work in progress

I'm starting another two or three winter scenes.

Merry Christmas

This Christmas day painting is a gift that I gave to my daughter as a wedding gift back in 2001 and seeing we are stranded here in Nebraska for an extended period of time due to a major snowstorm/blizzard I am using it as my blog entry today. I may have posted this before so here is a chance to enjoy it all over again!

12-13-09 "Three's Company"

This painting took me around the block and back again! At first I didn't like the trees in the background, then the sky, then I took the red out of the barns, then I put it back in with more of a orange-red color, and then I added the cattle after I thought I was finished. And now it has turned out just as I wanted it too.

Water color, 9x12

$30.00 plus $4.00 shipping

work in progress

Today we have the first heavy snow fall of the year and I am painting a summer scene! Oh well, paint away.

11-29-09 "The Red Shed"

This is a typical scene that you might see as you drive down any rural road in southern Iowa. A farm had need of many barns or "sheds"; hog shed, chicken coup, calf shed, grainery, amoung many others. The farthest rolling hill in the background is a corn field ready for the combine to harvest the grain.

11-21-09 "Grandson's Leaves"

I gathered some leaves for the grandsons to jump and play in and it turned ou to be a great afternoon. When the fun time was over I brought into the house three of the best leaves for me to begin some drawings. The contrast betwen the large yellow leaf and the purplish background work well together.

work in progress

I can't avoid leaves! They are everywhere in our yard and I must mulch them and put them on the garden.

11-7-09 "Country Beauty"

We took our grandson to a local pumpkin patch and there I discovered this lovely home and all these flowers. The flower beds had taken over everthing and were bursting from their bounderies and spilling out into the walks. SOLD

work in progress

I've been concentrating on barns for quite a while so I figured it was time for a white house.

10-14-09 "December Evening"

Cold evenings are part of my childhood memories. Walking from the barn to the house on a well worn path. Walking up from the woods after checking all my muskrat traps. All the time keeping an eye on the setting sun to make it in before it got really cold after the sun finally set over the horizen.

10-6-09 "The Old Red Tractor"

The next time you drive from Indianola to Des Moines on Hwy 65 you might see this farm on the west side of the road. It was a clear, crisp morning when I got this shot and I feel I caught the moment pretty good.

Painting with Grandpa

As I was working on my latest painting little Sammy wanted to "help out". He sat on my lap for about four minutes but lost interest when he realized there was nothing in front of him he could touch.

work in progress

This painting is about half finished and coming along just fine.

9-26-09 "An Iowa Sunset"

This time of year the sunsets on the western horizon are an absolute blaze of orange, reds, and yellows. To try capture them is a challenge.

This painting I started and finished within two and one half hours.

Watercolor, guache, acrylic

8x10 matted

$25.00 free shipping

There are times in the winter when there is a sense of warmth and this painting conveys that feeling. There is no wind to bring cutting breezes and the tempurature has actually gotten above 32 degrees so many-a-times we can make it to the barn in just a flannel shirt.

8X10 water color painting

matted, free shipping

SOLD

8-28-09 Heavy Snowfall

I started this little painting before the art show...but...wasn't able to get back to it because of the Iowa State Fair and a family vacation. Oh well, I have a dozen excuses.

This barn is just a typical barn set 150 feet off the road that I've overlooked a dozen times. But I start to play with the drawing and change the seasons and it comes together.

SOLD

Getting Ready for the Art Show

This first image is to demonstrate how messy things can get when I start to matte and frame for the show coming up on Satrday.

This is a long and narrow landscape that I've had around for a while but no frame to put it in. I finally got a frame and matted it as you can see above and now its ready. I usually matte my paintings for shows in a white over black just to keep it simple and uniform.

work in progress

Once in a while I attempt to do two at one time to save a few minutes.

7-10-09 "Oakley Barns"

Near the almost non-existant town of Oakley, IA sits this farm on the east side of the road. We stopped the car to get several photos and off we went before the owners could begin to wonder what we where doing. Soon I will be attending an art show; that means matting, framing, packing up everything, and setting up the tent. A lot of preperation.

Watercolor, 16x20

$150, free shipping in US.

work in progress

I wanted to just slap the paint on the paper and get the sky and foreground in fast and furious.

This painting is about half finished. Maybe by the end of the week it will be done.

6-19-09 "Clint's Barn Revised"

Here is a painting Donna has had hanging on the wall for several months and everytime I walked past it I noticed some areas that needed touching up. So when she pulled it off the wall for some redecorating I took it out of the frame and darkened the shadows, lightened the fence, added some age to the barn wood and a few other things.

Painting has been a little slow for me right now with grandsons coming and going and lots of summer house projects.

6-4-09 "Last Summer's Corn Field"

Winter corn fields might look like a barren sixty or more acres but to pheasants, deer, rabbits, and a multitude of other animals it is food for months, maybe even the whole winter.

Water color 16x20

$150.00 free shipping

5-27-09 Work in Progress

These are the same barns from the last post but in a different scene. Just trying to get the most mileage from one drawing. Maybe I'll have this finished in a week and ready to post.

5-18-09 "The Old Rail Fence"

The painting above is the finished product and the one below was the first version. I liked the beef cattle in the first design but I couldn't get the barns, cattle, and grass to all come together in one nice painting. So--Scrap It!!!! And start over. I like the rich colors of fall in the finished painting. It was worth the extra effort.

5-9-09 "Hen Pecked"

These are some chickens that I photographed as they were scratching for dinner. Have you ever watched chickens scratching the ground? They really go at it! This painting is over due for the post because our computor went on the blink- virus overload- and we had to take it to the computor hospital for an extended stay in ICU.

Not for sale

Gift to the wife for Mother's Day.

Work in Progress

Sorry it has taken me so long to post this. I have been on vacation visiting my kids in Nebraska and Ohio. One chicken done, 4 more to go.

work in progress

Chickens are expected on a farm so here they are! These particular birds were photographed as they were pecking away at grain that was scattered all over the ground.

4-4-09 "Sunset Near Lacona"

Now, this is one of the reasons people live in the midwest: gorgeous sunsets! Trying to capture the firey colors as the sun goes down is always a challenge but worth the try. And the colors in the grasses reflect the horizen so I tried to keep that as simple as possible.

Water color 16x20

$150.00 free shipping

work in progress

I wanted to paint a dark barn against a sunset and so far it is coming out ok. The sky is very rich in color, just what I was looking for. Here in the midwest deep moving sunsets are quite common yet I try to appreciate them and take a minute to stop and pay attention to it.

3-20-09 "Chariton Cattle Farm"

The farther south we go in Iowa the more we see rolling hills and beef cattle. Between the towns of Lacona and Chariton it is very hilly and you see those dark cows grazing along the pastures.

Water color, 16x20

$150.00 free shipping

3-12-09 "Warren County in February"

Paintings are a strange thing. The unfinished version of this sat for almost a week. Just the sky was painted in but I didn't like it and the more I looked at it the more I wanted to redo it. Finally I said to myself "Self, you can't wreck it more than it is so just see what happens!" The more I painted the more I liked it and the sky was the perfect backdrop for this rural scene.

Water color, 16x20

$150.00 free shipping

work in progress

I pass this house and buildings each Sunday morning on the way to church and have been waiting for just the right time when the sun was illuminating it's left side. My goal is for that side of the house to be the only part of the painting lit by the sun.

2-27-09 "Early Morning Flight"

I haven't been adding animals and such to my farm scenes in quite a while and my family pointed out they needed some "life". The geese that fly over farms in the fall heading south are a sure sign winter is on the way.

Water color, 16x20

$150.00 free shipping

work in progress

I've added several white barns to set against the dark trees on the horizen. Notice the flock of geese making their way across the sky. The foreground needs to be put in and the painting will be done.

work in progress

I laid in this sky with a opaque white. It really smoothes out the paint and allows me go back into it and rework particular areas that I'm not happy with.

2-7-09 "The Perfect Sky"

This little painting I finished in one evening this past weekend. I put the sky and foreground in the first evening then the buildings, trees, and finishing touches the next. The camera seems to have washed out the lighter grasses in the pasture so I'm either going to retake the photo or darken the light colored grasses.

Watercolor, 8x10

$50.00, free shipping

work in progress

I've been trying to work out some vivid color lately so here is the start of a bright painting. Sometimes at sunset the sky is layered with the horizen being orange, yellow, blue-gray, then blue. It's beautiful in nature but hard to capture on paper.

1-23-09 "Country Roads"

You never know what you might see when you look down a country road. We are so use to taking the same route to and from where we need to go that we don't see the special scenes that await us on the not-so-traveled roads.

8x10, Watercolor

$50.00, free shipping

work in progress

Here is a fun painting to design and paint. Roads that lead into a painting seem so natural but must be placed just right or they don't seem to fit so I take pictures once and a while of just roads and tractor trails through fields.

1-11-09 "Heavy Snow II" (Acrylic)

Here is the same location as the previous post but done in acrylic. I like the finish of acrylics and am trying to get my watercolors to have some of the characteristics of acrylics but still have the ease of watercolors that I'm use to.

Acrylic on canvas board, 8x10

$50.00, free shipping

1-05-09 "Heavy Snow"

There is a lot of cool blue in this painting but the red of the barns warms it up nicely. The well warn lane leads your eye right into the painting.

Watercolor, 8x10

$50.00, Free shipping

work in progress

Here is a good example of my process of working on two paintings at one time. The one on the right is the watercolor and the one on the left is acrylic on canvas board. I'll show them both seperately as I finish them. My family likes the watercolor better but I prefer the acrylic, probably because it's somethng new for me.