Work Truck

"Old Green Work Truck"

9" x 12"

I found this great truck parked at Nash farm by my house. I had my twenty year old son stand with the door open in the pose shown and used my painters creative license and magically transformed him into a elderly gentleman complete with red hat and suspenders. You can't beat plein air painting and actually being on location, but I will always change what I see if it makes my painting better.

Rusted Junk Heaven

"Red Tractor" 

9" x 12"

I saw this great red tractor in the same area of Fredericksburgh, Tx as my painting "Rusted Work Truck". It was a rusted junk plein air painters heaven. I could have painted a dozen more just like this one, just spinning in place.

Hummingbird Feeder Glow

"Hummingbird Feeder"

5" X 7"

I hoped to capture the hummingbirds quick movements, but what I was most excited to paint was the light hitting the right side and all the secondary reflected light. This was painted very quickly in around 30 minutes.


The light around the bird is the toned board showing through. My most successful paintings seem to be the ones that the natural glow of the board still shows in places. Once that glow is gone, it is difficult to paint back in.

Not Much, But It's Home

"Not Much, But It's Home"

8" x 16"

I 'm happy with this one and I have plans on painting it twice as big. This is not a small painting, but a lot of the scratched in branches and foliage tricks I did won't work on the larger size. The trick will be painting more detail, but keep all the looseness.

Wish me luck!

Rescue Me

"Rescue Me"

5"x 7"

This was a real quick sketch from my recent Ouray, Colorado trip. I saw this tucked away up next to a mountain waiting for a call. Thankfully nobody needed it's help.

Rest in Peace, Tractor

"Ready for Work" 

8" x 10"

Sometimes, a painting sits around for a few days and you find something you are not totally satisfied so you grab the brushes and go about reworking the places that bothered you and hopefully improve the painting. Sometimes you grab those brushes and no matter what you do things just get worse and worse.  I tried to rework the foreground and background on this painting and I'm sad to say, completely wrecked it. The photo above was prior to the new work. Seeing it again at this size, things don't look so bad and I wish I had left it alone.  After three attempts this painting is dark, dead and near lifeless. A hard lesson learned.

I won't give up because it had promise and is oil. I should be able to cover anything up, but I think it's best to put it aside and let us both rest for awhile.  

KEEP OUT

 "Hay Stacks"

9' x 12"

Went out with a couple of my painting buddies for some more punishment. You can just feel the heat radiating out of these photos and it was only 9 am! I did get some nice shadows and despite the heat had a lot of fun. We meet a man named Mannie that was working for real that day driving a forklift. He spoke only broken English, but was very excited to see our paintings. We found out Mannie was an artist himself after he showed us a large rock that he had decorated with a sharpie drawing various cowboy related doodles. I encouraged him to drop the sharpie and pick up some brushes. Hopefully Mannie will be starting his own Blog soon.

Glimpse of my palette

Wow, I'm dedicated!

Painting Challenge: Train

"Train Crossing" 

11" x 14"

This painting was done for an online painting challenge from my good buddy Lee Brown over at
A Day Not Wasted. Lee has a great site that features his beautiful photography from his world travels.
I dare you to visit and not get inspired.

This train passes close too Lee's home in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Follow the link to see the challenge photo, the other artist interpretations and to possibly join in the painting challenge fun. Thanks Lee!

This is my second challenge I participated in. Here is my first one.

When I saw the photo I knew it would be a challenge. All the detail caught my eye first, but what I really wanted to paint was the light on the left side and the depth of the distant background. I tried laying down a monochromatic underpainting, but this time I didn't wait for it to dry before applying the color. At first it caused me some grief because the color kept picking up the grey beneath, but in the end all it took was a second round of good clean saturated highlights to not have it too washed out.

How does it look?

Mountain Studio Painting

"Purple Mountains Majesty"

10" x 20"

This was painted from a photo I took in Colorado somewhere between Rico and Delores. If anyone recognizes this location by name, please let me know. It was an unbelievably gorgeous spot.

This was my first attempt using a monochromatic block-in. I let it dry for three days before adding color. I really dropped the ball by not taking progress photos, but I was totally absorbed and fascinated by the technique. I have seen other painter use this method, but to tell the truth it sounded kinda tedious to me. Why paint everything, just to repaint it again with more color? Now I understand and have become very intrigued to try it again. It was much easier establishing my values by using only a dark and middle tone and letting the board show though for my lightest light, than using all the colors on my palette, especially on a much larger than my normal size painting. After I had my values clearly established it was so easy to put on the color. I was able to add color very quickly and it came to life before my eyes. The speed of the coloring process made this studio painting feel closer to my plein air work.

Painting is so fascinating to me. There are so many different methods to apply paint to canvas.

Colorado Red Mountains

"Colorado Red Mountains"   

10 x 10

This was my first plein air painting from my recent trip to Colorado. I packed the basics only and encountered problems when the Titanium White I brought was extremely gummy. I had never used this tube and it acted like it was 100 years old. I'm not sure where I bought this paint, but it's the first time I have ever had this problem. I lucked out and found a new tube in Ouray.

With that said I'm happy with the final product.

Plein Air Artist video

I was one of the chosen artist to be featured in this video promoting Plein Air Artists.ning.com. Considering they have 1,900 members around the world, I'm proud to be showcased. ( I appear at 5:17 ) Video produced by Don Maier.

If you haven't visited this site, please do. I am proud to be included with so many great artist from around the world.

Downtown Ouray Colorado

"Mount Abrams from Downtown Ouray"   

6" x 12" 

I just got back from spending a week in Colorado with my family. Colorado is beautiful and we saw countless waterfalls and mountain peaks. I didn't want to shortchange my family, so I woke up extra early each day to get in some painting time and let them take their time getting up. You don't have to go far to find a great view, so I just set up my easel downtown and had 360 degrees of paintable mountains. Texas is not known for giant mountains, so I was jumping at a chance to paint some. Even a quick rain shower didn't ruin the moment. One thing I learned was the light changes and shadows come and go quickly this high up.