South Plate River Pine Roots

This is a sketch of a Ponderosa Pine Tree root system from the South Platte River system in Colorado.  I started this last night but I had been fighting a headache all day and did not get much done on it. I finished this tonight.  This is a tree along the shoreline of the Platte River, it is near the banks of the South Platte River on the Rampart Range south of Denver.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  I don't really have any resolutions as such.  I think they don't work real well.  I do have general goals and one for this year is to try and finish more things.  Part of this goal is a by-product of finishing 2016 with more painting, which has gotten me to a point were painting is coming easier and I am mixing better paint and I am seeing things more easily and I am able to fix them.  So today, after waking up late, I worked on this painting of Engine 487 on the Cumbre and Toltec Scenic Railroad.  The reflected light on the front of this engine had been vexing me and now it is coming together.  Some of the details and the background still need work but I am much happier with this one now than last year when I last worked on this.

Old Glory on a Spanker boom - block in

I started this painting of Old Glory on a wooden Spanker boom on a wooden sail boat.  I have the basics painted in.  I will need to add detail to the water and then I will add a bunch of detail to the boom, lines, folded sail, and metal work.

Copper Pan and Bottle study

A bit of a rough start on this one.  The pan is ok, not so much on the bottle or jar or whatever this is.  I lost some of the shape and will need to go back out it tomorrow in the light of day and after some sleep.  All moving towards the 10k hours needed to master something.

Lettuce and Pepper Still Life Practice

So it's a little rough but, it is a good start on a green color challenge of these vegetables.  I need to work on the edges and shaping the leaves to give this depth.  I will tweak this later.

Red Onions Still Life Practice

So this is the start of another practice of Still Life - this time Red Onions.  This was pretty quick and I will probably just add a few highlights and then leave it alone.  Back at regular work today so only quick time on the brush tonight.

Post Christmas Still Life study

So after recovering from Christmas, I worked on this study of brass pots.  Not an original design but it's something I need to work on, capturing different surfaces and textures in paint.