Near the almost non-existant town of Oakley, IA sits this farm on the east side of the road. We stopped the car to get several photos and off we went before the owners could begin to wonder what we where doing. Soon I will be attending an art show; that means matting, framing, packing up everything, and setting up the tent. A lot of preperation.
I wanted to just slap the paint on the paper and get the sky and foreground in fast and furious.
This painting is about half finished. Maybe by the end of the week it will be done.
Winter corn fields might look like a barren sixty or more acres but to pheasants, deer, rabbits, and a multitude of other animals it is food for months, maybe even the whole winter. 
These are the same barns from the last post but in a different scene. Just trying to get the most mileage from one drawing. Maybe I'll have this finished in a week and ready to post.
The painting above is the finished product and the one below was the first version. I liked the beef cattle in the first design but I couldn't get the barns, cattle, and grass to all come together in one nice painting. So--Scrap It!!!! And start over. I like the rich colors of fall in the finished painting. It was worth the extra effort.
These are some chickens that I photographed as they were scratching for dinner. Have you ever watched chickens scratching the ground? They really go at it! This painting is over due for the post because our computor went on the blink- virus overload- and we had to take it to the computor hospital for an extended stay in ICU. 
Sorry it has taken me so long to post this. I have been on vacation visiting my kids in Nebraska and Ohio. One chicken done, 4 more to go.
Chickens are expected on a farm so here they are! These particular birds were photographed as they were pecking away at grain that was scattered all over the ground.
Now, this is one of the reasons people live in the midwest: gorgeous sunsets! Trying to capture the firey colors as the sun goes down is always a challenge but worth the try. And the colors in the grasses reflect the horizen so I tried to keep that as simple as possible.
I wanted to paint a dark barn against a sunset and so far it is coming out ok. The sky is very rich in color, just what I was looking for. Here in the midwest deep moving sunsets are quite common yet I try to appreciate them and take a minute to stop and pay attention to it.
The farther south we go in Iowa the more we see rolling hills and beef cattle. Between the towns of Lacona and Chariton it is very hilly and you see those dark cows grazing along the pastures.
Paintings are a strange thing. The unfinished version of this sat for almost a week. Just the sky was painted in but I didn't like it and the more I looked at it the more I wanted to redo it. Finally I said to myself "Self, you can't wreck it more than it is so just see what happens!" The more I painted the more I liked it and the sky was the perfect backdrop for this rural scene.
I pass this house and buildings each Sunday morning on the way to church and have been waiting for just the right time when the sun was illuminating it's left side. My goal is for that side of the house to be the only part of the painting lit by the sun.
