Setting sun, Iowa farm

This is a small section of an 18" x 36" painting. I got the idea for this when I was in Iowa doing a plein air event. I was finished for the day and drove to a nearby town for dinner. Coming back, the sun was setting and just catching the ends of the buildings of this farm. It really captured my eye and I stopped and took a couple photos ---- (no, I did not do a plein air study because I knew the light was changing quickly). Since the light was failing fast, my reference came out rather dark, which made it not so easy to come up with the colors, but seen wholly it looks good. This will be an entry in the Farms & Barns show later this year I am sure.

The Secret Life of the Artist part 12

I still have these two paintings lurking in my basement. Many artists throw away or burn their old paintings and eradicate the memory. I don't have these in plain sight, but I don't really show them to anyone either, but they are a memory of something along the path of learning and development. The first painting, a watercolor, I did when I was 16. I remember painting it in the basement of another home. I never liked the way my art teacher taught us to use watercolor, so I am surprised I even painted this. Some of my relatives encouraged me in my art, but not one (unobservant)uncle, who's comment was "You never see a sky like that". You don't if you aren't looking. The other painting I did from a drawing (or painting) in a book on Japanese and Chinese art (Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art by Fellanosa) in 1967. I read the book and probably others and went to the Art Institute of Chicago specifically to look at their Asian art. What influence it had after that time I just don't know. I've never done any more paintings in that style, but I've done at least a hundred more watercolors.

Idea for a painting

We traveled to Door County, Wisconsin this fall. Of course for me that means doing some painting and taking some pictures for possible paintings during the winter months. (By the way......it is all of 1 degree Fahrenheit here right now.) One morning we went to a coffee shop in Ellison Bay on a morning when musicians gather to jam. I sat there for quite a while when I was taken by the look of two of the guitarists. I did this little 6" x 8" study of one of the musicians with an intention to make a larger painting. That was September, this is January.....sometimes it takes a while for a painting to percolate in the mind.