Late Spring on the Prairie!

"Passing Prairie Showers"

oil painting - © Bruce A. Morrison

 

June never seems to let us off out here on the prairie.  We sure appreciate the rain but high winds, lightning and hail are the things that keep us on our toes.  As I type this blog entry a good thunderstorm with high winds is passing through the valley.  A few areas of tornado activity are forming NW and NE of us - nobody needs that!

 

But this painting I just finished really depicts the "normal" passing showers that are so common out here in that great openness of the Tallgrass Prairie.  I used our south pasture as the "model" and borrowed some patches of Golden Alexander in bloom, from the north pasture to place in the shadow cast in the foreground during the late afternoon.

 

Late Spring and Summer paintings can be difficult because of the overwhelming greens out there so I like to take some artistic license and warm up the image with the late afternoon sunshine and neutralize it a bit with foreground shadows.  It was a bit warm the day I laid this idea out but even hotter (mid-upper nineties) while I painted in the studio - thank goodness for air-conditioning!

 

Hope you're staying safe and keeping cool out there!