Monday, October 6, 2014

Another Biggie - and Another Cattle Drive

24" x 36" Oil on Panel
The weather's been beautiful. The colors have been beautiful. So late last week I got out and made another two foot by three foot plein air landscape painting (shown above). Once again I went to Heber Valley, one of my favorite places to paint.

Upon arriving where I wanted to paint, I saw cowboys moving cattle in a nearby field. Figuring they were going to drive the cattle, I waited to see which way they would go. The cattle moved out onto the road and headed away from me.

"Good." I thought, "They're going away this time."

I set up the easel and secured a big panel onto it. Next, opened the big paintbox, hung the brush washer from the easel, and began squeezing paint onto the palette. Then a red pickup pulled up and the rancher driving it said to me,

"There's cows coming."

Here They Come...
I looked up. The herd had reversed course and was headed my way. I considered temporarily putting everything, including myself, back into the car but there wasn't time. So I put the easel on the "downstream" side of the car and moved between the car and the fence to discourage any cows from coming that way. I wanted them all to pass to the left. It worked, and the easel remained untrampled.

...and There They Go.
I watched the cattle go, then finished setting up and painted until well after the sun had set below the Wasatch Mountain ridge line. 

Studio painters don't have to consider these kinds of things. That's too bad.

3 comments:

David King said...

Beautiful painting James. I can't imagine painting that big in the studio let alone outdoors! I did a small plein air painting yesterday in the Soapstone Basin, I didn't have to contend with a herd of cows, just noise and dust kicked up by ATV's.

James Gunter said...

Hi David. Thanks! Glad to hear you're still out painting. Soapstone Basin isn't that far from where I was painting, is it?

David King said...

Not too far guess. I think Soapstone pass is about 15 miles up from Francis, and then it's a few miles on Soapstone Pass, (semi-rough dirt road) to where I was painting.