Harvest Sunset

Harvest Sunset

6x6, soft pastel

During the fall and especially during harvest, sunsets are often spectacular.  The atmosphere is filled with pollen and dust particles while the angle of sunlight hitting the earth's surface changes, further enhancing the drama playing out in the skies.  It's just a glorious time of year!

This painting is particularly delightful to me.  The photograph doesn't adequately depict the gorgeous oranges and copper colors dancing across the sky in the original.  However, I had fun playing with the Photos editing tool.  When sliding the lightness tool from it's lightest setting to the darkest setting it looks as though the sun is actually setting in the painting. Awesome!

Screaming Eagles

Screaming Eagles

6x6, soft pastel

There's no real reason for the title...other than this skyscape reminds me of a couple of eagles swooping down to snatch up fish from the waters below.  Recently while kayaking on a small lake a hawk did just that...diving into the water several feet from me to catch his dinner.  Startled the begeebeez out of me! 

Arizona Sky

Arizona Sky

6x6, soft pastel

On our way to Phoenix we were delighted to view this gorgeous sunset near Kingman, Az.   I especially loved seeing the stars twinkling in the deep dark blue of the early evening.  

Lakeside Sunset

Lakeside Sunset

6x6, soft pastel

Lakeside Sunset is another in a series of sunrises and sunsets I'm working on...practice, practice, paractice!

Sunrise On The Farm

Sunrise On The Farm

6x6, soft pastel

Everytime I visit my daughter, son-in-law, and wonderful grandkids I take sunrise photos.  Why?  Because the land is wide open with few buildings between huge wheatfield farms and the sunrises and sunsets are almost always spectacular!  I have mostly sunrise photos since I'm an early riser...for me, that's the most magical time of day.  That, and I almost always get a chance to visit with my very hardworking son-in-law before his long day begins.

Evening Sky

Evening Sky

6x6, soft pastel

I hope to dig through all my sunset and sunrise pictures to do a few more sky pieces.  I absolutely love this time of year when we seem to get the best sunrises and sunsets.  In the Boise area, we seldom have rain during the summer months so clouds are at a premium...but soon, we'll see more clouds and hopefully a few rain drops too.  Until then, I'll resort to digging up old photos.  

Interrogation

Interrogation
6x6, soft pastel

Hmmmm, this painting made me crazy.  I abandoned it...then decided it post it anyway.  I like the subject matter and the composition but I was sooooo distracted doing other things as I painted that the little bugger completely got away from me!  

While painting, I was dialing (and redialed 156 times no less) to make hotel reservations for the International Association of Pastel Society's 2017 convention next year.  I was persistent and redialed repeatedly because the rooms are snatched up really really fast for that particular convention.  I feel very lucky to have gotten one of the last rooms available.  

In addition to that, I was listening to the Senate Banking Committee members grill Mr. John Stumpf (Wells Fargo) for well over 2 hours regarding the recent banking "scandal" at Wells.  I won't even go into my feelings about that....but given the intensity of their interrogation, my painting took on an intense life of it's own.