Nothing Can Compare With Fall

Ironton's Autumn Glow

Hillsides bright with color, sky of deepest blue

It's Autumn in the Rockies

Come enjoy the view

Aspen Gold

Autumn on Richmond Pass trail

Aspen Gold, the gift of Autumn

Hillsides all aglow

Summer's gone, its heat forgotten
Peaks are capped with snow

Gentle breezes tease each leaf
So begins the dance

Mellow golden days too brief
Hold us in a trance

We'll wander through sunlit groves; clear skies overhead
Yellow carpets line the roads where our feet will tread

We'll recall the aspens' gold in the days to come
When the wind turns bitter cold, and storm clouds hide the sun

"Aspen Study"

Aspen Study II

Try This For Fun

Here is a fun technique to try that I found on Gordon MacKenzie's "The Watercolorist's
Essential Notebook:  Landscapes" DVD
You need a hogs hair bristle brush which you can get at the hardware store and
a household sponge that you have torn a small piece from

Positively Negative

Are you familiar with the term, Negative Painting?   It is something that I have tried off and on during the course of my painting career, but never with much success.  My brain refuses to cooperate and let my paint brush paint outside the lines, so to speak.   There are times when painting this way can be beneficial.  Such as inside a flower; painting the negative space around the stamens etc instead of painting the flower parts themselves.  Also in backgrounds that have layers such as trees or other vegetation.  

A few years ago, I purchased a DVD on the subject of negative painting, but I had never watched it until this weekend.  Having no particular thing in mind to paint while at the gallery, I picked up the DVD as I headed out to work.  This video, "Painting Outside The Lines, a positive approach to negative painting" was produced by Linda Kemp, a well known Canadian watercolorist.  

Most of the exercises that I performed and are depicted on this blog are from her video.

I was amazed to watch her do entire paintings using this technique, and what was more amazing is that she never drew a line, which you will notice, that I had to do.

San Juan Summer

San Juan Summer

As I mentioned in last week's post, the closer ridges needed more color and detail.
Here I have done that 

The sky was done in two washes.  First I wet the whole sky area, turned the
painting upside down and tilted it slightly so the paint would run toward the
top of the painting.  I dropped in cerulean blue, and a mixture of ultramarine and
permanent rose .  After that was dry, I rubbed off the frisket that was protecting the
flowers.  I put in more detail in the blossoms and added a couple more.
Then wetting the sky area again, I added a little more color in a couple of areas.

                        ******************************************************************************

Remember this one?  The foreground was my dilema.  So after much thought I decided
to add a wash of the sky color in the center band of the foreground to
hopefully tie the piece together.  Did it work?

Back to Painting

Clearing My Head

Red Mountain 1,  from Gray Copper Gulch

Mountains Make Me Whole

I run to the mountains when my head needs clearing

When my heart needs healing

When my body needs working