Cheekwood

Painted with Plein Air Nashville this morning at Cheekwood and had quite a turn out. The most I have seen in a long time. This little painting would be much, much, better had SOMEbody not dropped a tripod on it.
I picked up the latest Art of the West magazine the other night and there is a layout in it titled,"Winter Wonderland."The first painting in the article is a Cyrus Afsary, followed by a Len Chmiel, a John DeMott and on to a Richard Schmid. By the time I got to the Richard Schmid I could feel my rods and cones shutting down from too much incredible art that they were trying to filter through to my brain. I am a sucker for a winter landscape and these are some doosies. I think Richard Schmid is the best at making trees "barky", rocks hard, snow soft, clouds airy, and on and on. Giving an object its inherent qualities that make it unique. You can tell what kind of tree, the softness of a flower, the age of a barn, the coarseness of a fabric through a suggestion of texture and those beautiful lost and found edges. Even though it's just paint applied to a 2-D surface you can "feel" everything in the painting, from temperature to moisture in the air. Awesome.