"Waiting to be Dumped On" -- plein air field study -- 11x14" -- oil on board -- Margie Guyot

Yesterday I drove around the country roads, looking for something amazing to paint. Nothing looked interesting: it was overcast, gray and blah-looking! I made it my rule never to paint anything that didn't amaze me. So I came home. Decided to take a hike down the road for some exercise.

Old Dixie Highway is just a 2-lane blacktop and nearly deserted in winter. It's a very safe place to walk, especially when there is snow and ice. I veered off onto Fox Mission, a luxury home subdivision. Thanks to the economy, lots may have been sold, but nobody's built anything up there yet. So it's all MINE!

The driveway goes through a pine woods, through a cattail swamp and then up a ridge that overlooks Lake Michigan. It's beautiful up there. A flash of something white caught my eye. It was a whitetail deer. He (or she) and his 11 buddies scampered off into the pine woods. I walked over there to take a peek at the landscape and saw this scene. I loved it! The shapes of the melting snow were amazing (to me, anyway).

I took a shortcut home, hiking down the snow-covered field and crossing the frozen creek. Thank goodness it was frozen! I couldn't find the bridge. Cut though my neighbor's yard and went to my studio. Loaded the Explorer with my paints and drove back up to Fox Mission.

It was 5 PM by then and the light was starting to fade. Northen Michigan was under a posted storm warning, expecting "up to 10 inches" of snow over these next few days. So the sky had a dark, brooding feel to it. Surprisingly, it was quite pleasant up there. Compared to other painting experiences I've had lately, it was great. The wind was blocked by the pine trees. It wasn't too cold. I loved it!

This painting seemed to paint itself. Well, it was pretty simple in composition and basically had only 3 values to it. There were no strong blue shadows. No glaring snow. Things were very grayed-out. Notice how the dead-grass background is more of a red tone? I learned that in Scott Christensen's workshop last fall: as the land recedes, it increases in red. Little tips like that make paintings turn out better.

I got home in time to soak my brushes in soapy water, clean my palette, drop off my gear in the studio and drive up to the Charlevoix Library for a lecture on the Mt. Everest disaster. One of our local men was up on the mountain, 400 feet from the top of the mountain when he had to turn back. 8 men died on that trek, which several books have been written about, including "Into Thin Air" by John Krakauer.

"Cal's Maples" -- plein air field study -- oil on canvas -- 11x14" -- Margie Guyot

This morning my friend Mike and I met at our friend Cal's house, just south of Charlevoix. He's got these giant, old maple trees in his front yard. As I drove up I saw these and knew I just had to paint them. The fall colors are starting up here. Some of the maples are fiery red, but some are still quite green. Old maple trees can get quite gnarly and weird-looking!

I'm still trying to get used to the new color palette I learned at Scott Christensen's workshop out near Jackson Hole. I really like the color range, but I think I will need to add a few colors to work here in Michigan in the fall.

Last fall I was occupied with packing and moving up here and had NO time to paint at all, so it's been a real treat to get out and paint.

"N. Dennis Rd. -- Morning" -- field study 8x10" on canvas -- oil -- Margie Guyot

This was one of those mornings where I wanted to get going, without wasting time to shower & primp. Like a stray dog, scavenging for tidbits from garbage cans, I scavanged for wearable dirty clothes from my dirty clothes basket. Washed my face and took a "French whore's bath", spraying deoderant, as my neighbor calls it. Threw my paints into the Explorer and I was off!

This was painted on a little one-lane gravel road near Ellsworth, Michigan. It's North Dennis Road, off Essex Road. For months I'd drive past this road and always looked down it as I passed, admiring the shadows cast over the road. This morning I decided to go paint it.

It may be September 22 here, but few of the trees have changed color yet. They say the bright yellows and reds are at their height the first 2 weeks of October. What I liked about this scene was the thin ray of sunlight that fell across the road.

The sky was a kind of strange cream color, with high clouds a good portion of the day. It wasn't really blue. Maybe a rainstorm is coming this way soon.

The colors I used for this painting are the colors Scott Christensen uses. I just returned from a workshop with him out in the Jackson Hole, Wyoming, area. He uses the 3 primary colors (red, yellow & blue plus white) and an additional 7 grayed tones. I was skeptical of his palette at first, but grew to really like it. Having those extra gray-tones helps speed up the painting. This painting practically painted itself.

" '63 Willys" -- oil field study -- 11x14"
-- Margie Guyot

For the past two weeks I'd been out in Victor, Idaho, taking a plein air workshop with Scott Christensen. My good friend Carole Flaherty let me stay in one of her little log cabins. Their property butts right up to the national forest (in the Tetons area) and it was very beautiful. A few years ago Carole bought this interesting-looking '63 Willy (I'm not sure if I'm spelling it right) as a birthday present for her husband. Never mind that it didn't have a working motor! Patrick's a hellfire mechanic. He put in a new motor and they tool around Victor in it. The front windshield's got a crack in it, but I think it adds to the charm.

After class I'd come back to Carole's and set up my easel by the Willys. The sunlight falling across the hood only stayed like that for about 5 minutes for me, by the time I got there. So it was "paint fast"! I'd set my easel up at the side of the gravel road leading up into the mountain and had to move it a couple times for jeeps on their way up.

Painting this vehicle was a nice little break from painting mountains and fields all day. At least it was close up and a big, solid shape.