It’s been a long time since I’ve made a blog post!
Things have been so (almost) over-scheduled and over-committed that I decided to throw in something new! You know, to use up whatever “free time” is lingering around.
I’m so glad I did.
I wrote about this for a recent “Laura’s Corner” column of the Kingsbury County News:
Little Paintings on the Prairie
In August of 2024, I was an observer during the Harvey Dunn Society’s Plein Air event. I was inspired and decided I’d be a participant in 2025. First, though, I’d need to learn. With a year, there was plenty of time, right? (Insert laughter here!)
Suddenly the 2025 event was a mere two weeks away. Did I give up? I did not! With a frantic immersion in online instructional videos, supplies were obtained, and the event registration was submitted. I then delusionally drove to De Smet full of optimism and adventure. Mostly I wanted to sit in the sunshine and enjoy the scenery and see what might transpire as I tried to capture some sense of the landscape via watercolor.
What a joy the weekend was! Among the locations visited were the old Dow and Dunn lands south of Manchester. There, I simply prowled around, wondering what it looked like when Harvey Dunn was crafting his prairie paintings. In reality, it probably looked quite similar, except the buildings he tended to include were gone. The bending grasses, gentle hills, sparkling waters, and beautiful blue skies, however, remained.
The same can be said of Wilder’s masterful descriptions of sunsets. According to my calculator, there have been more than fifty-three thousand sunsets since Wilder saw her first Dakota twilight, and they are as stunning today as then.
As Wilder wrote in Little Town on the Prairie, “The sun is sinking, Mary, into white downy clouds that spread to the edge of the world. All the tops of them are crimson, and streaming down from the top of the sky are great gorgeous curtains of rose and gold with pearly edges. They are a great canopy over the whole prairie. The little steaks of sky between them are clear, pure green.”
One evening, I spent over an hour driving around taking photos from various vantage points as the sky progressed towards a stunning sunset, and I have scores of photos to show for it. They’ll serve as reference photos over the coming year as I learn and practice trying to capture that glowing essence of a prairie sunset.
The 2026 Plein Air event is already reserved on my calendar, and this time I won’t be squandering the learning time between now and then. I don’t know whether my skills will be able to even partially capture a prairie lake, or the afternoon sun warming the grasses, or the tracks crossing the eastern part of the Big Slough.
But mostly, I hope to put paint to paper in an attempt to capture the beauty of one of those prairie sunsets, my own visual version of Wilder’s heart-felt words.
I’ve spent the time since August continuing to learn how to make use of the unique properties of watercolor painting as a medium.
I’ve practiced nearly every day that I’ve been home, and am working hard on a few techniques that are absolutely befuddling me. Watercolor takes patience and experience to wrangle! The alchemy of water, paper, and pigment, and how much to use at any given moment, is not unlike what I’ve discovered as I’ve learned to play cello. There are A LOT of moving parts. Especially with watercolor—literally! Uffda!
But, it has also been the perfect zen activity after a day of research and writing. It is calming (even when things go awry!), and I get to learn something new.
There is still much to learn, and I suspect this is a never-ending-opportunity for learning. If we think of skill set on a scale from preschool to college, I think I’d rate myself at the kindergarten level, but I am hoping to bravely advance to first grade soon.
I’m taking some online courses from a teacher that I enjoy learning from, and the next lesson is a winter scene…meaning I have to make it look like snow-on-the-ground in realistic-but-impressionistic layers. ack!
In most other art mediums, you can pile on white at the end. In watercolor, the lightest color goes on first, then you build towards dark. Any white is the paper, and you have to “paint around” what you want to stay white, and ensure that the pigment stays where you want it to be.
Sure, you can sprinkle white ink splatters at the end to create the appearance of stars across the night sky, but that won’t work for an entire snow scene. With mountains. And trees. UFFDA who knew trees were so darn difficult?!?!?!
Attention to detail is important, but I forget sometimes.
I’ve been brave enough to commit some scenes to the front of watercolor-paper cards, and mail them to friends.
On one of the first ones, I was very focused on creating a beautifully glowing sunset. I had the bright yellow right at the horizon line, then had layered it orange then pink then blue…I was really happy with how that sunset base was working out.
THEN I PROMPTLY PUT THE SUN ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE PAINTING.
Of course, it was supposed to be immediately above that glowing part of the sky—you know, like how it would be “in the wild!”
le sigh.
BUT…the little Bob Ross standing on my shoulder said “no worries, just hide most of that glow and it will be fine!” So…I hid most of that glowing sunset area behind some red-rock formations, so that the sun on the right side of the painting didn’t look so other-worldy 😉 My daughter got to pick which card was sent to her from among the first four paintings, and she picked that one! So it must have been ok.
When I started this adventure at the Plein Air event in August, I was unknowingly using the watercolors more like crayons…dipping the brush in water, then in the pigment, then “coloring” the scene I wanted to render, without much thought about how to make best use of the behaviors of watercolor — the levels of transparency to opaqueness, the layering of colors, the transitions of colors. All the things that make watercolor so beautiful! I had no idea about ANY of that. I was definitely starting out at that preschool level. Or perhaps toddlerhood, still too young to be in preschool.
I’m still struggling, but am seeing improvements.
Because I’m scared of taking on that beautiful winter scene that is the next online lesson, I’ve been working on prairie sunsets. Current focus is trying to get a good handle on how to do a blazing sky, and to understand why—oh why—certain things happen—or don’t. I’m getting there…kinda.
But each time I decide “I think I’ve got this!” something goes terribly wrong. So back to the drawing board (or paint board) I go. And it gets a little better most of the time.
Sometimes I get tired of even that, and pull out a blank sheet, divide it into quadrants, and create a red-rock-canyon type of painting out of my head. Then I go back to the prairie scenes.
It’s been a lot of fun. I’m hopeful that by the time the 2026 Plein Air event rolls around next August, I’ll be able to create things that show an improvement over my 2025 efforts.
Below are a few of the paintings I’ve been sending out into the world on the front of cards, from the Kindergarten Gallery. I’m figuring out the basics of the medium, and the ratios of water to pigment. I share these now as a benchmark to compare to after the Plein Air 2026 event.
Goals: draw better, and ESPECIALLY figure out perspective, reflections, and shadows.
THE POINT OF MY SHARING ALL OF THIS: If there is something you’ve always wanted to try, go for it! I had always wanted to play cello, but thought I was too old to learn something new. Whoever came up with that idea had no idea what they were talking about. Age has nothing to do with learning ability! I had always wanted to learn to paint with watercolor, and now I’m on my way with that, too. If you want to do something, do it!
Prairie Sunset cards: (the last of the prairie sunsets is the one my daughter picked, so you can see the sun on one side and the glowy sunset on the other side). I especially like to create those little fence-post corners. After the first card, I realized that they actually say “Hi” which is perfect for a card! So it is now “a thing” and I add them to most of the cards.
These are the Red Rock Canyon scenes:
This is my nemesis. Trying to make slender poles is a process I need to keep practicing, as is trying to capture the darkening grasses yet some glow from the sunset in the foreground. This is attempt #6 of this scene…
Combine a night sky with a red rock canyon area, and I’m especially happy. So I attempted a scene. Learned a few things, like the milky way really should stretch to the edges of the page…but it was only attempt #2 at a milky way sky, so I’m ok with it. Every attempt has learning opportunities!
Made this one as a wedding card for friends who recently married. The milky way got a bit out of hand because of the way the water was flowing around. Again, so much to learn about how to control this medium!
