100 for $100 Small Works Show

I'm looking forward to being part of the 100 for $100 show at the Fare Bella Gallery in Manitou Springs, CO. Many of the small works seen here will be on sale at the show, plus these new 8x10's displayed in this post.

Nymphaea

Near my son's school is a city park with a nicely designed pond full of lily pads. Fortunately this flower was close enough to shore that I could get a shot of it from above from which to paint from. There are some beautiful pink and red flowers as well, but they are impossible to photograph from shore due to overgrown brush along the bank nearby. After painting this one I think I'll get my kayak out and get a shot of them for sure.

Oil on canvas mounted to board 10" x 10".

If you would like to purchase this painting please click here.

Lily Pads I

In front of my son's school is a well kept park with a nicely designed pond full of lily pads in bloom. One morning after dropping him off at school I snapped a number of images from shore, which was a bit difficult because of the cattails that block the way. One of these days I just might sneak my kayak out there so I can photograph those beautiful flowers a bit more closely.

Oil on canvas, mounted to board, 8" x 8".

Sold

Aspens Ready

If you're a landscape painter and you live in Colorado you paint aspen trees. You. Just. Do. Fortunately I enjoy them! This scene shows them just a week or two before they transformed to their spectacular autumn golds and yellow. I had attempted this scene a couple of times previously, but was never quite satisfied with what I created. This time I gave greater effort to keep things loose and less defined. I'm rather pleased with this rendition.

Oil on canvas mounted to board, 12" x 12".

Peak One, Summit County Colorado

This is Peak One between Breckenridge and Frisco. I never really noticed these two peaks in my past visits to Colorado, but now that I'm painting a lot I'm paying better attention to the scenery. It fascinates me how many possible paintings spring up whenever you turn around out here.

12" x 16" oil on canvas.

This painting is for sale at the Fare Bella Gallery in Manitou Springs, CO. Click here for contact information and to visit their site.

Fox Run Pond

One of my favorite local parks is Fox Run on the north side of Colorado Springs. It was the first park my family and I visited after moving to the Springs in 2013. Being refreshingly full of trees it stood out to us as we had become accustomed to the dry and grassy High Plains. It also has two ponds, which they call lakes, but anyone who's been outside the dry West has to chuckle. They are clearly ponds! But as another friend of mine from the Midwest said, "In Colorado, if a puddle lasts more than three days they name it."

I found the shapes and colors of the reflected trees in the water to be much more interesting than the trees themselves.

12" x 16" oil on canvas.

SOLD

Pikes from Northgate in Spring

I've painted this scene before. It's located just outside my neighborhood. I wanted to catch it later in the day and this time it's in late Spring. The sunset strikes just the Northeast face of Pikes Peak, making things just a bit more interesting visually. While Pikes is certainly a beautiful mountain for painting purposes it can be a bit drab. It's rather flat-ish, which is why so many drivers can reach the top, but lacking steep angles makes it less than ideal to paint sometimes--that is until the light hits it just right.

Oil on canvas, 16" x 12".

To purchase this work click here.

This painting is for sale at the Fare Bella Gallery in Manitou Springs, CO. Click here for contact information and to visit their site.

Gazing West from Larkspur

What intrigued me about this scene was all these trees just waiting for spring to arrive. This was roughly late April and the trees were only barely showing the signs of buds. The plants out here in Colorado are pretty slow to leaf out, probably because late snows and freezing temps are common through May. No sense waking too early!

Oil on canvas, 16" x 12".

To purchase this work click here.

Sleeping Giant, Garden of the Gods

I'm just not sure if I like this one or not. Time and again I've completed a painting and not been happy with it much at all, but after it had been put away for a while it began to grow on me. Perhaps this will be that for me. Perhaps that's a common issue with a work that you've spent a great deal of time on. Perhaps I'll get better at recognizing when I've failed or when I've done well. Who knows?!

Oil on canvas, 20" x 16"

To purchase this work click here.

Pikes Peak in Spring

I live near Compassion International, which has some of the best views of Pikes Peak in town and also allows visitors to hike its grounds. During this very wet May I hiked around their land seeing what I could find to paint. All that rain made the normally yellow grasses especially green (at least by Colorado standards), but up on the peak the moisture is still mostly snow.

I'm always amazed by the color out here. The colors really were this dramatic! The tree really is that bright green, the foothills really are that purple, the mountain just that blue, and of course the Colorado sky--I couldn't paint the sky out here without phthalo blue in my box!

Oil on canvas, 16" x 12"

This painting is for sale at the Fare Bella Gallery in Manitou Springs, CO. Click here for contact information and to visit their site.

Reaching the Sun

This one took me three attempts to paint something I liked. I wish failure wasn't such a big part of the art experience, but it is!

This is another rock formation out at Eleven Mile State Park in Colorado. The actual scene was really quite sunny with few clouds, but I knew that this peak would be much more dramatic if the lower portion were in shade from cloud cover. So in Photoshop I pushed and pulled and masked and created this scene. I love how the color splash at the top really draws your attention.

Oil on canvas, 11" x 14"

To purchase this work click here.

Footprints at Eleven Mile State Park

One of the most fascinating things to happen to me in transitioning to a fine art painter is that I am finding paintings yet to be created everywhere I turn, which is especially true living in Colorado. This place is beautiful and just begs to be painted, but I've been to Colorado before and yet I'm seeing some of the same terrain with different eyes it seems. That's the case with this particular scene, which I would have all but ignored previously.

My family had spent Christmas in the mountains and were returning home to Colorado Springs. On the way we stopped by Eleven Mile State Park near Lake George, CO to snap some photos of the large reservoir now covered in ice and snow and the beautiful trees and rocks which surround it. We snapped the photos we were after and turned to head back to the car. On the way I looked up and saw this little scene of a tree near some rocks with some low rolling mountains in the background. The atmosphere created just the right depth, the only thing it needed was some footprints to lead the viewer in and help tell a story, which I added while painting the scene. I was pretty pleased with this simple scene when I finished, something I've been struggling to feel for a while now.

Oil on canvas, mounted to board, 11" x 14"

To purchase this piece please click here.

Pikes Peak From Northgate, Colorado Springs, CO

It seems that just about every spot in Colorado Springs has a million dollar view of Pikes Peak. This particular view is found just a short walk from my home. To the right is a strip mall, to the left is a large church, and just over this grassy rise is I-25 and the Air Force Academy, but with this small parcel of land at just the right angle it's as if I'm in some remote patch of wilderness. I never actually noticed this scene until I began painting…which is happening a lot lately! Every time you turn around out here there's a painting waiting to be crafted.

Oil on canvas, 20" x 16".

This painting is for sale at the Fare Bella Gallery in Manitou Springs, CO. Click here for contact information and to visit their site.

Pulpit Rock, Colorado Springs, CO

In the Rockies there are rock formations everywhere--duh right? But to a midwesterner it's just amazing. This here is called Pulpit Rock and sits smack dab in the middle of town, sandwiched between a Costco and the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. In the Midwest folks would drive for hours to find a spot like this, but out here it's just spot of land no suitable to build on, so it's turned into a park. I love it!

Oil on canvas mounted to masonite, 16" x 12".

This painting is for sale at the Fare Bella Gallery in Manitou Springs, CO. Click here for contact information and to visit their site.

Snow Covered Rock Outcropping, 11 Mile Reservoir, CO

When I first completed this painting I was not happy with it at all. I just felt like I'd failed on it, but I hung it and let it be. Over time it began to grow on me to where today I'm actually pleased with it. I can't claim that this is necessarily a great painting, but it's not half bad either. Like with all my work I can see tremendous room for improvement, but I can also see possibly selling this work and being proud of that.

Oil on canvas, mounted on masonite, 22" x 16".

To purchase this painting please click here.

North Side of Pikes Peak, Colorado Springs, CO

Pikes Peak looms large over this town and it's such a thrill for this flatlander to see it everyday. The peak itself is great, but it's this smaller peak off to the right (when viewed from the plains) that I find my painter's eye drawn to. It has more rock bands and couloirs. Those make for things that are much more interesting to paint in my opinion.

Oil on canvas, 30" x 14"

To purchase this work click here.

Garden of the Gods in Fog

I went to Garden of the Gods here in Colorado Springs when it was socked in with fog. I had originally planned to get shots of GotG with the recently snow covered mountains in back, but those mountains were nowhere to be found. Visibility was so low that day that the rock formations at the garden had such an eery feel that I couldn't wait to get home and see what I'd shot.

Oil on canvas, 20" x 14"

This painting is for sale at the Fare Bella Gallery in Manitou Springs, CO. Click here for contact information and to visit their site.

Mount Sheridan, Mosquito Range, CO

I think this is Mount Sheridan, just outside of Alma, CO. It is part of the Mosquito Range of the South Park region. If I'm to paint out here I feel compelled to learn the names of these mountains as well--just seems a littler more impressive for some reason.

Normally this peak sits rather unobtrusively among a bunch of other larger and higher, though less interesting, mountain peaks. In fact most days you don't even notice it, but every now and again a cloud sneaks in behind this peak and really shows it off. It's especially pleasing to look at with snow on it.

I've noticed that a lot out here in the Rockies, there are all kinds of peaks, ridges, and formations that just blend into the scenery on normal clear days, but if clouds can manage to sneak in or snow accumulates they all pop out from their hiding places.

Oil on canvas, 16" x 13.5"

To purchase this work click here.

Two Rocks

So here's a larger work I completed recently. I love landscape painting and living in the High Plains of Colorado means I encounter a great scene for a painting almost a thousand times daily. This here is from Palmer Park in the middle of town here in Colorado Springs. These two rocks, who've been propped up for who knows how long, really popped off the pine trees on the nearby ridge. The mountain in the background is Cheyenne Mountain, which is where NORAD is located. In the actual scene the mountain is much much smaller, barely rising above the tree-line. To improve the composition I took it from another reference photo of almost the same angle, but unobstructed by trees, and added it to this scene in Photoshop.

Oil on canvas, 22" x 15"

Why I Outta

I had painted this a while back and hated it…well not hate, but I just didn't like it. Just one of those paintings really, not so bad to wipe it out, but then not so good as to be happy with it. Fortunately I had snapped a pic of the set up. This go around I kept it loose and colorful, and was much happier with the result!

When I finished I thought the stem on the red pepper looked like a fist being shaken at the viewer, hence the silly title. It cracked me up.

Oil on canvas board. 8" x 8"

To purchase this painting please click here.

Sorels

This one could have really gone south for me as laces can be a bit daunting, what with all those crisscrossing patterns and whatnot. So I just decided to keep it loose and quick, and just get in the big abstract shapes. I chose not to pay much attention to the laces themselves and where they traveled, but rather just the large shapes that were present and let the laces just appear on their own.

Oil on canvas board. 8" x 8"

To purchase this painting please click here.

Coffee and Donut Holes

Some donut holes and coffee for this morning's paint…then when I was done the kids ate them. Just in case you're thinking, "Man, that Dave can NOT paint a round mug!" This one's got a square mouth with a round base.

Oil on canvas board. 8" x 8"

To purchase this painting please click here.