Cougar Peak #350

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

The temperature warmed up significantly today, melting off a great deal of the snow that had accumulated on the mountainside. There was an intersting color palette consisting of dark greens on the bottom of the mountain transitioning to blues and grays.... culminating in a bright white at the top of the peak.

Cougar Peak #349

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

The snow from the heavens continues to fall upon the face of the earth and pile up on the slopes of the mountain. On this painting I started out by working up a very loose pencil sketch. I then came in back over the top of my sketch with my oils, first concentrating on my darker values and then working up from there.

Cougar Peak #348

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

More snow, snow, snow!! I started painting today as the snow flakes were falling down, down, down upon the mountainside. The falling snowflakes create a great atmosphere by which to paint and they end up simplifying things down to just a few values. I concentrated on getting the values just how I wanted...and then came back in over the top with final highlights and textures.

Cougar Peak #345

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

Another cold chilly day today as the tip of the peak was being protected by a blanket of clouds. This painting ended up having a slightly different look and feel as opposed to some of my other paintings. On this image I tried to be very conscious of blending my paints as I went along, instead of the often quick sharp strokes that I usually paint with.

Cougar Peak #344

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

The day started out once again with a bit of fresh snow dusting the valley. I started right in with my oils, first laying in my main shapes and blocking in some of my major values. After that I concentrated on getting the thick layer of clouds textured how I wanted it.....finally coming and and adding in the final details and highlights.

Cougar Peak #343

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

Today there was a wild blizzard of snow that moved through the valley and obscured the mountain. I decided to switch over to my oil paints, again to mix things up. Keeping my paints a bit stiff I started to build of layers of falling snow. Once I had my values worked out on my painting, I came back in and laying my brush on it's side, built up a nice quick snow flake texture......and walllaaa.

Cougar Peak #295

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Illustration Board

This painting ended up having a different look as some of my other paintings, almost a bit more impressionistic. I had been studying some of the works by the early impressionists a few days before, so perhaps some of that rubbed off in my work. The clouds especially ended up having that feeling, and the even reminding me a bit of some of the work by the fantastic Taos artist Ernest Blumenschein.

Cougar Peak #294

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Illustration Board

Another cold blustery day as the snow moved down even lower upon the mountain. Some days the clouds move in and cover the top of the peak in a constantly changing blanket of mist, while underneath a snow, rain, hail and all kinds of cold things are being dumped upon her face.

Cougar Peak #293

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Illustration Board

The mountain was rather lovely this evening as I started to paint. There was a blast of sun breaking through the overcast sky that lit it up the mountain as if hope was kindled, where all recollection of it had been lost to ruin. I started this painting out laying in the sunlit patches and then came in and laid in the darker values, sky etc.....which is pretty much backward from the way I usually do things, but for this I wanted to make sure and capture that light hitting the mountain before it failed.

Cougar Peak #288

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper.

There was a bit of smoke and haze in the sky today, so the mountain ended up taking on a little bit different look. While I was painting I started to think about the way Jeff Jones approached his canvas, and from what I've heard he attacked it to where the brush almost pushed through the canvas.....so I tried to really dig into the paper and push my oils around with a bit of vigor.

Cougar Peak #287

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

Another beautiful fall day today. A person almost wishes they could stop time, just so you would have time to capture on paint a bit of this loveliness that fades so quickly. I kept my oils this for this piece, trying to capture a bit of that orange glow that you get at the end of the day, as I pushed and pulled around my oils like frosting on a cake.

Cougar Peak #284

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

Today I started painting with my oils, and was really enjoying a laying down my strokes, that I ended up getting to a certain point where I liked what I had even though it was not finished, or what I consider finished usually. The painting has bigger chunks of white showing through from underneath which is had for me to do with oils, and it never looks very good in my opinion especially on canvas, but on the paper I liked it for some reason and decided to leave as is.

Cougar Peak #281

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Chipboard

I painted this image today after the sun had set behind the mountain and the mountain was all cloaked in shadow. As you can see nothing is really highlighted on the mountain, and it has taken on a dark and somber tone to it, plush chilly too.

Cougar Peak #280

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

Cold blues and grays once again dominated the color palette of the mountain, and you could feel those colors leech down into the depths of your bones. For this image I worked with my oils, keeping my paints thick and creamy, smearing, blending, scraping, and pushing my paint until I was able to come up with an impression of the chilly mass towering in front of me.

Cougar Peak #279

4.75" x 6.75" Oil/Pastel on Paper

The falling rain broke apart, and the sky cleared turning the clouds into a blanket of pink fluffy beauty. I started this image out with my pastels, laying down colors and working up a more refined image. Once I was done with my pastels I sealed the image and the painted over the top of it with my oils, working in among the clouds and sky a bit more and darkening up some of the foreground elements.

Cougar Peak #277

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

Farther down the hill it goes, white if falls, and cold it flows. This morning the snow on the mountain had sunk even farther down the mountain. Down in the bottom of the valley it was raining and there was a nice mixture of clouds undulating and moving among the mountain.

Cougar Peak #276

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Chipboard

A bit farther down the snow keeps descending on the mountainside. For this painting I had a nice piece of thick chipboard that I wanted to work on. I like the chipboard because it has a nice medium value to work off of, and the oil tends to soak up into the chipboard giving it a nice effect.

Cougar Peak #272

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Tyvek

Today we were greeted by our first real snow on the mountain, as well as a chill wind that cut through the body reminding us that summer is definitely gone, and that fall better watch itself as well. I did this painting on a piece of blue tyvek that sort of resembled one of those blue heavy duty shop towels, or those fiber type dishwashing cloths. The oil paint sucked into the tyvek giving the painting a softer blended look opposed to the sharper look of some of my other paintings.

Cougar Peak #271

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

Rain invaded the valley today, like the tenticles of an octopus the clouds enveloped the peak of the mountain, and wrapped it in a blanket of cold. I started this image out doing a quick sketch in pencil and then came over the top of it with my paints working down low first and then finishing off the image with the cloud mass

Cougar Peak #266

4.75" x 6.75" Oil on Paper

Cold and rainy again, as a thick layer of clouds presses down upon the peak with a weight of dreariness. I begin that painting by laing in the darker blues and grays hidden in among the canyon and then worked my way out from there. Finally coming in at the end to lay in the blanket of clouds and the final details.