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Dead Horse Paint Out

       Dead Horse Yurt 1

Storm at Yurt 1

One of my favorite places – Dead Horse Point State Park

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Friends –

These last two days were spent in one of my favorite places – Dead Horse Point State Park. With some friends I rented two nights in two yurts and headed there to paint plein air. Unfortunately, a winter storm also decided to camp out at this beautiful part of the world and time out from the rain was infrequent. Yet, we did have plenty of time to enjoy each other's company, along with some good jokes and good food. And in spite of the stormy weather, we managed to find time for brief hikes. And some of us actually managed to paint!

Attached are my two paintings from Dead Horse. The first was a view from outside the back deck of our Yurt #2. But on this one I cheated. I snapped the photo Saturday afternoon when we arrived, and when it came time to paint on Sunday morning, it was raining too hard. So, I parked my easel inside -- near the window with the same view -- but relied on my cell phone photo extensively.

By Sunday afternoon the rain seemed to stop. So I set up outside this time, to paint nearly the same scene as before. It was windy and bitter cold, but two of us managed to stick it out. Alas, before two hours had passed, the rain began to fall again, so I withdrew. But luckily, my quick draw painting was close enough to call it 'done'.

I hope you enjoy these images. It made me happy to work the oils outdoors again and I am looking forward to more.

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