"Bachelor Life"

"Bachelor Life" 6x11 oil

"Reveille"

"Reveille" 5x7 oil

Working away in the studio, I relish the moments when my mind drifts back to adventures in the field. This piece transported me back to mornings in South Dakota. 
Warming water for coffee on the tailgate of the truck, the haunting screams of bull elk carry accompany the rising sun. And I smile. For at that very moment, all seems right with the world. Like the soothing warmth of that first sip of coffee, I'm comforted by the sounds of elk on a nearby ridge. The sun has not yet crested the mountain to thaw the frost on my tent, so I readily anticipate a large mug of hot java and look forward to the day ahead. The possibilities seem as limitless as the landscape. It's going to be a good day.

"Cracking Timber"

"Cracking Timber" 5x7 oil

Low-hanging branches rattle and break as a bull elk navigates his way through heavy timber. Massive antler versus dry wood... the sound is unmistakable.

"Mountain Prince"

"Mountain Prince" 20x24 oil

There have been a lot of projects swirling around the studio in various stages of completion. Finally, some are reaching the stage where I can call them "done!"

"Three Kings"

"Three Kings" 12x24 oil

Soon after the elk rut, a small group of large bulls feed on the edge of shadows cast by the setting sun. Epic battles for dominance and harems of cows long forgotten, these giants willingly tolerate each other as winter draws near.

"Mountain Melody"

"Mountain Melody" 12x12 oil

"Something in the Air"

"Something in the Air" 12x9 oil

"Dawn Shadows"

"Dawn Shadows" 9x12 oil

"Bugle"

It's been a long time since my last post! There have been 4 paintings on the easel in various stages of completion over the past couple of weeks. This is the first of those pieces I'm ready to call "done!"
Inspired by my recent travels through the Rocky Mountain West... "Bugle".

"Bugle" 8x10 oil

"A Whiff of Danger"

In keeping with my theme of working toward a more impressionistic style of painting, I began work on a landscape inspired by a trip some years ago to the Tetons in Wyoming. The underpainting was put together quickly with a 1/2" flat brush and relatively thin paint. Once this stage of the painting was complete, I had reservations about going any further. I really liked the freshness of the painting at this point (and it was VERY impressionistic!). That being said, I also know when I feel this way about the underpainting, the finished piece usually turns out to be something special... so I pushed forward.

Block-in underpainting

As I began to work through the next stage of the piece adjusting edges and refining shapes with thicker chunks of paint, I kept feeling like the piece needed a wildlife element. At first I thought something small. Perhaps a magpie or two? But the more I thought about it, the painting was asking for elk... and not just one.
Such a large compositional adjustment at this stage of the painting poses more than a few challenges. My wildlife pieces are mostly designed around the animals themselves, not the other way around. So adding the elk this late in the game was a big risk. Most often, major elements added as an afterthought end up looking like just that... an afterthought.
Finally settling on three elk, I didn't want them to be static. There needed to be some movement and tension. Once I worked out the positioning, another problem became apparent. To keep the spacing and scale of the elk in step with the setting, the lead cow's nose was uncomfortably close the edge of the painting. After pondering this for the better part of the weekend, I resolved the issue by letting the values of her face blend closely with the background foliage.
Finally, the cow stopping to look back before bolting for the next county brings the mood of the piece together as I intended.
 

"A Whiff of Danger" 9x12 acrylic

"Teton Procession" 6x13 acrylic

With large groupings of animals, the biggest challenge always seems to be their arrangement in the space of the painting. For such a small piece, this ended up being fairly complicated and I could literally go on for pages (but I'll try to keep it short) on why I placed each of the elk where I did. Multiple subjects create several points of interest and the viewer's eye can be jostled about the painting... never settling on a singular major focal point. I was fortunate to photograph this herd early one September morning as they moved accross a platue in Grand Teton National Park. The low backlighting offered a unique opportunity to create that singular focal point by making use of the sunlit steam the herd generated. The easy and predictable solution would have been the bull and his massive antlers, but I've made him a secondary element in the painting. By looking back out of the painting to the right, he gives the impression of the herd being larger than what is seen in the frame of the painting, with more animals bringing up the rear. I wanted the major focal point to be the cow elk in the painting's center (something usually try to avoid, but in this case, because of the strong secondary presence of the bull... it works). So by using the steam to create the area of highest contrast around her head, the viewer's eye comfortably settles here.

This is truly one of my favorite small works. I may use the idea for a larger painting in the future.