TomWolfeArt

oct. 12, 2008

Howdy. Well, it has been a gorgeous fall so far with the cottonwoods along the river turning gold enough to herald the running of the brown trout. There have been enough cool nights to make the wild plums sweet and pickable and it has been a good chokecherry and apple harvest. Today, however, is a good day to be inside. The second day into winter's first incursion into the area and there are two feet of snow on the level up here at the cabin. It's still coming down in bigger and bigger flakes and the weather people figure it will be with us a couple more days! I sure am glad to have a fire going in the fireplace and hot soup on the stove. Don't worry, there is enough firewood to last a hundred years and the freezer are full. The last time in town I picked up some extra coffee and a couple of bottles of wine just in case... Let it snow. The brushes are handy and all is ready to paint. I just finished a couple of new watercolors you might like. A couple of cowboys in the New Work section. I hope you enjoy them. This weather is perfect for painting so with any luck I will be adding a few more in the next couple of days. I am thinking of cranking up the truck and seeing how traveling in this snow is. It wouldn't hurt to get a trail broke. I am so cozy, though, that I might just put it off until tomorrow. Those of you who know what my road looks like will realize that if it keeps on snowing all night, tomorrow will be a more sporting adventure anyway. I hope you are well and thanks for dropping by. From, Tom

July

Thank you for checking in.  I am off to the mountains for a couple of months so won't be writing an update until I get back.  The horses are all shod.  Most of the gear is packed.  The paints and canvas are ready and with any luck a few paintings will come out of this.  I look forward to sharing them with you in September or so.  Until then, Vaja con Dios. 

Tom

June

Howdy.  Here it is June already and the world keeps on spinning.  After a winter of painting for other people I took some time off and painted a piece that I wanted to paint.  I found a photo of three pelicans standing in the water with their reflections and after tweaking it a bit I came up with a 22X28 inch oil in only 2 1/2 days.  Amazing how easy it goes if I'm painting for myself as opposed to trying to figure out what other people want me to paint.  Don't get me wrong, I still welcome the commissions, but from here on out we are going to be very definite about artistic license.

The other two pictures are watercolors.  The Indian carrying wood to the tee-pee is from an Edward S. Curtis photo.  The landscape is another one of Sheep Mountain (a local chunk of rock here in Nye).  I hope you like them.  Other than that it is just usual spring stuff.  I threw my back out at a neighbors branding the other day.  This comes just in time to shoe the horses and clear the trail to Lake Plateau.  Maybe the silver lining part of this will be to get more painting done while healing up...

Well, have a good month and I'll check in later.  Thank you.

Tom

May Update 2

It's spring here in Nye and everything is rolling along nicely.  I got a new camera finally and you can see the latest stuff in New Works.  "Sharing the Pipe" is a 30X40 oil I did for my neighbor.  It shows the view of the mountains in my back yard.  The Indians were posed in my neighbor's imagination as were the fire-lit teepee's in the lower Right corner.  The water colors are local landscapes here in Nye as well.

I took a watercolor workshop from Mike Capser for a couple days and I am very excited to get out and use what I have learned.  Mike is a nationally known sculptor and watercolorist.  We have painted together in our local quick draws and I have admired his work for a long time.  The workshop was great and we cooked up a pack trip into the mountains to paint this summer.

Well, it's a beautiful day and I think I'll go look for a painting in it.  Thanks for dropping in.  I hope you enjoy the new work!

-Tom

May Updates

Thank you for dropping by.  Sorry to have been gone so long.  I actually have been working but broke the camera again.  Seems to me if they make it big enough to fit in your pocket it aught to be tough enough to be in your pocket.  Oh, well.  I'll work on getting a new one (again).

I just got back from the annual Montana Horses Horse Drive over in Three Forks, MT, and I'll tell you what:  Kail and Rene Mantle put on one heck of a first class horse drive and I highly recommend you to look them up at Montana Horses.com.  This years photos aught to be posted there soon if not already.  This year the famous photographer Barbara Van Cleeve was on board with her camera.  I think you can get a link from Montana Horses or check Barbara Van Cleve's website here.

Before the horse drive I was doing some watercolor landscapes.  I put the big 30x40 oil of the two Indians around the campfire on hold for a bit but now have a couple ideas to try.  This should be done within the week but will depend on the condition of the fence around the fasture.  It is finally looking like spring around here and the horses are wandering from the haystack to the green grass.  A good thing, too, as if there are any pictures of Big John and I on the horse drive youw ill see that he was getting too thin.  When I turned him out upon our return home last night he looked content to remedy that situation, however.

Well, I'll go find a new camera so we can get back to updating last months stuff.  Until then, vaja con Dios.

-Tom

March Update

Howdy!  Thanks for checking in. I finished the portrait of my friends Ed and Dan Shay and it is in the new work if you want to take a look. They have been coming to the mountains with me for 20 years and this particular picture was taken from a photo when we were on a trip to a place called Rabbit Gulch back in 1999...  We were camped in an old Indian camp and playing our annual Beartooth Open Gin Rummey Tournament. On a break we rode over the hill to the top of Cathedral Mountain and in the background you can see the divide between Flood Creek and the Stillwater. I forget who won the tournament that year but we did find the old blown-in trail my grampa used to talk about that goes from Horseman Flat to the Lake Plateau. It is so overgrown now most people think it stops where the photo was taken but in fact it takes an ancient mountain sheep route to paradise. With any luck I'll try to remember to throw some photos on the website next summer. It looks like I'll be taking a few trips again as some folks want to head back up and I can't think of any reasons why not to take them. This year I will be working through the old forest service permit I sold years ago (to stay legal and be insured). I know, I always say I'm going to head for the hills and paint all summer but somehow I think I'd miss the company. Not many trips mind you. Ed and Dan will be coming out, as will a few other folks. It's pretty well whittled down to people who know how to relax, do a little fishing, cook up a few decent meals and every now and then something to cleanse the palette. There are still two weeks open if you want to throw in with this kind of pace.

This month I've been working on a 30x40 oil of two Indians smoking a pipe around a fire on a winters evening. In the background you can see their camp with the tee pees lit by fires from within and the background climbs up into the mountains a few miles from here where everything is lit by the full moon. There is finally paint on the entire canvas and I hope to get it moved around to the right places and up on the web site for you to look at soon. Until then, thanks for dropping by.

Sincerely, Tom

February Update

      Howdy! Long time no see um! I finally got a new camera a couple weeks ago and yesterday I installed the soft wear for it. I apologize for taking so long to get the photos up. Considering my technical skills in such matters I'm lucky to get this far. It's not that I haven't been painting. In fact, I am putting a few of the new pieces up and hope you like them.

     Winter continues on here in Nye. Today is sunny and bright, a layer of snow on the ground and about 20 degrees. Last night was perfect for a bonfire or three so I went out and torched off some of the piles of dry branches I stacked up this fall. It's part of my fire prevention program up here on the mountain and since the big wind knocked down a bunch of trees this fall it has become a regular part life around here when the conditions are right: cold and snowy. Last night I lit three fires that shot flames 20 or so ft. in the air, snapped and roared and put on a fine show. I have always liked hanging around a campfire and bouncing back and forth between these was a lot of fun. They lit up the evening in fine form. Plenty warm even below zero. Mountains lit up by the moon and plenty of stars.

     As for painting I am busy on a 20x24 in. oil portrait of a couple Friends of mine up in the mountains. I finished the Buffalo Wallow oil as far as it is going to go. We had our local one room school pie auction the other night so I did a still life of a lemon meringue. If you check the new work category you'll find a couple watercolors of my friend Jack Ross at a branding we were at last spring. Jack is pretty handy with the irons and is a good judge of fine scotch. He and I have kicked around in the mountains on more than one good pack trip and we generally manage to have a fine time.

     About the only other thing going is feeding the horses every now and then and checking their water. Pretty quiet and that suits me right down to the ground.

     Well, I guess I'll split a little wood, throw some in the fireplace and get back to the portrait. When I took the reference picture I'm working from we were up at the head of Flood Creek on the top of Cathedral Mountain. It was August and using the easel to transport me there should be fun. Of course, it'll get posted when done so hopefully you'll enjoy it, too. Till then, thanks for dropping by.  Sincerely, Tom

Mid Winter Musings

     Howdy! Thanks for checking in. A lot has been happening around here lately. I apologize for not getting any recent pictures up but I broke my camera last month. I was down in Yellowstone Park helping a friend of mine reclaim the old 1910 era floors from the Old Faithful Inn. He uses the wood for frames. In fact, I am so excited about some of the inlaid Rosetta frames he has been making that I put in a big order for some and hope to get them out soon. But I'm ahead of myself. The park is closed to tourists this time of year and there was a skeleton crew of workers refurbishing the Inn: an amazing log structure built back at the turn of the century. Anyway, as long as I had Old Faithful all to myself  I went out one crystal clear day at seven degrees below zero to have lunch. Just as I set foot up on the best view of the observation area the old geyser blew and although I've heard stories of how it isn't as great as it used to be and all that, I was amazed when it blasted into the air. Maybe it was the steam in the frozen air, or maybe it really did go as high as I've ever seen it ( and I've been lucky enough to have lived near it all my life). I don't know. All I know is it was great and I was so excited about the pictures I was getting I dropped my camera and broke it. I retrieved the memory chip and am excited about doing the painting, hopefully in the early part of the new year. It'll look swell in one of the Old Faithful Frames. I'll keep you posted. The camera is another story...

     As far as the Crow Indian Series is going I have been having fun doing a series of watercolor studies and just started doing the oils. I'll try to get them on the web site as soon as I coral a new camera...

     Time moves along up here on the mountain in Nye. There is snow on the ground and a fire in the fireplace every day. We had some amazing wind for a couple of days last month. Some gusts were clocked at over 120 miles an hour. Some neighbors lost the roofs of their houses. I lost some big old Ponderosa pines but the cabin rode it out in fine form.The horses are home from fall pasture and I have been busy cutting the trees off the fences around the winter pastures. The rest of the time is spent at the easel. Hunting season is over and a friend of mine said he saw my big bull the day after it closed. I look forward to his stopping by for a visit once he's had a chance to settle down. ( The elk that is.) It's not easy being as grand a bull as he is without a few folks running you around during the hunt. I'm glad he outsmarted them though. It will be fun to look for his horns when he sheds them.    

     Well, I hope all is as you would like it to be in your world and once again thank you for dropping by. Enjoy your tour.

Sincerely, Tom

Fall Happenings

Hello!  Thank you for visiting my website.  Not that it matters much, but I am writing this as I am sitting out on my deck on a September evening and a fine six point bull elk is carousing with some cows over a hill across the way.  My cat is pretending to stalk some wild turkeys that just wandered in.  I call them the 'old philosophers'. 

This afternoon I painted a watercolor of my niece.  She is part of a series of Crow Indian paintings I am working on this fall.  The paintings include my niece 'Sarah', her mother 'Amber', and her great grandmother 'Naomi Many Hoops', who is the keeper of the tabacco seeds for the Crow Nation. 

These three generations are providing an interesting way to spend my time this fall and I hope you will check back every now and then to view my progress.  The plan is to paint a series of watercolors as studies for some oil paintings.  I will post them here as they are completed.  I will try to mix it up with some local landscapes here in Shangri-La (Nye, Montana). 

There are a few other ideas in the offing as well.  I hope you will enjoy viewing them as much as I am enjoying painting them and again, thank you for your interest.