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The large, bold landscapes I’m working on are not meant to be realistic landscape paintings. Some of my favorite art is California Impressionism. Also, I like Georgia O’Keefe’s and Maynard Dixon’s landscapes, American Modernism landscapes, and some American Regionalism landscapes. California Impressionism and American Regionalism were active during the Depression. Thomas Hart Benton was an American Regionalist. I think Jackson Pollack studied under him.

I am attempting to do realistic still-life paintings.

I just finished transferring the five images to their canvases. They are in the Menu as Landscape-Original 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Landscape-Original 3

Landscape-Original 4

Landscape-Original 5

Landscape-Original 6

Landscape-Original 7

I’m in the middle of transferring the five MidJourney AI images to canvases using the grid method. Old masters used that method but some look at it as cheating. It isn’t. I could draw them freehand but it would take a long time and there would be a lot of erasing and smearing of graphite on the canvases.

WordPress distorted the first image from my post earlier today so I deleted it and uploaded it again.

When I asked MidJourney to create these images I asked it to use the style of several different artists that I really like, Maynard Dixon, Edgar Payne, Granville Redmond, William Wendt, and Georgia O’Keefe. I like O’Keefe’s landscapes but am not a huge fan of her flowers and skulls. Not sure what style these five paintings would be labeled with, something like simple realism.

Just got back from Dick Blick which is less than 15 minutes from home. Bought a stretched canvas for each image. When the images were created I specified aspect ratios that are the same as standard stretched canvas sizes. 

Next, I need to transfer a drawing of each image to its canvas and then I can start painting. I’ll have ten unfinished paintings.

All I’ll need is the discipline to paint every day. Can’t buy that.

Last night I played with MidJourney for a couple of hours telling it to create simple, modern still life photos. For whatever reason I added a floating striped bass to the mix. I had it create maybe a hundred. I like these three quite a bit. They would be challenging.

For several years I’ve been following an artist on YouTube, drawmixpaint. He also has a website drawmixpaint.com. A person could learn how to paint well from his videos. Recently he has been painting landscapes using AI-generated reference material. Yesterday I subscribed to MidJourney the Artificial Intelligence App he uses. Ten dollars a month. MidJourney is strictly for generating AI art. You can specify what you want in the finished image, how realistic, a style, etc., and an aspect ratio.

For the following five landscapes, I requested a painting of a California landscape with rolling hills, cumulonimbus clouds, oak trees in the foreground, mountains in the background, and in the style of William Wendt and Maynard Dixon. It creates 4 images that you can adjust and download. Pretty amazing.

For this one I requested a view of Kansas farmland on an overcast day in the fall.

For the next three I requested a photo of a crystal clear stream with a rocky bottom.

These were done on my first day with the software. There is a lot for me to learn. Imagine what can be done with this software.

Sunday I’ll be going back to the Driftless Area for four days. The middle of August isn’t the best time to fish small streams but they are spring fed. I never get up at dawn to trout fish but I might do that next week to beat the midday heat. I’m going to the Driftless mainly to help a couple I’ve been friends with since the early seventies begin fly fishing for trout.

This afternoon I was sitting in a chair playing with my drone. No one was around so I flew it over to the stream which flows through my campground and hovered about 7 feet above the water. There were two trout. I watched one take a bug off of the surface but didn’t get a photo or video. I could see this being quite an advantage but I wouldn’t even want to use it. The mystery would be taken out of it.

Zoom in

Fished Timber Coulee River which is more of a stream for about 3 hours this morning. Trout were rising so I fished a size 14 Royal Wulff and a size 16 Caddis and caught a couple of 10-inch browns with each fly. It’s hazy from the Canadian wildfires. There is an advisory until noon Thursday.