Monument Valley revisited

In March of this year, my very good friend Lilli and I took a trip to Monument Valley, Ut/Arizona. During this trip, it had been my intention to dedicate a few days to painting the beautiful vistas in the Monument. Right before the trip I became ill with flu like symptoms, and was plagued with those symptoms, most of the 4 days we were there. As a result, I only painted one time, and only for a few hours. I brought the painting home, and put it away, and only recently brought it out to see if it was salvageable. Well, here it is, actually, I did not do much to change it, as time allowed me to feel better about it. This is a view of the "The Five Sisters" (I think), with long morning shadows. I remember the wind started to blow so I don't think we were there for more than 2 hours.

Prospect Park, Redlands

A group of plein air painters from the Redlands Art Association gathered to paint this morning early at Prospect Park. This is always a favorite of mine, as they have so many old tree's to paint. One of my favorite subjects to capture are Eucalyptus trees, particularly in the early morning, or late evening. I have painted this particular tree before, but today I went down on the road behind the carriage house, to look up at this gentile giant. The morning was so lovely, and the heat of the day stayed away until we were all mostly done. I call this "Morning light"

Sam Maloofs gardens

PAAR (Plein Air Artists of Riverside), has been invited to paint in the beautiful gardens at Sam Maloof's foundation. The gardens known as Beverly's Garden has been so lovely over the past few months. I have been there a number of times, and never have run out of subject matter to paint. The following two paintings were done about a month apart. The first one, I call "The three guardsmen" was done the latter part of May, when the garden still had allot of spring flowers in bloom. The other painting, "Garden Path", was done last Saturday, when I got there early, in time to catch the morning light on these lovely Eucalyptus trees. In September PAAR will be honored to have a juried show at Jacob's Center, on the Maloof's grounds. I will be submitting one of these for consideration of the selection juror, Mr. Maloof.

Chuck & Lucy

Sheep portraits? Yes, I did a couple sheep portraits. I became interested in doing them, when my sister-in-law Barbara, (who is a weaver) asked me to do one. She described a painting she saw at a fair, that she loved and regrets that she did not purchase it. So I decided to try to create one. so here they are. I had taken photos of sheep on my trip to Monument Valley, so Chuck must be a Navajo sheep. Chuck is the blond serious looking one, while Lucy, is the black and white doll, I love her curly hair on top of her head. I had Lucy's photo from many years ago, in a petting zoo somewhere. So,Barbara, what do you think?