plein air

I'm ready for Spring. Really ready. Next week I'll have a new post where I'm going to catapult myself into the next season, regardless of what the weather does. So stay tuned. But for now, I ran across this picture of me painting at the Petrified Forest. I thought I'd post this as the final blog post of Winter (by my standard, not the actual date. I'm pushing Spring forward ahead of schedule).

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  The last few weeks I've been touching up my Rose Bowl painting. I think I may be done! After I look at it tomorrow, I'll decide whether it needs a couple of additional adjustments, or if it is ready to send on the the printer. I'm very excited about these prints and really enjoyed painting the stadium. There may be a few more stadium paintings in my future in 2010.

If you are interested in ordering a print, click the "Buy This Piece" link below. Even if I make another round of touch-ups, they should be ready to ship in 2-3 weeks.

(Note: I did punch up the colors in this piece, but not as drastically as these two images suggest. The earlier photo is more subduded and this last one is a bit exaggerated. I will have an accurate image from the printer soon.)

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Well, the honeymoon is over and I'm back in Atlanta. Yesterday I was able to do a very quick painting  before I had to pack and leave. All over Maui and Hawai'i, Kate and I were surprised at the number of cattle farms. And I was jealous. Oh, to be a cow in Hawaii. All the lush grass you can eat and great weather all the time. No snow, fresh air and just enough rain. There were hardly any flies on the Big Island, and the breeze kept the few away. And a fabulous view of the ocean.

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There is nothing like spending the day on and in an active volcano. Kate and I were at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, which is a phenomenal experience. We hiked the Kiauea Iki trail, which first skirts around the rim and then through the floor of a crater full of steam vents. We ate lunch at the Volcano House which features a buffet and a view of the main Kilauea caldera.

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Even though Maui is spectacular, The Big Island is more my type of place. Rugged, open, and paniolo country. Paniolo is Hawaiian for cowboy. Yes, The Big Island is the Texas of the Pacific islands. The island of Hawaii is twice as big as the other islands combined, yet only has 170,000 inhabitants. So it has a much more rural and local feel to it, at least when you venture outside the resort areas. But even the resort areas have a different overall tone, much more laid back and casual than Maui.

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Off to the Big Isle tomorrow. Finished the afternoon with another painting from Makena Beach. In the distance are the West Maui Mountains and the boat is the Kai Kanani II, which we went out on this morning. It took us out to Molokini for some awesome snorkeling and we got to see a huge turtle up close. I did run into a few new plein air challenges with this one. The first was sand. Toward the end of my painting, the wind blew over my can of paint brushes and caked them with sand.

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Well, another day here is paradise. Literally. Yesterday I planned to paint in Haleakala National Park. However, Kate and I did a horseback ride into the crater -which was awesome - and on the way back the clouds came in and you couldn't see a thing. A couple of pics from the ride below. Today we just hung out at the beach outside our hotel. While Kate read the second Twilight book, I painted with a few snorkeling breaks thrown in.

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Kate and I are currently in Hana, Hawaii which is on the island of Maui. Yesterday was a long day as we flew from Atlanta to Salt Lake City, then to Maui. Then we rented a car and did the 3 hour drive to Hana. It is a famous drive, as it is only 44 miles, yet takes a few hours even if you don't stop. It winds around like a sidewinder and parts of it narrow down to one lane. Needless to say, we were pretty tired when we finally go to our hotel. So this morning, we took it easy and as Kate laid out on the beach I did this painting.

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I got married yesterday! And during the day beforehand, I got to hang out on the square in Madison, GA with Dorian and do a plein air piece. It was a lot of fun getting to paint with him again, and many of the guests of the wedding stopped by to hang out with us. The wedding turned out perfect and now I'm very happy to have Kate as my beautiful wife. The painting is of some storefronts on the town square. The warm light that hit the building really caught my eye.

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One of the many fine things about the Chattahooche River is that you get to call it "The Hooch". You also can enjoy it within the Perimeter of Atlanta (I-285). Today was a great day to be out there. Kate and our bluetick Illy joined me for a fun day hanging on a little beach area in the Chattahoochee National Recreation Area. There were several families and dozens of dogs for Illy to meet and charm with her easy going hound dog personality. I was able to catch her in a typical pose of hers while wading around.

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