I changed shape and color of the cows yesterday and eliminated another one today. I decided that it was time to put this painting away for a few days and maybe I will work on those cows a bit more then. I think it will be a LONG time before I paint cows again!!! Good news. Our Rachel has been feeling better the last few days so maybe she will be my painting partner after all. Also I received news on Monday that the High Desert Gallery in Redmond will be closing later this month but the good news is that I will now be showing my work in the High Desert Gallery in Sisters. The address will be on the page for my links. I hope you will stop in when you are in Sisters.

The cattle in this painting are giving me a hard time! I've painted and repainted the ones with white faces and think it's time to "let it go for awhile." I'll come back to it after a few days.

I changed the position of the black cattle and started blocking in the trees. I also warmed up the yellow in the grass. The painting is very wet so decided to let the paint set up a bit before I continued. I'm having quite a time with the cattle and plan on working on them either later today or tomorrow. Rachel seems to be a bit better and I'm hoping she will be with us for quite some time. Our PAPO group starts plein air painting later this month.

I received upsetting news last week and didn't work on my cattle painting for a few days. Rachel, my painting companion, has kidney failure and there is no treatment. She's only 7 years old and now we don't know how much longer she has. I finally got back to painting today.

We've had interruptions including a dog that has health problems. My faithful plein air painting companion has kidney failure and might now live too much longer.

This is a painting I have wanted to start ever since I took photographs of these cattle last summer at an old homestead on the 3 Springs Ranch near Prineville. I had painted the abandoned home before but these cattle were gazing under the apple trees and I really wanted to catch the moment. It's taken me this long to get started on this studio painting.

I finished my deer painting Monday afternoon. The small patches of snow that were in the photo used reminded me that spring was just around the corner. The painting is a bit brighter than the image in this blog.

Busy day and only painted a short time this morning but I was able to start laying in colors in the foreground and background. Fortunately Wallis sanded paper allows for many layers of pastel. I've lost some of the form of the deer but will be able to correct them as I go along. I'm pleased with the affect that I am beginning to achieve.

I'm trying a new method for this pastel painting. This was started on Wallis paper that had a light sienna watercolor wash. I then blocked in the bitterbrush and sage with nupastels and washed over with the pastel with solvent. The deer were then drawn with charcoal. I will refine the deer as I begin painting with soft pastels.

I went to work this morning and made big changes on my painting. Removed the cows, highlighted and darkened areas of the trees and really changed the foreground. Now I'm calling it finished - just have to come up with a title!