In early May I headed down to the Tetons for a dirtbag painting adventure.  After dropping off new paintings at Legacy Gallery, I painted for three days.  I thought I would enjoy a nice spring trip: snow in the mountains, a few drifts down low, and new spring green.  Well… um… reality:  3-4 feet of snow, ice on the lakes, and a low of 17 degrees!  I’ve never been so cold in May! 

I slept at the String Lake parking lot in my van, cooked off of a backpacking stove and painted from dawn till dusk.  The best part was that I had the whole park to myself!  On the first day I watched an otter swim out from beneath the ice and run around.  The following morning a grey jay landed on top of my easel and then hopped right on to my hand.  We looked at each other for about fifteen seconds before it flew off.  I half expected it to start talking, to send me on a quest. Here’s some pics from the trip:

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One problem was that as the day warmed up, I’d start sinking into the snow.  In the above picture I’m standing happily on the crust.  By noon I was sinking to my knees in the snow, and realizing that beneath the snow was thin ice…

There is something so deeply transcendent about entering into such a world and seeing no one, just painting and looking and trying to understand a little more of what we are given.  Here are some of the paintings that I came home with.  They are all in the 8×10- 9×12 range.  

I recently collaborated with my son’s first grade class to do a pastel painting.  I had the kids come up to the easel one at a time, and I handed them an pastel and gave them some instruction.  The picture that they did was auctioned off at a school art show to raise money for art supplies.  I’m so impressed with how well little kids listen.  All I did is smooth out a few edges with my finger- 95% of this pastel comes from the little hands of a fine group of six and seven year olds.  Great work everyone!  Here’s the pastel painting:

Here are the proud collaborators:

The pastel fetched $200 at the auction, a very respectable price!  I wish making art was always this much fun!

I’ve been a little slow in the blog posts of late.  As some of you know recently a gas-line explosion took out half-a-block of downtown Bozeman.  Montana Trails Gallery was decimated.  I lost roughly 30 paintings.  Worse, Tara Bowman, the gallery director was killed in the explosion. It’s been hard to know how to put this into words, so I’ve left the blog alone for a bit.  At some point in the near future I will write about this terrible event, but for the moment I want to look ahead and share some new work. As we enjoy the first breath of spring here in Montana,  I thought it appropriate to post a handful of winter plein air paintings.  I hope these pieces bring a little joy and peace, or at least a little enjoyment.  Click on any of the thumbnails to see the enlargements.  And yes, they are all for sale!