I took a number of photos above Brooks Lake. I did a gouache watercolor from that little trip that I won an award on and was published in an art magazine. Everytime I run across this photo it begs to be made into a painting. This past summer Les Llefevre and I were back up in this area on a hike into Jade Lake and I began thinking at that time about doing this painting. You can check out that trip with its beautiful waterfalls in my OUTDOOR ADVENTURES blog from early September of last year. There is in fact a photo from that trip that is tugging at me too. So here goes.

Last sunday Vicki and I drove up Horse Creek road just to try and cure a little cabin fever. Dubois has had very little snow this winter and the mountains are about 50% of normal but that doesn't mean there is no snow up there. All the roads around Dubois are unimproved and in some cases no more than cow trails. About 10 mile north of town we were in freshly fallen snow and no tracks showing that we were the only people to have traveled up that way in the past 24 hours. We had spotted 3 Buck Mule Deer and watched them awhile and a little further up the road decided to turn around. Still on crutches I don't relish becoming stuck and doing any digging out. Going back down the road we discovered a nice herd of does and fawns on the steep hillside from where the bucks had been and I took a number of photos of them. Thinking about this group I have begun to formulate an idea in my mind. I really like the setting and am playing with the idea of running these deer up the hillside in a verticle format. I am now playing around with some ideas to do a painting and thought I would start this one by giving my blogging friends insight of where my idea and thought patterns might take me. I'll try and show off some of my sketches and paper thoughts as I go along. It might take another week or so of still playing around but I do have that nagging plan to do something great. Aren't all our ideas on paintings great at this point. It may turn out to be a fire starter but lets see where it goes.

Back in a winter mood I have completed this painting that I have been working on the last few days. WINTER SO GRAND is an Oil Painting depicting the Grand Teton rising above a winter fog bank and frosted Cottonwoods and Willow. It is 12"x12"

SOLD

The biggest advantage to having a busted foot is not having to carry in firewood. My wonderful wife is getting her exercise this winter in doing that as we use 2 wood stoves to heat the house and studio. Plus Vicki is a fanatic when it comes to walking and does so for several miles every day. Snow, rain, sleet, sun and hail.
When I went to get the camera there were three deer just across the fence in background not the least bit concerned about her doing her chores. Soon as I showed up with this camera they departed. You can tell how awful the weather is here.

I spent a little more time working on this painting adjusting lights and darks in the myriad of leaves that I have going on here. I'll call it finished at this point but after letting it sit a while I may do a little more work on it.
INTO THE OPENING 18"x24" Oil Painting.

Look! One crutch. Not very comfortable but I am determined.

Cabin Fever has set in and with this heel still healing and unable to really get out in the country yet I spent this afternoon adding some photos on my OUTDOOR ADVENTURE blog of a trip artist friend, Mark Gale and myself along with some other folks who wanted to see the country took ten years ago. This was Mark looking for the perfect painting spot amidst spectacular country in the Absaroka Wilderness NE of Dubois, Wyoming. Hope you will mosey over to the site and get rid of a little cabin fever yourself.

I have now moved across the canvas and pretty well established what I want where. Next I will begin fine tuning my darks and lights and hopefuly make them all work together.

I was asked about my technique on doing Gouache watercolors on my FIREHOLE RIVER posting and thought I would post an explanation about "my" way.
I did this particular painting on 300# Arches Watercolor paper. For some paintings I find it works pretty well and on others it drives me crazy and wonder why I chose it. My favorite and most used is #1 illustration Board by Arches that I can only find at Dick Blick. My last posted Painting-a-Day blog, ABOVE RAMSHORN RANCH, was paintied on Illustration Board. I was on a roll and did it in 45 minutes though that is the time frame I try to do most of my paintings on that blog. In doing workshops it amazes me to print out a materials list and ask for illustration board and a few folks show up with any of an assortment of watercolor papers. I always bring a few sheets[30"x40"]along and try selling off various sizes but always take a beating on that. With great expectations in mind folks try out my technique and are quickly discouraged. It seems easy but takes some getting used to.
I use all transparent watercolors and use them with White Gouache. Gouache watercolors areavailable but they are a little too flat looking for my taste. I used to use them a lot for book and magazine illustration as they work great for reproduction work. I just like the ability to use some transparancy here and there on a painting. It is easiest [and so hard for the beginner]to think of the paints more as oils than watercolors. It is shocking for the uninformed to see me mixing my watercolor paints with a pallette knife onto my Porceline pallette. The amount of water used is important as A lot of dry brush work is involved. The true beauty of it all is that you can paint dark over light and light over dark. The trick is to do it when dry or mud is the result. That is the hardest thing for the beginner to figure out. It is important, I think, to keep in mind good color theory as you work with these as with watercolor there is a point where too much paint can get one into trouble. As with my oils, I have a preconceived idea pretty much of where I want the painting to go and work from left[I am right handed]to right. From top down and from back to forward. I used to use an electric eraser to fix glaring mistakes but as the years have gone by I have gotten used to not painting myself into that corner. This technique can be very frustrating for the beginner but I tell all my students in workshops and the Wilderness Pack trip Paint-outs I used to do to do 100 paintings and then look back at #1 and see how much they have learned.
Don't make the mistake as some workshop folks have done and get Chinese White. It won't work. I really like the large[huge]tube of Gouach White by Pebeo that I can only find through Cheap Joes. Another beauty of the paints is that they can be rewet after being dry no matter how old. The whites though will have to be worked on a little as they get a little grainey but can be revived. A perfect tool for rewetting paints is the little bugger getters found in the baby section at your favorite Dept Store.
In my last posted Painting-a-Day blog, FROM RAMSHORN RANCH, I did use the white of the illustration board showing through as in a transparent painting in palces but a lot of opaque also. This give a shimmer of light in wanted places.
If I have missed anything and you have questions please feel free to e-mail me or comment on this posting.

I continued work for the better part of the day on my Early Fall Glade. Today I have continued on working top to bottom and from left to right, doing a little detail as I go

Firehole Evening.

14"x21" Gouache Watercolor Painting.

I think I am pretty well finished with this Gouache painting depicting one of the many wonderful meadows along the Firehole River between Old Faithful and Madison Jct in Yellowstone National Park. I have included a few grazing Bison so prevalent in this area. It is late fall and snow all ready is on the eastern and northern slopes where it is protected from the sun. It will be there till spring.

I spent a few hours saturday working on this painting going from background forward and from upper left to lower left and then to the right. I have a preconceived notion of what I want this painting to look like and will progressively work that way then go back and touch up values, detail, and textures to hopefully pull it all together.

With fresh snow and colder temperatures outside I have jumped onto a painting I have been playing with in the back of my mind and am a little excited about from some photos I took early in September. On a 16"x20" canvas I have laid in Acrylic paint planning out my colors and lights and darks somewhat. I will now go to Oils for the final painting.

I have spent several days working on this 10"x20" Oil Painting, FROSTED MEADOW, dipicting a snow covered irrigated meadow from the Riverton, Wyoming area. In my Painting-a-Day blog I did a frosted tree scene and a good artist friend of mine from Riverton asked if I was going to do some more of that kind of thing. So here it is. Winter in the Riverton area is a deep freeze all winter with subzero temperatures the norm. Fog collects in the valley and freezes on everything making a surreal world of real beauty and challenging scenes for the artist. I shot a number of photos last month that I would like to do some more work from.

As I was waiting for my Desert Anvil painting to dry I have begun this Gouache Watercolor Painting, 14 1/2"x21 1/2" depicting the Fire Hole River in Yellowstone. This is a return to my Yellowstone project. I have in mind to put some grazing Buffalo across the river on the left. I have blocked in the painting and begu detailing the backlit mountain ridge and the trees in the back. Now for the river and fore grasses as well as the Buffalo.

I have pretty well put the finishing touches to my Oil Painting, 12"x24" Desert Anvil.

After a pretty fruitful day this is where I am on my Arizona Anvil cloud. Am pretty well working on the vegetation and remembering my times in the desert. Great hikes and country and ever mindful that everything out there bites.
Several years ago a number of aritst friends and myself gathered at a Scottsdale restaurant for dinner and while waiting outside for a table observed several kids playing around a Saguaro that was in the courtyard. I told those kids that it would bite if they were not careful. Kids being kids one little boy just had to touch the trunk. Sure enough it bit. In tears I think he learned a desert lesson.

I spent yesterday painting in oils on my thundercloud. As is my technique, After I have blocked in my painting I have a pretty good idea about where I want to take it and therefor begin painting usually from top to bottom. From back to forward and from left to right. After I pretty well have the painting painted I will go back in and touch up this or that to hopefully make it all come together.

I have started another of my Arizona Paintings and this one will be 12"x24" Oil painted on a Ray Mar Canvas panel. I have layed in a coat of Acrylic just to get my idea down which will feature this anvil Thundercloud in early evening. Across the expanse I will include a number of desert species such as the Saguaro, Palo Verde and others.

I think I have finished my vertical Grand Canyon painting. Still spending some time looking at the light colored hill in left side just below middle. The actual geology consists of a change from iron tinted red hillside to the yellowish color. I liked it in my reseach as it balanced out the whiter colors of the limstone faces on the horizon. Now I'm not sure. Maybe I am being a little too hard on my judgement?

Went to my Therapy Doc this morning and took my first steps without crutches yesterday. Painful but I did it. Was a cold morning to be out in moccasins at -26 but the sky is blue after 3" snow yesterday. Off to Casper today to see my regular Doc and x-rays tomorrow to see how the heel is healing. Hope the roads aren't too slick as it is 200 miles of hiway driving.

After a day of painting on my Grand Canyon piece. I have pretty well put in my background except for tweaking after I finish the cliff face on the right today.

I have started this painting which is on of my Arizona series I am working on [see painting-a-day]This is a scene from the Grand Canyon down along the walls looking eastward. It is on Ray-mar canvas. 10"x20". I thought it challenging to do a vertical scene and have begun with an acrylic underpainting getting my drawing down and kind of map of where I want to go with the mood and all. I will now begin painting in Oils using a thinned liquin as a medium.

Checking on them at various times I caught one of our welfare Cottontails which for awhile seemed to amuse our two lay-a-bouts. What with the daily carrot this fellow gets he probably sees in the dark quite well.

One of the really cool things about being a Wildlife and Landscape artist is the encounters I have with critters. Sometimes right under my Living room window such as these two fawns from last summer who still seem inseperable as they lay about my yard for the better part of yesterday afternoon.

I have been working on this Oil Painting, SHOSHONE WINTER, 20"X30", for about a month off and on. It is one of my Yellowstone series I am working on. I have not put any wildlife into it but am still considering doing so. It depicts the North Fork of the Shoshone River that headwaters for the most part in the Yellowstone eastern border area and flows eastward towards Cody, Wyoming. The Indians and early mountain men refered to this river as the Stinking Water River. As it flows through the Cody area it picks up a lot of Hydrogen Sulfide gases which in high quantities can be deadly but otherwise smells like rotten eggs.

None the less it is a beautiful Stream and in winter is very clear. Spring runoff at lower elevations can be high, roiling and muddy.

The real challenge in this painting was the trees on the mountain slopes. How to make them look realistic without being too contrived or taking over the painting.

Since I had talked a little bit about my framing options I thought I would post this pix of EMERGING GRIZZLY with the frame I have picked. I cut a 3/4" fabric mat that I have as a liner. If I stay with this option it would be best to glass over the painting and mat. I have not decided yet so I have not applied any varnish to it. If I do varnish it I will have to delete the mat option and either build a 3/4" liner or will have to paint the painting on all 4 sides another 3/4" as I had masked off that much in anticipation of using the mat. Not really that difficult with gouache just a little more time consumption on my part.

I am at the point that I am calling this painting finished. After a few days of looking it over I may tweek a few things here and there. I hope I have satisfied Les and have gotten rid of the pasted on look. EMERGING GRIZZLY 15"x21 1/2" Gouache Watercolor Painting

In between working on my grizzly I have several other oil paintings I am working on such as this 8"x10" painted on Ray Mar canvas.

I was asked about the varnish I use for my watercolors[gouaches]
I like 3-4 coats of spray fixative like Krylon UV resistant Clear Matt or Gloss. That is a preferance for individual taste. Some artists I know will even add a coat of UV Varnish brushed on or sprayed on afterwards. That would be to an artists taste but I don't.

Another day working on my Grizzly. I am trying to get the lighting on the Bear so he stands out and working on the Sage. Same problem-trying to adjust the values and get it to all work together.

I worked pretty diligently on this painting Christmas Day till about 3:00 when my wife and I took a trip up to the Sheep Range to check out the Bighorns.[Will be posting that on my Outdoor Adventures]On my last post Susan Roper asked about my background color. I used a mixture of Ultramarine Blue and Neutral tint. At times for something like this I will use Indigo. I have kind of established my lights and darks and though it doesn't show off quite as well in this post I got the shadows and textures on the snow bvank just like I wanted. Hope I won't have to go back in there as I'd hate to mess that up. The next big challenge will be getting the lights and darks on the bear and make all that work. A lot of the darks blocked in will be Sagebrush and Shrubby Cinquifoil though too early in this setting for flowers. Some grassses will help but to keep it scientific I'll have to be careful with that as a lot of grasses at this time of year will be very mated from the winters snow cover.

This morning I didn't like where things were going so I took out one of the pine trees and enlarged the grizzly. I had put in dark bands of snow in the background shadows but it didn't read properly so out they came. It is looking a lot better all ready.

I haven't done this in a while and several artist friends have drawn my attention to the fact. Recording a painting from start to end. So here is the start of a painting I have been tossing around in my head since last spring. I had taken some photos of a melting snow bank and thought it might work to include a grizzly just emerged from hibernation walking through the sage with this unmelted bank of snow. I have quickly sketched[painted]things in with watercolor mixed with gouache white on #1 illustration board. 15"x24". I have taped 5/8" of the edges with drafting tape. I am planning to use a mat color of some sort this width along with a heavier Oil type frame upon completion. The mat[if all goes as planned will be 3/4". I don't know yet if I will glass it or varnish with a watercolor varnish.

I do wish all my friends out there a very Merry Christmas and it is my hope that God's blessings will sustain you abundantly this coming year.

I have been working on this Oil Painting for about 3 weeks off and on and is a commission job for a collector I actually met on the trail out of Dubois a few years ago. It is 18"x24" and done in Oil from a photograph this fellow had taken. It was a great photo so well depicting the glacier country with Gannet Peak[highest point in Wyoming at 13,814']Such a beautiful area but sure is a job getting there. It was pure pleasure painting this scene.

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I have just finished this 8"x10" Oil Painting that I call "Monkey Flowers at Lakes edge".

This is a very beautiful wildflower that likes wet areas such as along this lake edge or along mountain streams. It also comes in a yellow variety and are often found growing together creating a tapestry of color for stream beds.

Finally a break in the weather. It has quit snowing and as of noon today it is above zero. +8 in fact. Funny how zero seems warm after so many days of below zero including -23 last night at 9:00pm. It must be because of our bodies climitizing?? That is the great thing about Wyoming. So cold one day and along comes a chinook[warm wind]that changes things right away. This little fawn who is enduring his[her]first Wyoming winter does not seem too impressed though. I just did photograph it outside my living room window.

It has turned bitter cold here since Thanksgiving. We have not had the snow some parts of the country have but there is several inches on the ground and with the last few nights at -17 and -18 and highs only to -3 yesterday and hoping to get that warm today we are feeling the effects of it. Ducks and Geese are seemingly enjoying the warmer river water outside my studio window. They look cold but I guess that warmer water is better than sitting out on the cold ground. Mist rising from the warmer water into the frigid air makes for a really surreal looking scene. All the trees and brush along the river are dressed in a heavy coat of frost and snow. It really is beautiful and some great painting opportunities. I just might have to try something with this photo I took.

My painting has really slowed down as I seem to be having trouble getting the swelling down on my foot to be able to start therapy on it. This morning I went to the Therapist practitioner and he put me in a vecroed getup from my knee to my toes. It is a nice massage type machine and in 30 minutes it was a wonder what it did. He sent it home with us so that might be pretty relaxing way to spend this afternoon.

I also have really slowed down on my Painting-a-Days. Will get back to them as soon as I can. Thanks all for your e-mails and comments. They really mean a lot to me.

God bless and Merry Christmas all.

I have been working on several small [8"x10" Oils]paintings of wildlife and have just finished this Mule Deer Buck in the snow. I had hoped to have several ready for the National 2-Shot Goose Show next weekend but we are loading out for it today so I have run out of time. I did this painting on a Raymar canvas panel.

Rock formations east of Shoshonie, Wyoming on way to Casper.
Tuesday afternoon my wife and I headed to Casper where yesterday morning I got to go to the surgery center at the Bone Doctors offfice where I was put out for about 10 minutes while they pulled out the hardware in my heel and then into a boot cast which is actually heavier than the cast I had on but it is removable. And that is a plus while sleeping. The fun part will be monday when I start physical therapy. I was given a prescription for pain pills but so far-knock on wood-I haven't needed them. I hear I will for the therapy sessions.
Our trip to Casper was uneventful but the return yesterday afternoon was not fun. A good old fashioned Wyoming blizzard hit and it was 200 miles of wind driven snow and temperatures falling to the single digits. It was 35-40MPH of white nuckle driving for my wife. Needless to say it was a long trip.
A side story:
JonRobinett, husband of Deb Robinett who does the amazing wildlife photography in our gallery,who is the ranch manager of a ranch NW of Dubois was relating my heel problem with an old rancher in southern Wyoming near where he was working at the time. It seems this fellow had an injury not unlike mine but thought that cast was hindering him from doing his ranch work so with a hammer and chisel he got the cast off only to discover the pins that stuck out from his heel in various directions. Now this really hindered him and he set off trying to remove them. When Jon came by he asked Jon if he would with the vise grips pull those suckers out as everytime this old timer tried it he would faint. Jon set out to explain to him that they were actually screwed into his bone and no way would they come out by pulling them. I don't think the Doc was too happy with our "hero" cowboy. Can you imagine?

WARM SPRINGS CREEK

14"x18" Oil Painting

I have finished this painting after several days of work on it. It is from a stream SW of Dubois and one of the forks of the major tributary west of Dubois of the Wind River. A very special place and teeming with trout. So named for the warm springs that feed into the creek and are such that it keeps the Wind River from freezing during the winter for up to 15 miles east of town.