This area is dear to my heart. It’s out of Augusta, MT. and along the Dearborn River – my old stomping grounds. This is also my favorite time of year, autumn, when the quaking aspens turn to gold and contrast with the dark green pines as if they’re lit from within.

This painting is 12×16 and will be in my room – 176, at the Heritage Inn in Great Falls for the week of the Russell Art Shows. March 17-20th.

Today I can’t quit thinking about my artist and horse loving friend Deb Schmit. February is the month of ice in Montana, and yesterday one of Deb’s horses, Buddy, was running through the field – full of joy on a sunny winter day. He must have slipped on the ice, fell and broke a leg. If you don’t know about horses, that means he had to be put down. Buddy was young and full of energy and love of life. I’m so sorry for Buddy, and for Deb and her husband Nick. What a loss. What sadness.

I’m still painting away on my circle of paintings. I do think this is good. I really am seeing a lot of things I want to change or finish as they come around a second or third time. Not that I always have time to paint like that, but it’s a good thing.

Buddy, I hope you’re racing through green pastures now and kicking up your heels.

With the Russell Shows fast approaching, I’ve got seven or eight pieces in the works, none of them finished although this one is getting close. I keep rotating which in some ways is good, as I have the time to distance myself a little from each piece. It takes that for me to begin to see a painting objectively and then decide what is good about it and what needs to be worked on. This painting is 16 x 20. My focus is it’s tonal character. An artist friend of mine said that “it’s all in the grays”. I’m beginning to understand that, which hopefully means there’s some artistic growth happening here! Grays are not easy.

The subject is a ridge on the edge of the Big Belt Mountains SE of our place. You don’t see this ridge from the west in the daytime as the lack of shadow flattens the whole thing out. But come late afternoon, there appears this fascinating “dinosaur” ridge back (much of it hidden from this angle). We rode horses through that high country one fall day. What a treat!

Hi. I know I’ve been a long time gone. I’m working on pieces for the March Russell Show(s) and have many things in the works, but none finished. I will post some of them soon.

I did just hear today that my painting “Opportunitree” was selected as one of the Top 100 in the 2009 Paint America Top 100 Competition. It will travel with the national show in 2010.  Another of my pieces was selected for the Top 200.

I thought I would also include some more – YES – SNOW pictures as that’s what it’s been doing around here lately! Recently, we got over two feet of snow, which was beautiful, but a pain to deal with when the wind started to blow. Yes, more shoveling, plowing, pulling vehicles out of snow drifts, hiking home, etc. It pays to stay home in that kind of weather! This storm has been exceptional in that we’ve had so many mornings where the landscape has been iced up just like a crystal fairyland. And interestingly, the crystals have been different from day to day. One day they were long chains of snowflake shaped crystals. Gorgeous! A few days ago those were gone, and everything was covered in little icy crystal daggers. So interesting!