New plein air paintings-

I have been doing a bit more plein-air lately, but had not posted the paintings.  Recently, I was painting with the Markleeville Gallery as they hosted their Plein-air week.  It was fun, and had some challenges with the weather.  One day being windy and grey, and the rest of the days , clear, but very hot---we actually had a heat wave that was uncomfortable but also drying for the area.  Sure hope we get our usual snowy winter this next time! Before the Plein-air week I went out on a local Nevada desert area that I enjoy with Oil painter Ray Freeman.  We hadn't painted together in quite a while so I enjoyed this mornings' outing.  This was at the beginning of June:

This is a place I know well as I used to love riding all over this large open desert and hope to get back out here to paint again.

Then a few days after this, I went with Carolyn Thompson from Reno, Nevada, to paint near or at Blue Lakes, California.  It was a windy morning that we chose, and cool.  So I climbed on some huge rocks in the sun and tried this scene, on a 8 x 10 piece of Uart I had  with me:

I am surprised at how  this one came out.  I could look down on the lake from here, but as its name goes, it was just "blue" so I was glad I 

chose the rocks.

The next one is a sketch I made on morning in Hope Valley before the Plein-air week started, I liked how this area looked early in the morning, facing into the sun as it came up from the east---so this is a place I went back to during the week.  The resulting 9 x 12,( and is a bit different than this sketch) is now hanging in the Gallery so I guess the practise helped.  Our paintings will hang for a month there.   We met some nice people during the event, and many really good plein-air painters were there.  I really enjoyed it this year. :

The  whole area , tho , is so different that it was last year as far as color goes,   and is a  lot drier and so we worry about fire.  When fall comes , we have such wonderful color--but this year may pass without  such dramatic color because of the dryness.  I will have to wait and see. So, thats it, Hope you are all out painting!