Aspens to Infinity

I'm in Utah right now for a biathlon training camp, so it only seemed fitting to make at least one Utah painting while I was out here.  But I decided that before I was going to paint an aspen grove, I needed some masking fluid.  I'd been meaning to experiment with masking fluid for a while, so this was the perfect time to do it!  Masking fluid is basically like rubber cement that you can paint on the the paper, and it dries into a thin rubbery film.  You can then paint over it and it protects the paper wherever you put it.  When you pull it off, you have nice clean white paper underneath!  It was really fun to use, and fun to peel off too--like peeling of a really bad blistered sunburn.  The leaves had actually already fallen off most of the aspens when we got here, but I had to add them back in because I just love their bright yellow color.  

Windmills

I've been watching all summer as more and more windmills slowly appear on the horizon.  Everything else aside, I think that they're beautiful--like big functional kinetic sculptures.  Our landscape in Vermont has been shaped so much by humans already--the fields, barns, stone walls, rows of corn.  Many parts of this human-created landscape are what make Vermont beautiful.  And they also serve(d) a function.  Plus, the world needs more windmills and fewer oil-wells.  

I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with this painting, but thats OK.  I'm trying to experiment more with being less constrained by copying photographs, and instead just trying to create the right light or texture or pattern.  Its hard!

Late Summer Cows

I'm a little behind the seasons with my paintings.   This one looks spring-y, but its actually from a picture I took in late summer.  But clearly I need to do some fall paintings.  The only problem is that I've done a horrible job of taking good fall pictures.  If you have any pretty fall pictures, send them my way!
I also tried not to get too stuck in being super-realistic with this one.  Some of my favorite paintings are the most stylized ones, but sometimes I get in a rut with copying photographs too closely.  It helped that the photo I used for most of this painting was really bad and washed out and didn't show the sky at all, so I was forced to be a bit more creative.