Plein Air May

9" x 12" Oil on Panel

Around the middle of May trees have finally leafed out here, providing an endless variety of organic shapes and shapes-within-shapes. Oak, maple, cottonwood, willow, juniper; each species has it's own personality, and within each kind a wide range of individuality. The time I have spent among trees might add up to years, and to me it has been time well spent. I have felled trees and built things from the wood of pine, oak, maple, black walnut, cherry and butternut. I've enjoyed the company of songbirds, tree frogs, owls and hawks, squirrel and fox, elk and deer, and so many other wild residents who live under - and even within - the green forest canopy. Trees are among my favorite things to paint, and - especially within the setting of the Wasatch Mountains - an inexhaustible supply of subject matter. The painting shown above was painted a few weeks ago at the edge of a pasture between town and lake, and looks back towards Slate Canyon and Buckley Mountain.