Beartooth Passage

A trip up the Beartooth mtns earlier this summer yielded lot's of photo ops and a few plein air's. this is from a PA study i did along one of the many lakes up on the plateau.

Beartooth Passage
24 x 20
Oil on linen

Newest paintings

It's been far too long but i've had some time to throw some paint around this wk. I usually try to get in 2 paintings a wk but some wks' that doesn't happen

Anyhow,
I had to get up to Red Lodge, mt to check out some painting spots and had time for a painting

High Mtn Meadow
8 x 10
O/L

Clarks Fork Studio

Im going to attempt to take you through my painting process here. I've been thinking about letting a few of yall know how i paint a bit more, but everytime i start painting i usually forget to stop and take a picture of the progress shots. Last wk when working in the studio Jen revived the challenge in me.



Puddles of mixture that is the starting point of my color and values, warms with cools. Again, starting with a limited palet of rd, yw, blu, white. Mixing paint is ALWAYS A JOY!



Here's my plein air study that i'll be useing for color references. I had a couple issues to resolve here that i wanted to say a little differently in the studio piece. Mainly that the scene wasn't so "boxey" so i enlarged it to a 12 x 16 format. I had some other issues with it feeling "chaulky" I don't know how else to say it here other than chaulky. Kinda like that feeling in your mouth right after you eat a tums or something like that. Bad annalogy though!



Here is my basic compositional changes, a little more opened up and a better feeling and more ways to get into the painting.



After initial block in and the fun begins! Now i get to play and stick to the left side of brain instead of using the practicle right side of my brain.



Finished painting

Thanks for looking in!

Blanketed for Winters Return

Blanketed for Winter's Return
Oil on linen
32 x 47

To date this is my biggest painting. I've had the canvas stretched sitting in the
corner of the house for about 1 yr and everytime i'd look over at it, it would just taunt me and laugh at me. Sort of like a competion to see if I could accomplish something so big and idea oriented. I had the idea, and thanks to Jen for the challenge, of getting it out and throwing some paint around. I put it up on the easel and the easel is way tooo small for this size! It was asking me why i was doing a painting so big on it. I had to anchor it down with bungies.

To the painting... It was really fun to "get into" the painting. getting into refers to a painting this size you can really get into the painting almost like stepping into it and feeling like your really there almost like a dreamscape. I have noticed a lot of nature is a challenge to get right, that alot of times, so many values are so close to other values that it's almost forcing us painters to lean more to tonalist paintings instead of doing something that you know is pleasing to the eye, pleasing my eye is testing myself to see how close i can achieve a more tonalist approach here and using temps to speak to the eye and tell you what's a tree and what's sage, etc. etc.

I have painted this scene countless times, it's one of my favorite in Jackson, partly because it's from the Gros Ventre Junction which you take this road to get to my old cabin in Kelly. I usually set up here many eves after work just waiting for the right light and then rush to get accurate colors. Hurry up and wait kind of thing. This scene and Jackson peak were my two most painted scene's other than my dailies of the teton's.

The stuggle for this one again was the more tonalist approach for the fg and mid ground. when the light is in that position, it forces everything below to be in shadow. So it forces me to think more in color temp and asking warmer/cooler.
Overall i think the painting was a success and it felt so good to be inside a painting for a couple of days until i called this one finished.

Thanks for looking,
Tom
p.s. your comments and critique's always help!!

By Dawn's Early Light

By Dawn's Early Light
14 x 18
Oil on linen

I've been working on this over the last 2 days. That's the beauty of studio paintings i think- that you can really take your time on some paintings and really give chase to what you see in your imagination, and display it, and it comes out just like you wanted it.

I wanted to bring Granduer to the Grand. There has been many painters come along, but very few of them paint them with the granduer that they deserve, not to say that this one does, there's always room to improve, but this is an effort that i'm happy with.

When i'm in studio, i've come up with a little guide to what will make a good painting, that guid is simple:
Drawing
Color
Value
Edges
Brushwork

When i have all of those key elements correct in the painting it is usually a success!
I'm trying to analize which one of those key elements and if you take any one of them out of the equation, you loose another one, so all in all, they all rely on each other, and usually if one failes then all of the elements are at a loss. Then it's doomsday for the painting. It's a constant battle, trying to put a little more into the painting often destroys, or bares too much and takes away from what your trying to say. Like SC sayes all the time, how much weight can the painting bare, with a brush stroke out of place here or value change there, it will reflect negatively on the overall painting because it's carring too much weight.....


well, sorry, i can get carried away with nerdy art lingo, so until next time!...
ADIOS!

Clark Fork Rocks

Clark fork Canyon rocks
9 x 12 oil on line

Made a drive up Clarks Fork Canyon yesterday cause temps held in mid 40's
beautiful day!

click on pic for larger version.

Below Rimrock

Fall below Rimrock
9 x 12
Oil on linen

I've been waiting for the right conditions below rimrock for the past couple of months and i finally got a "right conditions" invite from Rimrock himself.
A beautiful fall day in the Wapiti valley!