Forest Shadows - Daily Landscape Painting

Forest Shadows - 6x8 - Landscape

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Wow! I think this may be the first vertically oriented painting I've done of a landscape. I'll admit, it made me a bit dizzy at first. But when I saw the reference photo it made me want to go take a walk through the trees, and I knew I had to paint it!

Last Light on Peoh Point - Cle Elum Oil Painting

Last Light on Peoh Point - Oil on Panel - 6x6

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The enchantingly unique Peoh Point, looming over Cle Elum in central Washington, had the most beautiful colors cast on it's face by the setting sun when I visited earlier this year. I loved the time I spent painting in the area, it's very paintable! =)

Cloud Break Over Hell's Canyon - Idaho Landscape Painting

Cloud Break Over Hell's Canyon - 6x6 - Landscape

I have a soft spot for Hell's Canyon, which is why it pops up in my paintings fairly often. I have many many photos of the area from when I helped fight the Poe Cabin Fire there in 2007, and it really is the landscape that made me fall in love with wilderness.

I spent the weekend with family in Boise, ID, so you can look forward to some paintings from the Idaho foothills in the future!

Wallowa Fields - Oil Painting near Joseph, OR

Wallowa Fields - 6x6 - Oil on Ampersand Gessobord

Chief Joseph Mountain guards the horizon in this meditative view found on Google Street View. It's getting a bit too late this year to make a trip to that part of the Northwest, just because I'm an utter wimp when it comes to the cold!

Teanaway Dusk - Sunset in Eastern Washington Painting

Teanaway Dusk - 5x7

There is something special about the Cle Elum area. I had so much fun tromping around, taking pictures, being amazed by the landscape, basically heaven. What I love about this area is that unlike the arid shrub steppe area I live in (and do love), the Teanaway area is this interesting place where evergreen forests and desert collide in a spectacular way. The weather is fairly warm and dry (for the Pacific NW), but you still get that clean mountain air! 

Road to the Wallowas - Eastern Oregon Eagle Cap Painting

Road to the Wallowas - 5x7 - Landscape

Despite not even visiting yet, Joseph, Oregon, is on my short list of places I could see living. It's temptingly located close to the Imnaha River Valley (another spot I'd like to see in person), Hell's Canyon, the Blue Mountains and the Wallowa Mountains! That's a lot of painting material. Seeing as I can't stand the cold, however, summer trips to the area may have to suffice!

This painting was painted from Google Maps Street View, there are some gorgeous mountain views in HD around the Joseph/Enterprise, Oregon, area!

Chinook Pass View - Washington Landscape painting

Chinook Pass View • Landscape • 6x6

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Chinook Pass is one of the beautiful scenic areas that I have yet to visit. If my tour through Google Street View was any indication, though, I'll need to soon! It's simply a stunning area with looming views of Mount Rainier and those one of a kind, misty, clouds that make the Cascades unique.

Quiet Day in the Teanaway - Pacific Northwest Landscape Painting

Quiet Day in the Teanaway - Oil on Panel - 6x6

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Don't worry, I've still been painting! I was able to recharge my creative juices while staying in Cle Elum, Washington. It's a small town on the east side of I-90 with sunshine and clean mountain air. When I first stepped out of the car, the smell of the air almost had me ready to move there! I'm putting it on my ever growing list of places to build a cabin some day.

I was in Cle Elum to participate in the High Country Artist's Fresh Air Paint Out, though I'll be missing most of the events taking place through this week I'm so glad I was able to spend the weekend there. Three larger paintings will be displayed in the Carpenter House Museum this next week, the reception is Friday from 6pm-8pm.

I had so much fun painting en plein air, more works will be uploaded soon!

Clouds Over the Blues - Landscape Oil Painting by Melanie Thompson

Clouds Over the Blues - Landscape - 6x6 - Oil on Panel

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I've almost always painted clouds as white. But lately I've been noticing that even if they look white to my eye outside, if I paint them pure white, or even the palest yellow, it doesn't seem to convey the sunlight of that moment quite right. So I've been trying new ways of coloring clouds, and I'm enjoying the results!

I captured the reference photo used for this painting on a hike near the Godman Guard Station in the Blue Mountains of south-east Washington State. I was so excited to go, and so obsessed with what plein air gear I would pack, that I forgot to grab my hiking boots! So it was a hike in my Sanuk flip flops made from yoga mats; thankfully the air was warm and the sandals comfy. They did pretty well!

Holding the Line - Wildfire Landscape Oil Painting

Holding the Line - 6x6 - Oil on Panel 

NFS

Night ops. If you're lucky, you're handed a drip torch, which essentially is a watering can that pours flames, and begin fighting fire with fire. If you're not as lucky you'll get to spend the next several hours doing your best to not watch the active flame front, instead looking the opposite direction to make sure no floating embers light spot fires behind you. It's a dirty job, but someone has to hold the line.

Ochoco Color Study - Original Oregon Landscape Painting

Ochoco Color Study - 6x6 - Oil on Canvas panel - Landscape

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I'm having some MAJOR issues with a large painting of this scene, so I'm creating smaller studies to test some of the color/composition ideas I've had.

This scene is somewhere in the Ochoco Mountains of eastern Oregon. On our way home from a trip to the John Day Fossil Beds my husband and I programmed the GPS to take us home, and followed the course it told us to. I've been looking and looking at maps trying to figure out where exactly it took us, because the route made NO sense at all. We didn't realize that, of course, until we were at the summit of the Ochoco range on a US Forest Service road, seeing traces of snow and thinking "Wouldn't 395 have been faster?" But I did catch a glimpse of this great little stream, and here it is!

Hillside Patterns - 6x6 - Oil on Panel - Landscape

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This little gem of a hillside is somewhere in Idaho, near Hell's Canyon. I've been going through a lot of my old firefighting photos looking for good references, and this view from near our base camp caught my eye!