Thursday, October 18, 2018

Mountains and more

Sometimes I come across a verse that resonates with me and I put it on one of my paintings. I liked this one and felt it would go well on an old Chinese style watercolor I did many years ago.

I bought a panorama style canvas at a sidewalk sale this summer from the local art store.  I finally decided what to paint on it.  This is a slightly different view of Lydle Gulch.  I like it better than the first one I did, but I still have difficulty with the color of the sage brush.  The greens here in the west are quite different from the greens in New England.  I was given some suggestions by another painter so I will try those next time. He suggested mixing turquoise, orange and purple.  I will have to experiment more.

My husband and I went to a few artists studios as there was an artists open studios weekend tour last weekend.  I was very impressed with the landscapes of Fred Choate  and might take some classes with him.  I tried copying a video he had online as an example (below), but was not happy with my result.

I find I am not happy working with other people's images and color selections.  I have several of my own photos of the Sawtooth Mountains (in Idaho) and will try to come up with a composition from my own photos.

This is Tangle Falls in Alberta, Canada. I used both brush and palette knife with oil paints. It is drying now. I'm not sure if it's finished or if I need to work on the water a little more. It appears too white in the photo and I may add some more blues and greens to it. 16" X 20".

We enjoyed a bus tour with other senior citizens from Boise to Stanley (population 69) via Lowman and then back to Boise through Hailey, Ketchum and Sun Valley. It was a long day, but enjoyable since we didn't have to drive.  Stanley is the entry to the Sawtooth Mountains and hiking, fishing, star gazing (no light pollution) etc.  Sun Valley is the home of many wealthy people who like skiing.  The aspens were glowing with fall colors.  I didn't get a good photo of those since I was trying to photograph them through the bus window (last photo below).  We stopped for lunch in Stanley and I was able to walk around and take some photos of  the Sawtooth mountains.