March 3, 2018

March 3, 2018

Paint-out at Monty’s

Kara and I knew we wanted to paint Henry’s Fork of the Snake River this week, but with a spring snow storm in the works we were about to pull the plug and chicken out.    Luckily our friends,Monty and Marilyn, have a beautiful property located next to Henry’s Fork of the Snake River and with a quick phone call we were soon setting up our paint kits next to the large picture window in the kitchen. We were both painting in water colors, as guest in a friend’s house we felt using easy to clean up medium was important. Now, I know it is a cheat, and a cop-out to paint from inside, but the fact that we kept to our schedule and painted on a nasty day was an emotional win.

Monty invited us to stay for dinner, and while we painted, Monty a true culinary artist, went to work as well. Kara worked on a composite composition, juxtaposing interesting objects she could see and arranged them together in a pleasing design. This is a fun exercise to practice; you will use your understanding of painting from life, mixed with abstract design, it is using artistic license at its finest.  I started working on the visible landscape with the river in the background.  Monty has lawn sculptures of a garden nymph, and a tree fairy and I realized that incorporating them into the design made my painting look more like a fantasy painting than a realistic landscape. I kept them in and painted anyway.  It has been a while since I used watercolors but like an old friend we quickly picked up where we left off. I enjoyed the change of pace and the change of medium and over all had a great time.  The light started to fade so we picked up our paints and set the table for dinner. Sharing in the social aspect of painting was a kind reminder that the visual arts are an important part of communication, and community.