River Water and Wild Onions

Is this cool or what? The Mitchell Museum in Trinidad Colorado has invited me and several other artists to show some work at the museum during the month of June. I’ve gotten them seven paintings, some older, some new. All are from S.E. Colorado and range from 10×20 inches to 30×40. Some of them folks have seen, some are still wet. I thought I’d post em in here for everybody to see.

Title: Sunrise at Willards Place

The painting above is a 10×20 and stems from the paint trip I took last summer with Doug Holdread and several other artists at the Louden Ranch.  Take a look at Doug’s site, you’ll see a lot of really nice work in there.

Untitled

Another 10×20. This painting was totally fun to do. (a little nerve racking but fun) The reference material has been laying around here for quite a while. I guess I just had to have a reason to git er done. A special occasion I guess.

Title: Willard’s Windmill

And this is Willard Loudens wind mill. It’s one of the first things you see when you drive into the bottom of the canyon where Lone Oak Post Office is. If you were to walk up to the windmill from this view and hooked a hard left you’d be looking right at the view of  “Sunrise At Willards Place” two paintings up.

Title: Road to Lone Oak

Above is the road into Lone Oak. Who are those guys anyway?  There was this couple who hiked out of the canyon and camped on the ridge. Friends of mine.

Title: Nuther Storm Brewin

This old snowy road is from the Red Canyon area. I’d guess it’s about 40 miles north east of Willards place. I haven’t been to this area for many years and I remember it as being one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. A lady owned the ranch then. Her name was Dourety. (No doubt I butchered that spelling, sorry) She was nice enough to let us run around her place a little bit. I’ll bet it’s been thirty years. Most beautiful.

Title: Mesa De Maya

This painting above most of you have seen. It was the do-over from an older post.  I snapped the reference photo on my way  to Lone Oak one Sunday morning. This stone structure is my offering to the scene. The building doesn’t actually exist but you finds hundreds like it through out the area. These places were lived in and abandoned by tough, hard working folks who found it hard to make a living.

A little story:        My father in law many many many years ago had a little homestead east of La Junta Co. He said one day a young fella came walking by his place who lived out in this area. He asked the guy what they ate out there. River water and wild onions. I aint that tough.

Title: Down Higbee Road

Another most of you have seen. Higbee Road is About 20 miles south of LaJunta and runs for a ways along the Purgatory River. I had a little bit of a problem with the composition in this one. The critique indicated the house was far to much to the left to be the center of interest (was true). While the piece was well painted I was to move the house to the right. Uh huh….Like they said, it was well done, I wasn’t about to repaint that old house so I gave the rancher a new silo. It improved the composition of the piece, pulled the viewers eye back to the right and added to the value of the property as well. Three birds, one rock.     :)

So there ya have it. My offering to the Mitchell Museum. Wish us luck.

If anyone wishes to see a price list there’s one in “links” top right. When you hover your cursor over an image the size will come up. Just compare that size to the same size on the list.

Until next Saturday!!

EW