Cougar Peak #151

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

Another beautiful day, and another month completed. May ended up being quite and exciting month with a mixture of greens, grays, rain, snow, fog, sunshine, and smoke. Now I am looking forward to June and what it might bring.

Also again I am attaching another month in review image so that you will be able to view the whole month together.

Cougar Peak #150

4.75" x 6.75" Digital

This morning was beautiful as the mountain was bathed in that early morning light. For this painting I decided to get my fingers dirty with lots of ones and zeros. I blocked out my main shapes first and then came back in and did all of the detail work.

Cougar Peak #140

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

The sun is back again, and now we are expecting temperatures in the 90's by the weekend. Nothing like going from one extreme to the other. For this image I did a quick sketch in blue pencil and then started to concentrate on my my few basic shapes blocking them in quickly with paint. After that I proceeded to come in and start pushing the values around to get the forms that I wanted.

Cougar Peak #148

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

Another cold and rainy Memorial Day...which always seems to be the norm for around here, except it is so cold today that I think we might possibly get a bit of fresh snow on the peak. As I was painting this a fresh storm was moving through and pretty much whitening out the mountain in torrential furry. For this image I just did a quick sketch in blue pencil, skipping any sort of pastel, and just going directly to painting. I tried to instill a bit of that furry, keeping my strokes loose and wild.

Cougar Peak #147

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

Lots of rain today coving the mountain so that everything took on this gray monochromatic feeling to it. For this one I skipped the whole sketching process and just dove into painting. I ended up treating my acrylics like watercolor in the sense that I soaked my paper so that when the paint was applied it bled and ran a bit.

Cougar Peak #146

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

Ahhh...the sunshine is out today with hardly a cloud in the sky. Everything is really starting to green up, and the long tall grasses are starting to grow. The mountain is also becoming greener and more brilliant by the day. The last bits of snow are slowly being eroded away giving way to the oncoming summer.

Cougar Peak #145

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

Today when I started to paint there was a layer of fog that came right down just above the old barn, but by the time I was getting done the fog was starting to burn off quickly. This painting I sketched out quickly with pastel and blue pencil, laying down a big area of gray and smearing it with my fingers. I then sealed it and proceeded to bring the acrylics in over the top.

Cougar Peak #144

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

Thunder, and rain, and snow, oH MY!! Another crazy day in Montana, we had a little bit of every thing today. In fact it was one of those days where you wish you could spend the whole day outside painting. I painted this one towards the end of the day after the down pour/snow storm had passed through. We ended up getting a lot of much needed rain down low, while the mountain got blasted again with fresh snow. Just towards evening everything started clearing up again, and the peak was lit up with that golden evening light, while the clouds and mist broke up and swirled away.....

Cougar Peak #143

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

Today I switched back over to my acrylics, first laying down a sketch in blue pencil and then coming back over the top of it with a black conte. After this was done I proceeded to come in with my paints and start pushing around colors and values. The snow now is pretty much completely gone from the mountain, but it has been replaced by rock slides and giant boulders which have some wonderful colors and shapes in themselves.

Cougar Peak #142

4.75" x 6.75" Digital

Another cold chaotic day filled with clouds and white furry. The sun was trying to pop out in places and strangly enough, a hole opened in the clouds, allowing the top of the peak to show through. Also everything was wet, which made the colors a lot more saturated and rich when the sun came out and hit it, so I intentionally popped the colors a bit.

Cougar Peak #141

4.75" x 6.75" Digital

Today the mountain was obscured again by clouds, and who knows what behind them...possibly snow, or maybe just a wet soggy mountain. For this image I again painted it in Photoshop concentrating on my main shapes and then working to give the clouds a rather chaotic textural quality to them. After that I brought in the old barn and tree andthen tried to unify everthing together.

Cougar Peak #140

4.75" X 6.75" Digital

Today we are once again greeted with a bit of May snow, it didn't come quite all the way down the mountain, but far enough. For this image I painted everything in Photoshop, starting as I do with all of the others, laying down a quick sketch and then concentrating on the main masses, finally finishing it up with all of the little touches and highlights.

Cougar Peak #139

4.75" x 6.75" Digital

For today's image I decide to jump back onto Photoshop and work up a digital painting. I enjoy with digital paint trying to come up with those happy accidents you can get with traditional paint, as well as trying to get a more organic feel with texture, smudges, etc....

Cougar Peak #138

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic/India Ink on Paper

For today's image I started out with india ink on paper and brushed in a quick loose sketch of the mountain. I then came in and added a bit of pastel over the top of that, finally coming in with my acrylics for all of the main meat and potatoes of the painting. I really like the dark chunky lines that are showing through from the ink, this painting ended up being a lot looser than some of my other. I kept trying to tell myself not to work it to death.

Cougar Peak #137

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

For this image I soaked my paper until it was dripping wet and then painted acrylic on top which made it run all over and give me this really nice watercolor/ink feel to it. After it was dry I then proceeded to paint over the top of that with my acrylics. I was wanting to have more of my initial under painting show through, but I was having so much fun with my paints that it sort of vanished. But I plan on experimenting with that technique a bit more.

Cougar Peak #136

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

Another beautiful day as the sun just begins to rise above the mountains and bathe the peak golden rays of light. If a person has never gotten up and painted at sunrise, well all I can say is that you are missing out.

Cougar Peak #135

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

As I started to paint this morning and the fog started rolling up in billowing masses of boiling turbulent whiteness that covered the whole valley. For this image I rubbed on with a cotton pad light washes of paint to create my values and then came back in with just a little bit of brush work, trying hard not to do too much, but to keep it soft.

Cougar Peak #134

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

There was a beautiful glow to the mountain this evening as the sun hit it's face. For this image I did my initial sketch, sealed it and then did a wash of transparent red oxide and some cerulean blue. After this was done I proceeded to go in and finish the painting.

Cougar Peak #133

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

The rain and the lightning blew in last evening and covered the mountain in a blanket of fog and beautiful chaos. One day the palette is full of warm reds, tans, greens and the next day we are in a completely new palette with grays, blues, cool greens, etc.....each day is always a surprise and a pleasure to paint.

Cougar Peak #132

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

These spring days are awfully wonderful to be out painting in, the sights, the sounds, the smells......fantastic. There was some beautiful thunderheads just starting to climb up over the peak and glow in the late day sun. The whole color palette of the mountain continues to change once again as most all of the snow has left and these tan, umbers, and grays of the rocks start showing through more.

Cougar Peak #131

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

The snow on the mountain is slowly being eroded away and there only only little fingers just barely hanging on. The palette is changing and the tans from the rocks at the top of the peak are starting to show more and more. There is still a bit of smoke in the air from all of the fires, and it creates a nice hazy effect in the valley.

Cougar Peak #130

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

The sky was all red and stormy this morning...all of you one eyed pirates take warning. Also there was a lot of smoke again that has settled down in in the bottoms of the ridges that added a lot of nice atmosphere to the scene.

Cougar Peak #129

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

This morning there was a heavy layer of fog and smoke that had settled on the ground. Above was blue sky and the morning sun was in the process of burning it's way through the different layers of atmosphere. For this image I just did an initial sketch in blue pencil, and then came back over the top with a pad soaked with diluted paint to create some subtle values. After that I came back in with a bit of paint on the brush and added a dash of spice here and there.

Cougar Peak #128

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

For this image I did my initial sketch and then built up some washes of Transparent Red Oxide to give me a nice reddish/orange under painting. After that I came in with my opaque acrylics and started to build up the different values and hues.

Cougar Peak #127

4.75" x 6.75" Digital

The last couple of days I have been painting oils on paper, but for some reason I feel just a bit off. I love it when you can get into that art groove, kind of like riding a wave, where every brush stroke is beautiful, and you can almost see three or four brush strokes ahead.....well, not tonight. Everything looked good when I was painting outside, but when I scanned it in the computer it just looked yuck, so I scrapped what I had and painted one in Photoshop using my oil as an under painting of sort.

Cougar Peak #126

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

This image was done oil on paper. I love how the oils soak right into the paper and the pigment on top gets all sticky and thick. This image was completed towards evening and the mountain is taking on that warm evening glow. I also love how the shadows late in the evening become extra dark and cold taking on lots of blue and violet hues.

Cougar Peak #125

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

This morning there was a thick layer of fog that was obscuring the whole mountain, but by the time I started to paint it was burning off quickly. I like the big cloud mass on this one that sort of cuts through the middle of the image.

Cougar Peak #124

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

Today the clouds had lifted a bit to expose the mountain in all of it's cold nakedness. There was a decent amount of snow that was dumped, so hopefully it will stick around for a bit. Again for this image I started out first with pastel and then worked in acrylic over the top of it.

Cougar Peak #123

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

Well, Montana is probably not the best place for raising vegetables or flowers....but we are good at getting snow. This morning we were treated to a nice fresh batch of snow that made it's way down the mountain. Underneath all of those low lying clouds is hiding a beautiful batch of white goodies. For this painting I did my initial sketch with pastel and then came in with the acrylics back over the top.

Cougar Peak #122

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

Rain clouds were starting to move back in, and today everything was a bit overcast. For this image I started out with a sketch in pastel, which I smeared around a bit, and then I came back in over the top with acrylics. Slowly but surely the snow is being eroded away from the top of the peak and more of the surface underneath and trees are showing every day.

Cougar Peak #121

4.75" x 6.75" Acrylic on Paper

This morning there was a lot of smoke covering the mountain, so much that the mountain lost all definition and became this monochromatic blue haze. For this one I started out rubbing on light washes of paint, and then came back in with my brush to define things more in the areas that needed it.