Last week I was at a painting workshop in Taos, New Mexico with about 15 other painters, all from the Denver area and led by Kim English. All of our work was done outdoors from nature. Sometimes we also had models pose for us so our work involved the figure in the landscape. We painted in Nicolai Fechin's garden in Taos, in the Taos Plaza, along the banks of the Rio Grande and in the small town of Arroyo Seco. So often in my painting life I am working alone, and it is one of life's great pleasures to paint with an enthusiastic group of artists.

But enough talk...above are 3 of the oil sketches I did while in New Mexico.

Here are 3 more paintings I've done since returning from France. I have many more ideas and reference photos so expect to see a few more French-landscape paintings in the coming weeks. I was in the south of France in late May so the summer greens were very apparent in the landscape. This presents interesting challenges for painters (like me) who like their paintings not to be "too green". Fortunately green can be pushed in several directions...yellow, orange, purple, blue. I did all of these in the above paintings and was satisfied with the level of green-ness, feeling that the green was softened without losing the early-summer feeling of the place. Another challenge is the bluish-green of some crops especially if they are in the foreground (since blue generally wants to recede into the background). This was the case in the middle painting. I thought twice about using so much blue in the foreground, but ultimately liked the color.

In my last posting I added a painting done on my recent trip to France. Now I'm back in my studio (which I am increasingly moving outdoors in nice weather) and continuing to do paintings of the French countryside. I like the warm colors, the old stone farm buildings and the way the fields are divided into interesting sizes and shapes. As usual, when I return from a trip like this, I have a very strong urge to paint the things I have just seen.

This painting is 9 x 12 inches.

I just got back from a trip to France and Spain, and had an opportunity to do some painting on location in southern France. This is one of the results. It is a view from the town of Castelnau-de-Montmiral over the rolling countryside. I find this kind of country excellent for painting...it is a little hilly and the fields are divided into fairly small pieces and often divided by trees or shrubbery. This creates interesting shapes for the painter, and southern France is full of scenes like this one. I completed 10 paintings while in France, and brought back about many photos for reference in creating more paintings in the studio. This painting is about 9" x 12".