Round Valley

I've been playing with pastels for a while and was feeling like I just might forget how to mix my own colors so I blew the dust off of the oil paints on a recent trip to the Sierras.

This was done one evening just north of Bishop, Ca. in an area called Round Valley. I'm already a sucker for trees and green fields but when you put the Sierras behind them... I'm hooked!

Since I remembered to take a few photos while I was doing this, I decided to present this in a demo format:

1) After the initial drawing I filled in the major objects with transparent washes of Red Oxide, Ultramarine Blue and Viridian Green. This helped to establish the overall values.

2) Next I painted in the darks and filled in the major shapes with a representation of the local color.

3) Here I've filled in some more color, added a few edges and filled out the shape of the main tree.

4) Now I'm starting to refine some edges and details.

5) Final version. I've worked on the shapes, tweaked some colors and, finally, dropped in some of the four legged critters that were sharing the valley with me.

 
12 x16 oil on linen panel

Mt. Whitney Fish Hatchery

I took a fishing trip, recently, to the Eastern Sierras with my son before he headed off to college. Just fishing, no painting. But I did get some photos to paint from later.

This is from one of those pictures I took when we visited the Mt. Whitney Fish Hatchery, south of Bishop, CA. It's a unique place with an old stone building and a large pond in front where they keep a number of huge breeder trout.

Beautifully landscaped, I got a lot of photos and you should be seeing several more paintings of this spot in the near future.

 
12 x 12  pastel on sanded paper

Detail Close up