Winter is nearly over in the Arizona desert. The grass is still green and the cacti look plump and perky. Not much is in bloom, the air smells moist at the end of day. As I painted, I wished the day would last a little longer, sitting there with bird calls and yipping coyotes in the earthy darkness.
I love Chicago. It’s urban living that has it all. The civic layout is so rich, imbued with art, local culture and pride of its heart-of-America location. The people are unpretentious in their sophistication and it’s easy to feel at home. The ethnicity of the neighborhoods reads clearly as one moves around and through them and, yet, they all clearly are All-American. I love Chicago.
We were somewhere in North Carolina, on top of the Ridge, waves of mountains vanishing in the far away mist.
We spent the Thanksgiving break driving from New York to Florida, sightseeing, taking the long route. The Blue Ridge Mountains are unlike any that I’ve seen in the US, running north to south with parallel smaller hills flanking the east and west sides of the central Blue Ridge. The Parkway is a narrow and quaint two lane WPA project. Lots of folks drive it because of its spectacular beauty and its status as a National Parkway. You can see for miles along the road that follows the crest tof the Ridge.#jeankruegerfineart #troynyartist #blueridgeparkway
I’m inspired by the austerity of the road and bridge against the sky.
Hearts are susceptible to forces of nature such as tornados. Perhaps they’ll be carried all the way to the stratasphere, eventually fly over China and get shot down! Or maybe they’ll land in your yard, a happier outcome. They’re totally friendly.
In Florida, roosters and chickens are feral. That’s where this one lives. They’re only as tames as they need to be and live well in their free range.
Ted and Jean slept here.
Nice place, I could stay another couple weeks but…
We check out tomorrow.
Florida. Here we are for the week while Ted works. It’s quite different than the the places I call home in the northeast mid and south west. Different flora and fauna, lots of water everywhere and not all that walkable. Skyscrapers ans doublewides dominate the cities. Mosquitos and seabirds are all over the grasslands and it always sunny and warm. Florida.
It’s a rainy, mid-autumn day in the canyons of New York City, just north of Grand Central Station. It’s a scene that shows the construction of a building whose bones and entrails are on display, awaiting its clothing of cladding and windows. Traffic edges forward hardly noting the disruption of flow, all business, as usual. I love New York.
Victor Colorado has and annual Plein Air event. I painted there for over a week last summer. Victor is a gold mining town and has been since the 19th century. There’s mine pits and mine heads all over town, lots to paint.
Black Cat, birdseye view.
We have a lot of stuff…too much. We have a storage unit to accommodate all the forgotten memories, boxes packed decades ago, abandoned projects and other extraneous ephemera of the ages. We go there seldom because none of it really matters any more. It’s just that it’s hard to let go so we pay over $1K a year to accommodate it all…it’s craziness and a folly.
Anyway. This painting is of the landscape that surrounds our storage unit. I sometimes go to the locker just to see the scenery. The facility is on a promontory that looks far to the east into Massachusetts, far to the west into the skies of New York. It’s value far exceeds the $1K+ we shell out annually to rent a storage locker.
We’re driving on a Saturday afternoon and it’s starting to snow. It’s winter in New York, scrub trees in the field mowed last fall are a silhouetted filigree against the leaden horizon. It’s not the sort of scene to leave the car to admire. The wind starts to gust.
In late winter we took a drive to the east of our city, Troy. Here the austerity of the hills frozen and neutral, the cold, cold sky draped with clouds pushing northeast, all of this struck me as a beauty specific to Upstate. This landscape is worthy of painting in every season, late winter being no exception.
Our storage unit is located in Clums Corners, a small farm community outside Troy, NY. Our unit has a sweeping view to the east. Late in the afternoon when the sun is flat, the colors of the sky and land saturate and you can see all the way to Massachusetts. The land is still undeveloped by tract housing and commercial pad sites, still used for farming as it has been for centuries. The place is haunted by early American history, an unsung national treasure.
The setting for this painting is of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. The time of year is winter. I hike a lot when I’m here and was surprised when I saw the Ocatillo I’ve featured in this painting. The cactus was all leafed out and bushy which I don’t remember happening at this elevation til 4-6 weeks later in the growing season. Nonetheless, I admire this species and have painted it before. I’ve included a painting I posted a few years ago to illustrate how intricate and downright lovely it is when its leaves emerge. Hope you like it.
Curious and quizzical. Meow
In the desert when the sun has just vanished below the mountains the light shifts in ways revealing colors not seen at any other time. This amazes me. Fact is, color changes all day long and through the night. Our color perceptions are defined by time and space. Yeah, really…..
This painting is of a wondrous scene I encountered while hiking. I was taken by the arabesque forms of cactus and earth. I’ve included a shot the initial layout of of the painting which I used as a guide for the painting’s progression. I’m pleased with this painting and I hope you’ll enjoy it, too.
Jean Krueger Fine Art 