Evening Shade

Love this title and 18x24 painting. I'm not a big cougar fan since they can come out of nowhere and hurt you but they are a great animal to paint with their golden contrasts and sinewy presence. This morning I saw one flaw in perspective that needs to be corrected but I'll let you guess what that is. Some of you may remember the title is from a TV series starring Burt Reynolds.

Salmon Hunter

This is 18x24 and the second time I've used this title. The first painting went in the slash pile (I think) and this one was inspired by a Kuhn drawing I saw and a camping trip in Ranier park along a boulder strewn creek that I could only imagine was prowled by this bear.

Back With A few New Paintings

This is an 18x24 titled "Indian Summer ". What's interesting is that I first painted this 30 years ago and gave it away for a wedding present. Hopefully I've learned something since then and this is a much better painting. Also, hopefully, I've learned you can marry the wrong person the first time around.

Back with Cougar Painting

Been awhile but just thought I'd show you something I actually painted this summer (unusual since I paint mainly in the winter because I'm not camping, fishing or whatever). Decided I can't take such a layoff if I want to get better.

New mode of travel

This is it. Hard to get rid of the van...it had it's Karma. But..needed to stand up and only had one choice that fit in the garage over the winter and had a lower profile for better mileage.

Wolves

This one I like. It's 18x24 and called "Something Of Interest". I'm beginning to think that in the winter I'm influenced to paint winter scenes (it's almost the beginning of April and we actually got almost 6" of new snow last night). I put a bit more detail into the fur on this one. Am searching for somewhere between Bob Kuhn's lack of fur detail and maybe Terry Isaac who paints more detail than I could have fun with. After all it's about fun isn't it.

Oil Painting

Not something I usually do because most of my work is acrylic but it's always a bit fun to work with different materials. Guess I got the idea after my brother recently visited. These are actually water soluable oil paints but I just used them right out of the tube. I believe oils are richer in color than acrylics and it's certainly an advantage that they stay workable longer but where do you stack a bunch of wet paintings in the cave? It's a smaller painting of Mt Moran in the Tetons. So now I'm back to acrylics and working on a couple of wolves. I'm not a wolf hugger by any means but they are interesting to paint.

Park Ranger

Got the title from Peg...seemed good to me...especially since this was a situation in which the landscape overwhelmed the animal...guess that happens and one has to make adjustments...really like the background, light coming from the right and above...not sure if finished but nice enough to show you. Think this is 18x20 which shows you can get space with small painting.

Whitetail Deer

Nice smaller painting...paying more attention to edges with a snow background. I think 16x20 and it turned out well...pleased with it but still working on many things.

Things are warming up a bit, some of the snow is melting and I can smell spring which is good because I'm tired of running the snow blower. Here's a few knives that have turned out interesting, especially the bottom two. Second from the bottom is a Brusletto blade (Norway) with cariboo ends and some kind of wood in the middle. Extremely light weight and great for camping chores. Bottom one is a Finnish Leuku blade used by the Sami of that country. It's really nice with handcut leather spacers and a stag pommel. Lots of Devcon epoxy (the 2 ton 30 minute kind). One at the top is a nice fighter and one below has a beautiful ironwood handle. See what I mean about knives as works of art?

Moose Painting Finished

This I like although in the early stages I was fairly convinced it wasn't going to turn out well. I should have learned by now that if I stay with a painting long enough it might have possibilities. For this one I used a photograph from an Alaska wildlife reference book and some ideas I got from a Rungius painting for the foreground and background. The sky is inspired by such treatments given by Kuhn in his paintings. These are two of my "teachers" even though both are gone.

New Moose Painting

I guess I just like moose and bears so thought I'd show you the initial stage of this painting. It's an 18x24 and although I start different ways I'm beginning to learn that after a good drawing I like to put in the medium lights and darks to get some idea of the animals anatomy reflected in light. The question of background is always there at this point but I think it has to fit where the animal lives so I'm working on that idea. Will try to keep up on the blog with progressions.

Elk Painting

Thought I'd better get a few things on here before the next storm hits tonight and I'm back to work on the snow blower (Peg says 15 feet so far this winter). This is a 12x16 painting of an elk. It turned out pretty well and I can't tell if the photo or my eyes are a bit bleary. Basically I just made up the background which is not that difficult as long as you keep in mind it should be a color that nicely contrasts with the sienna in the animal.

New Painting

We're about to get slammed by another big winter storm so I'd better get this one up on the blog. I'm always pleased to get a painting that tells a story and this piece is called "Territory". I like to leave it up to the viewer exactly whose territory it is. When I told Peg the title she thought it was the bear's territory. I saw it the other way around. I'm not sure it's totally finished so I'll live with it awhile. Hope you think it's pretty good.

Been Awhile

We finally got a stretch of a week in which we didn't clear any snow, in fact it's even sunshine today even though it was 8 degrees below 0 this morning. Thus for now we forego our little walks although recently I was out on snowshoes not too long ago clearing about 2-3 feet off the tops of the berms so that the snowblower could blow more up on top for the next onslaught. I've just, of course, been working on a couple paintings and knives which I'll show you soon. In the meantime here's an older one I always liked.

First Knife 2008

Thought I might as well show this too. It's a nice "cowboy style" bowie knife with an elk handle and a piece of burled walnut for the pommel that came out amazingly looking like marble. Will make a nice sheath for it soon, appropriate to the cowboy style.

First Painting 2008

I had to show you this before I went out in the blizzard (not kidding) to clear some more snow. This is a 12x24 painting of a gray wolf and snowshoe rabbit. It could have many titles but I settled on "Place Your Bets". I am very pleased with it overall and especially capturing the action of the moment which up until now I haven't done but now it really adds a new option to my wildlife painting. Hope you like it. Time to fight the elements.

Sorry About That

Haven't been on the blog lately and the only excuse I have is that it's constantly been snowing and there's alot of clearing to do. The price one pays for living in this part of the country...4 months of heavy winter (great for the drought) and 8-9 months of beauty and relative isolation. I think I've got a picture of my first painting of the Grand Canyon...not so great but definitely different and something to think about. It won't be my last.