July, in paint

Humid days and cut hay. Storms and sunshine. Thundershowers and wildflowers.

Evening Light, Northside Woods - 10 x 8" plein air oil on linen/birch.

July 1st. It gets dark much sooner down in the woods, and I didn't start as early as I would have liked. But the light was so beautiful among the trees on this north bluffside. I painted quickly, trying to capture a bit of the late light before darkness fell, and the coyotes began to howl.

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July Hay - 6 x 8" plein air oil on linen/hardboard.

July 5th. Another late evening start. The sky showed pink, reflecting the colors of the sunset to the west, and the drying hay and small square bales caught the warm light.

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Hay Day - 11 x 14" plein air oil on linen/hardboard.

July 7th. The weather looked uncertain - now dark and piling clouds, now sunshine. I set up with a good view of the sky in case it turned stormy. The patterns of the rows of hay and the contours of hillside fields are always beautiful to me, as is the fragrance of the cut grass, clover, and alfalfa drying in the heat of the day.

 As I finished up, the clouds were breaking apart, and I did this little study of the moon rising in the dusky sky.

In the Still of the Evening - 5 x 7" plein air oil on linen/birch. 

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Between Storms - 10 x 8" plein air oil on linen/birch.

 July 20th.  It was a warm, sticky evening. Patches of the long grass had been knocked over by the previous night's storm. I was surrounded by the sounds of tree frogs and the frogs from the nearby pond, and occasionally the sounds of startled deer. Everything was wet with dew as I finished up at dusk.

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Pennycress - 12 x 10" alla prima still life. Oil on linen/birch.

July 25th. Indoor painting day. I got this lovely vase from Cheesbro Pottery earlier this year, and it was perfect for holding a bunch of pennycress that I'd pulled out of the fields and that had dried, with its many seedpods arranged on its delicate stems.

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Old Gold - 6 x 8", plein air oil on linen/hardboard.

July 27th. A little study of weathered wood and yellow blooms.  I don't know what these flowers are actually named, but I always heard them called "Showers-of-Gold". They have been growing here for many, many years. The old building is the known as the summer kitchen, and has "1895" written inside the door. Old beauty.

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Poplars in the Pasture - 8 x 10", plein air oil on linen/birch.

 July 28th. Dusk in the pasture. Wild carrot and yarrow flowers, and two slender poplar trees.

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Pepin Cloud Study - 5 x 7", plein air oil on linen/birch.

 July 31st. Little studies of the sky, the bluffs, and the Mississippi River. The first was done in Pepin, Wisconsin. A warm breeze blew off the water, as the clouds shifted and made threats of rain on their way past.

 The second was done at the Garvin Heights Lookout in Winona, Minnesota. (A popular spot, it seems, for both man and mosquito!) It's a beautiful view over the city and the water. Though I'd planned to try a sunset paint, I instead faced the other direction, loving the mood and atmosphere looking downriver towards rain.

Rain Across the River - 8 x 10", plein air oil on linen/birch.

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Neglected Paintings

One of my goals this summer is to FINISH paintings. I have many more I want to begin, but have been holding off a little, as I try to get some of my old neglected works back onto the easel.

This one's a bit different from my usual subject. I had a few beautiful maple leaves that I brought in for my Grandma to see in the autumn, when she was no longer able to get outside. They dried and curled, their color faded but remained. I loved to see how they caught the light on their fine points and contours, and the shadows they cast.

Maple Leaves, 12x16" oil on linen

This one is closely based on the summer kitchen here on the farm. A beautiful dilapidated old building from the late 1800s. There's a hole in the roof and the floor is incredibly warped, but I love it. It was a fun place to poke around as kids, climbing carefully around the old cream separator, finding old stamps and interesting glass jars and bottles. Behind the door were stored all our shovels, rakes, and hoes, and in the bucket just inside the door was kept the small digging tools my grandpa made and painted in his signature blaze orange. On the east side grow those old fashioned, scraggly but jubilant flowers known only as "showers of gold".

Summer Kitchen, 24x18" oil on linen - work in progress

This one may be one of the longest abandoned. I think I've had this for a couple of years at least- one of those paintings started enthusiastically, which was then muddied and it's original plan forgotten. On a walk this spring, watching a somewhat stormy sky in the distance and trying to sketch in dull graphite the vibrant and changing clouds, I thought of it again and decided to drag it out and paint it over.

12 x 16" work in progress

There are a lot more in line to be worked on, but it feels great to move a few over to the completed category, and I hope to get the time to get a lot more done.

Just now I'm gearing up for this year's Plein Air Festival. Looking forward to getting out and painting like mad in and around Red Wing, Minnesota!

:)