A New Year

2020 was a year that I am sure we are all happy to have behind us.  After a very productive year of painting, it ended with a bit of a lull.  The whole house had COVID-19 in the beginning of December, and the holidays, even without the ability to visit like normal, was still super busy feeling.  Now that the new year has begun, the paints and brushes are back out, and the painting has started.

To begin the year, I built a new plein air easel.  This attaches to a camera tripod.  I have made two small easel attachments for working on little paintings, and have larger parts coming to make a bigger attachment.

It got its first use out at the lakefront in Mandeville, which has turned into my inspiration for January.

I had a lovely evening painting, with a couple of people checking out what I was working on.  Including a very nice chat with someone who was out for a run, and wanted to show me a lovely Iris painting he was working on at home.  Here is the painting I finished that evening.

After completing this painting I had a nice walk up and down the lakefront, and took a lot of pictures as the sun set.  I used one of them for inspiration for this next painting.  This one is 3' x 4'.  It will look really nice in someone's house that has a little more space than we do. 

After enjoying this big one so much, I went out to the lakefront this week for another walk.  I caught another sunset, but this time there was a cloud layer at the horizon.  The sun vanished behind the clouds shortly before it set, and lit up the clouds above it.  The oranges and yellows were fantastic.  I made this little 6" x 6" painting this week.