Thursday, February 26, 2015

Thinking of Spring

We are almost at the end of February and while the winter has been largely mild this year it's still winter.  Not that I wish for snow, (except in the mountains) but snow is the only thing that makes winter interesting to me from an artistic perspective, it covers up the ugly browns of the dead grass and makes for brilliant blue cast shadows. We haven't had snow cover in the Salt Lake Valley since early January.  What that means is the landscape has been mostly just grays and browns for nearly two months.  I needed a shot of color so I decided to paint a spring painting;

"Spring Evergreen"

14" x 11", Acrylic on panel
Original - $160


This scene is up in Big Cottonwood Canyon in the Utah Wasatch Mountains in an area called the Willow Heights Conservation area.  This is one of the most beautiful spots in our local canyons that I have visited and since it's not well known it isn't crowded.  I painted this before, smaller in pastel, I decided to scale it up a bit in acrylic.







Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Pencil Sketching Pastime

I passed a pleasant Saturday afternoon last week sketching at Wheeler Farm, one of my favorite sketching haunts.  I kept it simple and stuck with graphite, (pencil) but I picked a pretty complex subject.  The old farm house at Wheeler Farm is a beautiful example of the western United States version of Victorian architecture.  It's not a simple box like most modern dwellings.  This old farm house had many angles and shapes to play with in my sketchbook, it was fun but far from simple and quick!

art sketch pencil graphite Wheeler Farm house rural

"Wheeler Farm House"