St Francis of Assisi Church, Taos NM

Another watercolor from our Santa Fe trip. We did a day trip to view the Spanish churches between Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico. This is the back end of the Church of St. Francis of Assisi. Well known from black and white photography by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, and also painted by Georgia O'Keefe. This was done plein air, interesting experience as it was about 85 degrees in the sun and the paper kept drying out while I was trying to do watercolor washes.

Ghost Ranch

This is my very first plein air oil painting. I bought the outdoor painting rig for our trip to Santa Fe. Ghost Ranch is a few miles north of Santa Fe, and is one of the places that Georgia O'Keefe lived and painted. I set up the painting rig and laid out my colors, the wind came up and flipped the whole easel over, flinging the glass palette full of paint out, jam side down, into the grass. So there I am picking twigs and rocks out of my paint, before I even touched the canvas. The whole time I was painting, I had to hold the easel down by one corner so it wouldn't fly away. I asked an experienced artist about my experience, and was advised that this is normal. Guess I should have bought the ballast bag... The horse in the picture is reputed to be over 40 years old, I have never seen a horse with a greater sway-back in my life!