Making Friends

Landscapes and I aren't best friends, though I'd like them to be. Even so I can tell we are getting along a little better than a year ago when I made my first two attempts at painting this local prairie scene.

(Pictured newest to oldest.)

 

02 MAY, 2021

- Online church with Hannah on our deck (multiple chemical sensitivities)

- Nature journaling wild plum blossoms

- 1.5 mile walk

- Allergy symptoms galore, including an all day, low grade fever (Where did all the energy come to do the above? A rare, special gift from my Father.)

Praire Drive

While Dad and Mom were vacationing in the Black Hills of South Dakota recently, Hannah and I were holding down the fort, catching up on some neglected to-do lists, and enjoying lots of audio book listening. To get a break from our tasks, we took a prairie drive one afternoon. Here are views a few miles from home.

Waterfowl production area

Straw bales with sprouting wheat

Ancient and highly attractive combine 

Sky Over Cornfield

Trees

One Landscape, Two Paintings

I enjoyed my first try painting this local pasture landscape. While I didn't capture the reference photo or the reality of what I was seeing, I did in my amateur way encapsulate a few of my impressions of the day the original photo was taken in an imaginative and colorful way. More on that below.

I was a little more rigid, unimaginative, and cautious with color while painting a second study of this scene. A weary body and brain may be to blame. I do like how I managed to create a sense of distance in this version, though.

One of my impressions from looking at this scene originally were distant, grazing cows. For lack of greater skill, I rendered them in quick, short strokes in my two paintings.

Another impression that was stamped into my memory of the original scene was the foreground ditch grasses. I especially like my original rendition of these.

 If you have been following my blog for long, you may recognize my reference photo from a prairie drive three years ago.

Spring Harvest

Unacommidating fall weather means spring harvest of corn for many local farmers. 

(Photo taken March 23)