Winter Series #2 ... 30" x 30" ... Oil on Canvas

Living at 8000 feet in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains outside of Taos, New Mexico, Winter presents challenges to a landscape painter whose penchant is to paint outdoors from direct observation. Between November and February, the period during which this series was painted, the snow piled up and never melted off and daytime temperatures were often around freezing – too cold to stand stationary for hours outside manipulating brushes. So I had to resort to subject matter that could be studied from indoors, painted from within the confines of the log cabin studio belonging to my partner Lawrence (Larry) Herrera, also a painter, who generously excavated a choice chunk of floor space for my use.

Winter Series #3 ... 28" x 40" ... Oil on Canvas

The studio overflows with Larry’s collected works. Indeed, the deck in front of the large South-facing windows sports various assemblage pieces of his fabrication, covered with snow. Beyond the deck and yard, one looks across the narrow valley bottom of the Rio Fernando, blanketed with the crowns of cottonwoods, to a steep forested mountain slope. For years I have looked at this wall of mixed conifers and aspens and contemplated how to paint it, featureless and flat as it is.

Winter Series #4 ... 36" x 36" ... Oil on Canvas

Sometimes I suspect that every view has the potential to be painted wonderfully, that any composition can be brought into harmony through the resolution of more or less detail on different parts of the canvas and through the play of the materials themselves. Wherever one looks, a painting is lurking. This idea, appealing as it may be, does not stop me however from carefully cropping the view when selecting a composition. Once the view is determined, I seldom alter it other than to accommodate vagaries such as the shifting sun and weather changes from day to day.

Winter Series #5 ... 34" x 55" ... Oil on Linen