August 18, 2017:

Mary joined me painting across the highway at the Pegram Truss Railroad Bridge early in the morning.  We both love Idaho's bright greens and clear waters, especially in the mornings.  Yeah, the light changes rapidly but the color remains until about noon.  It's important to get the sketch book out when you see the light just right, make a quick sketch of your shadows and highlight areas, note unique colors that are popping.  Kara spent the first 30+ minutes on thumbnails then did a detailed under painting while Mary, who is more experienced, just went for it.  Check out how well Mary captured the angles and perspective of the bridge!  Mary has painted for years in Indiana and was surprised how pleasant it is to paint in Idaho.  She was expecting ticks and mosquitoes and so happy not to have to deal with high humidity.  I think we've got her hooked on joining us each week.  Now that we have the bus going, we can paint from the warm bus this winter.  Mary will be joining us next week at the field trip to paint the crowd at the St. Anthony Summerfest street fest.  Will you?  Get dates and times for our free weekly field trips at www.IdahoArtLab.org/field-trips. - Kara Hidalgo

May 22, 2016: We love the Sand Creek Wildlife Management area, an Idaho Birding Trail.  This area, roughly 31,000 acres near St. Anthony is in the Chester Wetlands area.  The ponds at Sand creek attract a wide variety of waterfowl and shorebirds and the occasional Bald Eagle are drawn to the ponds in search of fish.  Dottie Toone joined Daniel and I on this fine spring morning.  The pictures tell the tale.  We arrived to find the area around the ponds closed for nesting season but found a spot just past Pond 3.  As we were setting up our easels we admired the cloud formations.  Did you ever notice that clouds can show perspective, starting big and wide in the foreground and becoming narrower and narrower in the distance?  We got set up and Kara snapped some reference photos only to notice that the clouds had turned ominous.  We realized we were in for a storm.  By the time we got in the vehicles we were in the middle of a full on rainstorm.  On the 18 mile drive out, Daniel and I noticed blue skies over the sand dunes and decided to make it a road trip outing.  Before long the storm had moved on and we were able to drive around the dune area between the main dunes and the Chester Wetlands.  I captured It turned out to be a great day to capture cloud reference photos.  You never know what the day will bring. - Kara

Colors of Craters of the Moon:  If you are joining us at Craters of the Moon, consider using a palette of the transparent primary colors cyan, magenta and yellow or add cyan and magenta to your palette of colors.  Why?  Because some of the most prominent flowers blooming at Craters during the spring bloom can be most accurately rendered with these colors.  And, you can make the vibrant reds and blues you need from these colors to maintain color harmony. 

   In 2017, we saw rolling hills covered in blankets of Wild Buckwheat whose blossoms were soft tints of yellows, oranges, pinks (below, left), purples and blues. Add a little white to the CMY palette and you were pretty much there.  Other flowers were bright cyan-blue (below, middle) and some lava rocks were a metallic blue (below, right).

   In 2018, our retreat happened during the Dwarf Monkeyflower bloom.  This is a hot pinkish/purplish flower that appears in dense rivers of color as it follows the water of the spring snow melt .  Most of our paintings were black volcanic rocks in the background with a "river" of Monkeyflowers in the foreground.  Magenta made the contrast stunning.  Look for a magenta with a pigment index around PR122.  

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May 27, 2017:

Sand Creek Wildlife Management Area.

We tried this spot last fall but due to weather conditions it didn't work out.  However when looking for a scenic area to paint, it is easy to find one at the Sand Creek Wildlife Management Area north of St. Anthony.   We were joined by Doyle an Bea Phelps artist from Ashton. Because of the beauty of this area and the good weather forecast we decided to turn our field trip into a camping trip. We stopped, made camp and took a look around. We didn't even need to take more than three steps from the camper to find a great study of trees, willows, and a meadow.  The saturation of green, and it's many tints and values was overwhelming. However, the purples and yellows of the meadow flowers offered nice color bursts of interest which welcome us into the forground. Kara and I worked on mini 4 X 4 panels in oil and Bea worked on an 11 X 14 in acrylic. Kara and I also went on a short walk to Pond #2 were we found Geese, Loons, Mallards and Sand Hill Cranes. The foothills behind the pond looked like a fantasy land. Kara and I both worked on 8X10 panels in oil.

The background of the rolling hills was saturated with beautiful lighting, but because of the semi-cloudy conditions and the light wind, it was constantly changing. It can be difficult to choose a lighting scheme when the light rolls and changes every time you look up. This is where the planning of your composition can not be overstated. Make the value sketch and stick to it, so you won't be “chasing” the light.