Missed March...Maybe for the Better?

Haven't posted since February...missed March but not hard to understand why. Things have gotten strange haven't they.  Very difficult for us all.  Some of us have family members that we cannot visit...some that can't even say goodbye to, or sit with in their last days.  Its sad and yes, difficult.

What does a person do?  We all have our own ways of coping...there are very few alive right now that have had an experience even close to what we are all now sharing.  

I had a commission that I needed to start in late February - despite what I was seeing happening in China, and coming to our shores; which left a feeling of uncertainty with me.  Its been a tough painting for me to work on...more so perhaps because I am a very "visual" person.  I am not as gifted as some artists that have the ability to pull images out of their heads.  I have attempted working from my memories in the past and it it pretty darn hard for me!  I did manage one piece many years back...it was a memory of my summers on one of my grand parent's farms.  And even with it, I did fudge the memory I had.  But then aren't all our memories "colored" in some way?  Our emotions do shape the way things are for each of us.  I may have posted this before, but here is the one memory I speak of from my head many years ago.

"Summer Memories"

oil painting - © Bruce A. Morrison

 

Where am I going with this?  Well back to my latest commission...it is of a location and structure that I've never visited...the structure (an old 1830's grist mill) is no longer standing.  The client did take a picture of it back about 35-40 years ago but the picture is very faded and does lack much of the information I'd like to lay a foundation with.  I normally require visiting locations and doing a lot of first hand investigation...I have turned down many requests because of a lack of material to work with.  I'd like it to be as authentic as possible so have dug and dug online as best I can and have come up with historic records and descriptions...even an old B&W photo of the "wrong side" of the structure...plus an old pencil drawing and a quite bad painting of the mill.  I must say all give some clues I need but there are still many missing pieces to the puzzle.  So I'm doing the best I can painting something I've never seen, while using bits and pieces of memories and my imagination.  If the client is OK with it once I have it finished, maybe I'll post it down the line?  Wish us both luck!

 

"Rose-breasted Grosbeak - Portrait"

color pencil drawing - © Bruce A. Morrison

 

As for more current projects completed in the past few weeks, here is another life size bird portrait.  I've done Rose-breasted Grosbeaks before but needed to do another for someone,  they are such beautiful birds!  I've taken many studies of these birds through the years so had no trouble drawing this good looking male!  Birds have always been an escape for me, much needed at times like these.

 

Spring is now here, and even though we still have some remnants of winter weather threatening to mess up our day occasionally,  we can still start working outside...on the garden or any reason just to get some fresh air!  We did some prairie pasture burns here yesterday and I gotta say we both sure did sleep good last night!    

Forget March...put it behind you and enjoy any Blessings in the offing this Spring - large or small.   Be safe out there and be good to one another.

 

 

 

Waiting for the Thaw

"Passing Don's Old Place at First Light - Study"

oil painting - © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

 

What does a person do around NW Iowa with 2-3 foot drifts still in the garden and throughout the back yard and pasture?  Work inside the studio!  And what kind of work seems best for this cold old duffer while waiting for the thaw?  Summer landscapes! 

 

This is a gravel road about 4 miles south of us as the crow flies...you'd have to be a crow to get there in just 4 miles because the road passing our place stops - hits a "T" intersection 3 miles south of us.  Evidently the valley and creek bottoms there dissuaded road construction straight through back then.

This is actually a small oil painting "study".  I have an idea for a much more elongated painting in the future of this same location but wanted to do a smaller work-up of it to judge just how I'd approach the palette for this piece, and to just see if it might be worthy of a try.

This depicts an old farmstead and home of a gentleman I never met...he was using the small home off behind the trees on the left for a summer residence while, as I understood it, living with a daughter during the winter months.  His family also had a farm and home place a mile north, of which the house no longer stands.  Don passed away 3-4 years back and the small house now belongs to someone else.  

 

The trees along the road create a nice "tunnel-effect" and one morning last summer I was heading out to another location when I passed through and thought it would make for a nice painting "some day"!  Now I need to find the time to do it!  (The bigger version that is.)

Meanwhile I'm still in the studio - picking up things I meant to be getting to for what seems like a long time...and waiting for the thaw!

Work in the Studio

"July in the Valley"

12X18" oil painting - (SOLD) - © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

Plenty to see here at Prairie Hill Farm today.  Its been a bit warmer (low 40's) and very breezy out of the south, with the valley's Bald Eagles playing in and out of the wind.  Its not easy to give a count as we see them veering back and forth, up and down the pastures and creek bottom.   

The first two birds jumped from the big Red Pine in the yard when I was over to the house for lunch...an immature bird calling loudly as it followed an adult across the yard and over the grainery.  Then another two adults appeared across the road, one following the creek and the other landing on the pasture ground next to a frozen puddle...it sat for awhile until another bird showed from the north, and joined it.  This went on through the noon hour with other birds (or likely the same ones) passing by and over the south pasture.

Back inside the studio I'm preparing another canvas to start a new painting, and finished photographing one I just finished.  I'm afraid in here I'm a bit oblivious to what's going on outside, except when I get up and stretch or take a break from the easel or correspondence.  

I just finished another landscape - one about the valley view out in front of the studio; the very one the eagles are playing about today...only the painting is based on a small 6X8 plein air painting done back in 2010.  Not only is winter a good time to work in the studio but a good time to think "summer" as well!!

I suppose I'm being a little optimistic with "July in the Valley"; its hillsides, trees and croplands are lush and green...unfortunately last summer was the opposite.  We're entering a new year, yet still waiting for moisture up here in the NW corner of the state.  According to the state climatologists, we're about 15 inches or more shy of moisture.  They're talking rain tonight; that'd be a good thing if it comes to be...we'll take whatever we can get.

But winter is a time to be properly optimistic. What better things to hold dear and look forward to, than a summer of green and warm days; of lazily watching the cloud shadows pass across the landscape?!

Back to work!

 

Nearly September

 "Nearly September"

8X6" oil on mounted canvas
© Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view)

If  you subscribe to this blog, the title will seem "late"...you'll likely receive it "in" September!!  The last hours of August are upon us and we sit and wonder when time will slow...but it was fun while it lasted (I think) and the mosquitoes are getting closer to being zapped away by the eventual first hard frost!  Ya, OK I'm getting too far ahead of myself!  Let's enjoy September now and not look too far ahead.

The small plein air painting I'm posting was done several days back; I'm even late posting it. It was named appropriately (at the time) "Nearly September".  This was one of the last summer skies we had in August, and the goldenrods and sunflowers were beginning to overtake the prairie, bringing the rust and yellow hues of late summer to the grasses of native pasture ground.

I'm very far behind on everything, in the studio and in the field.  I actually missed the peak on our own summer liatris bloom here.  That's just sad!  But we gotta do what we gotta do and that's that.  More framing and printing ahead through September to reach the Artisans Road Trip deadline.  Looking forward to a very nice autumn ahead!  Hope to see you here at the studio in a few weeks!