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.
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.
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.
Here’s the end of the day at the end of the Summer in Upstate New York in a canoe where Ted paddles and I try to stay warm… and take photos to take my mind off how cold I am. Yeah, I’d stay warmer if I paddled, too, but I’m not a paddler. I’m a painter.
On the water at sunset, Raquette Lake, NY.
I-87 North is the road to Canada. I-87 South is the road to New York City. It’s mid-autumn in Upstate New York and mornings are frosty clean crisp. The daylight filters through the deciduous evergreen mix of forest, atmosphere thickening as the layer of mountains recedes.
https://www.dailypaintworks.com/fineart/jean-krueger/i-87-north/772635
https://www.dailypaintworks.com/fineart/jean-krueger/i-87south/772637
Indian Lake Inlet, watercolor, 9×12″, 2018, copyrighted with all rights reserved by Jean Krueger
Filtered light, deep water, fishing from a canoe, mid-summer.
Cattle Cutting, A Painted View Ranch, Westcliffe, CO, , 2018, professional watercolors on 140# hot press watercolor paper, masked border, copyrighted with all rights reserved by Jean Krueger
Each year in Westcliffe, CO, A Painted View Ranch sponsors the Sangre de Cristo Classic Cutting Horse Show. I go and take photos. It’s a great show, the horses and cattle are magnificent and the action is non-stop.
Brook Trout – Salvelinus fontinalis, watercolor on paper, 12×9″, 2018, by Jean Krueger, copyrighted with all rights reserved
Brook Trout or Brookies or Salvelinus fontinalis are the ubiquitous American fish. They are native to this continent and thrive where water is cold and fast or cold and deep. They’re a favorite fish for the US Forest Service to plant as they have great sport fishing value, not too hard to catch. This guy painted here is full scale about 7-8 inches and is shown at full scale.
Brick Church Road, Troy, NY, watercolor, 6×8″, 2018, by Jean Krueger, copyrighted with all rights reserved
This is a roadside scene that caught my eye on the way to my storage unit in East Brunswick, NY. The ultramarine sky amplified the golden fields in late winter afternoon sun.
Jean Krueger Fine Art 