The 'action' we saw from the gallery window this morning.........

Two eagles battling over a fish at the edge of the Yellowstone River.

This eagle grabbed it and made a 'run for it'.

But ravens were also watching the action and decide to try to chase the eagle down.

Amazing what we see from our windows!

16"x20" Oil

12"x16" Oil

I've been reading Hawthorne on Painting recently (again). I go back through my 'classic' art books at times and re-read them. I find it interesting how each time I pick up different information, since I'm reading it from a different perspective. With painting, you are always evolving, always learning. Certainly never boring! Well, this time a quote jumped out in the Still Life Chapter -

Take the ugliest object or subject and make it beautiful.

Charles Hawthorne

So I took that as a challenge - Yes, I painted dead fish in jars. They are in the collection on the Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center from the 1960's and 1970's.

Last night was our first painting class of our new six week session. It went really well. We have a lot of budding talent - it's great to see it! We focused a lot on learning the principles of design & composition. Also, this session we're adding a "master artist of the night" to learn a bit about. Since Andrew Wyeth recently died and I feel he was a real master of design, he was the one. I pulled out lots of my books about him and his work (along with other members of his family) and did a brief introduction. Next week, we're onto learning drawing principles with an overview of some architectural paintings to show how important perspective drawing is!

It IS our lucky day!!! How often to you get to watch a cougar in the wild?! Our timing was right this morning. I took a lot of photos from all angles to use for references. There was a coyote there too, barking away and an eagle sitting in a tree over the river. AND as we were leaving, I saw a weasel in a white winter coat with black tipped tail, quite close. The best view I've ever had of both the cougar and the weasel in the wild. Along with a herd of elk, a herd of deer and some pronghorn... it was an eventful morning! And all before 8:30AM. Yellowstone is amazing!-how fortunate we are to live here.

Word spreads fast....A Mountain Lion was seen in the area of the Chinese Gardens, between Gardiner and Mammoth today. That's a great sighting! "Lions" are rarely seen. And that's just a couple miles from our studio. So we're going to get in there early in the morning and see if we get lucky!

Thursday's are one of my favorite days....it's our Crazy Mountain Women's Art League day. A WONDERFUL group of very creative women that I just can't say enough good things about. I totally enjoy and thoroughly appreciate being part of this group. Anyway, today, we had a model sit for a drawing session. (Something out of the ordinary for us - usually most of us paint.) I got out a really large sketch pad and charcoal and 'went at it'. Brought back visions of figure drawing class in college. It was fun... and a good exercise of those drawing skills!

Lynx pelt

John has been sculpting a lynx. As one of his references for his sculpture, he borrowed this lynx pelt. He likes to check his proportions and anatomy on his sculptures from different references. He has some photos we had taken of a live lynx, but holding the pelt and seeing 'up close' how REALLY big his feet are has helped him a lot to fine tune the piece. Hopefully it will be ready to be seen in bronze before long! Amazing how soft the fur is. A beautiful and very interesting animal. Now, I'm starting to think about a lynx painting! So many ideas, so little time.....

It's been warm lately. Yesterday, was a beauty! Sunny, no wind - just gorgeous. In January, that REALLY feels good! I got outside yesterday, but today was an inside day. I've been working hard on a couple studio paintings (landscape/wildlife) so I spent the morning with them and the afternoon getting images and text ready to update part of our web site.

While I was painting this morning, I caught something out of the corner of my eye....it was a buck walking across our deck! Even an 'inside day' can be interesting living in Gardiner! My studio paintings aren't quite done yet, so in the meantime, here's a still life that I had fun with recently.

Painting Class starting soon!...It's cold out and the Holidays are over. Painting is a great cure for Cabin Fever. So we'll start our new session on January 26th. It will be for 6 weeks....We'll paint right through February and into early March and the next thing you know, it'll be Spring! Like the last session, classes will be Monday nights from 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm. Oil or Acrylics, beginner to advanced. To get organized, I'm hoping to get everyone registered by January 14th. Give me a call with any questions or to sign up.