Painting accepted in CCAHC Works on Paper Exhibition

Today's post mail brought some good news. One of my stormy cloud works is accepted for the Custer County Arts & Heritage Center's 32nd Annual SouthEastern Montana Juried Exhibit. The 2011 exhibit, set for January 23rd through March 6th, is titled "Works On Paper." The CCAC is located in Miles City, Montana.
Below is a photo of my work, titled "Thunderhead Over Hobson, Montana."
This work is an oil painting on gesso on acid-free paper. The image measures 18 by 24 inches. The exhibition is not an auction, so this work is still available for purchase.  I'm pricing this painting to encourage a sale.
The thunderhead in this work is one I watched as it grew bigger and taller just east of the Hobson grain elevators (one elevator is no longer standing at this location.) When I finally left (after I was certain I could capture its essence back at the studio) this storm cloud was being pushed fast enough by an up high wind that it tailed me all the way to Lewistown.

Below are two close up detail photos so you can see the layered, sketchy brush strokes that make up this work. I was especially pleased with the results achieved on the more distant grain elevator.

Two paintings in 43rd Annual Yellowstone Art Museum Art Auction

Good news arrived in today's snail mail! Two of my oil paintings have been selected for inclusion in the Yellowstone Art Musuem's 43rd Annual Art Auction. The auction takes place in March 2011 at the museum in Billings, Montana. I've posted the two paintings below:

 This painting titled "Prairie King" is a stylized building thunderhead in the late afternoon sky. It's a visualization of any and all of the super clouds that I've witnessed over years of observation. I used birch panel for the support instead of canvas. Sometimes I prefer this kind of surface over stretched canvas because it "fights back" when you attack it with brush and palette knife. "Prairie King" is 20 inches by 20 inches.

This painting is titled "Powerful Storm" and is not as recent a work as "Prairie King" (which was completed this past spring.) "Powerful Storm" is one of my favorite works out of what I've done over the past four or five years. It depicts a tremendous storm I witnessed over the eastern edge of the Belt Mountains about 80 miles west of Lewistown. The far left solitary mountain is an extinct volcano cinder cone. To create this work, I thinned the oil paint and then applied it in several layers so that layers remained visible through successive layers. The whole effect is very drawing-like and textural. "Powerful Storm" is 18 inches by 24 inches.
A further note about this painting: I've recently opened an online art sales shop on Etsy.com and included this painting as one of the few that I initially posted. The notification deadline for the art auction was long past and since I'd not received any word regarding my entries, I figured it meant I wasn't selected. So imagine my surprise when I got today's mail! (which, by the way, was postmarked over a week ago---and it's normally "next day" delivery to Lewistown from Billings.) So, I got to see how Etsy's delete and archive functions work!