"En "Plein Air" in the Scotchman Peaks

en Plein Air (official trailer) from Wildman Pictures on Vimeo.

You could call this "Extreme Plein Air."

Just 60 miles south of the Canadian border, Scotchman Peaks roadless area spans the Idaho-Montana border. Educational film company Wildman Pictures went there with a small group of painters to make a documentary about a five-day plein air adventure.

It should be completed and released this fall.

Panorama

The Guerrilla Painter has been working on a plein air panorama for the past several weeks. He goes up to the highest point on the ranch and paints a slightly different view every evening. Eventually, twenty-some paintings will form a complete 360* panorama of the surrounding landscape. The full moon was rising a few nights ago, and he said, "This is the first time I've had a sunset and a moonrise in the same painting."

He's noticed the difference each evening in the location (about 10 degrees longitude in a month's time) of the sunset and moonrise. There's nothing like painting outdoors to make you notice things that you usually don't even see.

Thank You, Dr. Estes

The Guerrilla Painter and I watch the news, sometimes more than I'd prefer. Of course, it's good to know what's going on, but lately things just seem to keep going over the top. It was good to be reminded recently of these words of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes:

"One of the most important steps you can take to help calm the storm is to not allow yourself to be taken in a flurry of overwrought emotion or despair — thereby accidentally contributing to the swale and the swirl. Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times.

I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it; I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate."

This is from her essay Letter to a Young Activist During Troubled Times, which was written shortly after 9/11.

Paintings: Jim Biggers and Mary B. White

We're finally getting around to hanging ten of Jim Biggers' landscape paintings here in the show-room. They make an impressive grouping since they average 20" each (plus the frame). We don't know if they are plein air or not. They depict various locations on Phantom Canyon Ranch, some from high vantage points and others down in the canyon. They were done in 1984.

In addition, there are three large plein air acrylic paintings by .Mary B. White, who is an old friend and former schoolmate of the Guerrilla Painter.

Come and see them Monday-Friday at 3121 Kintzley Court, LaPorte, Colorado, 9-4:30 Mountain Time. We are at the south end of the west building