Autumn Trees, and Near Red Lodge

Autumn Trees

Oil on canvas, 10x20

As I'm writing this, I am heading home, and it looks like I will probably get home in time for Halloween. It's a little confusing to be posting paintings that I was making as I was heading to Wisdom, but it's OK. So for at least a couple days, I'm going to send more than one painting in each newsletter. 

I made this painting on Tongue River Canyon Road, the day after I painted "Red Afternoon." That day, the "Red Afternoon Day," I had been planning on leaving Sheridan, Wyoming and heading to Montana. But I had such an amazing painting day, the colors were so beautiful and exciting, the landscape so inspiring, I stayed another night in Sheridan. That night. I saw this painting in my mind. I understood what I wanted to paint, how I wanted to see it, how I could make the trees look like flames, how the painting would feel. I went back the next morning, found a perfect spot to pull over, and painted, fast and sure of myself, before the rain came. 

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Near Red Lodge

10x10

I drove to Red Lodge, Montana, and as I mentioned in a previous newsletter, didn't find it particularly compelling. It was nice enough, but not what I wanted to see or paint. The road to the town, however, was lovely, and vibrant and alive in the brilliant afternoon sun. 

It's often difficult to find a good, safe place to pull off the road and paint. In New England, and the East in general, there are ditches along nearly every road. There are ditches in the West, too, but there are also regular pull-in spots, designed, I think, for farm and ranch equipment. These are just long enough to get my van into safely, and I've used them whenever I've found them. 

Near Red Lodge, I found a huge flat space belonging to the state Department of Transportation, I think. My guess is that they store sand there, perhaps, and park snowplows and big pieces of equipment there in the winter. But when I was there, it was empty, and lined with beautiful, bright yellow trees. 

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Yes, where there are trees in Wyoming and Montana, they are brilliant yellow, with tints of orange and green, shimmering and shining in the fall sun. The rest of the land is beautifully colored this October, if more subtle, less brash than the tamaracks and cottonwoods. 

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Dog of the Day

It's Tuffy, whom I met at a hotel near Red Lodge. His human had come to Montana from Oregon, and brought Tuffy along. The dog had belonged to the man's mother, who had died. Tuffy was missing an eye when the mother got him from the shelter, but it didn't seem to faze the dog in the least.