A rail car, a tractor, a feeding wagon, dead flowers, a canal lock, some houses and a bridge.

      I didn't vote for the jerk in the white house!, I could elaborate, but there are many blogs out there that do just that, so I'm going to stick with my mission and blog about my work. For the last few weeks my production has been a bit down, like my mood, cold and grey.  But carry on I must and that I'm finding, one step at a time.

      Yesterday as I drove over the R.R. tracks and looked up, I saw the flat car parked about 1/2 way down and thought it would make a good subject.  We don't always have rail cars hanging around, so I went back later in the day.

              #932 R.R.tracks and flat car                   1-27-17                                  9x12

                 #931  Stevenson Rd. @ Edie Rd.                            1-26-17                             14x16

   This is the scene I found the other day, a little sun on fresh snow, unusual with the mostly grey days of January.

       I found this feeding wagon with two cows feeding, when I stopped and started to set up, they noticed my presence and wandered off!

          Here I have put down a lot of white paint, (snow)  and  started fleshing out the details by scratching them into the paint, I do this a lot, but here it's very visible.

      White can play a lot of tricks on you, sometimes it looks blueish and sometimes it looks reddish, and sometimes it looks yellowish.  Here the far field looked a bit reddish, with the foreground looking bluish but as it turned out I wasn't happy with the way the far field didn't recede as it should have.

        #930  Juniper Swamp Rd.  Shushan,  NY.                    1-25-17                         9x12

         This shows how I set up for sight size.

                               This is how I started, I would normally do the darkest darks and the lightest lights, but it seemed important to get a large swath of the background and then the lights of the flowers.  The premise I was taught was to do the "most different" thing at each and every step, you find the "most different" by looking at the subject and then the canvas, and back very quickly so that the differences are readily apparent, an oh, yes to squint.

                                  #929  Dead Flowers                   1-22-17                       12x11



      This is the un-official start of my "Canal Project"  here in Ft Edward, not far from where I often drive by. The last time I was looking at the map I saw this location and wondered why I hadn't been down this way, and there's a lot to paint there too!

    #928  Champlain Canal lock #8 Ft. Edward, NY           1-21-17                               12x16



             This is my house, it was done a little hastily (not too uncommon)  but it's got the light on the side and the woods in the back.

        #927 Outfront                                      1-17-17                                              9x12

          This is one of my favorite bridges!

          #926  Hoosic River @ Buskirk's bridge                       1-16-17                           12x16

          I wandered down to Hoosick Falls and found myself by the Sand Bar, a local pub, and a neighborhood that's seen better times.

       #925  Hoosick Falls, NY                          1-13-17                                           11x12