Helados con amigos

I finished my young friends in Cuenca, Ecuador.  Since the kids were all eating ice creams in the park I have titled the painting, "Helados con amigos", Ice creams with friends.  I'm really happy with the result.  I left the background kind of a stylized nothing.  There were people walking back and forth, but they took away too much from the focus on the amigos up front.  I'm traveling to Cuenca again in a few days, so  hope to come home with more photos of life with Cuencanos.  Here you go...

Parque Calderon Amigos

While I was in Cuenca, Ecuador in January, I was sitting in the central park when I spied these young friends enjoying their ice creams together.  I carefully snapped this photo which I hoped might make an interesting painting.  Here's the start...

Merced River Reflection, finished

A couple of weeks ago I put the finishing touches to my latest painting...Merced River Reflection.  I took the liberty to add a deer to this painting.  One morning while in the midst of this work I had read Psalm 42 in the Bible...adding a deer seemed appropriate.  Here you go...

  

El Capitan reflection

Just last week a couple of climbers completed a first ascent of a difficult route using fingers and toes and no hardware on El Capitan, in Yosemite.  El Capitan continues to draw climbers, photographers, and artists.  This is my second painting where El Cap is a major theme.  This time though, for this spring time painting, El Cap is just a reflection in the Merced River.  Here is a photo of the first few hundred(s) of brush strokes.  Check back in a couple of weeks, hopefully you'll see s reflection, water, and a few thousand more brush strokes.
Thanks for coming by...mg

Pigeon Point Lighthouse - Finished!

Oh happy day...I finally completed Pigeon Point Lighthouse.  I started this 6 months ago...but had to sideline it when I was hired to do a couple of commissions over the summer.  Then a month in Ecuador and here we are.  I really enjoyed creating this painting.  It is a combination of 3 photos I took.  In a week or so I'll have a better photograph of this work uploaded here, when I get it back from my photographer.  I'm not sure what is up next...probably something from my trip to Cuenca, Ecuador in October.  Thanks for coming by...enjoy the rain!!  mg

Shoe Trees of Park City

Just completed a very fun project.  Good friends of ours live in Park City, Utah.  It so happens Park City has a row of trees that for more than 50 years people have launched their tennis shoes, ski boots, whatever I guess they have on at the time and then walk away....why not?  So, being loyal Park City residents our friends wanted this landmark memorialized in paint....the perfect family room addition.

The difficult and fun thing with this project is that not only did the trees and shoes need to be front and center, but of course some Park City ski runs had to be included.  When I took some reference photos it is not possible to see the ski runs and the trees at the same time.  So with some artistic license I joined tree photos and ski run photos and then the fun part...painting 422 shoes.  Here you go...

Sierra Cabin - it's a wrap!

There's not much more to say about this painting than that is was a lot of fun to interpret the photos I took last month.  This place is special, and I was very pleased today when I revealed the finished work to my friend and his wife...and they loved it.  Whew...I'm always a little nervous.  Ok, here it is...

Next up is a VERY interesting piece which has been commissioned by some good friends.  I'll reveal some of it next week.  Thanks for coming by.  mg