It’s nearly December already. November was a crazy busy month for me, but I still managed to sneak in a handful of finished paintings. I’ve clearly been on a panoramic kick this month since nearly all of these paintings are in that format. The first painting is from a photo I took earlier this year during a road trip. We were driving by this stunning rock formation right next to I-70 that also happened to have an exit. Aside from this view, I was able to drive around it to the other side and get some interesting shots.

This second painting has to be my favorite of the bunch. It was painted plein air in a class hosted by Dustin Hardgrove. He does a lot of plein air painting and offers group classes a few times a year. I had been wanting to start plein air painting for a couple of years, but was really unsure of where to start and finally Dustin convinced me to just start. I’m really glad to have finally gotten started with it. Now that I’ve done a good few paintings I’m not intimidated by it anymore and I feel like it’s already starting to positively effect my studio work. For instance, I’m a lot more interested and willing to rearrange my reference image to make a better composition. I don’t know why I didn’t do this more before, I could have. It seems like it took these plein air experiences to make it all click together for me.

These next two paintings were painted while I was vending in Salt Lake City. The event was a bit of a bust, but at least I got two nice paintings out of it. People seemed to enjoy watching me paint, but not very many people were doing anything more than browsing. I think a big problem was that event just wasn’t my scene, not my people. In the future I’ll do a better job of researching events before vending at them. Lesson learned.

I almost thought this painting was going to sell based on the several people who inquired about the price. It was a little awkward though because I had to explain that yes, you can buy it, but even though it’s right here in front of you, I’ll have to ship it in a couple weeks when it’s dry and varnished. I don’t really expect people to know how oil painting works, but I think it not being immediately available dissuaded people.

Thank you for reading. Please visit my shop for original paintings, prints and stickers. Once these paintings are dry and varnished, I will be adding them to my shop.