Summer Memories

On this frigid snow-covered morning I've decided to go back in time to a summer plein air painting. This is one that I worked on for 2 or 3 sessions - after the first outing I wasn't happy with the lower part of the composition, so I adjusted that at home - then went back to finish the painting on site. It was done early in the morning, the atmosphere was humid and I was looking toward the east...so everything had that beautiful morning glow, with the wonderful subtle blue/violet in the distant tree line and a nice rosey glow to the lower part of the sky. The sparkles on the water in and amongst the vegetation were also an attraction.

I like the overall mood in the piece (which probably doesn't convey well in the jpeg - it looks a little harsh on my monitor compared to the subtlety in the painting, especially the lower part of the sky). I'm thinking I might try to create a larger studio painting based on this, but will have to modify the composition and figure out how to vary the greens some more. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Oil on canvas board, 8x12.


Also, I recently found an artist whose work I really like, and wanted to post a link to his blog. His name is Qiang Huang. He primarily paints still life's, often very simple ones with only a couple of objects - but I love his use of contrast and color, and his descriptive brushwork. Check out his work!

Gouache studies 2

Had a frustrating day in the studio today, trying to paint a bunch of carrots. Nothing to show for several hours work, but hopefully learned something! Will be back at it tomorrow.

Took a 1-day gouache workshop on Monday with Rochester artist Valerie Larsen. To prepare, I broke out my gouache pack and did some painting in the car Friday and Saturday. These are all 4x6 studies on matboard. I'm still trying to figure out which medium I like best for "quick studies" in the car when the weather doesn't allow outdoor painting. I've also got some casein paint (don't like the smell, though) and there's always watercolor.

Anyway, out of these I like the first two...think I successfully captured the essence of the scenes. The first was just before sunset on Friday when some beautiful cloud formations appeared in the western sky. The other two were from Saturday...top one mid-afternoon (roughly 2-3 pm), the bottom one from around noon. Not happy with that one, a very busy scene that I got lost in but some of the light effects aren't bad.

GVPAP Show, part 2

I'm happy to report that my painting "Quiet Evening Outside of Le Roy" (pictured in the previous post) received a Judges Award at the current GVPAP show. The judge was Rochester artist Val Larsen. Unfortunately, I did not make it to the reception; it was snowing heavily and the roads on my side of town were very bad. The show is still up until the 28th of January, so check it out if you get the chance.

Otherwise...my long-awaited transition to doing art "full time" has arrived! I made the resolution that I would be painting/drawing every day starting on Jan 1...well, really Jan 4 because of the weekend (procrastination, anyone?) :) Anyway, what I realized on the 4th was that my studio was a mess, really disorganized...so I thought it would be smart to spend a few days getting that taken care of. But I have been doing some drawing, and today finally put brush to canvas. During the winter I'll mostly be indoors, working on still lifes and developing some larger paintings from plein air studies - something I've never done before, so it should be challenging. I don't know how many of these paintings/drawings will get shown here - we'll see how that goes. So check back!

I'm also trying to think up a new name for this blog, since not all of my work will be from life, and I'll also probably be posting some drawings. If anyone has any clever suggestions, let me know!

GVPAP Annual Plein Air Show, 2010

I had 4 paintings accepted for the annual Genesee Valley Plein Air Painters show. This painting is the only new one (not posted here before). I called it "Quiet Evening Near Le Roy". It's a pastel over watercolor on watercolor paper, size 9x12. Painted on a beautiful fall day south of Le Roy...I had painted a watercolor earlier in the day that turned out OK...this one was also intended to be a watercolor but it didn't work out so well so I broke out the pastels and was able to save it. I actually really like using pastel and watercolor together this way, it can result in some lovely broken color effects. One of my favorite artists, Ray Balkwill, does this a lot. Check out his work, it's fantastic. The sky didn't photograph too well - it looks too unsaturated on my laptop screen and overly saturated on my standard monitor. Also, the line down the middle is an artifact...I had to scan this in two sections and piece them together. Not sure why I got a line though!

The other paintings accepted were posted before, but I'll put them here for reference:

Salmon Creek Spring (oil)

Cloud Patterns (oil)

Braddock Marsh, Autumn (oil)