My sister and brother-in-law have this summer place on Lake Morris, WI. It’s a sweet little getaway.
Summer’s are rich and earthy in Wisconsin. Corn and potatoes grow everywhere.In their midst, wind turbines spin in unison when the night breezes pick up at sunset.
Color theory makes my head hurt. Having said that, I used a limited pallet for this painting, using only cadmium orange and ultramarine blue, black and white and small touches or viridian and cadmium yellow. The canvas was under-painted in a light lavender. As I continue to work in casein, I’m using two complimentary colors as found on color wheel, and mix all other hues in between with the complimentary colors selected. I’m relying on the wheel until its principles become like second nature to me when I paint. It’s tedious but I like the result of more harmonious paintings.
I’ve started a casein journey. I like the flatness of this milk-derived paint. It can be buffed to a gloss and is waterproof once dry. I use blue, yellow and white pigment to paint this, relying on an underpainting of red acrylic to spark up the image.
Marble Canyon is a dusty, hot and out of the way spot where colors of the earth and sky are vivid. The Colorado River is winding it’s way southwest to the Grand Canyon. The United States’ largest birds, California Condors, nest on the canyon ledges, float on the thermals and fish the waters far below. Life is good.
This is a small, quick painting requested by my sister. It’s located in central Wisconsin, USA.
When we go fishing at Lake Pleasant in Maricopa County, AZ, we sometimes see some of the burros that live in the surrounding hills and gorges. They’re skinny little creatures but they go and do what they like, a condition of being feral. Desert Life suits them.
Another fishing trip, another inspiration for a painting. The Arizona mid-afternoon sun saturates all colors. They sparkle and glow. I do love Arizona.
The white bass are still biting at Lake Pleasant in Maricopa County, AZ. This is a view of the embankment at the lake shore. Ted’s doing the fishing, I take pictures, pic up fistfuls of discarded fishing line and look for lost Rolex’s on the beach.
This scene is from the end of a fishing trip. No fish but nice winter sunset.
Chollas are botanically in the subfamily of Opuntioideae, the same family which includes cactus’s with broad, flat leaves. The leaves of the Cholla are round-ish and really spiny. They quickly become stuck to any object that comes close to it. Their spines hurt and aren’t easy to remove once impaled in either fabric, fur or flesh. When backlit by the setting sun, their branches look like bright torches of white gold.
We hiked to this overlook, then had to turn back to reach the car before dark.
The sky catches fire in Arizona.
Cactus Tree Mountain Sky
Pinnacles on the Hailstorm Trail at Echo Canyon in Chiricahua National Monument in southeast Arizona, USA.
Dusk light.
Bear right
To car park.
Almost dark.
This is an end-of-day scene looking east. We’d been fishing down in the Salt River, fish weren’t biting, the sun’s sinking and it’s getting cold on the desert. Nothing left to do but walk back to the car and start the hour’s drive home.
This part of the Salt River runs through Tonto National Forest in central Arizona. When the monsoons come, the rocky bed in the foreground is raging with water which will flow west where the Verde River will join it.
Wild horses, mustangs, roam freely through this park in large herds.
A scene from Southeast Arizona, not far from the Mexican border.
Chiricahua National Monument in southern Arizona is other-worldly. Have you been there? I think it rivals, even surpasses, Utah’s Arches National Park. Chiricahua feels intimate yet has a scale of grandeur. I had never heard of this place before we visited it over the New Year holiday. We hiked isolated trails, took lots of pictures and quit at sunset. See America first, we have so many wonders to behold.
Jean Krueger Fine Art 