Thursday, September 23, 2010

Artist Row - Best of Show!

Finally getting my act together after 2 weeks of hectic preparation for the Artist Row festival. It all paid off, as I was fortunate to receive the best of show award! Not for an individual painting but for my body of work. I was able to sell some paintings as well. Thanks to everyone who came out to the festival, and especially to those who purchased paintings! I look forward to participating next year, and also am thinking about participating in the Clothesline Festival. Stay tuned. I'll post some pictures of my setup when I get them off my wife's camera...

In the meantime, here is one of the paintings from the show. It's a 12x9 oil on canvas called "LeRoy Shadows". This was painted about 3 weeks ago en plein air, with just a minimal amount of studio touch-up. Interesting story...I was with my Saturday morning painting group, and when we set-up the light was actually behind this building, so it was all in shadow. Several others started painting the building right away but I decided to wait until the sun came around, and worked on another painting for a couple of hours. But the whole time I was thinking about this painting, and how good the building would look in the sun. So of course the first painting didn't turn out well, but then once the sun came around - I painted this one in about 20 - 30 minutes. It essentially painted itself, I guess because I had been thinking about it for 2 hours! Meanwhile my painting partners were unable to make their paintings of the building work, I think because the light was so dull when they were painting.


Here are a couple of pictures of my booth...click to enlarge!


Thursday, September 16, 2010

Streamside

"Streamside", 6x8 oil on canvas. This one was completed en plein air earlier this year. I don't even remember where we were painting, but it was an overcast, cool morning threatening rain (and it eventually did rain a bit)...most of the views in the area didn't inspire me, but I kept coming back to this particular section of the stream. Lots of interesting, subtle color in the dark tree mass, and a nice contrast with the rocks along the edge of the stream. This one seemed to paint itself, and I really like the result (there's probably a lesson there). This one might be used as the basis for a larger studio painting this winter.


There was some drama during this painting session as just after setting up, one of my fellow painters dropped about a dozen brushes...tips down (of course)...into the muck. We were set up on a high enough platform that the brushes were just out of reach. They were eventually retrieved but it required considerable effort.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Sunset Studies

We had some really good sunsets this summer, and I managed to get out a few times to attempt to paint some studies. They are such a challenge, as things change very rapidly during the last half hour of the day. The drill pretty much is: look up at scene, decide what to do on the painting, look down to mix paint, apply paint to canvas, look up and realize all colors and values (and cloud shapes) in the scene have changed! Repeat until dark, or until the painting is ruined! What I've learned is that you must either be extremely fast and efficient, or you must memorize the scene at a particular point in time and ignore whatever changes appear. This is difficult since the colors tend to become better and better until the sun actually sets or goes behind the clouds. Another approach is to sketch in the composition based on the cloud shapes about a half hour before sunset, then slam in the colors at the right time. Of course, the problem is that the cloud shapes change and often look better.

Then there is the whole matter of how to paint the sun itself, making it look both bright and colorful at the same time...using lots of white is NOT the solution! I'm still working on this.

These two studies are both 6x8 oil on canvas boards. In the first one, it was the dramatic cloud formations that caught my eye. I like the resulting study, and feel like I captured the gesture of the dark clouds and also the "controlled chaos" of the sky above the sun. Unfortunately I do see the appearance of some kind of animal head in the dark clouds (with the sun being the eye). The second painting was more about the overall color harmony of the scene, everything was bathed in an amazing peach/yellow light.



These were extremely difficult to scan and get good jpegs - I had to do a lot of color adjusting and they still don't look as good as the originals. But hopefully you can get the idea! I plan on working on some studio paintings of sunsets this winter.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Cloud Study

Quick little cloud study (6x8 oil) done a few weeks ago. Trying to apply some of the things learned at the recent workshop. Some of it worked, some of it didn't. The scan of this painting hasn't reproduced the colors or transitions (edges) in the sky for some reason. Clouds are so beautiful and everyday is different, yielding endless painting possibilities. While I feel like I'm getting better at painting clouds, I haven't yet figured out how to make cloud shadows (on the land) work. Always something else to work on!

Otherwise...starting to get ready for the Artist Row festival, which takes place on Sunday, September 19. I'll post my booth number as soon as I get it. I have a lot of paintings to work on, many things that are "close" to being showable but still need a little work...so I'll be in the studio a lot. Will post things as they are finished.