I love this painting. Sometimes you just know when you "got it right." I was out in a little town called Flintstone (believe it or not) outside of Cumberland, Maryland, painting the stunning hills and mountain landscape of Western Maryland for the Mountain Maryland Plein Air Competition. I had already painted two pretty unsuccessful paintings that day, it was uncharacteristically hot & muggy for a mountain area, and I had just spent a frustrating hour trying to set up a new umbrella kit rig to shade my pochade box from the blazing early afternoon sun. All of this should have contributed to high level of frustration and perhaps a bad painting, but it didn't. I loved the colors, the scene, and the hole through the old barn. A lot of artists don't like to paint around midday, but I like the high contrast of light and shade you get on shrubbery in that light--it gives you a great chance to mix interesting greens ranging from yellow to almost black. This painting was done on a pinkish red ground that shows through in spots and sets up a nice vibration with all the local greens we see in summer in the Mid-Atlantic region. And there's nothing like painting a "good one" to revive your flagging energy in a plein air competition.
This painting is one of 50 paintings accepted into the Maryland Federation of Art "Tenth American Landscape Exhibition," a national show.

This is another painting created for the Gunpowder Falls Plein Air competition (www.gunpowderfallspleinair.com) held each June so that artists can come and paint our beautiful Northern Baltimore County area in Maryland. Unfortunately, two full days of  pouring rain slowed us down, and I painted this scene from the driver's seat of my car. It might have been because of the windshield wipers coming on every few minutes, but these horses watched me carefully for over an hour as I worked on this watercolor painting. Someone told me that horses with a white blaze are extra friendly, and maybe it's true.  My only mishap, if you can call it that, is that a kind lady from across the road came over to see if I was OK, thinking that I had skidded off the road in the heavy rain.

Although I teach watercolor painting, I paint more often in oils these days, and my definite preference has been to paint in oils for competitions. However, painting from my car was the only option I had after I ran out of friendly porches to paint from, and watercolor is a lot less messy than oils. It was challenging to paint in such close quarters, but I managed with a watercolor board against the steering wheel and the rest of my supplies spread out on a beach towel on the passenger seat so they would be to my right as I worked. Since I like to paint atmospheric paintings in watercolor, but had been restricted to working from photos for this type of painting, I will give this a try again. I really enjoy painting on location, and even if your car isn't "en plein air" it is close enough!

Although I usually paint in oils during plein air competitions, 2 full days of pouring rain for the Gunpowder Falls Plein Air event  (www.GunpowderFallsPleinAir.com )  forced into my car to paint and made watercolor the better choice. With a watercolor board against the steering wheel and my paints and water on a beach towel on the passenger seat, I made the best of it, every so often running the wipers to clear my view. Hereford is a little town in the North Baltimore County area of Maryland, and I liked this view with overhead traffic lights and car lights reflected on the wet pavement.

Several years back, my husband, Paul, and I took our first trip to Wyoming--in February. Let me make it clear that this was his dream, not mine. At least, at first. My idea of the perfect winter vacation is digging my bare feet into warm beach sand on a Caribbean island. This is how it has always been, and my husband knows this. So it was with some trepidation that he approached me with the already done deal of a wildlife expedition to Yellowsone and the Grand Tetons--in Wyoming, and in the dead of winter--and wisely decided not to make it my Christmas present.

Well, it was beautiful. And it blew me away. It snowed a lot, to be sure. And there was no propect whatsoever of bare feet in the sand. But the unexpected colors were an artist's dream--gorgeous and stunning juxtapositions of red-orange from fields of  red willow shrubs (that we learned were a principal winter food of moose) and cool, blue-green complements in the tall firs that ringed the meadows, all set off by white snow, snow, snow. I painted a little and snapped hundreds of photos. We saw plenty of wildlife, too--moose, elk in their winter feeding grounds near the Wildlife Museum, big horn sheep,  the coyotes, and more. The wolves were elusive--we came close to a couple of the re-introduced packs, but never got to see them. Since I love to paint wildlife in a natural setting, my photos gave me fodder for many new wildlife subjects.

My husband has been back to Wyoming, but I haven't, so far. Every few weeks, from work, he will email me a Wyoming ranch listing. I know better than to respond. My dream is a little house on St. John, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. (See my website at www.claudiabrookes.com under "Events" for a listing of my February 2008 show there). But maybe, someday, there would be a chance for both--we can both dream, can't we?