Evening Gathering

The entire landscape of this painting was captured "en plein air"! I placed the linen canvas on the back of my van, and drove half way down my dirt drive, about 200 feet from the landscape that is shown in this painting! I had sketched out where the figures of the women and geese would be, and left that portion clear of any paint. So that returning to my studio, I could create the figures (with reference I had shot over the previous 15 years), painted the white geese and the two women, to finish up this creation.
I started painting in a looser style, back in the early '80s. When I had a nice selection of paintings, I traveled to the main galleries in the west: in Arizona, N. Mexico and Colorado. At each one, the owner took a quick look at my work, NOT CLOSE UP...and each said the exact same thing: "We don't handle art that is that loose." Well, a few years later, in 1982, there was a major European exhibition from museums and private collections that traveled from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, and it went to every fine art museum, called "A Day in the Country" (the catalogue can still be purchased on line). By the time it got to N.Y....practically every artist was painting looser! Then, I was lost in the crowd!!