Winter Plein-Air

6 X12  

We have excellent cross country ski trails here in Northern WI.

Last week I was out skiing with my family, it was absolutely beautiful, one breath taking view after another!  So the next day I packed up my easel and headed back out to the ski trail, careful to not reck the trail.   

A couple of skier's were very surprised to find an artist set up painting on the trail. Its not what they were expecting to see.

Palomino on Red

6 X 8 oil

My mare Holly was the model for this painting.  It's amazing how little yellow you can use to paint a yellow horse.

Quick Oil Sketch 6 X 8

Snowman

This is my second year drawing this Snowman character for an upcoming festival in Rice Lake.  I quickly accepted this job,  assuming it would be a easy project because I was using a character I had already created. "NOT SO"

 The snowman was easy but drawing the spraying snow was especially difficult.   It is really tricky to make something look random.

In the end,  I ended up spattering blue watercolor paint on paper to create a real splatter and then changed the color to white in photoshop.

Caricature from photo

This was a fun one, below is the request I received from the client.

"Flys jet airplanes, loves golf, safari hunts (maybe a mounted elephant or lion head), single malt scotch, flip flops/beach clothes, chocolate lab/dog."

It was fun to put these items together into a visual concept

Cowgirl Silhouette Oil 24 X 36

The reference photo used for this painting came from a trail riding trip in North Dakota. 

A friend of mine was riding on top of this hill and the composition just came to life. Good thing I always have a small camera packed with me for moments like this!

    The challenge of this painting was to keep the power of the silhouette while adding the primary colors she was wearing(yellow chaps, red shirt and blue saddle bag).

Gift Caricature

Clients requests for caricatures is usually interesting and very individual, I am never drawing the same thing twice. Apparently this doctor is very fast at removing skin cancer.