January Morning    11x14    oil on panel

Our Tuesday morning paint out was at an open space near Morrison. It sits right next to the foothills and is a little higher than the surrounding area. Because of the weather, it was kinda cold and windy. It was a little too windy for me up on the exposed area so I went (and so did almost everyone else) to a nearby open space/park called South Valley. It's a little like Garden of the Gods there. The same kind of rock formations made out of the same kind of rock, just a lot smaller. The rock in the painting is right next to the north parking lot. I have been here before and thought the rock looked pretty cool but never really wanted to paint it. Leslie pointed out the great looking sky to the south (to the right of the painting) and I moved it over behind the rocks. It made the composition pretty dramatic and I thought it looked really cool. Still working with the 'dead' palette listed below, but I swapped out Burnt Sienna for Venetian Red. It was almost impossible to get any nice reds or oranges with Burnt Sienna so it had to go. Plus the rocks are almost Venetian Red right out of the tube, so that made things simpler for me. Wasn't sure where this was going while painting it, but it came out nice in the end.