To my family: Sorry

Well that was a nice break. Glad to be back though. Here's a gifted painting.

Shannyn: "Josh, are you going to paint a desert painting for my grandparents for Christmas? You know, like you said you would?"

Me: "Uhhh, yes."

Me inside my head: "Oh god my family is going to hate me for this." (I haven't painted them anything.)

Classic Arizona. 10x14

Sun Shower

So I haven't been painting so much this last week. Some friends came to visit and I had to pack up the studio. This week I'll be in Houston, but next week I can hopefully start painting again. I do have a couple paintings I'm giving as gifts, so I'll post those after they're gifted. In the meantime, here's a quick painting I did a couple weeks ago of a sunlit scene with a rainy background sky.

It was more of a warm up exercise, but I liked it enough to post it. Besides, I've been posting a lot of snow lately, and I'm tired of that. Enjoy, and Happy Holidays!

Shadows

In the winter here, the sun only reaches about 20 degrees into the sky each day. That means it's always hanging low, casting long dramatic shadows across the ground.

It's pretty, eh? 10x12

The View

This is the view from our balcony. One night, there were low clouds gliding above the city and they were lit up bright yellow by the lights.

There was one cloud that was just moving past the Olympic Tower, creating a thin white haze that the tower's lights glared through down onto the city. 12x16

Avenue Papineau

A recent snowstorm has transformed the cityscape. For a couple days, there was no distinction between roads, sidewalks, curbs, parks or anything on the ground. It was just an endless sea of snow that left familiar scenes looking completely new.

A familiar scene, near the bus stop across the street, caught my attention. I don't know why, but I felt like painting this one VERY fast. Maybe it was because the urge I felt to paint it once I saw it carried over onto the canvas once I got upstairs. Anyway, it went by quickly, and its very sloppy, but I thought I captured the scene fairly well. 10x12

Winter Mountains

This one goes out to all my home boys in New Mexico. I looked at pics of the Sandias to pull inspiration for this one. 6x12

Place d'Armes

Finally, it feels like winter. In honor of the changing weather, I painted a popular Montreal scene, Place d'Armes, in a blizzard.

I was pretty excited about the way this one turned out. The sharper details of the foreground lamps opposed to the blurred background scene really create a heavy atmosphere. It looks cold! 12x16

Paint

Waited around ready to paint but wondering what to paint for several minutes before I decided to just paint my paint. Yep. 4x5

Larger Images!

Hey guys, I adjusted the dimensions of the blog to allow for larger images. This means we can all see them a little better! Of course, it looks fine on my computer, but if it's not working properly for some reason on yours, please let me know. Also, I'm trying out a new banner up top. Do you like?

Have a good one!