Ft. Steilacoom Trail Run

A few years ago I got heavily into trail running and began doing about a dozen organized runs a year, mostly half marathon or 25k distance but up to 50k and down to 5 miles.   This year, however, I got injured and have mostly sat the year out.   I still go to events and take a lot of photos so decided to try a painting from the last event I shot.   The Ft. Steilacoom run put on by Evergreen Trail Runs is a fun and fast course with distances from 5k to 50k. This year it was a perfect day to run, there was fog but no rain and the temps were cool, great running weather.  Also good photography weather since the lighting was very even.   I liked this shot of the somewhat out of focus background and he crisp focus on the runner and tree at the top of a small rise.

While I liked the photo, not too happy with this painting.  I have left figures and man-made objects out of all my paintings so far because you can mess up on nature itself and things still look good for the most part.  You mess up a human and it is pretty apparent.   Hard to get the right amount of detail vs abstraction on the form in such a small painting.  Oh well, I tried and I think I’ll keep figures out of the rest of my work for the challenge.