Landscape, Tax Deduction, Learning Experience

Finished and framed -- three small cattle in the distance

Version 3 - dealing with the glaze that didn't work; better sky

Version 1 - First colors

Version 2 - being brave with sky

November 19 -- I donated this painting to the Descanso Townhall for its raffle to raise money for a new roof, so the piece ended up as a tax deduction! I'm very happy I saved all the versions and this story. It was a fun experience and I learned so much from it, most of all that I'm not a glaze person. I guess I think if you want to paint glazes paint water colors. But I never painted the tree and I never painted the cattle, though on the final paint

It was also the target of a scam on Etsy! It provided that experience as well.

I've wanted to paint this for ever -- well, since three years ago when I noticed beautiful, vivid yellow flowers blooming beneath a very large and interesting tree in Descanso Valley (the valley where I live). The cows love to hang out under the tree on a hot day, but they also seem to love these flowers because when they're blooming, the cattle are always there. Since they bloom in May, it's heifers and calves I see standing around the tree in the late afternoon light. Oil on canvas, 18 x 24

This is the first layer of paint -- I'm probably going to just let this painting carry me along. I had an idea of what it would be, but it seems to have its own sense of its own destiny!

More work -- not necessarily for the better -- we'll see. A glaze I tried does not make me happy and will probably go.

This is a tree in Palmer Park "The Bluffs" in Colorado Springs. When I was in high school there and things at home were rocky and weird, I would hike to this tree. Out of an ancient, dead base grew a perfectly straight new trunk. This is the tree forty years later! Still there, doing well, the small "Christmas" tree growing out of it has thrived and it is no longer so obviously the tree's second life, second chance. Oil on canvas, 8 x 10. Not for sale.