Cougar Peak #90

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

Today we ended up getting buckets of rains and buckets of moonbeams. Luckily I was able to cut through and slice out this image of the mountain with a bit of acrylic. For this I laid in most of the bigger shapes with a large brush and then came back in with a smaller liner and put on some finishing touches.

And again this marks the end up March, so I have attached another month in review image as well to enable you to see the whole month of March as a whole.

Cougar Peak #89

4.75" x 6.75" Gouache on Manila Folder

For this image today I worked on the ever popular manila folder. I first laid down a fairly tight pencil sketch and then sealed in with an acrylic gloss medium. After the sealer dried I painted over the top of my sketch with red gouache and a tube of blue and yellow watercolor, mixing the three together and using some really dry gouache white that I could hardly squeeze out of the tube.....the manila, gouache, watercolor were everything I had to work with today, so I had to make due, and sometime it can make it all the more fun.

Cougar Peak #88

4.75" x 6.75" Digital

Today I had the desire to smear some pixels around on some digital canvas. Slowly but surely the mountain is starting to come alive again. Instead of all of those cool blues and grays, green are staring to emerge and show themselves on the ever changing color palette of life.

Cougar Peak #87

4.75" x 6.75" Gouache on Paper

Today was a beautiful mixture of overcast clouds and sunlight, with a touch of fresh snow on the tip of peak. I painted this one on a piece of comic book backer board and kept my paints real wet so that colors puddled and ran together. After that I came back in and painted a bit more opaquely with a less diluted gouache.

Cougar Peak #86

4.75" x 6.75" Gouache on Paper

The mountain was a bit overcast and gloomy looking today, with flurries of snow and rain bombarding it up the canyon. I worked this one up on gouache again and then came back over the top of it, especially in the low lying cloud areas to pull some of the paint off and create a bit of texture.

Cougar Peak #85

4.75" x 6.75" Gouache on Paper

Back to gouache again...it's been a quite a few posts since I decided to take a little medium detour. Actually there a quite a few different mediums that I would like to incorporate into this series, but I just haven't taken the time to set them up. The one great thing about digital is that you never have to squeeze paint out of tubes, clean brushes etc....and when you are done you can just leave your mess and not worry about your paints drying. But on the other hand you never get your hands dirty, with paint drying in your fingernails, paint all over your clothes, and the smell of turpentine oozing out of your pores.

Cougar Peak #84

4.75" x 6.75" Digital

Today the mountain is being bombarded by heavy rain so much that it is engulfed in this swirling mass of moisture. For this image I jumped onto Photoshop and started building up different layers and textures to try and emulate some of that poetic chaos.

Cougar Peak #83

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

Another one of those overcast days, but still fun to paint....hey isn't everything fun to paint? This one again is acrylic. I ended up doing a heavy monochromatic sketch with pastel and blue pencil, but end the end the paint ended up devouring it....maybe someday the other side will win out over the paint.

Cougar Peak #82

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

Today was another one of those calm overcast days, and then later on in the day things broke up a bit, but still the sun stayed subdued and hidden among the clouds. For this piece again I used lots of extender which helps me blend everything thing together, as opposed to having it dry almost instantly when it hits the paper, and I kept my paint not too heavy and more of a wash, so that I could scrub down and let part of the paper texture come through

Cougar Peak #81

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

Today the sky had a very calm eerie feeling to it....sort of one of those "quiet before the storm feelings." I have been using an extender on the last couple of paintings that keeps my acrylic more fluid and which allows for more blending or a wet on wet technique.

Cougar Peak #80

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

Everything in the valley this morning was coated in a fine layer of frost. I love the look of the mountain in the morning as that bright fresh warm light bathes the tips of the peak. I really ends up making the snow sort of come alive, while the mountain below is sheltered in cool blues.

Cougar Peak #79

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

Today we had a flurry of moisture, where we got a mixture of rain down low and the mountain got blasted with a bit of snow. Later in the day things started to break up a bit and the sun started shining through......beautiful. Anyways, I tackled this one in acrylic keeping it all wet and soupy, mainly painting it with a flat and a liner brush.

Cougar Peak #78

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Chipboard

Today I decided to switch back over to acrylic. My palette was long overdue for a cleaning, and a fresh batch of new paints. So that being done, I dove in and messed it up again, which is always fun....kind of like having fresh sheets on your bed, their just asking to be messed up, or your FACE....WHAMO!.....haha just kidding, I'm sure no one reads my daily babble anyways.

Cougar Peak #77

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Chipboard

The light as the sun was setting on the mountain today was so beautiful, I can hardly say that I was able to do it justice. Still it was fun to try and caputure a sense of that beuaty, and of course the chance to paint outdoors with the sun on my back is always worth it regardless.

Cougar Peak #76

4.75" x 6.75" Digital

Today look pretty much the same as yesterday, mister Heavy Fog is again laying low. It is always amzing though to me even with the fog how much the look of the mountain will change from one day to the next. The sunlight will shine through a different part of the fog or highlight the mountain in a different spot, it makes everyday unique....which of course is super cool!

Cougar Peak #75

4.75" x 6.75" Digital

Our friend Heavy Fog came back again today, but at least he was nice enough not to lay down on his belly and completely obscure the mountain. In the end he decide to hover and swim just above the borderline.

Cougar Peak #74

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

A super extreme layer fo fog covered everything today, so that at some points in the painting I couldn't see anything but white. Luckily it broke just enough that I could start to make out bits of form from the mountain here and there, as well as the barn and the tree.

Cougar Peak #73

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

March is always a mixture of sunshine, snow, rain, hail, etc. Today I think it snowed off and on 4 or 5 times, partly hailed with a mix of wind, and then the rest was sunshine. Everything is right at the point between being in the long sleep of winter and coming to life again.

Cougar Peak #72

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

I am enjoying the oils....or maybe just the chemicals are getting to me. I actually like painting oils on paper, it has such a different feeling than painting on canvas or masonite. It has such a completely different feel compared to the other surfaces, especially when it is thinned down, because then everything soaks into the paper.

Cougar Peak #71

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

The warm light at the end of the day was rather beautiful set against the oncoming storm. The low light helped to bring out some of those greens and warmer colors that have been hiding all winter. Again this image is oil on paper using a real thinned down oil so that it really soaks down deep into the paper, sort of like painting with ink.

Cougar Peak #70

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

I still haven't been able to give up those oils yet....actually I still have paint on my palette and I can't let it go to waste, what can I say I'm cheap. So using those oils on my palette, I grabbed a nice thick piece of printing paper and diluted my oils with thinner, so that it was like painting with India ink or something of the same consistency

Cougar Peak #69

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Chipboard

I grabbed a piece of chipboard and worked with oils again for today's painting. The chipboard tends to soak up all of the oil, so it ends up giving the painting a different feel, also it give me a nice middle value to start off of.

Cougar Peak #68

5" x 7" Oil on Panel

Today I played around with some more oils. The sun was out in all of it's glory blasting the mountain with it's rays....and that is always a pleasant site. I do not have quite the control that I would like though, I suppose that is what I get for neglecting my oils for six months....I guess that means I will have to paint more.

Cougar Peak #67

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Masonite

I busted out the oil paints finally.....ahhh there is nothing like the smell of oils. The feeling of the cold wind on the back of your neck, and a chill wind coming down out of the north. Does it get better than that? Anyways, I hope to take time exploring more of the mountain in oil, either in the near future or down the road....only time will tell.

Cougar Peak #66

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Chipboard

Today there was a lot of fog around the mountain, but the sun was quickly carving it's way through. For this one I grabbed a chunk of chipboard, did a quick sketch in pencil laying out my shapes and then dove into the acrylics. I did most of the painting with a nice stiff bristle brush and then finished out things with a liner brush, turning it on it's side and leting it scrape along the texture of the paper.

Cougar Peak #65

4.75" x 6.75" Digital

Today the mountain was enveloped in a heavy blanket of fog, so thick that that you could taste it in your mouth, and feel it crawl on your skin. So for this one I jumped back onto Photoshop and used digital paint to cut through the fog and carve into the mountain.

Cougar Peak #64

4.75" x 6.75" Gouache/Pastel on Chipboard

For this image I did some initial work with pastel on a piece of shipping cardboard(chipboard), I then sealed the pastel and then painted over the top of that in gouache. While the gouache is wet still I am able to rub out in places and create some nice textures.

Cougar Peak #63

4.75" x 6.75" Digital

I had so much fun yesterday playing around with some of the new brushes I created in Photoshop, that I thought I would give it another go today.
One of things I just realized when I finished this painting, is that by painting the same thing everyday it has allowed me to be more creative with my technique(brushes, textures, etc..) that I do not think I would normally have pushed in the same way with my other paintings, since you are always worried about composition, perspective, and all those other things that each individual painting brings. But with this series, all of those issues stay pretty much the same from day to day other, other than a change of weather and lighting, so I can play around with new brushes, media, whatever, and get creative with the mountain. I assume as the farther I get into this project the more I will continue to push things and stretch my creativity.....we will see.

Cougar Peak #62

4.75" x 6.75" Digital

I created some new brushes and a bunch of other goodies for Photoshop, so today I tested out a few of those new brushes and again worked with more shapes selections and textures. I'm happy with the sky in this painting, it has sort of a watercolor feel to it.

Cougar Peak #61

4.75" x 6.75" Gouache on Paper

Cold and crisp today, the temperature was getting pretty close to 0 degrees. I tried to capture the mountain as the sun bathed the top of it in morning light. Really I would have liked to have done three or four paintings. The light and shadows were changing so quickly that I wish I could have captured those instances as well.

Cougar Peak #60

4.75" x 6.75" Gouache on Paper

Well, March does indeed start out with snow. As soon as I started painting today, the mountain was completely whited out in a snow storm. Luckily I was able to capture most of what I wanted before I lost sight of the mountain completely.