Like Watching Paint Dry

Discovery

2012-01-22T13:31:00.002-07:00

22x26 oil/linen panel

Last post for a bit, as I have an out of town trip, and then some shoulder surgery, so I won't be painting for several weeks. (gasp, I can't imagine going that long!)

This depicts an actual cliff dwelling ruin in the Gila Mountains of SW New Mexico.. this particular one is Cave #4 I believe... I drew together several historical photos of the ruins from the 30's or 40's, and used some other references to hopefully accurately depict these frontiersmen's dress and gear... I have painted these two riders taking a look at this mighty curious sight - probably having seen the ruins from a distance and having ridden over to get a closer look, hence the title "Discovery".. These ruins are now part of a national park -

Here's an old photo of the ruins, as these two guys might have seen them from across the canyon... the ruin on the far left of this photo is the one I have painted. And yes, horses were able to get up there, as I have some old photos showing the Rangers on horseback working to restore some of the ruins and build some paths....

Tips and Tricks

2012-01-18T00:43:00.001-07:00

Conte sketch of two young cowboys

I had to add some image, (can't have a post without SOME kind of picture!) so just threw in one of my quick sketches.

Today's post is just a random selection of stuff that I've found useful in one way or another. Some are ideas and some are practical tips.

Tip #1 (from artist Larry Seiler). Use an old phone book to wipe your brushes as you paint. We all have those used phone books, right? And in many places, they can't be recycled. I just tore off the cover, and put the phone book down on my working surface. As I paint, I wipe the brushes and palette knife (I use paper towels too, but this works well for a first 'wipe down"). when the page is dirty, I just rip if off and use the next one....

Tip #2. To help brush tips to re-gain a sharp edge, try this. Once the brush is clean, take a piece of pressboard, like a cereal box, pasta box, or the like. Mine is an old small calendar I got from my optometrist. Cut out a square of the pressboard on a fold - in other words, you want a small square piece of it that is already folded in the middle so it has a nice sharp crease to work with. Take the offending brush, and place it so that the tip is right inside that fold. Fold the card over the brush and use a clothespin to pinch the end.. adjusting it so the tight part of the clothespin is crimping the end of your brush between the pieces of cardboard. Leave it overnight. If you do this right, the brush will come out with a nice, clean, crisp edge again.

Tip #3. Have the same light on your palette as you do on what you're painting. If you use, say, an Ott Lite on your palette, but your still life is lit by an incandescent bulb, then you are in for a world of hurt. Just sayin'.

Tip #4. Before you throw away a painting, take a look and see if any part of it, even just a small part, is successful. Consider cropping it down and making a smaller painting o ut of it. If its on a canvas, use a razor knife to cut out your selection, then glue the piece of canvas to a backing of masonite or foam core.

If it's a panel, use whatever means y ou have to in order to cut it down to size. I use "table saw editing" all the time.

Tip#5. Keep 3 jars with lids for your solvent. A "working jar", a "sludge jar", and an "overflow" jar. The working jar contains clean solvent that you're using to paint with right now. When that gets dirty, or you're done painting for the day, pour that thinner into the sludge jar.. Clean out your working jar after pouring out its contents by wiping it out with a paper towel. The next morning,the sediment will have settled to the bottom, leaving clear solvent again. Carefully pour out the now clear solution from the sludge jar back into your working jar, leaving the sludge in the bottom..-. Eventually, this jar will get full of sludge and you will have to appropriately discard it.

The third jar is useful if, like me, you paint pretty much all the time. My working jar gets dirty, and don't have time to wait overnight for the sediment to settle in the sludge jar. So I keep a second "clean" jar. I can take my regular working jar, pour it into the sludge container, and then have a jar of clean solvent to start working with. Peanut butter jars work well for this, as they have wide openings that make them easy to clean.

Tip#6. When painting plein air, secure your canvas or panel to the easel( in case of wind - there's always wind isn't there?) by using the 'wet canvas straps" sold at many online art supply stores. These are stretchy bands hooked together in an "X" shape, with little loops on the end. They are intended to carry wet paintings by wrapping the loops around the corners of the canvas and then holding the middle of the "X" to carry it by.

I didn't find them very useful for THAT, but they come in mighty handy when painting. I set the panel or canvas on my easel, and then, from the back, attach the loops on the corners...I can adjust for smaller canvases by tying a knot in the strap till it's the right size. this holds the canvas or panel to the easel like a nifty bungie cord.

This is what the straps look like. I believe they come in a pkg. of 3 different sizes.

Here's how I attach them to my canvas or panel.(shown from the back, as it would be sitting on my plein air easel). I can tie a knot in the middle to adjust the size.

Tip #7. Baby wipes work great for cleaning hands while painting. when I'm outside working en plein air, these are especially handy.

That's it for today.. just a few simple things that work for me.. and maybe y ou'll find them useful too. If you have some favorite tricks, I'd love to hear about them.... I'll add them here!

A Little Celebration of Color

2012-01-12T17:59:00.000-07:00

16x20 oil/linen

Here's the latest off the easel...

For a change, I wanted to do a very light background (in this case, all white) and have lots of vibrant color.

Usually, I go for dark backgrounds, and rather muted tones.. this one looks like Carmen Miranda exploded - but it was really a treat to just enjoy all the rich colors of the fruit and flowers. I love the color orange -just love it!! One of these days, I will do a painting all about orange. It was also fun to get the different textures of the fruit, from the smooth s hiny apples, to the pebbly orange and lemons, and the fuzzy peaches.

I have to admit, the peaches were not quite so pretty in real life.. it is not peach season, and our local grocer only had a few, and they were rather "sad". I had to use artistic license -and made them a bit more presentable....

Did not want to get into painting folds and creases of the white cloth, so I settled for some very subtle

indications of wrinkles..

Doing a very light background requires a different approach.. you can't throw things into shadow as you can with a dark background. There is none of the mystery, and edges become super important as they are presented against the high key backdrop.... A learning experience for sure, and hopefully a successful one.

How to Edit Your Painting Without Picking Up a Brush....

2012-01-11T17:11:00.000-07:00

I started working on a piece last night - got a few hours into it, and then this afternoon, set it out to stare at it awhile. Ya'll do that too, right? Sometimes I think I spend as much time staring as painting. That's not always a bad thing.

I'll also photograph it and put it in black and white to check values, and reverse the image too.. that helps to sort out any errors as well.

Anyway, after all this staring (accompanied by a cup of tea and a cracker - valuable aids) I knew that I needed to make some changes, and had a good idea what I thought should happen, so I popped it into photoshop to do a "test drive" of my idea. This is a real handy tool.. I just used the drawing tool in a big brush size (it's sort of like painting with gummy worms) and blobbed in some color where I thought the changes needed to be.

If you ever think you need to make some changes to a painting, this is a great way to test it without having to actually paint anything. I've heard of people taking clear mylar or plastic, and painting on THAT on top of the painting - maybe for small changes that might work.. This is easier.

Okay, enough said... here's the painting. It's still very priliminary,so I'm not worried about anything but the big shapes at this point, and the values. So, don't get your britches in a bunch because the chickens don't look like chickens yet!

And now the changes I felt needed to happen:
I knew I needed to focus the light more in the one area around the children. I also needed to balance the strong diagonal line from the shadow on the barn.
Additionally, the light just needs to go up in value for the feeling of morning sunlight. There are alot of strong architectural lines here, and I felt the need to balance that with some softer shapes....

So......
I lightened the value of the ground.
I lightened the shadow value also - more light bouncing around, more of it will refract back into the shadows, so they need to be warmer and lighter.
I threw almost all the foreground into tree shadows - this focuses the light just around the center of interest - those little kiddos and the chickens- and also balances both the strong lines and the diagonals of the barn shadow.
Plus threw a little tree shadow on the barn to break up that line a bit.

Anyway, thought ya'll might be entertained at how you can use photoshop, or gimp (and I'm no expert - this was only using the drawing tool - no layers, nothing fancy) just to do a test drive on your painting without having to risk anything!

Now I know what I gotta do, and it's very easy for me to visualize it and - hey - that's half the battle right?

PS. that's a water pump there in the foreground... don't worry, it'll eventually look like one......

2011, year in review

2011-12-25T01:37:00.000-07:00

Here's a collection of photos from the year.. there were so many more I wish I could have included, and then there were things that we just didn't have photos of... but these are all part and parcel of what 2011 brought to us... The year included:
recovery from a serious auto accident
Steve finally getting a job in NM, and moving here, after being apart for over 7 months
a new puppy, Marley, to keep our other pup, Gibbs, company
even better, a beautiful new grandson, David
another grandson on the way (no photos yet!)
lots of exploration in the beautiful mountains of New Mexico
the Hardrock 100 mile run in Colorado
visits from family and friends (some pictured, some not)
the awful, devastating Las Conchas fire
a trip to the Grand Canyon - something we hope to do again
and lastly, a simple Christmas eve run on snowy roads here in the mountains, and a lovely evening at home with Steve and our friend, KZ..

Merry Christmas to all of you - you are the blessings of our lives, what makes us who we are.
May God bless you, as you remember the real reason for the season.

"Iin the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His Glory... the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth".
John 1: 1, 14

FAV 15% for November FASO contest

2011-12-23T00:41:00.000-07:00

Still Life with Penny 12x16 oil/linen

this one got the nod again for the November Bold Brush painting competition by Fine Art Studio Online.

I'm pleased, but surprised because this is such a lousy photo. The painting was purchased by a friend, and I'm glad it found a good home.

When Paintings Go Bad.....

2011-12-20T23:18:00.000-07:00

Troubleshooting Your Painting

Before you throw it away, go through this list..

These paintings are from an exhibit in the Austrian Museum of Art.

The exhibit was called "Bad Painting, Good Art"

really, no kidding.

The major elements of your painting are: concept, composition, drawing, values, light, shadow, color, and edges. So, it makes sense that if something just isn’t working, it’s probably going to be one of these elements that needs to be corrected. Here are some questions to ask yourself if you find that a painting seems blah, or uninteresting, or just doesn’t seem to have that “flow” that you are aiming at. Or maybe just plain wrong somehow… (it happens).

Concept:

Did you start with a clear idea of what you wanted to communicate, or were you just painting things?

If you didn’t have a clear idea, can you frame one now? Can you select a focal point, and then decide which parts of your painting will help communicate that and which might be unnecessary?

Helpful hint: If you are feeling the need to fill every inch of canvas with something, then it is likely that your center of interest isn’t interesting enough, and you should work at emphasizing it more. Do this before you try to add more “stuff” in there!

Composition:

Is your center of interest placed so that the viewer takes a journey into your painting? If your center of interest is on the left hand side, did you create a visual path to keep the viewer engaged while reaching the focal point?

Is your center of interest smack dab in the middle? That’s usually not a good placement. Can you move it?

Helpful hint: Did you remember the “tic tac toe” rule of thumb in arranging your still life?

Helpful hint #2: Sometimes, cropping a painting down will condense the composition and make it stronger. You can do this in photoshop or equivalent, or use some cardboard or paper to frame in your painting in different ways to see if cropping might help. I frequently use what I call the "band saw editing" process. (ie, cutting down a larger painting into a smaller one)

Drawing:

Have you used perspective correctly? Are you sure?

Are objects that should be symmetrical, actually symmetrical? (vases with handles, or other complex shapes are especially bad about getting out of whack!)

Helpful hint: View your painting backwards in a mirror. This gives you a more objective view of what you’ve painted, without your own preconceived notions. Many flaws are revealed this way, unfortunately! But it’s a great way to find the flaws so you can correct them!

Values:

Does your painting have a good range of values?

Where is the darkest dark and the lightest light? Do these areas coincide with your center of interest?

Are there too many little value changes? Lots of choppy little areas? Can you simplify the values (NOT the colors) to only have 4 or 5 major values?

Helpful hint: try using color temperature INSTEAD of value changes to show form and light/shadow changes.

Light:

Did you select a single light source? If not, can you eliminate all but one light source? (this is especially noticeable in painting highly reflective objects like metal or glass)

Is your subject effectively lit?

Is there a flow of light across your painting? If not, how can you create that?

Have you given visual clues that there is intense light? (halation, letting colors flow into the atmosphere around them, reflected lights?)

Is all of your light the same color? Do you have areas that look like there is warmish golden light on them, and some things that look like there is bluish cool light? Light needs to be consistent in color.

Helpful hint: If everything looks the same as far as light goes, try putting some things into shadow, or lessening the value changes on some of the less important elements, so that your center of interest can really be the star.

Shadows:

Do your shadows have too sharp edges? Remember that cast shadows are most sharp where they touch the object, and become more diffuse and softer the further away from the object they go.

Are your shadows warm enough? Remember the rule, cool light/warm shadows.

Warm light/ cool shadows. Unless you are painting morning or afternoon light coming through a window, your light on a still life is probably cool. That means your shadows should be painted warm. Shadows even on a white cloth should not be blue, but a warm orangey green.

Form shadows might be a cooler, darker version of the object, but cast shadows will always be warm.

Do your shadows reflect the shape of the object? Form shadows should follow the contours of the object.

Hint: If your shadows look flat, or solid, they are probably not warm. Try adding a whisper of cad yellow, red, or orange to your shadow mixture.

Helpful hint #2. If you can’t decide what color your light is, put a piece of white paper under the light. Place something on it that will cast a shadow. Look at that shadow, and observe the color. Warm or cool? The answer will tell you what color your light is.

Color:

Color is tough! There’s a couple of important things to note about color:

Color should serve the greater purpose of the painting – which, if realness is what we’re after, is to condense and find the truth and the essence of something. Color shouldn’t be used just because it’s “pretty”, but because it enhances that reality. Intelligently choose your colors!
Lots of bright, out-of-the-tube color, all juxtaposed next to each other, usually does not serve to create an effective sense of light. Decide which is more important to you: bright color, or a light effect, and then plan your color.
There should be a certain color strategy for your painting, and usually, the focus of attention should have the richest, warmest color. Some color strategies are opposites (for example, a red focal point against a green background, or variations of purple and yellow) or use of rich color against NO color.(for example, an orange against a neutral gray background)

Ask yourself these questions if your color seems dull, or muddy, or icky.

Do you have a color strategy?
Have you mixed your colors too much? Try to avoid mixing more than 3 colors at a time in any one mixture.
Would adding small areas of pure color enhance your objective? Especially on your center of interest?
Do your white objects have enough color in them? White is never really “white” except in the very lightest highlight. Mix a “dark white” for the local color of a white cloth, for example, and leave room for both highlights and shadow color.
Are your transitions too blended? Color needs “boundaries” to exist as color. In other words, we recognize color by comparing it to what is next to it. If everything fades into a blur, colors get lost too. Think about using transition colors to show form instead of blending everything together.. Maybe try mixing a light, dark, and middle value for the objects you are painting.

Helpful hint: Select an area of your painting to receive the richest color (usually your center of interest) and use it fearlessly there!

Edges:

The more I paint, the more I am convinced of the importance of edges.

Are your edges dynamic? (do they vary between hard and soft?) If they are all the same, can you sharpen some edges, and soften others?

Can you look for a place to “lose” an edge? This would be where two values or colors are quite similar.

Are your inside edges (where light meets shadow) soft enough?

Can you create a sense of depth and space by using softer edges in background objects?

Have you inadvertently painted an “outline” around anything?

Does your background seem to purposefully turn around your objects? (this is bad)

Helpful hint: Look at your center of interest, and check to see if it has a variety of edges.

If none of these things seem to point you towards a solution, then you have my permission to scrape it all down, or throw it away. It is, after all, only a painting. Learn from it, and go on. But first, go have a cookie. Cookies cure lots of things.

Making a Copy of a Remington painting

2011-12-07T21:17:00.000-07:00

after Frederick Remington's "The Cowboy"

11x14 oil/panel

Sometimes studying the art of a painter that you admire can be extremely beneficial. One of my favorite artists is Frederick Remington. His paintings inspired me when I was a young girl and probably played a big part in my wanting to be a painter. So today's project was to copy one of Remington's paintings. I took a few photos as I worked and will show the progression. Total work time was about 5 hours.

The Set Up

Here's the reference photo and the drawing, which I transferred to the panel using vine charcoal and a small fixative to keep it in place.

A close up of the drawing. I cropped the original painting, which was a taller vertical format, to fit a panel which I had handy.

Here I am simply filling in an average color and value for the major shapes. Not worried about detail, just covering the canvas and getting rid of the white. This is pretty much how I would proceed on any painting, except I don't usually do a detailed drawing.

Now I'm finished putting down all the color - I left some of the mane and tail of the horse because those brushstrokes would need to be a one shot deal.

I've started on the cowboy, the center of interest. Getting the main object down in a painting can help you to know how to finish the rest of it.

Changes now will be smaller. Work from the large light and shadow shapes and start breaking those big shapes into smaller shapes of light and dark, color and temperature. This was both easier and harder in trying to mimic Remington's work. Easier because I just had to see what he had already done and try to follow it. Harder, because I had to see what he had done and try to follow it! Though Remington's style of painting is not too far removed from how I typically work, he was working on a canvas, and i was working on a panel, which made getting some of the texture a bit difficult.

Still just moving around the figure to bring it to completion.

The face was really small, and I found it difficult to get the kind of detail that was needed. I don't have brushes small enough! I settle for an "approximation".

It's getting there. Remington used some really dark shadow colors. I think he probably used black, which I don't usually have on my palette. The small card I used mostly for reference did not give me all the information I really needed - I had a larger image in a book, but the colors were quite different and I never was sure which one was closest to the truth.

Just a little work on the horse's head ...

the cowboy is just about done, and now I'm bringing the horse to a finish.

and here's the final! This last image is color corrected - the in-progress shots were shot in natural light while on the easel and tend to be a little cooler than actual.

So what did I learn? Well for starters, to really try to do an actual "copy" is a very big project. This is more of an approximation - the image looks very close, but the brushwork is quite different than Remington's sketchy, textured work. And, just the intense studying I had to do in trying to paint this was educational in how Remington used color, edges, and temperature. And to think he painted from life, not photos! Amazing.

Remington documented the West like almost nobody else, telling the stories of the frontiersmen, native americans, and the military, so that we today have a record of those days.

I put these images together in a short video, so you can see it morph from beginning to end...

Team Ropers

2011-12-06T18:05:00.000-07:00

Team Ropers 8x14 oil/panel

I started this one several weeks ago, using some great rodeo photos supplied by fellow artist friend Max. I just finally got it back out and finished it today. This action took place at a small rodeo in AZ. In team roping, one guy will try to rope the steer around his horns, and the other roper will go for his back legs. He's called the heeler. In this pair, the guy on the white horse is actually the heeler, though in this painting, as they have just started the chase after the steer, you can't really tell. Sadly, after it was all said and done, the heeler missed and they didn't score...

I am playing around a little more with the palette knife and used that for the background, and all those spectators. Sometimes less is more (most of the time, actually) and just indicting the presence of the folks on the bleachers and by the arena railing seemed better to me than getting bogged down in tiny little figures detailed. Besides, all the action and interest is up front and center! Which is a good thing to remember - the focus of a painting, whatever that might be, should be the area with the most defined edges, color saturation, and contrast. Everything else should be sort of like looking out of your peripheral vision.

Well, it is going to be below zero again tonight, so gotta go stoke that woodstove again! Brrrrrr!!!

Holiday Show and Sale

2011-11-27T08:48:00.001-07:00

The gallery in Jemez Springs, NM, where I exhibit, is hosting a holiday show entitled, (as you can see) The Gift of Art. Member artists will be presenting works of art, all under $250. I have a number of small works in the show, all priced VERY reasonably, way below normal retail, just for this show. Some unframed works are also there at very reduced pricing. If you're in the area, please stop by !
We're having a holiday reception Sat., December 10 at the gallery, complete with Christmas lights, a bonfire, and goodies - it'll be fun - come get toasty by the fire and enjoy some good food and drink and art!

ps. I'm pleased to report that two of the paintings I dropped off at the gallery today have been purchased! The greatest compliment that anyone can pay is to buy a painting.

Another Portrait, color this time!

2011-11-13T23:05:00.000-07:00

Gary 9x12 oil/panel

I frequent an artist website called Wetcanvas.com. Check it out if you've not been there - great resource, forums for every conceivable art topic or media, friendly and encouraging folks. In the portraiture forum, each year around this time they do a portrait swap. Folks get randomly paired up,and the partners paint portraits of each other (from photos, of course).

So, this is my portrait swap partner, Gary, a very fine pastel artist. I can't wait to see his rendition of me. I told him to make me look younger. :-) I find working from photos really, really hard, if you are trying to get accurate skin tones, and a likeness too. I hope Gary likes his painting...

Using the Wipe-Away Method of Painting for Monochrome Studies

2011-11-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

Wisdom, 8x10 oil\panel

Today's post will give some in-progress shots and descriptions of using the "wipe away" method of painting.

this has to be done quickly, all in one sitting, and working wet into wet. The premise is that you are wiping out the light areas, and refining with the darks. So, here goes....

My first photo didn't come out, but it was just showing an intial thin wash of color on the whole panel.. about value 3 or 4.
This shot shows just some basic placement of the face and main features... the "drawing" part if you will.

Okay now I am a little more purposeful about getting the main areas of light and shadow in their proper place, or as close as I can get. Because you are wiping away paint to get your lights, it's most important at this stage to decide where those lightest lights are, and get them down, so paint doesn't dry to the point where you CANT wipe them out. If you err, err on the side of too big a light area.. you can always go back with darks to correct.

Here I realized that there were shapes of light and shadow on his shirt under the strings of beads, and so decided to get those down, and then come back and wipe out the beads again on top of them. Important to note at this stage is that you as an artist have to decide what is important - the focus is obviously his face... but there's a heck of alot of things going on in his dress... some things can be left more suggested, softer edges, less detail. I decide his shirt and the beads can be only suggested so keep this area unrefined. We're about 20-25 min. into the painting at this point.

Now as you can see, it's just a matter of further refinement, once the basic shapes are in. In this method, halftones are the hardest to get without messing up edges. You have to work wet into wet. There is virtually no drybrush at all - sometimes it's a matter of actually pushing paint in the dark areas to get slight variations in value. sometimes, you might have a brush over an entire dark area more than once, to get the paint the right consistency to move like you want. Important also is to pay attention to edges... rather than drawing with your brush, it's more like pushing upward with the bristles to get those softer transistions, or coming back with a competely dry clean brush to wipe over a transition area to soften it. About 45 min. work time now.

Here is the finish. About an hour, maybe a little more. I would say the most important thing in doing this method is to focus on simply shapes of light and shapes of dark. Half of the stuff on his "outfit" I had no idea what I was painting, but I just tried to correctly put down shapes of light, shapes of shadow, and it generally works outs okay. Don't think of "drawing" - or painting a "thing" - an eye, nose, or whatever.. just see value shapes and try to get them right. Those of you who mainly draw would probably find this easier than those who don't.

Detail. In those dark areas, very slight wiping away gives those minor variations in value... adding back in darks to get the details, but keep the paint thin at all times... Edges are important... Also, brushing in the direction of the form helps. For example on his upper lip.. instead of brushing across the canvas, I made vertical brushstrokes following the shape of the lip.

Okay, tips, warnings, suggestions, etc.
1. You MUST have a non-absorbent surface. This was a wood panel primed with oil primer. A double or triple OIL PRIMED linen will work. Ampersand Gessobord is almost as good. Anything primed with acrylic primer will not work.
2. Avoid the dreaded DRIP!!! If you clean your brush with thinner to wipe away an area, make sure it is mostly dry (handle too) before you go to wipe off an area.... if there's thinner running down the handle, it will cause a big drip and can totally ruin the work you just did. I had this happen on the headband part of his headdresss... was wiping away the whites of the feathers. and a big drip started running down his face... I caught it with a paper towel and had to re-paint, but damages were minimal. I would've gotten a picture of it, but was afraid to leave it long enough to get a photo!
3. Since half tones are the hardest to achieve, select a subject that has really strong lights and darks. To Practice, maybe even start with just a single simple object, like an apple, or a vase or something... just to understand the technique.
4. It helps to have a brush with a sharp edge for wiping out thin areas. I use only flats when I paint, but brights, and maybe even filberts would work. I don't know if small rounds would have enough ooomph to scrub off paint. Use the largest brush you can. This was done with a #6 and #4 flat.
5. This method works great as a quick "underpainting" for complicated works. I often use a less finished version of this to get the structure of still lifes - a thin wash, some quick placement of objects, and then wipe away the lightest lights, and state the shadow areas.

Hope this was enjoyable. Sorry for the glare on some of the WIP photos, but working quickly, I didn't want to have to pick up the panel , take it in the other room, find a spot to photograph, take the picture, walk back to the studio. etc. etc. This really does have to be done all at once. I figure you would have maximum two hours, and that might be stretching it.

Early Visitors, Shiprock

2011-11-10T15:21:00.005-07:00

Shiprock, photo courtesy of Don Joslin

On one of the artist's forums that I frequent, each month one of us hosts a "challenge", and provides photos for us to use as reference for a painting. Though I'm not keen on working from photos, sometimes it's fun to see what you can do with them. I've been to this area, and that helps to get more authentic (I hope!) feel to it.

Shiprock is a sacred place to the Navajo... I can just imagine their first view of this magnificent formation. It figures prominantly in their mythology and culture. Here's an article from Wikipedia:

Shiprock (Navajo: Tsé Bitʼaʼí, "rock with wings" or "winged rock"^[5]) is a rock formation rising nearly 1,583 feet (482.5 m) above the high-desert plain on the Navajo Nation in San Juan County, New Mexico, USA. It has a peak elevation of 7,177 feet (2,187.5 m) above the sea level. It lies about 12 by 20 miles (19 by 32 km) southwest of the town of Shiprock, which is named for the peak. Governed by the Navajo Nation, the formation is in the Four Corners region and plays a significant role in Navajo religion, mythology and tradition. It is located in the center of the Ancient Pueblo People or Ancestral Puebloan civilization, a prehistoric Native American culture of the Southwest United States often referred to as the Anasazi. Shiprock is a point of interest for rock climbers and photographers and has been featured in several film productions and novels. It is the most prominent landmark in northwestern New Mexico.^{[citation needed]}

The Navajo name Tsé Bitʼaʼí, "rock with wings" or "winged rock", for the peak refers to the legend of the great bird that brought them from the north to their present lands.^[6]^[7] The name "Shiprock" or Shiprock Peak or Ship Rock derives from the peak's resemblance to an enormous 19th-century clipper ship. However Anglos first called the peak "The Needle," a name given to the topmost pinnacle by Captain J.F. McComb in 1860.^[7] United States Geological Survey maps indicate that the name "Ship Rock" dates from the 1870s.^[6]^[7][edit]

[edit]Religious and cultural significance

The peak and surrounding land are of great religious and historical significance to the Navajo people. It is mentioned in many Navajo myths and legends. Foremost is the peak's role as the agent that brought the Navajo to the southwest. According to one legend, after being transported from another place, the Navajos lived on the monolith, "coming down only to plant their fields and get water."^[7] One day, the peak was struck by lightning, obliterating the trail and leaving only a sheer cliff, and stranding the women and children on top to starve. The presence of people on the peak is forbidden "for fear they might stir up the chį́įdii (ghosts), or rob their corpses."^[7]

So, my first thought when I saw the photo was, "I wonder what the natives thought when they encountered this formation for the first time." It must've been awe inspiring to them. So, pulling out my artistic license, I painted in some of these early visitors.

Early Visitors, Shiprock 7x7 oil/panel

Working in a square format requires good planning for composition. I needed to balance the various elements.. figures, mountain, and land masses. The visual weight of the two riders, is balanced by the other figure and horse, and the darker eroded gully. These both are balanced by the presence of the rock itself. I think its working.

... and a Penny

2011-11-04T18:58:00.000-06:00

...and Penny, 12x16 oil/linen

detail

Latest work to come off the easel. The gallery here is looking for still life works, so I tried to incorporate some elements that translate a tiny bit more southwestern. I have been working hard on brush work. Though my lousy photo doesn't show it, there is actually alot of abstract marks here and there. especially in all that "debris." Viewed close up as in the detail, they don't look like much, but seen at a distance, hopefully translate to a realism.

That penny just showed up on the still life table after I had worked on this for one session. I don't know where it came from, but it seemed to just fit, so I added it in. The garlic was raised on a friend's organic farm, and that pot was a housewarming gift to us when we moved here.

I find I enjoy painting alot of scattered odds and ends on the table, much more than say, flowers in a vase.. Give me debris anytime!

Holiday Treasures Reception and Sale starts Friday, Nov. 4

2011-11-03T21:34:00.000-06:00

I have a group show, Holiday Treasures, with John Traynor and two other artists, which opens Friday, Nov. 4 in Keene, at Monadnock Fine Art Gallery. Here's a few photos of some of the paintings installed for the show.

This one sold while they were hanging the show.

There are a few more paintings; I wish I could attend the opennig, which is tomorrow night, Nov. 4, from 5-7pm. The show will be open through the holidays.

Random Thoughts,Tips, Tricks, and Principles about Painting... and a Puppy

2011-11-03T09:41:00.000-06:00

My dog Tucker when he was a puppy

because we all need to see puppies now and then.

Here's just some things about painting that I've been thinking about and concentrating on, a few tips and tricks, and a some general principles. You won't find new ideas here - nothing I could say hasn't been said before, but maybe something will strike you in a new way and you can take home some ideas from it... These old tried and true principles have served artists for centuries and they really are just that: TRIED and TRUE.

Here goes:

1. Everything is either in the light or in the shadow. One of my favorite quotes from Stapleton Kearns

Initial block in stage of plein air work

This is so basic, and yet I see artists fail to consider this nearly every day. There is light, and there is shadow, and they will not be painted the same way. In the illustration above, I've blocked in the basic light and shadow shapes of the cliffs -its pretty much the first thing I do in any painting - find the light and shadow patterns, and get that down.

Next, along with that:

2. Keep the light and shadow values separate. Think of light and shadow as two families .... say.. the Hatfields and McCoys. You have to keep them separate or all chaos ensues. How do you do that? Remember that nothing in the light family will be as dark as anything in the shadow family.... and vice versa... no matter what color it is! Look at the illustration below.

Notice the shadow on the zebra's neck cast from his ear. Can you see that the value of the white stripes in shadow is darker than the black stripes in the sunlight? So, no matter WHAT color something is, even black or white... the values of light and shadow must be kept separate.

(I'm not talking highlights or accents here, but general values - there IS a place for small touches of light highlights or dark accents) In general, once you decide if something belongs in the light family, or the shadow family, then keep the values consistent with whatever family they belong to. You know where I see this mostly ignored? In painting foliage on trees. Beginners will want to spot highlights all over the trees and it ends up looking like polka dots. Sure, put some areas of light and dark, but keep the value, as a shape, in one or the other family. Look at the juniper bushes in the top photo here... there is a shadow part of the bush, and a light part. In the finished work, nothing in that shadow part will be as light as anything in the light part, and vice versa. The shape of light, and the shape of shadow, need to remain separate.

Sheesh, did I repeat that enough?

3. Value does the work, but color gets the credit. I wish I could remember who said this - it is a great quote. What it means is that, more than anything else, you MUST GET THE VALUES RIGHT FOR A PAINTING TO READ CORRECTLY. If the values are right, then you can be whimsical or imaginative, or just a little "off" with color, and it'll still be okay. The values, the shape of light and dark - this is the skeleton, the framework, on which you hang color. If you get the framework right, you can hang almost any color on it.

Purple horses?

This painting was for a particular mural mosaic project I was part of a few years ago. The colors had to fit in a larger image, and so I had to work with this purple color. But since the values here are good, we look past the fact that the cliffs, ground, and even the horses, all are purple and violet. It still works. Values, people, get the values down!!!

4. Edges are more important than you could ever imagine. This is probably the area where I am concentrating the most lately. A variety of edges - soft edges, hard edges, lost edges... this is the "soul" of a painting - this is what makes the difference between poetry and a news report. I could write pages on it even now, but think about this at least. Look out at something in your room. Focus on it. Now, hold your hand out in front of you, and look at that. You can't focus on both at the same time...One of them is going to be in your peripheral vision, and if it is, it's going to be less defined, more "fuzzy". This principle in painting can be applied thusly: Sharper edges, crisp, hard, edges, should be placed where you want the viewer to look.

Softer, fuzzier, less defined edges, should be everywhere else. There's about 10,000 more things to say about edges, but that'll be enough for now.

5. Be intentional. Most of us paint using the brush, rather than using the paint ON the brush. We scrub it on, or "lick" the canvas.. repeatedly brushing the same spot over and over, almost like being in a trance. Try this: Look at your painting.

Decide what color, value, and temperature you need for ONE SPOT. Mix that color. Put some on your brush, and put it on your canvas. NOW STOP!!! Look at the next spot. Shampoo, rinse, repeat. This ol' John Deere tractor was painted this way. Nowhere on the tractor did I blend anything. Every spot of paint you see was put down in one stroke. This is just a small exercise painting, but you see what I mean. By being intentional in the first place about what color and value is needed in a certain spot, we can just put that down, and move on to the next thing. Maybe even, gasp, consider, spending as much time LOOKING and THINKING about what the next stroke should be, before you make that stroke!

6. Work from thin to thick, and vary the paint application. I'm really focusing on this too. This, I think, brings about the excitement in a painting that makes it a work of art. Thick, luscious strokes, and transparent thin washes. both are necessary to bring that spark, that life, into it. I think a good rule of thumb is to keep the paint thin, especially in shadow areas, until you have it established, and then go for big juicy strokes. If you get those wrong, scrape it off rather than trying to paint into it.. Along with this idea comes also the principle of holding your brush - if you hold it like a pencil, you will be more likely to dig into the fat paint and remove it rather than lay on top of it. Holding your brush like a knife will help you to lay new paint gently on top of the previous layer without digging into it. Try it.

the background of this painting was done as a very thin, transparent wash. I then scraped it down even further to imitate the texture of an old painted silk screen. Thicker paint is applied on the ginger jar, and in the light areas of the cloth.

Well, I guess that's plenty to ponder for today. I gotta go paint!

New Gallery, New Work

2011-11-01T13:23:00.000-06:00

Jemez Fine Art Gallery

I'm pleased to announce I've been invited to join Jemez Fine Art Gallery , located in our little village of Jemez Springs. Even better, they are asking for Southwestern cowboy and horse images. I am almost giddy, because I LOVE painting that kind of thing, but, as you can imagine, there's just not much call for it in New England. So, now I have a good excuse to paint cowboys! Yippee!!!

I won't actually take work over to the gallery for another week or so while I finish up some things, and I'm not listed on their webpage yet as a member artist. I think it'll be a good fit, and I'll be working with some fine artists and nice folks.

Here's a couple of small "southwestern cowboy and horse images" that I've completed recently.

Adjusting Stirrups 5x7, Sold

Checkin' on the Herd, 9x12

Above Jemez Springs, 5x7

back in the game!!!

2011-10-29T23:38:00.001-06:00

Rooster sketch, after R. Schmid painting
About 15 min. pencil on paper

Just wanted to let ya'll know the leak is fixed (or at least, the roofers have been here and charged us big bucks to do the work!). We have a new keyboard, and I can finally use this computer again. Don't have any paintings to share yet, but am working on a few.

Meanwhile, here's a quick sketch done in the car on the way to the Grand Canyon last weekend. It is very hard to draw something you see out the window - objects tend to go by really fast, ever notice that? So I was browsing through my copy of Alla Prima by Richard Schmid, and sketched these roosters from his fabulous painting of poultry. That panting is pure poultry .... er, uh, POETRY ...

More stuff to come soon!!!

A small mishap

2011-10-27T06:28:00.002-06:00

Our roof sprung a leak in yesterday's rain - right above the computer desk.
The keyboard and mouse got soaked and are not working.
Since that's the only computer with camera software and Photoshop I am unable to post paintings till we get it up and running again. Stay tuned!

Orange and Brandy Bottle

2011-10-25T06:01:00.000-06:00

Orange and Brandy Bottle

This is the latest larger piece I've been working on. I had been wanting to do a "focused light" sort of set up, and the peeled orange with the copper pot reflecting it back allowed me to really put all the light in that one area. The brandy bottle had such a pretty label and shape, it seemed like a good addition also. I've been unable to get really good photos lately. For one thing, my "good" camera broke, and I only have a small digital. Secondly, I like to photograph in natural light, because I paint in natural light. Our downstairs has huge windows (passive solar) and there is so much light bouncing around that it's impossible to avoid glare, or it sure seems that way.
Though it doesn't show much in this poor photograph, I've been trying to change up the brushstrokes, loosen up, and use variation of paint application. There's both transparent paint and impasto. Plus some knife work here and there.
The 120 painting project is ongoing.. I'm on #9 now, and enjoying the fun of cranking out a small study every day as a way to warm up and get my brain in gear. Plus it allows me to practice and experiment with some different ways of doing things. Some of these will be for sale and will be on my main website.
Here's the latest in the series.. and yes, that is probably the same orange as in the painting (the one that's not sliced, silly) Here's the link to the 120 paintings blog.

Placing Your Focal Point

2011-10-19T08:56:00.002-06:00

When you are arranging your subject, whether it be a still life, portrait, or landscape, you will most likely have
a center of interest, or focal point. It's usually the thing that attracted you to the scene in the first place, if it's a landscape, or it's what you want to be the "big thing" in your still life painting. Usually in portraits or figures, it's the face (not always, but usually).
There's a little principle of composition called "The Rule of Thirds". It just means that if you divide your painting into thirds, horizontally and vertically, that at any point where those lines intersect is a good spot to place your focal point. You can easily remember it by thinking of a tic tac toe grid. Here, I've done one below.

That orange which is so obviously the attention-getter in this painting, is placed on that bottom right intersection.
It usually NOT good to put your center of interest smack dab in the middle, or way off to one edge, where it might lead viewer's eye out of the painting. It's most often best to place a center of interest in either the right top or bottom intersecting point.
Why? We "read" paintings like we read words... from left to right. Looking at a painting is like a little visual journey.... we tend to start at the left (unless there's a compelling reason to start somewhere else) and walk through the painting to reach the center of interest. If that center of interest comes right away, on the left side, then we don't have any good reason to keep going. Our visual journey is over, and we leave. Now, there are ways to direct eye movement back and around in a painting - I'll talk about that a little bit here.

Here's a couple of other examples:

Top Right:

Another top right on a vertical format:

Top Left (this requires directing the viewers eyes through the painting in a backwards "C" to get them to the focal point.

Here's a bottom left:

In this case, the path, leading to the very bright spot, is compelling enough to keep the viewer going, following that, back down the trees to the water puddles on the path and back to the hiker. At least that was the plan. But it's tricky putting a focal point on the bottom left like this. Here's another.

In this case, the focal point really could be either the pint of Guinness, or the group of figures by the bar. In either case, the eye certainly lands on the pint glass first, but the explores the painting - going to the group of figures, over to the gal in the reddish shirt, down to the foreground figure and back to the pint glass. So, I think this works, though it requires some thought and planning to put a center of interest so "soon" in a painting.

Well, hope this gives you some ideas when you go to plan your composition. This is a tried and true principle and it WILL help you. That doesn't mean you can't break the rule and still have a good painting, but you'll just have to work alot harder to make a pleasing arrangement that keeps the viewer entertained.

Happy painting!

Just another reminder of my new blog to document an experiment of doing 120 paintings (nearly daily).

120 Paintings Blog

Subordinate Forms and Thinking Front to Back

2011-10-15T00:34:00.002-06:00

Sweet Summer, 12x20, oil, canvas

I thought it might be interesting to consider a little thing I call Subordinate Forms. This is a handy little tool to add to your painting toolbox. You can pull it out, and it will help add dimension and depth to your work. When we are painting, especially in landscapes, but this rings true even in still life, we are trying to create the illusion of depth and distance. In order to do that, first we have to think FRONT TO BACK. Too often, and this is really often true in still life, we think side to side, and set up our still life all in a row across the tabletop. In landscape, we dot trees or barns or whatever and march them across from left to right like little soldiers in formation.

Using the idea of subordinate forms just means that some things are in front of other things, and that not all planes are created equal.

What???

Really, its easy.

To start with, here's a really obvious example of NOT using subordinate forms or thinking front to back. (This was an example, intentionally BAD, I used in a workshop).

yes, this is pretty awful.

But I've seen folks make some of the mistakes we see in this painting over and over. Let's look at it for a minute. Besides really bad drawing, there are three things I want to point out.

1. The house appears to be sitting on top of the grass, not settled in to the earth with grass growing around it.

2. The trees are all in a row.

3. The double track road appears to be sitting on top of the grass, not a part of the ground.

The reason all those things are a problem in this painting is that the artist (me) didn't think front to back, or think of the planes. (not those kind of planes silly).

September Chores.

Problem #1, solution. If the artist considered "front to back" thinking, then she would have realized that the house is sitting in a field of grass (or weeds, could be weeds I guess). In this case, the foundation of the house is behind the clumps of grass growing in front of it.(I think of it as being subordinate to the grass.) There should be an uneven edge to show the grass cluster growing up around the house, as above. (please do not draw little lines of grass -more about that in another post)

Problem #2.Solution.. The trees might be growing along a fenceline or at the edge of the field, but there will still be some trees and branches in front of others, or you CREATE this effect for a more artistic presentation.

Spring Thaw, Rio Nambe

Here's one example. Note in particular the row of red willows and the dark pines growing behind them on the top right quadrant of this painting. Can you see how I was pretty intent on not lining them up in a row, and made sure that some appeared to be in front of others, etc? Instead of a ribbon of bushes or trees running across the snow, there is now more depth and distance, just by that one little trick... Besides, that's the way things really grow. (you can click on these images for a larger view, by the way.)

Problem #3 Solution. This is one I really do see alot. In our problem painting (bless it's heart) the road doesn't appear to be ground with grass growing around and in it. somehow it sort of floats above the grass. In reality, the ground plane is lower than the grass... the grass grows and rises above the dirt. In order to show that, a couple of easy tricks are first to paint the ground with horizontal strokes. This alone creates the feeling of it being a flat plane. Here's an example,

even in the unfinished part of this plein air piece, the ground planes are painted with side to side strokes.

I usually start by painting the grass with the same horizontal strokes, and then come back and add some small upright forms to show the progression into the distance. Even in a field of grass or weeds, some things are behind (subordinate to) other things. Think of the grass as a form, and the ground as a form. Forms have edges, and dimension. That means they will have shadows too. Look at the left edges of the ground - do you see very slight indications of shadow from the (slightly higher) grass?

It's really just common sense. If we stand in a field, we are looking at multiple layers of grasses and clumps and clusters of weeds that recede into the distance - we depict that by putting some clumps in front of other clumps. Do it in a painterly fashion, not (please) little stems of grass sticking up like needles.

detail of field, showing this front to back progression.

If you have a cast shadow falling across something like this field, remember that the edges of that shadow will show this same progression of front to back. Some of the sunlit grasses will stick up in front of the shadowed grass, and vice versa. Look at the first painting in this post.

This idea of subordinate forms is true in skies also. Remember not to paint your clouds dotted across the sky, but rather think of the sky as a big dome overhead... or maybe like a beamed ceiling. The beams (clouds) recede into the distance.. the ones closest to us are in front of the ones further back. I know, I know, it seems so obvious, but how many paintings do you see with only one layer of cloud shapes?

detail from Partly Cloudy

I hope you find this useful, and maybe it'll help you to start thinking front to back, no matter what subject matter you are painting....

It's true in Still Life also. Even in this small study, you can see I was intentional about creating some depth by

making sure forms overlap and and some are in front of, and behind, others.

I'm on #3 of my 120 paintings project. You can visit that blog here.click to go to 120 paintings

New Journey, New Blog

2011-10-12T23:25:00.000-06:00

1. Pansies and Creamer

This has been a year of frustration and failure in regards to painting. I've talked about it before, being in a "slump". It has not been fun, honestly, and I've doubted whether I have 'what it takes" to be a good painter.

I guess the answer to that question is still up in the air, but recently I participated in a webinar with artist Larry Seiler. I missed the first session, but fortunately caught the second, and really connected with something Larry talked about.

Larry mentions three "zones" in which we as painters might find ourselves. There's the comfort zone, in which we are doing what has been successful, or at least comfortable for us. It's the status quo for us. Then there is the learning zone, in which we are trying to grow, reaching out to try new things, new methods, new subject matter. During this zone we often fail. Often. Fail. It isn't fun. It's hard. And then there's the panic zone. I'm not totally sure what constitutes the panic zone, only that it probably would send us crying to our mamas and make us head straight back to that comfort zone and start doing the same ol' thing again, using the same ol' methods, making the same ol' mistakes, churning out the same ol' stuff.

I realized I've been in that learning zone, and maybe inched toward panic a few times. I've scraped and tossed more paintings than I can count. But I don't want to do the same ol' thing anymore! I want BETTER.

But getting better usually means making more mistakes and failing more often along the way.

Having this handle on my journey, and understanding where I've been, I have a renewed sense of determination.

Larry quotes that it takes 120 bad paintings before we start seeing good ones. That's no magic number, but it means that we have to make lots of mistakes before we can build on those mistakes and gain enough understanding from them to start producing better art.

So, I'm starting a new journey, and a new blog to document it. This blog will remain active, and I'll link the new blog here for those who might be interested in following it. I'm going to do those 120 paintings and see where it takes me. I'm not just doing "daily paintings". (in fact, it is hard for me to paint on weekends, so it won't be an every day thing.) These 120 paintings will have specific parameters.

1. I will dedicate an hour to each one. No more.

2. I will be focusing on better, more deliberate, brushstrokes. That might mean no blending, or less blending. It will mean looser.

3. I want to explore some color theories.

The above painting is the first, about 45 min. on a 5x7. I do not like working this small, so I'll be looking for a larger, but economical, surface. I'll probably make some masonite panels. ("Steve, would you mind cutting me some 8x10 pieces of masonite? I need 120 of them") For this one, I used one #6 bristle brush (that'll keep you from detail on something this small!) It is rough, but its a start. And after all, every journey begins with the first step.
But you gotta take that first step.

I encourage all of you, if you feel like you are static, not growing, not changing, to try this. Let's take this journey together! I'll post the link to your own blog here if you want to share.

The new blog will be titled: A Journey of 120 Steps.

Ghost Ranch day 2

2011-10-04T21:49:00.003-06:00

Saturday morning, we all packed up our STUFF (painters have alot of STUFF) and drove about 7 miles to the Big Eddy turnout on the Chama River. It's called the Big Eddy because just at the end of the cliff there, the river has formed a big eddy (heh, heh). No really, there's a huge bowl just past the shrubberies there on the left and the water pools around in a circle. The Chama River wilderness is, as one passerby said to me, "National Park class". It is absolutely, fantastically beautiful and rugged. I plan on going back.

We got a slightly later start than I had wanted, which is the usual case when you have a group of people. Trying to get a bunch of artists organized and out the door is sort of like herding cats. But anyway, there was still the remnant of morning light when we got there and I set up fast and started furiously laying down the basic structure and light and shadow - because it was changing really fast. That took about 30-40 min. of really fast, concentrated painting, and by the time I had done that, the light was completely different and the rest of the morning was spent working from that "outline". I had started on a used canvas that had been scraped down, and then I'd taken the leftover paint from my palette and mixed it to form a warm greenish gray and painted that over the surface. This made a nice smooth non absorbent surface to work on, which I like, but the color was about a value 5.5 - that's a little darker than I prefer. It made judging values a little easier though, something I often struggle with outdoors.

Looking upstream from where I painted. I was standing on a little sandbar in the middle of the river.
Yes, I had to hop some rocks and a little bit of water.

Here's the painting did on location in progress. I had to face the opposite direction from where I was painting to avoid the glare from the sun. I spent all morning looking left. My neck hurt. It sure was nice though.... standing there listening to the river and

watching trout jump right in front of me!!

Morning on the Chama, oil, 12x16

This is the (almost) finished piece. I promised someone I'd try to post this tonight, so I'll go ahead and put it here even though there's a few more things to do.

After getting it pretty much laid out while on location, I was able to work in the studio, mostly from memory.

Once you've stood looking at a scene, concentrating on it for a couple of hours, you can do quite a bit from memory. At least it usually works that way for me. I didn't use any photo reference until I was working on the foreground. The photo wasn't really much help.

As you can see, comparing the two, I added the reflected light and the sunlight bits on the distant hills.

I lightened the sky - the color in this photo is a bit off -it is not that yellow actually.

I strengthened the reflection of the cliff in the water. That part was a challenge because I had both a shadow on the water and left bank from the cliff, as well as a reflection. Additionally, in real life, there was more sky reflection in the water, but i wanted that section to stay as a large dark mass, so I didn't want to add too much of that and break it up.

I added some more darks in the foreground. I intend to add some more warmer tones in the cliff - I just feel like it needs that.

Corrections I see that need to happen are:

A couple of tangents - red cliff meeting tree on top of cliff and the distant shoreline is right at one of the points of the cliff. Those are small things, but they just shouldn't be there.

Two triangle shapes repeated in water. Funny how our brain wants to repeat shapes. Stop it, left brain!!

more reflected light in the top right hill that's in shadow.

slightly "more" reflection of cliff in water.

And something I might try is putting a shaft of sunlight coming in behind the cliff. This was morning, as the sun was coming up over the rugged terrain, and I thought that just might portray that feeling a bit better. I'll let you know on that one. It has to be lightly scumbled on once that area is mostly dry, so I'll have to wait a bit.

As a side note, look at the first photo on this post, and compare that to the painting. I wasn't standing exactly where I stood to paint, but pretty darn close. This is a good example of how photographs tend to squish everything and make it look further away. Think of photographs like your dog left in the kitchen where there's a pot roast sitting on the counter. Don't trust 'em..

Painting Reflected Light

2011-10-03T17:40:00.002-06:00

Chimney Rock Shadows, oil, 16x20 plein air

Here's the plein air piece I did Friday evening. It's not quite finished - I will have to do some tuning in the studio, but it's probably not going to change dramatically and it serves as a good illustration of what I talked about yesterday.

There is something of a "law" of light. It's about as close to a real rule of painting as you're going to get. It is this:

If you have warm light (ie sunlight or indoor incandescent light) then shadows will be cool.

If you have cool light (indoor north light, or cloudy overcast outdoor light) then shadows will be warm.

This refers primarily to CAST SHADOWS,.

(You know the difference, right? Form shadows are the part of any object facing away from the source of light - the 'dark side of the moon" kind of thing. Cast shadows are the kind of shadows that old song "Me and My Shadow" was written about.)

But something happens to form shadows that we should try to understand.

Think about it like this:

You left an orange sitting outside on your patio table. (the raccoons are going to get it, quick, go get it and bring it back in - but not till we're done using it for an example.)

The side of the orange facing the sunlight will be warmer in color than it's "native color" - it might be more yellowy-orange than the pure orange, for example. The highlight will also be warm, by the way, and not pure white (which is a cold color.)

The shadow cast by the orange on the patio table will be influenced by whatever color the table is, but it will be a cooler color than the orange itself. That's because that tabletop is blocked from receiving that warm light because the orange is between it and the sun. So, no warm light, the shadow is cooler.

The shadow side of the orange isn't getting that warm light falling on it, but it does have some air and atmosphere surrounding it. It'll also be cooler. Maybe that shadow side of the orange will be a dull reddish green instead of bright orange. Its still a warm color, but it's cooler than the sunny side. (remember that color temperature is relative)

Random tip: Often you can select the compliment of a color as the basis for a form shadow color. So, for an orange, I often choose green (the compliment of orange) and a dark earthy red (which is just a darker orange, really) to paint the shadow side. If you want to understand why that works, ask. That's a discussion for another day.

So, we have warm light, cool shadows.

BUT.... what if that orange is sitting on, say, a yellow tablecloth. Ahhh.. now here comes the interesting part. Think of light like an arrow - it can only travel in straight lines. A shaft of warm sunlight zooms down and hits the yellow tablecloth. Immediately it bounces back up and hits the shadow side of the orange. Some of that warm tabletop color is now hitting the shadow side - that's REFLECTED LIGHT

Here, I don't have an orange, but here's one of my paintings that might demonstrate this.

There are several places where reflected light comes into play here. See if you can find them, but I'll focus on the white bucket.

Here, the sunlight is coming from above right. A shadow is cast onto the bucket by the bright orange tarp. The shadow color is cooler than the tarp. (warm light, cool shadows.) As the bucket shape turns away from the sunlight, it starts to fall into shadow, and the color starts getting cooler. You can see its sort of a cool purplish brown. But on the far shadow side of the bucket itself, sitting as it is on the warm colored wood of the boat, we see that warm wood color bouncing back up and changing that cool shadow color to a golden brown. Even on the inside of the bucket, warm light hits that white interior, warms up, and bounces back to the other side of the bucket to show up as a rich warm tone.

Random Tip #2. The reflected light will still be a value consistent with the rest of the shadow. Don't be tempted to paint reflected light too light - remember, there are shadow shapes, and light shapes, and don't ever mix them up.

In a situation like the cliff faces in the painting of the Chimney Rocks, the shadow sides of the cliff are SURROUNDED by warm colors of the rocks, hills, earth... sunshine is bouncing all around out there. Our tendency, (all of us do it, and it is a common mistake for inexperienced artists for sure) is to paint these rock shadows cool. We pull out the blue or the purple or the gray and paint all those little nooks and crannies. They're in shadow: they should be blue, right? But, if you've seen paintings with this error, have you ever noticed that they don't portray a real sense of a sunny day? They seem dead somehow.

Above is one of my early paintings. before I understood much about light. There are two huge glaring errors (and a bunch of smaller ones) in this painting. First, I painted all those shadows cool. Even with a clear sense of the direction of the light and the cast shadows, it still doesn't feel like a bright sunny day. The second error is that there is a clear face in those rocks - once you see it, that's ALL you'll see on this painting. Remember yesterday's post about that - I failed miserably here. (See I am not proud - this is a bad painting for a whole lot of reasons, but it's a good "how not to paint" example.)

Now, here's a painting by Homer- look at all that beautiful warm reflected light!!! You almost need the sunscreen for this one!! How many of us would want to paint the shadow side of that white horse gray? But see how wonderfully this is depicted. Because of the reflected light captured by those luscious warm colors on the horse, we can FEEL that sunshine.Check out the neck of the horse. Where the musculature of his neck slants ever so slightly upward, catching less reflected light and more sky color, it is cooler - same value, but temperature change alone depicts that form.

Oh it makes me drool!

One more note: reflected light is not always warm. It usually IS warm outside, because the light is generally warm, and nature is filled with warm colors. But if you had that same orange sitting outside on a bright blue colored tablecloth, the reflected light will partake of that intense blue color, and will show up on the orange as more of a dull turquoise (the blue of the tablecloth plus the dark greenish red of the orange itself) Basically, reflected light is the color of the object plus the color of what is being reflected.

I hope this has been helpful. Using reflected light in your paintings can add so much - it will step them up to a higher level if you can understand this, and use it in your work.

Field Sketches

2011-10-02T19:04:00.000-06:00

Casa del Sol, 5x7

here's a very quick (30 min.) little sketch of our wonderful little adobe, Casa del Sol, at Ghost Ranch. I would love to go back there and stay longer. I threw this in the back of the truck, where it somehow tipped over and landed smack dab on top of my palette, still full of paint of course. (isn't there some law of nature that bread always lands jelly side down? Same goes for wet paintings, I think) So, I scraped off the extraneous paint, but have not fixed it. This was more of just a "killing time" kind of thing.. waiting for some good late afternoon light.. I was just reminded that though outdoor shadows are typically cool, when the light is strong, there's alot of warm color bouncing around out there, and scumbling a little warmer tones into the shadow color is a good thing. The adobe would be warmer in tone closer to the ground, but the bushes shaded it from the reflected light in all but a small spot or two.

Someone asked, "what is the purpose of doing field sketches?" I guess for me, there are several functions that field sketches fulfill.

1. To get a "feel" for the place- the geography, or structure, etc. This is probably the main purpose they serve for me, at least right now. Doing a quick sketch somehow makes me see things I might otherwise overlook - I guess I "see" better with my hands than just with my eyes.

2. . If time is short, or weather is about to get nasty, or for some other reason you can't spend a great deal of time to start a "serious" painting, a quick field sketch can record your impression of the place. Photographs can be helpful, but I don't think they come anywhere close to the "real thing" as you might experience it standing out there. Take a field sketch back to the studio and you've got much more info than
a photograph, especially in regards to the real colors, values, and light. Without getting bogged down in details, sometimes field sketches are more "true" than when I put hours into a painting. (how frustrating that is sometimes!)

I don't always do them - but when I DO, they tend to be informative and helpful in the long run.

This next one was about 45 min. or so - and is pretty rough, as you can see, but it served as a good warm up for painting at Ghost Ranch - sort of like you might do a warm up before any sport or exercise you do. I felt like I needed something to just get my artist brain functioning - so I sketched this view right out the front door of our Casa, on some canvas paper that had already gotten wet so was kind of wrinkly. I really wanted to try to get a feel for the basic colors and the relationships of light and shadow planes. It wasn't as easy as you might think.

Chimney Rock about 6x8

This was informative however. Doing this little snapshot, I noticed the nature of light on those chimney rocks.. Cool cast shadows, and warm form shadows because of reflected light. Knowing this will be key to producing any serious works - it will be vital to make the light believable on all these many rock formations and cliff walls. So I was glad I did this. There are so many different colors of rocks and hills in these formations that sometimes things don't seem to follow rules - some purpish gray formations appear much darker than their lighter colored counterparts, even though they are farther away, and some of the very light colored cliffs appear lighter than the ground planes.... there's a balance to be achieved to be believable and yet catch the characteristics of the place. And remember, it is not necessary to document every little nook and cranny, or hill or bump or whatever - Get a general sense of the place - painting is less about accuracy and more about interpretation.

Which brings me to one further note. This particular chimney rock formation is quite striking, and juts out from the mesa to catch great light early and late in the day.It just BEGS to be painted. However, one of those spires is so intensely phalic as to be almost laughable.

Dont Paint This!!!

I have seen paintings of this formation that make me wince. Please be selective!!!!. Be sure and stand back from your work - evaluate for anything that in itself becomes an attention-getter. Play down elements that can capture attention for the wrong reason, like this spire, or boulders that look like elephant heads or cliff walls that appear to have faces in them. Find a different angle if you have to. This kind of thing can ruin an otherwise good painting!

These field sketches served their purpose for me. I felt like they got me in tune with some of the colors and landscape elements out there, and hopefully, tomorrow, I can show you something a little nicer that came from these preliminary efforts.

Ghost Ranch Painting Weekend Day 1

2011-10-01T21:31:00.002-06:00

This weekend, I joined a dozen or so other painters from PAPNM, Plein Air Painters of New Mexico at Ghost Ranch Conference Center, in Abiquiu, NM. Ghost Ranch is now owned by the Presbyterian Church, and is used as summer camp, retreat center, and guest lodging. Many artists groups visit, as you can imagine. There were at least two other painting groups there this weekend. This is without question a painter's paradise. It is where Georgia O'Keefe lived, and the subject of many of her paintings. Here's an outline you might recognize if you are familiar with her work.

Pedernal, that flat-topped mesa on the horizon, appears in many of Georgia's paintings.

I arrived mid- morning on Friday, too late for morning light, and the group was scheduled to meet at noon, so I decided to spend what time I had scouting out some areas, and getting in a little run at the same time.

It is almost sensory overload at Ghost Ranch.. everywhere you look, there are paintings!

After eating lunch with the PAPNM crew, I went to check into my room, and check out some more views.

Turns out my room was in a 1930's Hacienda - one of the first such buildings built on the Ranch, and almost next door to Georgia's home, which is of course off limits. Our house was Casa del Sol (house of the sun), a picturesque adobe built in a "U" shape, with a porch along the inside perimeter and a tiled patio with views of Pedernal and distant mountains. A kitchen and gathering room made for a homey feel, and we could fix our own meals and talk art sitting by the fireplace. And, here is the view right out the front door.

I did a couple of sketches in the afternoon, waiting for the good late day light to hit on those chimney rocks.

I'll post those tomorrow.

a few field sketches

2011-09-29T23:59:00.002-06:00

The

Jemez Monument

This is a 12x16 plein air sketch of the Jemez Monument, down in "the village". (That's what we call Jemez Springs, which is where our address is listed, but which is actually about 15 miles away.) Its just that, a sketch, and might serve as reference for a more completed painting some day.

here's a little history of the place, which contains the ruins of an old Catholic mission, built in the 1600's, and the ruins (not visible in my painting) of an ancient pueblo called Giusewa.

The mission was built by the Spanish in 1621 and called the San Jose de los Jemez. The Jemez people living at Giusewa did not want to convert to Catholicism and eventually all the pueblos united in 1680 and revolted, driving the Spanish completely out of New Mexico. This Mission was burned during the crisis. This pueblo revolt is still celebrated to this day.
The Jemez people rebuilt their pueblo further down the valley in a place called Walatowa, which is where they live to this day.

Here's the inside of the Mission. Steve and I attended Easter Sunrise service here. That was pretty awesome actually with the light coming in over the ruins...

I was going to post another plein air sketch.

OOPS!!! I can't find the photo right now, and it's late and I gotta go to bed. Oh well, maybe next time.

Here's the scene anyway...

And for good measure, here's one of the "girls". She is a Sicilian Buttercup by breed. Sicilian?Hmmmm... I had to name her after the Sopranos. Meet Carmella. She's small, but bossy. Figures.....

Tomorrow and Saturday I am joining PAPNM (Plein Air Painters of New Mexico) for a weekend of painting at Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, NM, and the Chama River Wilderness. I'm looking forward to getting to meet a few fellow painters, and painting in some awesome locations!!

Plein air adventures

2011-09-28T22:50:00.000-06:00

Today, I decided to hike down into a great painting spot. Reportedly, the 4WD road that leads into the canyon where I wanted to go is in pretty bad shape, so rather than risk getting stuck (who wants THAT?) I hiked in about 3 miles. Since I was carrying a pretty heavy painting pack with all my gear plus water, drinks, and snacks for the day, this 6 mile round trip over some rather rough terrain felt like plenty. Especially on the way back, which entailed an extremely steep ascent up to the ridge - about 1000 feet in a half mile.(I'm guessing here, but I'm a pretty good guesser on stuff like that)

My journey would take me from the top of Thompson Ridge, at about 8200 feet elevation, down (steeply) into San Antonio canyon. I wanted to paint by the river. This canyon is one of most beautiful spots around here - expect to see it again on this blog. (hope they get that road graded soon).

By the way, I HATE my voice on recordings, but I'm just gritting my teeth and posting anyway.

After a nice leisurely hike for a little over a mile, I had to descend down steeply into the canyon. I did take some video here, but I won't post it. Just take my word that it is STEEP, RUGGED, and tricky carrying a 50 pound pack. I slipped a couple of times because the pumice soil common here is like little ball bearings underfoot. Plus, this is not a maintained trail, but just a local shortcut.

Before I reached the river, my final destination, I stopped at the natural hot springs, about 200 feet above the canyon floor. These natural thermal springs come out of the side of the cliffs, and are just FABULOUS.
You'll have to take my word for this too.... for some reason, neither my video or the photos I took here came out.
Maybe it was because of the naked people. Folks like to bath sans clothes in the hot springs. It never fails that I come down here and there's people hanging around without clothes. Usually it's people you'd rather not see naked.. Anyway, the hot springs are pretty awesome - maybe next time I'll get some photos. I did meet a local ladies hiking group who had hiked in from the other side of the river - had thought about hiking with them today, but painting seemed like more fun - it was good to say hi to them however. They were sitting next to the naked people, but nobody seems to notice much around here.

Here's the parking lot and bridge down by the river. Obviously some people made it on the 4wd road. But most of them are on ATV's.

Here's one place I considered setting up....

And another ( I liked those backlit rocks on the hillside)

.

Here's where I finally ended up.. I really liked that dead snag by the river, and the opportunity to have a dark background with the trees behind it.

And here's my painting in progress on location. Of course I didn't take any close ups. (I had good intentions of showing the whole thing in progress, but just FORGOT once I started painting. It's that whole right brain/left brain thing). I'll try to post the finished version - needs a little tuning in the studio. Knowing I had a tough hike back out of the canyon, I had to head on back home so I could cook supper. You know, that whole "women's work is never done" thing. (we had beans and rice, so not really much "cooking".)

I know there are some really great places further up canyon, but I'll save those for another day when maybe I can get closer by car.

Revisions

2011-09-26T13:14:00.000-06:00

Heading to High Country

I made some further changes to this and now feel it is at least approaching my original intention. Sometimes a painting has to sit and brew for awhile before I can see what needs to be done. The changes were not huge, you might have difficulty seeing all of them, but they're there, and hopefully contribute to a more successful

outcome.

In particular, I darkened the foreground grasses. When I viewed the painting in grayscale, the foreground seemed to rival the sky in value, so it needed to come down a notch.

I made the foreground snag (that's "dead tree" for you easterners) larger.

I revised the front rider and horse just a tad. Some drawing issues needed to be corrected.

I changed the one smaller dead tree above the rider to a shadowed green tree. Better emphasis with his red shirt, which also got toned down in saturation a bit, because at the distance we view him, the color would not be so rich. (remember, everything gets grayer and lighter as it recedes into distance, even short distances)

And though the glare (which I could NOT seem to avoid in photographing today) keeps us from seeing it, the trees have been refined and some brought forward, and some thrown into shadow. They look better, even though this photo doesn't show it so much.

And finally, I "smuggled red" in there (for all you Stapleton Kearns fans, you know what that is). Little touches of red added here and there to compliment an overall green landscape. Can you find the smuggled reds?

Heading to High Country and other stuff....

2011-09-17T00:07:00.004-06:00

Heading to High Country 12x16

The latest off the easel... or at least the latest I haven't thrown away yet! For some reason I can't get an accurate photo of it. The color is just... off. But this is the best I could manage today. Sheesh... I did have fun with this one, creating a story in my mind as I painted about packing up into the mountains. This came primarily from my imagination, but the funny thing was, that after I was nearly done with it, we ran into two guys doing exactly this while on a hike in the Sangre de Cristo range above Santa Fe. They even had a buckskin with them (that's the light colored horse with the black mane and tail and legs, for those who might not know).

Buckskins were a favorite of my dad's - he told me so once, so I add them in when I can.
Here's the painting as I first blocked it in, just out of my head, so things are a little rough.

Actually the colors in this WIP version are a little closer to the real thing. After putting in the basic structure, I changed:
1.the value of the sky (it was too dark, and needed to gradate from the left where the light was coming from)
2.the shape of the mountains. That pyramid shape had to go.
3.added a vest to the nearest rider (just because I wanted to) and did a bit of fine tuning of the horses in general. I painted these mostly with negative painting, not drawing them in, but rather painting the background around them till there was horse and rider left. This helps in some ways to create the sense of light flowing around them, and also keeps me from knit picking details. I left them simple with some good juicy brushstrokes in the areas of light. I also changed the position of the front rider, mostly because I just didn't like him turning the way he was.
4. paid close attention to the negative shapes between the trees - deep "v" shapes or triangle are easy to create between pine or spruce trees - watch out for that.
5. created a lead-in in the foreground grasses by the subtle shape of the dead trees and shadows.
6. used other directional lines to point towards the focal point, which is the rider with the read shirt.

The two cowboys we met allowed us to take their photo - so here's that too. They were going across the mountains, through Puerto Nambe down to Mora, NM. As the front fellow told us, "It's a pretty good way to spend the weekend."

In other news, I was able to meet some folks from PAPNM, which is Plein Air Painters New Mexico. We painted near the river down in Jemez Springs. Here's one of our views. Notice I am not showing you the painting I did. It's in that round file. :-)

It was a perfect day for painting. In a couple of weeks I am going up to Georgia O'Keefe's old stomping grounds for a weekend of painting with PAPNM. Can't wait - there are some fabulous views there.

July FASO Contest

2011-08-22T20:30:00.000-06:00

Summer Fruits

I'm honored to announce that the painting above, Summer Fruits, was a finalist in the Fine Art Studio Online contest for July. It also received the FAV15% nod. There are usually about 800-900 entries from all over the place, so it's very gratifying to be included in the finalists.

You can see the complete list of winners here

I've been making the rounds of some of the grandkids and having a wonderful time. I have a brand new baby grandson, David, and he is sure a cutie. No photos till I get home and can download them to the desktop.

David makes #7 grandchild, and #8 is on the way. I was able to visit with a few friends in New Hampshire last week while I was there with the two oldest granddaughters - not nearly enough time. It sure felt like home there, and I do miss it, and my friends, terribly.

A couple of more days here in Texas and I'll be headed home to New Mexico, and hopefully will get busy painting again.

June FASO art competition

2011-07-21T08:55:00.000-06:00

Rain Clearing

I feel just slightly like I am "always the bridesmaid and never the bride", but here's another FAV15% from June's FASO contest. It's nice to get the nod, even for this small honor, so no complaints. This painting hangs on my wall because it is the one remaining work I have that depicts one of our favorite hikes back in New England. This is along the Bondcliff trail, near Franconia Ridge. This was done from memory and a photo, because lugging my 35 pound painting pack up about 15 miles of tough trail would have been more than I wished to do! We had hiked all morning, in rain, drizzle, and heavy fog, and just as we popped out above treeline, and got to this ridge, the rain began to clear, but it was still hot and steamy. Can you see the humidity and the steam rising from the rocks?

Lately, hot and steamy seems like a vast improvement over hot and very, very dry. Any kind of moisture to lessen the fire danger here would be welcome! The huge Las Conchas fire is still burning, a month later, but it mostly under control. The monsoons season should have started weeks ago, but all we've had is hot and dry.... which is of course the worst condition for fire hazard. The good news is that we FINALLY got rain yesterday. And even more is due today. (cross your fingers). The bad news is that now we are under a flash flood watch.

Badly burned soil (and sadly, a great portion of this massive 156,000 acre fire is total burn, complete destruction) is more water resistant than asphalt, so any rain, even a small slow drizzle, simply runs off. This creates real danger for flash floods in drainages and steep slopes along the burn scar. So concerned are they about this very real danger, the Rangers and Forest Service in Bandolier National Monument, (which is situated in a deep canyon gorge running to the Rio Grande) have installed 43,000 sand bags, and removed all items from the Visitor Center and Museum there, and completely wrapped the building in plastic. They believe it will actually be UNDER WATER at some point. That means they are expecting water levels of over 30 feet rushing in a torrent down the canyon. We might see that today if the predicted heavy rainfall occurs.

and interesting... here is a photo of the first day of the fire, taken from the space station. Folks, if you can see it from space, it is BIG!!!!

and to put it's growth in perspective, it is now larger than that dark area you see in the upper left of the photo(which is heavily forested mountains).

And, yikes, our house is just at the left edge of the origin of the plume!

A friend and I (this was her idea, I'm just a tag-along) are in the process of trying to collect fire stories - there are many, and we are concerned that already they're being forgotten... Folks who had to evacuate with only the clothes on their back, ranchers who desperately tried to retrieve livestock from the burn area, the folks who were at ground zero when the fire started, the firefighters who battled this monster under extremely dangerous conditions (one firefighter was seriously injured with a broken pelvis and leg and was helicoptered out)... these are stories we are going to try to collect. If our plan comes to fruition, we hope to publish these stories in a small book, the proceeds of which will benefit our own local volunteer fire department. More to come on this project I hope!!!

FIRE!!

2011-07-12T12:18:00.000-06:00

Photo credit: Jayson Coil www.jaysoncoil.com

As many of you probably know, the largest and fastest moving wildland fire in New Mexico history erupted two weeks ago. Ground zero of this fire was only two miles from our house, but the prevailing winds pushed it the other direction. Record hot and dry conditions, plus high wind, set up the perfect storm for this fire. At one point, it was moving something like 10 acres a minute. It now encompasses well over 100 square MILES.

Tragically, over 30 homes were lost, and some folks had only minutes to evacuate and could only turn their livestock loose and pray. One firefighter lost everything, including three beautiful horses that perished in the blaze, yet he continues to battle this fire. A few cattle were found huddled against a fence after the burn, alive. Within 24 hours, the fire was already dangerously close to the city of Los Alamos, 25 miles away, and the population of 18,000 was evacuated, including the National Lab where nuclear materials are used and stored. Though thousands of acres of beautiful forest were burned, all structures were protected by the amazing work of these firefighters, and Los Alamos was reopened to residents last week. The road between there and here was also just opened and I made my first drive through the fire zone. It was an emotional thing.... Blackened sticks and scorched hillsides look more like a moonscape than the beautiful woodlands that stood there. Because any access to the forest is completely forbidden (we can't even walk on the trails near our house) and rangers were ticketing folks who stopped along the highway to get out and take pictures (yes, they are THAT serious about "no access") I did not stop and take photos. Bandelier National Monument, where there are ruins of ancient cliff dwellings of the pueblo culture, is 95% burned. All so very sad, and nothing will be the same in our lifetime, or our children's lifetime, or even their children's lifetime. I couldn't take photos, but here is a link to some amazing shots of the fire and the work of these brave men and women who literally put their lives on the line out there, trying to not only stop the fire but also protect the many cultural and historical structures that abound.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65065550@N06/with/5926232888/

We have been on the southwest corner of the fire, and I could stand on my deck and see flames. Due to prevailing winds, the fire was creeping slowly in our direction, but finally made a run up the mountain behind us, and the crews went in with everything they had I believe to stop it. We have been under "ready, set, go" warning ever since the fire started. Important documents, pictures, hardrive of the computer, etc. are in the car, we have a bag packed. Many folks evacuated voluntarily. Due to the nature of our small housing development, (only one road in and out, and no fire hydrants, and surrounded by dry pine forest) if the fire ever did make it into our valley, there would probably be no way to save the homes. We have had tanker trucks parked in the pasture, ready. At one point, huge embers were falling all around, and firetrucks from Albuquerque roamed the neighborhoods for hours, because any tiny spark had a 100% chance of starting a flame. It is that dry.

Until last night. We got RAIN!!!! Blessed, slow, gentle rain!!! hallelujah!! The monsoons should have started weeks ago, but we are so grateful for any moisture now. Of course, now we are under flash flood watches, because the badly burnt soil is more water resistant than pavement. There is still a chance that the fire, now trying to skirt around south of us, could get away and the prevailing winds would then bring it right back up the ridge to us, but I am fairly confident that they will contain it. They are doing a good deal of back burning to prevent the spread, but the terrain is quite difficult in the canyons and hillsides and it is very dangerous work. They did some aerial ignition and this actually caused some out of control fire for a short time which was eventually contained.

Cox Ranch plein air sketch

This little plein air sketch was done a few months ago, and it is ground zero of the fire. I walked there one day with my painting gear, if that tells you just how close this is to our house. Just to the right of where I was standing to paint, a tree fell on a powerline and started the fire. They were able to save the structures you see, but the hillside behind is charred. There were a number of cattle and horses which were also saved, thankfully.

FAV15%

2011-06-17T13:14:00.000-06:00

Just Another Day at the Office

I'm pleased to say that this painting was selected as part of the FAV15% in the May Bold Brush art contest

presented by Fine Art Studio Online. With about 800 or so international entries, it's very nice to have been selected as part of this group.

Curing What Ails Me

2011-06-09T11:35:00.000-06:00

Cowboy study, oil on paper, about 12x12

Oh man, I've been in the worst painting slump of my life. For some reason, it's like I forgot how to paint, and everything I've started lately has been scraped down, or thrown away in a fit of despair.

Yes, despair. That's the correct adjective for how I feel. I tell myself that my standards have gone up and that's why I am not happy with anything I do, but honestly, what's coming off my brush is just pretty awful.

So why am I posting this painting. It's obviously not a finished work, or anything particularly special. Well, I am posting it because:

1. I haven't posted anything in so long it seemed like I should try to get something out there.

2. This was an attempt to just have fun painting, with no goal other than to.. have fun.

3. I did have fun with it.

On the advise of a friend, and because i know it to be true, I put away all "serious" painting, and picked something I like, set a short time goal (this was about an hour and a half), found a scrap of cheap canvas paper (REALLY no pressure because it was even a USED piece of cheap canvas paper), picked up ONE brush, and went to work. No drawing, I just sort of blocked in the basic shape of the cowboy and horse, and then did as much negative painting as anything, painting background into anything that wasn't horse or rider.

I do like painting horses, and so if I need to get back into my comfort zone, this is a good subject for me.

Moral of the story? If you're struggling these days, painting something that either just appeals to you for whatever reason, or painting something that you KNOW you can paint easily, is a good place to start. No pressure.

Sometimes its good to just finish something, even if it isn't world class art . Doing so might unblock the creative flow. Or it might just give you a break from the feeling of "failure". I might not be out of my slump, but I was smiling today with a paintbrush in my hand, and that hasn't happened for awhile.

Hmmm... I wonder what other cowboy photo references I have on file?

When the Snow Flies and Flowers Don't Bloom.....

2011-05-11T17:15:00.000-06:00

Mushroom Soup

Well, it has been an interesting couple of days. Monday, I spent all day steam cleaning carpets. Our downstairs carpet is old, ugly and it's where the dogs hang out, so even though we plan on ripping it out maybe later this fall, for now, it just needed a good cleaning. And our neighbor kindly lent us his carpet steamer, so I needed to get it done so I could return his machine. No painting on Monday.

Maybe this wasn't the best timing. We've had more snow (yes, more!!!) and so now there are muddy pawprints coming and going out the doggy door on that freshly cleaned carpet! Oh well!

Tuesday I went into town for a couple of errands, one of which was to get some flowers for a still life I had in mind to paint. I knew the weather was supposed to be iffy and it wouldn't be a good plein air day. (light snow wouldn't necessarily deter me from painting outside, but the 40mph wind gusts would). Wouldn't you know it, the only florist in town has just changed hands, and the new owner had almost no flowers at all... The only lilies (what I was looking for) were small and not open in the least. The florist assured me that if I put them in warm water, they would be open by the afternoon. That was yesterday. They are still not open.

The errands took all day, and since the flowers were still not blooming and the wind was gusting something fierce, I spent the time arranging some things in the studio. So, No painting on Tuesday either.

So..today, we have snow again. And sleet. and it's darn cold..... since I couldn't paint outside, and I couldn't paint the flowers, I grubbed around for SOMEthing. The Daily Paintworks challenge this week is to paint vegetables. I didn't really even have any pretty veggies hanging around, but I finally spied these mushrooms, and decided that maybe I would paint some of the ingredients for one of my favorites, mushroom soup!

Weather is supposed to be nicer tomorrow and a good day for plein air.... and those darn lilies will probably decide to open up.

The painting is 8x10 and you can go here to purchase and see other available paintings. I also hope to get maybe a better photo of it when the light is better...

Finally/! The Completed Mural Mosaic

2011-05-06T20:46:00.000-06:00

The completed Fifth Mountain Mural

A few weeks ago, the finished mural mosaic was installed in the new Emergency Wing of the Monadnock Community Hospital, where it will live until final installation in the restored Park Theatre in Jaffrey.

This mural, comprised of 288 panels, each 8" square, is the culmination of nearly two years of work, and the work of over 125 artists, and countless hours of volunteer labor. I am proud and happy to have been a part of this project, that not only raised about $12K for the theatre restoration, but brought together the community in a way that I could never have imagined.

We purposely invited student artwork as part of this project, and even one kindergartener painted a panel. Below, I've included a few individual panels below.

Amelia Johnson, age 5

Briar Haigh, age 11

Mary Iselin - these sheep formed the edge of a pine tree in the completed mural

Barbara Mahar - St. Pat's church

these light blue sky panels were hard to keep values light.

Ann Sawyer - the important thing was to keep the colors and lines of the original mural intact.

Robert Price, our oldest artist

Robert Seaman -he painted more panels than anyone besides myself, and all of them were beautiful.

Ed Merrill - he took over chairmanship of the mural after I moved to New Mexico

Betty Glass... one of many artists who excelled at creating not only artwork that fit into the mural, but

beautiful stand-alone artwork as well

me, this was a real study in close values. These river otters and rocks formed the back of the artist in the "big picture".

Well, I could add about 280 more. This was such a huge undertaking, but the pay off is seeing the finished project, and knowing how it brought people together for a common cause, and created a lasting visual history of the Monadnock region. There are historical figures, events, landmarks, people, places, activities, and many references to all the wonderful things that make the Monadnock region so special.

If you are in the Peterborough, NH area, please stop by the hospital and take a look.

Jasper

2011-05-05T19:33:00.000-06:00

Jasper at the Window

This little furry pal belongs to a good friend. The photo is at her beautiful beach cottage on Chappaquiddick, off the coast of Massachusetts. She had been trying to get my hubby and me out there for a visit, but it just never worked out and now we are halfway across the country. So now she sends me photos to show me what I have been missing all this time.

Jasper is a West Highland Terrier. Believe m, he has personality, and besides being darn cute, he is completely "doggy" in all the best ways. I like the little guy alot. And had fun painting him (the result of not being able to sleep, so got up and decided to see what I could do with this photo. About an hour and a half, maybe more.. I wasn't paying attention to time.

Took my slightly larger goofy doggies (now 80 pounds at one year, and 55 pounds, at 6 months) out for a hike and did a bit of plein air. More on that tomorrow!!

The Theme today is: Cliffs

2011-05-04T18:43:00.002-06:00

This past weekend, Steve and I did about 28 miles in the Sandia Mountains above Albuquerque. We started on the north end at around 6500 feet elevation and hiked/ran up to the top of Sandia Crest, 10,700 ft., stopped and ate our lunch where the tram comes up, and then ran back to the car. The trail is beautiful, and goes through several climate zones, from scrub to high desert, to alpine forest. Above is a view near the turn around point where the tram comes up.
The views here were really spectacular.

And the trail, as you can see, rather precipitous. No tripping allowed!

Looking down towards Albuquerque.

Really beautiful up near the top.. This is a part of the La Luz trail.

And here's another view a few miles from our house. We discovered these cliffs high above the Jemez Valley on a hike one day..... the drop is at least 1000 feet, maybe more. Straight down.

Whew! Much easier to paint them from the bottom looking up.

There are some trails out behind this mesa, and a gypsum mine too. We found some crystalized gypsum on our hike - it resembles mica somewhat. The regular powdery white stuff is just like chalk.. it's what they use to make sheetrock. I always keep interesting rock samples, so gathered a little for my collection from the trails up there. Not far from here, I have found marine fossils. Think about that....

Painting, Grazing in San Ysidro, is 8x10 and can be purchased by clicking here.

My Friend David

2011-05-01T22:59:00.000-06:00

Dave Whitelock is maybe one of the kindest, warmest, nicest folks you're ever likely to meet. Currently, he and his equally wonderful wife Rosi run an Inn in beautiful Lake City, CO.
Here they are at the Inn,

and here's the view from the front porch.. Not bad, huh?

David and Rosi have had a major influence on my life. When I was a young teenager, I went to a Christian summer camp down in Texas called Camp Peniel. David and Rosi were directors of the camp, and they welcomed this awkward, shy (yes, shy!) tomboyish girl with open arms and open hearts. They just loved all of us kids there. They demonstrated what real faith means. There's nothing fake about the Whitelocks. They are as real and down to earth as it gets. And they've dedicated their entire lives to loving folks in Jesus' name. In the last few years, they have opened the Inn at the Lake, and have a campfire, a cup of coffee, and some great stories always ready to share with anyone who comes to stay. (Rosi is a very good cook, too, and the breakfasts are to die for).

As life happens, after high school and college, I gradually lost touch with Rosi and David, though I never forgot them. How I "found" them again involves my other pastime, running.

The "mother" of all the races that we attempt is the Hardrock Hundred Mile Endurance Run in Colorado. Part of the Hardrock course goes right past Lake City, and through a series of "coincidences" I learned that Rosi and David were now in Lake City. Imagine my delight when I was able to go pay them a visit while in Colorado preparing for the race. Though 35 years had gone by, it was as if it had only been a week, only we were all old and gray now! Since that time a few years ago, we have kept in touch and I cherish their friendship.

I snapped this photo of David when he stopped by for a visit recently. Though I can't really do it justice, it is in a small way just to honor these two very special folks.

He Should've Been a Cowboy.....

2011-04-29T09:51:00.001-06:00

A certain artist that I know (some of you will recognize him) took a painting trip down to the badlands of South Texas. There are bad things down there, some two-legged and some four-legged, and some no-legged.. the kind that slither along... As a sort of joke, he posed for this shot. Never let anybody tell you being an artist is easy! It takes a certain rugged individualism to do this kind of painting in the elements.
And believe me, in south Texas, there are lots of elements. 100+ degrees... everything bites, scratches, pokes, stings, or has fangs and tries to eat you.

He is a wild and crazy guy anyway, but this pose gave me an idea, so as a further kind of joke, I adjusted his
outfit. This was just a quick sketch, for grins.. I probably spent an hour and a half on it... but what the heck, some of you might get a kick out of it.
For you artist types who read this, it is done in the transparent wash/wipe off method. So no white paint was used, just wiping away the light, and adding thin paint for the darks. I used an old scraped canvas. I had initially planned to add color, but decided I like it just like it is....

I think it suits him. Maybe he really Should've Been a Cowboy......but then, I'm from Texas and think EVERYBODY should be cowboys.

A Plein Air Day

2011-04-28T18:59:00.000-06:00

Today I wandered out with the dogs to find a painting spot. It took me a long time to settle, and meanwhile I'm carrying a 35 pound pack up and down hills and down by the river. I started a small sketch down in the river gorge, but it was getting late and had to wrap up and head back to get supper started. I hope to go back there and finish up.

Meanwhile, here's another small plein air sketch of the Cox Ranch, a beautiful piece of property not far from here. It used to be a Dude Ranch, and that's why there are so many long cabins. The day I was painting this, a coyote wandered across the field right below me, stopped to look at me, then crossed the river and went on his way.
Click here to purchase this painting.

Spring Weather, Baby Chicks and a Painting

2011-04-27T23:14:00.002-06:00

Ah, spring in the mountains.... We actually did have spring for a couple of days. I wonder where the butterflies go? This is the day after Easter. We had a little of this on Easter Sunday too, but it held off until after the sunrise service. That's our shed and chicken coop... and please notice the daffodils blooming.. I was so happy to actually get something to grow up here. Our growing season is less than 60 days.

And, the above photo is why the baby chicks are still inside the house, with their heat lamp. That's why the photo is so red. Pictured, counterclockwise from front, are , Thelma, Lousie, Hermoine and Bernice. I forget what breed Hermoine is.. she's very petite and pretty. The others are New Hampshire Reds. Not pictured are Lucy, Ethel, Carmella and Adrianna. Carmella and Adrianna are a Sicilian breed, hence the Soprano angle. I just cleaned their cage last night. They are such poor housekeepers.

And lastly, here's a view of downtown Jemez Springs. That huge cottonwood is just amazing, in all seasons. I call it "The Village Tree".

On the left is a real, honest-to-goodness Cowboy Saloon. It is called Los Ojos, which means "the eyes".. but I don't know where the name came from. It is owned by a couple, friends of ours (I should ask them about the name, huh?) and the husband is a former Olympic Coach, and the wife is a former Olympic Gold Medalist in the marathon. Right here in little Jemez Springs. In the distance is Virgin Mesa. ( I know, you're asking "how do they know?"), Silly pants. The name comes from the fact that in certain times of day, shadows cast on the cliffs look like the Madonna and Child. I have not seen it yet.

There's another story about things appearing in the cliff face. Long ago, the Apaches, hired by the Spanish, had come to massacre the Jemez people. They made a stand on the top of San Diego mesa. When at last they were overrun by the Apaches, rather than be captured or tortured and killed, they all jumped off the edge of the cliff. Miraculously, the story goes, the image of San Diego appeared in the rock face, and they all landed on their feet and survived. It is hundreds of feet. Interestingly enough, I HAVE seen what looks like a saint praying in the rocks of the mesa.

This painting is 8x10, oil on panel, and is available by clicking here

Why Am I Painting This?

2011-04-25T19:24:00.003-06:00

Today's post will focus on one simple idea.

You must first answer the question "Why am I painting this?" in order to move toward a successful painting.

I 'd like to demonstrate the difference between just painting what is in front of you, and first finding out WHY you want to paint something.

Above is a little demonstration.. a 15 min. sketch of a friend's old farmhouse. So, here I am, standing with my easel in the happy little field, blithely painting away exactly what I see in front of me.. and this IS pretty much exactly what was there. But this little sketch says nothing, it has no power.. even if I had finessed details and spent lots of time making it look "good", it still has nothing to say. In short, it is AWFUL.

Why? Because, for this demonstration, I did not ask myself the important question "what is it about this scene that catches my eye? What is it that intrigues me, or makes me want to paint it? Had I first stopped to ask myself that question, then I would have realized that it is the sunlight hitting the side of the house that captured my imagination. I like the way it lights up the house and throws a shadow across it.

Ah, so now, I tell myself, "I like that sunlight. That's what I want to describe. I want viewers to see that, and feel the warmth of it as it slants across the house."

NOW, I have something to paint. I've talked about this before. I call it a "concept". We dont want to just paint things, we want to portray ideas. Painting should be like poetry - a poetic statement about the subject matter, not a book report in dull detail. Now that I have asked myself that important question "why am I painting this?", I now know what it is that I want to describe. I have a concept.

So, now I can start to organize, design, and orchestrate all the elements I see in front of me so that my viewers can see that concept too.

What is actually there is secondary in importance to the concept.

I have free reign to remove, change, darken, lighten, enlarge, subordinate, and a host of other actions in order to get my point across.

So, if I take some time to really look at the scene, I see that I am going to have to orchestrate the way the light flows across this painting in order to make viewers see that sunlight too. There are several other major design flaws in the "paint it as I saw it version". I won't go into all those, (see if you can find the changes in the "before and after" versions) but the main thing is that I want that light to pop right out of the painting. I want it to be THE BIG IDEA that everybody sees. so, below is one solution.

One way to emphasize something is by value contrast. Here I darkened the adjoining sections of the house and barn so that by contrast, the lit side looks even brighter.

You can also use directional lines to draw attention to something. The shaft of light I invented does this.

Another tool in your painter's toolbox is moving elements around. I moved several things here.

I also lightened the sky on that side of the painting to further enhance the idea of light coming from that direction.

This is of course, just an example, not a finished painting, But even this quick little sketch has some poetry and strength. It all comes from first asking myself "why am I painting this?" and, having gotten that answer, to use every means possible to make THAT the focus of the painting.

Minji in Hanbok

2011-04-22T18:37:00.001-06:00

Today's portrait model was a beautiful Korean girl named Minji. She posed for us wearing the Hanbok, the traditional formal Korean attire. What a great opportunity and I blew it on several counts.
First, I knew our model was posing in something special, and I might want to paint the full figure rather than just a shoulders-up portrait. Knowing this I should have brought a large canvas. I brought 16x20, which is simply not large enough, because at this size, her head is only about an inch and that is waaaaaayyyy too small to try to put any kind of detail. It made it extremely difficult to capture her beautiful features at all.
Second, I forgot to bring my camera. This was the perfect situation to start with the live model, and finish details of costume, background, etc. from photos later. Having no camera, I was forced to simply try to capture what I could in our limited painting time.

So, lesson learned. Come prepared, or, change plans. I should have probably just done the portrait, not the whole figure, but the Hanbok is such a lovely dress, I wanted to try to capture it. Still, having made my plan and refusing to change it, the result is pretty much nothing. I couldn't capture her face because it is too small, and I oculdn't capture the details of her costume because there is simply not enough time in one session. So, I'm disappointed.

But, lest we take ourselves too seriously, here is a fun little video about portrait painting. This guy makes it look easy!

Our Friend John

2011-04-21T08:08:00.001-06:00

This is the latest portrait study. I couldn't sleep last night, so got back up and wandered down to the studio.
I decided to try a quick portrait sketch, and selected a photo of our friend John from New Hampshire.
John was always willing to help whenever we needed something moved (we could have never loaded the moving truck without him) and is a general all around really nice guy. We miss him since moving out west. He's a good friend.
He's probably glad there isn't any more heavy stuff to move and carry!

I painted this on a sheet of canvas paper. I haven't tried this support before, but actually, it painted pretty good! It is textured like a canvas, and has some sort of coating specifically for oil paint, and was nicer to paint on than many store bought canvasses or panels I've used. I think I'll use it more, especially for studies like this. I have a 12x16 pad of it, and it's inexpensive. I suppose if you got a good painting that you wanted to frame, you could mount this on a panel just the same as loose canvas, or dry mount it at the frame shop.
This was maybe an hour and a half painting time before I finally got sleepy and went back to bed. I decided to leave the white background, which meant I had to get the drawing right the first time.

Short Painting Demo

2011-04-15T13:51:00.001-06:00

Here is a short little demo I put together, starting with this initial block in, to the final painting. This was about 6 hours worth of painting time (not counting cookie breaks).

Well I hope you're comfortable.....

2011-04-15T00:52:00.002-06:00

My dog, Gibbs. Have you ever known an 80 pound dog to sleep like this?

What a goofball!

I mean, really??

I've been working all day on STUFF... have to finish one painting for a demo that I am trying to document and put together by tomorrow afternoon. Yikes. I only started it today.

So I am tired, and going to get an early start tomorrow.

A bobcat that the dogs treed while on a run the other day. He was almost as big as our 5 month old German Shepherd!

At least she sleeps like a normal dog.

( they are practicing for the Olympic synchronized sleeping competition)

"Wired Artists" exhibit opening Friday at William Jessup University

2011-04-12T18:34:00.000-06:00

The "Wired" exhibit was hung this past weekend (by wires, heh, heh). This exhibit is a collection of artists who have made connections through the blogosphere and sites like Facebook. It is very cool to be a part of it, and I wish I could go to the opening on Friday. Any of my friends in California, it's near Auburn, at William Jessup University - go check it out! The show will be up through the month of April

This photo shows one of my works being hung in the gallery space by expert volunteers!
Please visit Frank Ordaz' blog for more great images of the show in process!!

Wine and Rose, painting demo

2011-04-11T22:51:00.001-06:00

Today I did a quick demonstration, including some tips on how to paint clear glass. Following are 5 steps in the process, about an hour total painting time. I don't necessarily consider this a finished painting, but for today's lesson, it is done "enough".

Step 1. Block in

Using a transparent thin wash of raw umber, I first covered the panel, and then, using both the "wipe off" technique for the light areas, and adding some darker tones for the shadows, I drew in the objects. The goal of this step is not only to place things in the picture plane, but mainly to get an idea of where the main light and shadow patterns occur. I am not concerned with detail, just basic shapes and shadow patterns.
Some artists will do a complete painting at this step, in monochrome (only one color). They will resolve all the problems of the painting except for color. And then, after this dries, they will begin adding in color, sometimes in transparent glazes, and sometimes with opaque paint. I chose to just use this stage as a "block in" to get everything in place.
tip: use a lead primed surface or an oil primed panel. Regular acrylic gesso will not allow you to wipe off the lights as in this example.

2. Adding Background

Here, I have laid down a basic background color. Notice that I have just painted the background over the wine glass, except for where the wine is. Glass is transparent, so the background color must show through. Rather than try to paint around the edges of the glass, which might leave little ridges of paint, it is much better to just paint the background behind the glass, and then go back in to indicate the shape later. Someone once told me "Never let your background know what your foreground is doing". In other words, try never to paint around objects with your background color - it is better to paint into the edges of something, and then go back and establish the edges.

tip: Keep shadows warm in color. Remember the rule: Cool light, warm shadows. Unless your still life is sitting in a sunny window, you will probably have best results using cool light.

3. Adding More Color

At this point, all I am doing is simply adding "local color" of the objects. The basic darks of shadows and lighter areas, that's it. No detail. Now that I have most of the panel covered, I can start to delineate shapes.

tip: Try to go for the "big picture" with shadow and light patterns. Get the basic form before you start adding detail. As fabulous painter Don Hatfield says, "The forest before the trees,the dog before the fleas."

Step 4: Painting the glass and adding some detail.

Glass is really quite easy if you understand two basic rules. Rule #1 is that because it is transparent (or, in the case of some colored glass, transluscent) light passes THROUGH it. That means that light will hit the glass, and travel to the other side, where it is refracted. The effect of this is that the side AWAY FROM THE LIGHT will actually be LIGHTER than the side where the light is coming from. This is sort of against our usual way of thinking. Here are three other examples. Look at both the clear glass and the colored glass..

The left edge, where the light is originally hitting, is darker than the right side, where the light is passing through and bouncing around.

Rule #2 for glass is that catchlights occur where the form bends. So, in the example immediately above here, the catchlights hit where the neck of the bottle turns into the rounded bottom, and also at the lip where the rounded edges hit the neck. There can be all kinds of reflections too, of course, and usually one large highlight will show up at the point most directly perpendicular to the light. You have to decide when painting glass how much of these things you want to indicate.. I have downplayed some of the lights and reflections in both these paintings.
A good starting color for most clear glass is veridian, mixed with either a little black or some transparent red oxide to darken it a little. This would be the mix for the edges closest to the light source. There is unfortunately some glare on our example from today's demo, or this would show up more clearly. For the lighter side edges, a mix of veridian and white usually works pretty well. Colored glass of course will have to be shades of the local color, whatever that is.
In today's demo, I darkened the left edge and then indicated the other edge with a lighter mix of veridian and white. Glass usually works best painting wet into wet, or at least your edges should be fluid and smooth.

tip: Catchlights and highlights on glass are sharp and crisp. Use plenty of paint, put it down and leave it! No fussing!

Step 5, the finish

Maybe this shows a little more clearly. You can see that the left edge of the stem is dark,while the right edge is lighter. On the bottom of the glass, there are dark edges, and the color of that part just partakes of whatever it is near, in this case, some of the table color and a little bit of the white cloth behind it, both slightly greener because of the slightly greenish color of clear glass. The highlights fall on edges where planes turn, and I've just indicated very slightly a few reflections. By the way, wine is also transluscent, and so it will also be lighter on the side away from the light.
Otherwise, I just simplified some of the shadow shapes, and clarified a few edges. If I wanted to "finish" this, there would be another go at the background, and of course to add some detail to the table itself and a bit of refinement of the cloth.

Plein Air Painting - a cartoon

2011-04-11T07:46:00.001-06:00

Ahhhh.... heading out into the beautiful outdoors to paint? What could be better? Fresh air, beautiful scenery,
my paints, brushes and canvas all packed up and ready to go....

Well, sometimes things don't go as planned. Here's a little video for your enjoyment.

Shaun The Sheep - Still Life

You're Invited!

2011-04-07T11:39:00.002-06:00

Still Life with Nest

This painting "Still Life with Nest" is among the 55 works selected for the 8th Annual Stonewall Farm Juried Art Show and Auction. I am pleased to be included in this exhibit. I've also got a small 5x7 in the show, but don't have a photo of it to share!

The Art Opening is at Stonewall Farm, Friday, April 15, 5-7 pm at the Learning Center.

Award designations and prizes for Best in Show, Second, Third Place
Honors, and three Honorable Mentions have been determined and will be
announced at Opening.

Since I'm in New Mexico, I can't attend the opening, but you are invited to go and see some great art and enjoy some refreshments. Stonewall Farm is an organic farm, working organic dairy and agricultural education center, and CSA.  We need more places like this, and I'm very happy to support their work.  Please do go and take a look. Tickets for the actual auction night are available at the Farm, and believe me, they know how to throw a good party!  The food will be great and the wine excellent, and fun WILL be had by all!!!

Austin

2011-04-03T19:54:00.000-06:00

Austin

This is Friday's portrait model, a very nice young man named Austin. I think I had a soft spot towards him because he reminds me of my youngest son. There were just four of us, and everybody seemed to be on the other side of the room, I'm not sure why!

Unfortunately, this portrait group is going to go away unless someone steps up to organize it , as the current organizer is moving to Virginia.. I might do it, but not sure I need something else on my plate.

This young man was maybe just a tad uncomfortable with modeling.. it was his first time to sit for us. It's hard to hold a smile, as you can imagine, so most of the time models tend to look very serious. He was concentrating so hard on holding his pose and not moving, and I think that effort shows in his face. I liked this kid, though.

Partly Cloudy

2011-03-31T13:26:00.000-06:00

Now, this is probably more what folks think of when they think "New Mexico". This painting is from a photo of a place called "Ghost Ranch". We;ve hiked there on several occasions and it is a really great place to paint. I can't remember why it is named Ghost Ranch., but it is a place where Georgia O'Keefe
painted many, many times. That flat topped mesa way in the distance is Pedernal, and Georgia included it
in quite a few of her paintings. Now, the Ghost Ranch is a church (I think Lutheran, but might be mistaken) retreat center, but they do allow the public to come and hike.
Of course, terrain is all based on altitude. Yesterday's post was from probably around 9500 feet elevation. This scene is more like 6500 feet... so you get high desert, with mesas, cliffs, junipers and sage. For me, any excuse to add horses or cowboys will do. They just seemed to fit here.

And that cloudy sky? Not so usual here in the Land of Enchantment. So I thought it was worth noting in the title.

Spring Thaw, Rio Nambe

2011-03-31T02:58:00.000-06:00

Most folks don't think of scenes like this when they think of New Mexico, but here in the northern part of the state, we're on the tail end of the Colorado plateau, and the Jemez Mountains where we live are the very southern end of the Rockies. This stream is up north of Santa Fe, in the slightly higher Sangre de Cristo mountains. The name means "blood of Christ", and if you could ever see them in the sunset hour, you would know why. Especially in winter when snow covered,the red light of sunset really makes them glow.

Our snow is about all gone now.. only the north facing slopes and shady areas still have patches. We might still get a few dustings, but they won't last long. But I do like it when the snow begins to melt and leaves interesting patches in the open areas... makes for great design sometimes!

This is an awful photo. I don't know what it is, but I can't seem to get good clear shots lately.

Decisions, decisions....

2011-03-28T23:46:00.002-06:00

Simple Things

Seems I can't get a good photo today to save my life. This is a still life I have been working on, with a painted Japanese silk screen behind it. I wanted something besides just a flat background, and decided to do this screen. The big challenge with that is keeping it very reserved and soft, so that it stays in the background.

I also had to be real careful about color choices so that it would harmonize with the rest of the painting. This whole painting is basically a study in red and green, painted with a palette of cad yellow, cad red, transparent red oxide, yellow ochre, viridian, ultramarine, and cad orange. And white of course.

I try to repeat colors when I can. The shadows on the white cloth as well as the form shadow on the teacup are really the background color. The viridian in the bottle is repeated in the copper kettle verdigris. Even the apple red finds its way into the kettle.

I am considering painting a real chickadee, who has landed on the table out of curiosity, perhaps wondering about those painted ones on the wall there.. Chickadees are brave, curious little birds, some of my favorite to watch at the feeder. But I can't decide whether to add one or not. What do you think?

Resources You May or May Not Know About

2011-03-28T00:34:00.001-06:00

Every blog post has to have a picture, so here are two tiny art card paintings (2.5x3") because I couldn't find anything else I wanted to post.

I thought I would list some resources for materials, instruction and feedback that you might find useful. You may already know all about all of these, but on the off chance you don't, check them out!
First: materials.
Online art supply stores, listed in no particular order, that I use all the time:
http://pictureframes.com/
http://www.jerrysartarama.com/
http://www.aswexpress.com/
http://www.dickblick.com/
http://www.cheapjoes.com/
http://www.raymarart.com/

Instruction:
http://smartflix.com/ rent instructional videos of all kinds, some really good ones out there, easy and cheap. sort of like netflix.. only for art instruction.
youtube.com - There are literally thousands of painting videos and demos on youtube. Try a search for
"potrait painting" or "oil painting demonstration" for example. There are some amazing ones, and some duds, but it'll sure keep you occupied, and maybe even inspire you.
amazon.com - great source for books, and DVD;s if you know what you're looking for.
http://www.abebooks.com/ - wonderful resource for used books, or some that might be out of print or hard to find. If you know what you're looking for, check here.
North Light Books - another publishing house that specializes in fine art instruction books.

Inspiration:
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/contents.asp - if you want inspiration, definitely the place to go. Or if you want to find quality prints of fine art for copying and learning, find 'em here.
http://www.raymarart.com/ - check out the art contest entries - or maybe enter yourself!
http://faso.com/boldbrush/ - another art contest - you can enter, or just be amazed at the great work being produced today.

webhosting:
http://faso.com/ - Fine Art Studio Online. Get a FREE (really free) 30 day trial and create your own great looking art website. Fast, easy, professional. Even if you're not a techie, your page will look good.

Artist community:
http://wetcanvas.com/ Here is a huge community of artists, with forums specified to your interests( portrait, landscape, abstract, whatever).. Get feedback, encouragement, critiques, and suggestions by fellow artists.
Occasional online demos and instruction, all free. Warning: can be addictive!
The Blogosphere:
you all have your favorite blogs. I have several that I follow regularly, and others that I visit on occasion.
I encourage you to check out:
stapletonkearns.blogspot.com
frankordaz.blogspot.com
http://hatfieldfineart.blogspot.com
http://dailypaintworks.com/ - they do more than just list daily paintings by their artists. They host weekly "challenges" which are open to all artists, and right now are using one of these challenges to raise money for Japan.
http://carolmarine.blogspot.com/ - one of the dailypaintworks artists - always makes me laugh.

Other:
Don't forget to check out ebay, craigslist in your area, consignment shops, used bookstores, and even the local yard sale listings for books, DVD's and interesting still life objects to paint. I've found a few treasures here for cheap. Most all of my still life props come from junky stores or ebay. If your local dump has a "swap shop" or similar, look for goodies there! Free and the perfect way to recycle!

Lois adds emptyeasel.com to the list. I just checked it out. Great stuff there! Here's a link to a nice painting video about painting water.
.http://emptyeasel.com/2011/03/14/video-understanding-the-play-of-natural-light-on-water/

If any of you have some favorite resources, please share them in the comment section and I'll add them to the post!
Thanks, and happy painting!

You Might Be a Redneck If......

2011-03-25T21:43:00.003-06:00

Honey Bear

This was an interesting day up here in the mountains. I left at 8am to go to my portrait painting group.

Meanwhile, back at home, romance was in the air.
I guess if you live in the city, you might have the occasional stray dog. Here, because we're rednecks, we get slightly larger strays. Little Honey Bear, pictured above, belongs to a neighbor.

She is a mustang rescue from Oregon. But this morning, she was a mare on a mission. It seems that Honey Bear is in season, and she went looking for love.I know she looks very mild mannered here, but believe me, she was intending to find some action. It so happens that another neighbor, Harold, has a beautiful stallion, a registered Missouri Fox Trotter named Pride. Honey Bear broke out of her corral and made a beeline for Pride. Unfortunately for the pair, who were both quite eager, a 6 foot metal pipe fence separated them. After some difficulty, to put it mildly, our neighbor managed to capture Honey Bear, but then, what to do with her?

She had already broken a chain to get loose a second time, so Steve walked her over to our house, with hopefully enough distance between her and her Romeo to keep some peace. They continued to call to each other, even with about three tenths of a mile between them, and Steve left a note on the door of her owners to let them know we had her. I came home to find her tied to the tree. She wasn't real happy, pawing a trench around that tree, but she was safe.

After we got this situation sort of settled, our neighbors set about to help us move a piano to our house. When you're out in the boonies, this is how you move a piano. That's Mark standing, and Harold, owner of Pride, and ruiner of romance, on his tractor.

Mark and Harold moving the piano

It was a three man job, and I helped a little with my stupid injured shoulders. It was quite the task,and took about 3 hours, moving this old, heavy, upright piano across the neighborhood, then across our yard, through the gate, under the deck and into the downstairs. I wish I'd gotten some video of this epic adventure. I am real happy to have a piano again. it has been 5 years.

And, I guess I'll end this post with today's portrait study. We got a late start, so this is only about an hour and 45 min. effort. I have not touched it since the class, but might refine a few areas later. Souix is a lovely model, but I wasn't excited about the difficult lighting (slightly from underneath her and from the other side). Still, it is good practice.

Souix

Oh, and little Honey Bear finally made it home, though they have quite a bit of fence repair to do.

"Wired"

2011-03-17T23:55:00.001-06:00

Armand Cabrera

Don Hatfield

Frank Ordaz

Marc Hanson

Mick McGinty

Sally Tharp

I am wired! And psyched! And super pleased to be a part of a group exhibit entitled "Wired", opening next month in Rocklin, CA, not far from Auburn. The works above are samples of several of the artists in this show. This unique and special group of painters were "herded" (to use his words!) by Frank Ordaz, the driving force behind this exhibit. The title of the show comes from the fact that all of this group has made connections, somehow, using the electronic media, primarily blogs. Frank's brilliant idea was to bring together in a physical exhibit, the works of these artists.

This is a terrific honor. Some of these guys are like painting gods to me... they are my heroes - for their work, and for their character and faith. It is pretty overwhelming for me to be a part of this group, and you can bet I'm working hard to get my best effort out there. And now you know why I was so freaked out about being in a slump!!

Here's the list of artists and the dates and times of the show. Any of you out there in California, check it out!

Stephen Magsig
Chris Hopkins
Denny Holland
Mick McGinty 
Sally Tharp
Debra Per
Rob Carey
Armand CabrerraMarc Hanson
Don Hatfield
Janice Skivington
Thomas Fluharty
Terry Miura
Michael Dudash
Frank Ordaz

The show runs from April 15 through May 12 at

William Jessup University Library
333 Sunset Blvd.
Rocklin, CA 95765
Opening reception is April 15, 5:30-7:00pm

Southwest Art Magazine

2011-03-15T19:09:00.001-06:00

Here is a full page color ad that will appear in Southwest Art magazine. I believe it will be the April edition.
I was very pleased and honored that the printing company asked to use the image of one of my paintings in their ad.
The way this came about was that the image above was selected for the poster image for a series of trail races outside of Los Alamos, NM. The poster is used for publicity, fundraising, and also each finisher of the event is given a print. Starline Printing down in Albuquerque, NM did the posters, which came out looking great.
When they decided to run their ad, they wanted both a color and black and white fine art image to include in their ad, and here is the result. The drawing is by artist Dino Cornay - I think it's absolutely fabulous. You can click on the poster image for an enlarged view. Wow! My painting represents an "overlook" on a ridge about 9000 ft. elevation, above Los Alamos. The Pajarito ski area is the far distant hill, and some of the race course runs along this ridge through the trees, around the back side of that ski hill, and then down back into town. It's a 50 mile race, so it does cover quite a bit of territory.
My husband and I are going to be the "grim sweepers" for the race. A "sweep" is someone who goes behind and follows the last runner, making sure that nobody is left out on the course.Nobody wants to see the sweep, as that means you are dead last in the race.(that's why we say "grim") Sweeps will often carry some energy gels or salt tabs to help runners who might need a little assistance out there too. We'll also be pulling the ribbons and course markers as we go. This is a fun way to do the run at a relatively relaxed pace and get some good training in. I thought Steve should dress in a grim reaper costume just for fun. Not sure if I have convinced him of that yet.
Well, anyway, it's pretty cool to have a painting in Southwest Art.

When You Hit a Slump

2011-03-14T13:37:00.000-06:00

No Regular Office Hours

It happens to all of us at some point. For whatever reason, we just hit a slump. We are uninspired, frustrated,

distracted, tired, sick, anxious.... any combination of those things can hit us, and it seems like we woke up one morning and just forgot how to paint. Or worse, we wake up for days, weeks, or even months, in a row, and face the same sort of doldrums.

I guess there usually IS a reason. For me, it most often happens when I have other things on my mind - family concerns, money concerns, health concerns... and these sap my creative energy and there;s just nothing left over to create art. If this is the case with you, if you're there now, my advise is:

1.Be kind to yourself.

Take some time to yourself and try to sort out what might really be on your mind. If you can name it, then you can begin to deal with it. And then, deal with it if you can. If it is something you absolutely cannot change, then come to grips with THAT notion, and decide how you will handle it going forward.

2. Try to find the joy in your painting again.

Sometimes I get caught up in the need to produce. That's a real need for those of trying to make a living through our art.It's legitimate. But that pressure can take a toll.. At least it does for me. So sometimes I need to just paint something JUST FOR FUN. Paint something that you want to paint. Forget if it might be something somebody might want to buy. Paint what interests you, and maybe even think of it as just a study, or practice, or whatever.. Take all the pressure off and just do it for pure enjoyment.

I've been in a little bit of a slump lately, which is of course why I am writing this post. I've got several shows I NEED to paint for. I really can't afford to be in a slump. But, here I am. This time, I can't seem to settle on subject matter, or what I start seems to just fall short... I've had several scrapers lately. So I took my own advise. I think I have a handle on what has been bothering me, and then I put away the lousy starts I've made, and found something that just interested me and painted it for fun. I took all pressure off myself.

I had this photo of this fisherman in my reference files, and I just liked the light, and the color. It flew off my brush because I was having fun. I don't really care if nobody likes it, I liked painting it.

I feel better, and a little refreshed, and maybe I can start tackling the things I HAVE to paint. If not, then maybe I'll do something else just for fun. Who knows? That might be the winner I've been aiming for.

I'd love to hear from all of you too. What do YOU do when you hit a slump? What works for you?

Saving Ruined brushes and a few other things

2011-03-09T06:58:00.001-07:00

The Corner of 47th and..... 47th

I don't have any new work to show, but thought I would post a few helpful tips that have proven useful to me in the past.

Restoring Ruined Brushes:

If you have some old brushes that have gotten stiff or gummed up with dried paint, before you throw them out, try this:

Take a bar of plain ol' Ivory Soap. Break it into a few chunks and put it in a jar or glass. Add enough water to barely cover, and let it sit until the soap melts and you can stir it into mush. Then, take those old brushes and set them bristles down in the goo, just make sure that the wood handle part stays out of the liquid.. you can go up as high as the metal ferrule.

Leave them for 24 hours.

Scrub them in the palm of your hand, rinse, add some more soap, scrub some more.. Do this until there is no more color coming out of the brush. They will look and feel like new, really!!! In some severe cases, leave them another 24 hours and wash again.

I swear this works like a charm. So far, it has not failed to restore any brush. I don't know where I first learned of this trick.. it was someone's blog but I can't remember. I have always used Fels Naptha soap to clean my brushes,and that still works well, but Ivory is cheap and easy to find, and for those badly neglected brushes, this is a great way to rescue them.

A Cheap Way to Do Practice Paintings

If you want to do a number of smaller practice paintings, but hate to buy canvases or panels and spend big bucks on them, here's a couple of cheaper surfaces that are easy and quick and still archival if you end up with a gem that you want to keep and frame.

1. Make your own panels from masonite. Here's a blog post about how to do that. You can get a whole heap of small panels from one sheet of masonite and a can of primer, This is probably the cheapest way to get a good quality painting surface, but it is, admittedly, a little labor intensive.
2. If cutting and priming isn't your thing, then try buying canvas or linen pads. These are just sheets of canvas or linen, bound like a drawing pad. You can paint right on the pad,using the stiff cardboard back as a support then tear off a sheet and start the next one. I use large sizes of these for the weekly portrait painting group. I tear off a sheet,and clip it to a drawing board just because it's lighter weight to carry than the whole pad.
These are pretty cheap per each sheet, way, way cheaper than buying either stretched canvas or pre-made panels of any sort. Plus, if you end up with a keeper, it is quite easy to then adhere this canvas sheet to the support of your choice: masonite, plywood, birch panel, or even gatorboard. Another positive is that you can buy good quality canvas or linen, which is better to paint on, and still spend less than the real cheapie stretched canvas or panels. My personal favorite is Centurion Oil Primed Linen. A 6x8 pad, with ten sheets, is only $5.62 right now at aswexpress.com. Here's the link. I'm sure Jerry's or Dick Blick, or Cheap Joe's has something similar. Even cheaper than the linen, but still a good painting surface, is Fredrick's Canvas pads... these are insanely cheap. A 9x12 pad is only $4.94! With ten sheets, that's less than 50 cents apiece! These aren't oil primed, but whatever priming they use has a good slick non-absorbent surface that is a pleasure to paint on.
You can also buy larger sized pads, and do several studies on one big sheet, or cut them to fit your needs.

Good Full Spectrum Lightbulbs to Simulate Natural Light.
My studio back in New Hampshire was the attic of our old Civil War era barn.. with a great big north window for beautiful natural light. Now, I have a cramped basement room with NO windows.
Problem: I have to create good light that simulates the cool north light.
Solution. BlueMax full spectrum florescents. These are the closest thing I've found so far to natural light.
They are cheaper than several other brands out there, like Ott Lite, which is great, but a little pricier.
What you want to find, no matter what brand you buy, is something that is 5500 Kelvin units, which is a measure of the color of the light. 5500K is a cool light, very similar to north light or the light of an overcast day. These are compact fluorescents, so they fit in any standard light fixture that you have. I bought a few cheapie clip-on spot lights at the hardware store, and can use these bulbs for an easy source of light.
And if you don't know why you should NOT be using regular incandescent light bulbs to paint by, then that's a whole 'nuther discussion! Just trust me on this one.. if you can't paint by natural light, then invest in some good full spectrum lighting for you to work by.

That's it. In other news, I found out I'm going to be in Southwest Art Magazine, I think the April edition.
More on that in another post.

Oh, and Thor and Wanda, my canaries, are nesting. Stay tuned for developments!

Cute Furry Animals

2011-03-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

Wild Harry 8x10

Here is a portrait of Harry the cat. He belongs to the friend of a friend, and she asked for me to paint this picture of him outside. She calls it "Wild Harry". It's an interesting thing painting white fur, or white ANYthing for that matter. Because, as we previously discussed on this blog, white is never really "white".

Painting pet portraits from photos is often a crap shoot. You can get some really lousy photos or some really good ones, which can make the process a nightmare or pleasurable, respectively.

On a random note, that's a ponderosa pine trunk there by Harry. Did you know that if you put your nose right up close to the cracks in the bark, there is a strong smell of vanilla? Next time you are visiting New Mexico, try it!

Spyke 5x7

Spyke belongs to the daughter of Harry's mom. ??? Does that make them related? I had much less to work with for Spyke's portrait, only a head shot, inside on a couch.Not even the front legs. I had to completely invent a background, and invent the rest of her body, and try to guess on markings from what little I could see in the photo. This one is also smaller, only 5x7. And actually, I made some adjustments to this that didn't get photographed, and did improve things but this photo will have to do. I enjoy painting these little critters, and try to put a little "art" in there besides what shows up in the photo.

Mattie in the Pasture

This is little Mattie, a rescue Collie who belongs to a good friend. She is a beautiful dog, and sweet as can be. She unfortunately has arthritis quite badly, and doesn't get around very well. But we were on a walk out in my friend's beautiful pasture, and I snapped this shot of Mattie in the sunlight. Her "brother" Collie, Cisco, a gorgeous tri-color, was too quick and I could never get a photo of him. I'll keep trying,

And maybe one of these days, I will paint these goofballs. They really need to mellow out, don't you think?

Two Faces

2011-02-27T08:58:00.002-07:00

Yesterday, Steve and I did a long hike, exploring some new territory a little south of our house, near Gilman.
For film aficionados, the new "3:10 to Yuma" with Russel Crowe was filmed in Gilman - it is very remote and "western" down in the canyons. We took an old road up into the forest, where we saw this "tree spirit". Look closely; he even has teeth! Of course, you would not want to put this into a painting. This is a perfect example of "weird stuff" that you should just leave out... but he was amusing nonetheless.

Hayley

This second face is a portrait study of the daughter of a friend of mine. I might touch up a few places still, perhaps smooth a few transitions. I have found that painting very young faces is difficult - it seem almost impossible to keep them from looking older! Every time I work on a portrait, though, I learn something, and I'm figuring out which method of "starting" works best for me. For this one, I left the hair in the initial thin wash and kept the background just the white of the canvas for a change.

For economy, I buy large canvas and linen pads - they are about 10 sheets to a pad, and end up costing me less than $2 each sheet. Centurion has a nice oil primed linen that comes in pads, and I believe the pad was only about $16 for the 16x20 size. I usually buy 18x24, so I can cut the sheets down if needed. Check the online art supply places, and you should be able to find them. I think I have a big Fredrix pad also, that is canvas, but has a nice finish to it and paints easily.

Don't Paint Weird Stuff

2011-02-26T01:33:00.001-07:00

It is very tempting, when using photos as a reference, to slavishly copy everything we see in the picture.
For some reason, judgment seems to fly out the window, and good design sense goes with it. So, today's post is just a reminder to take a close look at our photo reference (this is also equally true in painting from life) and ask ourselves:

Will anything look weird when painted?

Take that cloud in the photo above, for example. Sure, it's a real cloud, and occurred naturally. But, let's face it, it's weird. It automatically becomes the center of attention in the scene. Leave it out! Change it!
How about this one?

Here's a nice little garden scene with sweet little girls. What could be nicer? But, those bushes are just plain strange. If you are tempted to paint this, keep the children, import another garden scene. Here's a thought to remember:

The best art touches the universal, not the particular.

That's only one reason not to paint weird stuff, but it's the most important one. Paintings should speak to the universal. By doing so, they touch us at a deeper level, than merely recording the detail of one place or experience. A painting about children walking in a garden that could be ANY garden, or EVERY child, is much more powerful than recording the weird bush-trimming tactics of one local gardener.

Here's another pitfall. Sometimes you have to look for these. They can happen without our noticing.

I call it the "faces in rocks" motif. This one is, of course, very obvious. But I have painted several rock formations, only to have my hubby look at the painting and exclaim, "hey, there's a monkey face!" or, "I see an indian head." So, watch out for these. They can creep up on you.

It's a good practice to ask yourself "What is this painting really about:?" If you can answer that question, then
it's much easier to decide what to leave out. Sometimes what you DONT paint is more important than what you do.

Souix

2011-02-25T17:37:00.000-07:00

Souix

This is today's portrait study. I almost wish I had attempted the full figure because her dress and shoes were just so cute. She had some killer hot pink 4 inch stiletto's to die for. But I decided to concentrate on just the portrait. I look forward to Fridays and the portrait group - even though there were only two of us today, it is still good to paint WITH people. I encourage you to get out and join others when you can... there's something electric about the shared creative energy....

I didn't get to finish the background, so it's a little rough, included what she is leaning her elbow on, but, this is, after all, practice and limited to about 2 1/2 hours painting time.

More on Using Photos as References for Landscape

2011-02-24T09:01:00.004-07:00

Today I thought I would show some average photos that you might take on a trip or walk in the woods, and how I might change them to develop a painting from them.
Nature is never going to give you a perfect composition.. or, it'll happen so rarely that you might as well say "never". This is true in painting from life, and it is even more true in using photo references. Photos do not portray true values (the darks usually look TOO dark) or colors, so if you're going to paint from photos you really do have to be on your toes and THINK about these things, along with the design elements as well.

Here's the first photo:

This little street scene intrigues me. It has a nice center of interest.. that sunlit building on the right. It has nice light and shadow patterns, and a good lead-in with the road. Is that a sleeping dog in the road? I can't decide.
If I were to paint this, I would make these changes:
Change the road to dirt with nicely softened edges. That blends better with the ramshakle appearance of the buildings, and is a chance to add some nice color too.
Remove the telephone pol and the round object on the left roof. That would just become a plain chimney.
I would re-design the distant tree for a more abstract appearance.. it's a little too symmetrical.
I would increase the size very slightly of the red building in the distance - that could become the focal point if you wanted, and I would give some hint that the road continues in the distance, perhaps rolling over a few hills or dips..
And lastly, I think this would be a perfect scene to place a few figures - they would automatically become the main attraction. Or, you could take advantage of that dog, and let him be a little note of "life".

After I published this, I thought, "Oh, what the heck, I'll do up a quick sketch of one of the photos as an example. So I did, and this is, literally, a 30 min. painting on a piece of scrap canvas. It's not intended to be finished work:. I just wanted to emphasize how you can use a photo as a "jumping off point" - but install your own ideas, color, and design.

I threw the front into shadow, and there is a wonderful opportunity here for dappled sunlight, both on the road and on the stone fence. I hinted at a flowering vine growing over the wall.. that's a nice chance for some color in there. I simplified the left building, and decided that the far red "building" was really a fence (and yes, upon closer inspection, that IS a sleeping dog) I just left the fence or stone wall, really, sort of ambiguous and put two figures looking over it to what I presume is a church yard, given the steeple we can see. There are some really great chances for beautiful colorful reflected light in here.. bright sunlight will have colors bouncing back all over the place..so this could work up in to a really nice painting if you wanted.

Remember:
The camera writes a book report, recording all the facts.
But painting is poetry. You are trying to make a beautiful statement that is lyrical and engaging.

Here's another with possibilities.

This is a pretty good photo.. it has most of the elements you would want.. It has three planes: foreground, middle ground, and background. It has a good lead-in with the shore and water. The break in the distant trees gives us an "escape route" to the mountain - the trees aren't a solid wall. All those are nice characteristics.
Here's some changes.
First of all, decide if you want the figures. I think they provide a nice focal point, and a chance to put some great spots of color, especially red, in a very green landscape. You don't want ALL sets of figures however, only one is needed, so decide where you want it. Since we read from left to right, typically, our eye enters a scene from the left and travels, so I tend to put centers of interest towards the right hand side. Otherwise, the eye gets to them too soon, and the trip is over and no place to go! You could use one of these figures , or import another from a different photo. I would probably do that. I think a canoe makes a nicer statement than the rafts, so I'd go through my photo files and find some canoers. Remember if you do this that the light needs to be consistent, so make sure your imported photos have the same direction of light as your background photo, or you will have to change that when you paint it.
Second, the fir trees are too symmetrical.. Be sure an add some variety to their edges, and probably put a dead one in there, just for eye candy. They are also too GREEN (a typical shortcoming of evergreens), so
add more reds and browns in your mixes to change that up.
I'd also probably change the line of the distant mountains, so that there is not that big "U" shape formed between them and the nearer slope on the right. That could become more cliffy instead of rounded, and maybe even redden that up a little - warm it up certainly, to differentiate it from the far mountains.
Decide whether we even need clouds in the sky... sometimes they can act as design elements. There's enough going on in the photo otherwise, that they might not be needed. But that's a decision that you'll have to make.

Here's one more:

This photo has one major flaw. There is foreground (grass and rocks) and middle ground (trees) but no background! Try to find three planes- this tends to give you the best composition.
However, there's a real easy fix for that problem. All you'd need to do is open up the line of trees somewhat and throw in a distant slope visible behind them. Problem solved!
This is good chance to use your design smarts too, as you could place those rocks as your lead in. Just be sure you group them, and don't dot them like little gumdrops over the grass. Take advantage of those nice red weeds to add beautiful accent color. And, you can also take advantage of the nice bright birch trunks against the dark pines - pick one of those to be your main focal point and make it "more" than the others..

That's probably enough for today. I hope that gives you even more ideas of what to do with all those pictures you took on last summer's vacation!

Landscape using photos

2011-02-22T10:23:00.001-07:00

The Reference Photo

Since the car accident, I have been unable to go outside and do plein air. So I 've had to work from photo references. As much as I prefer painting from life, there is something that can be learned by using photos, though I still don't think its ever a substitute for "the real thing". It helps if you have been to a place before, and understand it - then you can bring some of your life experience to the painting above and beyond what is seen in a photo.

But photos can be traps. There are some definite pitfalls to avoid.

1. Some things that make nice photos do not make good paintings. That means you must look at a photo critically, with design and composition in mind. Just because it's a pretty scene does not mean it will translate to a good painting.

2. Just because something is IN the photo doesn't mean it should go in your painting! It might need to be eliminated, or moved, or reduced in size, or changed in any number of ways to make it work. Remember, just like in painting from life, you are not a camera, recording every detail that is there. You are an interpreter, pulling together various elements to make a statement that has poetry and beauty to it. Painting should be poetry, not a book report.

3. Think of the overall shape of your painting... do you need to crop that photo?- make it vertical instead of horizontal, make it square? Again, look at your photo with design in mind.
4. Decide what it is about the photo that speaks to you. Whatever it is, make THAT the focus of your painting, and eliminate everything that doesn't aid in that focus.

So, with those few ideas to start with, here's how I interpreted the reference photo you see above. That is me, by the way, and this is a picture from the beautiful San Juan mountains of Southwest Colorado. I have been here many, many times, so I had a good idea what this place is really like.
This photo is nice overall...it has several planes to work with.. a foreground, a middle ground, a far middle ground, and a background. That is a good thing to look for in a painting. Try for at least 3 planes.
Here are the problems I saw with it.
1. I wanted the mountains to be the real focal point, so that big tree in the foreground takes away from that.
It should be smaller to reduce its importance in the scene.
2. the left treed slope sort of disappears behind the big tree, and the nice rock cliff section at its top is almost invisible. I decided I needed to move that inward, to make that middle ground more definite.
3. the trees in the foreground are all very similar... little conical triangles... They needed variety, and music!
4. There is no good visual "lead in"...so I knew that something was needed here to bring the viewer into the painting in the first place.
5. Lastly, that single solitary rock looks sort of lonely and out of place. Maybe a grouping of rocks would be nicer.
With those ideas in mind, here's the painting.

I've marked in pink the visual lines that take the viewer to my center of interest, which is the snow covered sharp peak in the distance. the path is very slightly "s" shaped... a perfectly straight line would be not only boring, but would zip the viewer too quickly down the path. Some of those lines are very subtle, but they were intended - the lines of the snow on the mountains, or the slope of the cliffs - are all directional lines.
By the way, some of the natural lines of the mountains in the reference photo really creates a deep "V" shape visually... I didn't want that, so eliminated some of those ridges entirely, or otherwise altered them to
minimize this.

In white, I've outlined some of the major shapes. The grouping of rocks seems more natural than a single one, and I've kept the value down to keep them from overpowering the rest of the foreground mass. It's tempting to make them too bright - that would detract from the main objective.
Can you see how the tree shapes have been varied, and grouped together to form a mass? In addition, when you have a line of trees like this, remember to push some back behind the others.. don't line them up like soldiers in a row. As friend and mentor Johannes Vloothuis says, "think "front to back"...
I also intentionally added more sunlight to the peak, and very slightly altered the top outline of the mountain shapes to make them a bit more melodic. Avoid those "V" shapes that can so easily be found in mountains. Remember, it's your world,a nd you are the king of it. You can move mountains or change them with a flick of your wrist!

Here's the painting without the lines:

I hope this gives you some ideas next time you pull up a photo and say, "hey, that might be nice to paint!"
And, remember, you can also combine photos - say, a tree shape from one, and a sky from another, to incorporate into your painting. I keep a digital file of all kinds of shapes - trees, hills, rocks, water, skies, and sometimes can pull something from one of my references to put in a painting.

My history as an "Artist".

2011-02-21T05:51:00.000-07:00

I was going through some boxes the other day, trying to organize a closet, and found these old (ancient, really) drawings and watercolors that I did as a kid. Back then, all (and I do mean "all") I drew or painted was horses, much to the consternation of any art teacher I ever had in school.
From the date on the first one, I was either 13 or 14.. It is watercolor on a piece of manilla paper. I didn't know about watercolor paper. I remember going to some store with my mom, and seeing a little box of Chinese watercolors - what a thrill when my mother bought them for me. I think they cost a whole $3 or something. I was probably 14 for the second one too.. I remember painting this one... I wanted to give it to a camp counselor that I admired, but never did send it off because it wasn't "good enough"., The "mat" that is around it is a piece of colored construction paper cut with scissors.

I drew alot as a child, though grade school, middle school (we called it Junior High back then) and finally high school. Watercolor was the only "painting" I did, though of course I was doing it all wrong. But, who knew? I took a drawing class my freshman year of college, and a couple more art classes later. I remember one so-called "oil painting class" - the teacher showed up the first day of class, and said, "I want you to finish 5 paintings this semester." and walked out. That was the extent of our instruction, no kidding. I don't think she really wanted to be there. . My mom has the only oil painting that survived that class.(moms are great for saving things like this!) I don't even know what the other 4 were, don't remember even making more than one!
A clay class had me doing sculptures of horses. My teacher, who really preferred abstract, modern stuff, was not at all thrilled at my creations, and at first refused to fire them, certain that they would explode in the kiln and damage somebody else's work. But she finally agreed to put one of them in the kiln, and it (miraculously, in her eyes) did not explode. She agreed to fire the rest of them, which also all survived. I did 4 in all, as I recall. Two of them sold, which for me back then was just an amazing, astounding thing... you mean somebody would actually BUY my stuff? wow!! One was broken, and one survives to this day.
After college, I did not really paint again..I did make a few crafty things, learned to quilt and sewed alot of my kids clothes.
About 35 years went by.
It wasn't until I was 51 that I finally "took that oil painting class" that started me on the journey to being a painter today. I love oils - the texture and lusciousness of the paint itself is so sensual and lovely. Plus, there's that whole "do-over" possibility with oils that you don't get with some other mediums. I make lots of mistakes, so I appreciate this quality.
That's probably enough information for one post. I thought you'd get a kick out of these old childish drawings, as I did when I discovered them.
I always wonder, if I'd continued to paint instead of having that 35 year hiatus in the middle, where would I be now?

Doug

2011-02-20T21:46:00.000-07:00

I was finally able to go to the portrait drawing group Friday morning. This was the first time I have driven a car since Dec. 6! It was a strange feeling being behind the wheel again.

Our model for this Friday was a retired Navy officer (sorry, I forgot his rank) named Doug. He was a delightful person, humble and soft spoken. Doug served two tours in Viet Nam, as well as later tours in other offensive actions. To me, he is a hero. It was a real honor to be able to try to paint this gentle man.
As we talked during the breaks in the portrait session, I learned that Doug was a long distance runner, and we found that we have a good friend in common. It always amazes me how these kind of connections appear out of nowhere.

I am mostly pleased with how this portrait turned out - this is about 2 hours of painting time.

portrait study

2011-02-05T08:58:00.000-07:00

There is a portrait drawing/painting group on Fridays. We just share the model costs and paint away.
I love it. However, I've been unable to attend because of still not having a car. So, yesterday,
I worked up this little sketch from a photo of my friend Roy. He and his wife Nancy run the art supply and frame shop in our home town back in the New Hampshire. They are always doing above and beyond for everyone that comes in the shop. Both in their 70's, you would not know it by the amount of energy they project.
Nancy had sent me this photo of Roy because he had fallen down his cellar steps and gotten a nasty black eye.
So when I decided to try to paint from this photo, it was a challenge to work around a bruise that covered about
half of Roy's face.
Portrait work is still very much a learning process for me. But I enjoy it immensely. One of the things that I am slowly figuring out is to keep all the edges soft - no hard lines, at least in the early stages. Especially in the mouth area, I think this is important to keep it from becoming harsh. I still struggle with skin tones and just about every other part of portrait painting, but there is something about trying to capture the essence of someone that is so intriguing and wonderful that I just have to keep trying.It's always a humbling experience for me to post these studies. But I'm not proud, we all have to start somewhere. Maybe one of these days, I'll get good at it.

How to Keep Two Puppies' Attention and a Painting

2011-02-04T12:03:00.000-07:00

As you can see, food is a great motivator. (it sometimes works for husbands too). Here is little 9 week old Marley, our newest adopted pup. And 9 month old Gibbs, who has turned out to be about 20 pounds bigger than the vet predicted and still growing.
Marley and her sister were found, having been dumped in a ditch down in Albuquerque. (what is the matter with people?) They were extremely malnourished, and maybe not even weaned yet, as they tried to nurse on the fingers of the kind folks who rescued them. I would not have adopted another puppy so soon after getting Gibbs,but I couldn't resist. She is, from appearances, mostly German Shepherd. She's doing great, though still thin, but healthy now and her coat is getting softer and thicker.
Gibbs, who might be the sweetest dog in the whole world, is we think Shepherd/lab/rottweiller (is that a rottie face or what?). We found him in a shelter in CO at 5 mo. old. He has been a big influence on Marley. I credit him with house-training her, as he has taught her to go out the doggy door. Of course, he has also taught her how to sneak dirty socks from the laundry basket and drag them outside under the deck.! They keep me busy.
A friend noted that this photo is a snapshot of our daily life here. Yes, true. that's me in my purple leopard print fleece pajama pants. Working in my pajamas is one of my favorite things about being a painter!
Then there's the ever-present cup of coffee. My friend asked if that was deodorant on the table. It's actually Icy Hot - still treating my beaten up body from the car accident. The remotes.. well, that's mostly Steve's thing. Under them are the Ultrarunning magazines.. our other passion in life. Along with that are my running shoes drying by the pellet stove and the snow boots to go outside and get more firewood.
Way back in the background is a painting I have just finished. It is about to be printed as the publicity poster for a series of trail races here.
Here it is.. it's a view from a local rocky outcropping known as the "Overlook" - back in November when the aspens were still golden and the snow hadn't covered everything. The furthest hill in the distance is our local ski hill. I don't ski but it is a great place to do killer hill repeats for training!

Free Online Art Instruction

2011-01-28T17:42:00.000-07:00

Would you like to go from this:

To this:

Hey gang,
Just wanted to post that there is a really good opportunity to get some first rate
art instruction, online, FREE at wetcanvas.com Starting tomorrow, Jan. 29, is
a 12 weekend webinar, taught by Johannes Vloothuis. The main thrust of this
class will be how to take photos and re-design, compose, and crop and use them as a basis
for making a beautiful painting. Along with this will be excellent
teaching on the basic of landscape painting, some demos, and teacher/student interaction.
Looking at the example above, you can see some of the changes that Johannes made -but wouldn't it be great to understand the "why" behind those changes? What a difference this re-designing makes!

I'm excited by this opportunity, because, due to
my injury from the car accident, and still not having a carto go anywhere, doing outside plein air
work is not very practical for me right now. Being forced to work from photos is hard for me... I sometimes still get stuck in literal translation of what's in the photograph, instead of viewing them with a more critical eye for design elements. So I'm looking forward to this. I'm copying below the original invitation.
If you can't make every class (I can't) they will be available for download for about $10.... probably about 8 hours of instruction.. that's a bargain.

Wetcanvas Live! With Johannes Vloothuis - Live art web classes

Starting Saturday, January 29, 2011 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM EST until April 17

Webinar Registration

F&W Media, the publishing company that brought you, "The Artist's Magazine" as well as other related art magazines and many art books in the market is inviting you to take a free live and interactive web art course on weekends. Johannes Vloothuis, an award winning professional artist, will host a series of web classes,

"How to Use Photos to Create Stunning Landscape Paintings".

This course will provide all the necessary tools to avoid the common traps and mistakes most artists fall into when using photos. You will learn to use photos as support for ideas and inspiration for your paintings, yet release yourselves from being enslaved by them. The vital concepts of applying principles of composition, mass planning, shape design, and creating pictorial symbols that represent landscape objects in a pleasing way will be discussed. This workshop will cure bad habits developed over the years. These classes will include live webcam demos. All mediums and all levels are welcome, even if you are a beginner.

To see Johannes' artwork:

http://cyberartlearning.com/onlinegallery

https://www1.gotowebinar.com/register/589190704

In case you cannot attend a class. Each weekend seminar(Saturday and Sunday together) will be recorded and you will be able to download it for $9.99. The live classes are free!

You do not need any hardware except a computer and hear sound from it.

Good Grief, it's been 8 months!

2011-01-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

Our Cabin in New Mexico

I can't believe it has been this long since I posted. Since last May, I've moved across the country,

had to buy a house on my own, move in by myself, and then begin getting ready for winter, which involved

lots of firewood splitting and stacking because our log cabin doesn't have any heat source except a wood stove and a pellet stove. And then came a serious car accident, and I'm still dealing with

the injuries from that . So, I've just not had much time or ability to paint. My wonderful hubby Steve had to stay with his job in New Hampshire, until just this week! WooHOO!!!! He finally got a job in Albuquerque, and he's right now, as I type, driving across the country to finally join me! Yay!!

After losing our much loved dog, Tucker, I was finally able to adopt a new pup. Here he is, although he's not a puppy anymore! Sweet little mutt, named Gibbs, at 8 and 1/2 months. Well, maybe not too little - I guess he's about lab size. He's been a lot of company for me, and he has the habit of "grinning" when he greets anyone. He curls his upper lip and "smiles".. of course, he looks like Cujo when he does it, but it makes us laugh.

This is a great area to paint.. so once I'm finally able to get out, there is sure plenty of inspiration! And the terrain is based mostly on elevation.. up at our house, we're in the spruce and pines and aspen, where the elk roam. Go a little lower, and the views change to steep canyons and mesas and cottonwoods. Here's some shots in November when the cottonwoods were brilliant gold.

Of course, there's also these....

He was migrating.

We are near many fascinating historical and geological sites. Here's some cliff dwellings a few miles down the road. I could get here on foot, but then, I'm a long distance runner, and could get pretty much anywhere on foot if I had the time. This is called Bandelier National Monument. There is 140 vertical feet of ladders to reach the top.

And of course there is Taos, and Abiquiu , where Georgia O'Keefe lived and painted,and, Santa Fe, 2nd or 3rd (depending on who you ask) largest art market in the country! I have not even had a chance to walk the galleries there yet.

I hope to get busy painting now.. though it will have to mostly studio work for the time being. My studio

is a cramped basement room with no windows.. I do miss my big ol' barn attic with the beautiful north light window! I was able to finish a couple of small works for the Monadnock Arts Auction

Here's one of them. This is about 98% finished.. just a few small details to wrap up..

Ginger Jar and Rice Measure

Leaving New England

2010-05-25T18:55:00.000-06:00

September Chores

It's finally happening. Our house has sold, and the boxes are getting packed, and goodbyes are being said.
After almost 3 years of fixing up this old farmhouse, putting it on the market, and waiting and hoping, the day is drawing near and we will be leaving New England. Most of my adult life has been spent here, or at least as many years here as in my native Texas. But New England has been home. It gets in one's soul, these
rural roads and byways, and rocky ledges and mossy stone walls, stately old farmhouses and pastures providing grazing for sheep and cattle... there's a history here, and a dignity of
labor and tradition. I have been thinking lately, each time I visit a place, "will this be the last time?"
These thoughts bring a sadness, even in the midst of the adventure that lies ahead. My life has been here, my friends are here, two precious granddaughters are here, my "birth" as an artist is here. How does one leave all that behind? I'm not sure, but I do know that there are many things that I will miss. Most of them are simple things, the stuff of everyday existence that is tied to these granite hills. Here's a few that come to mind.
1. the sound of peepers in the spring.. a sure sign that winter is over.
2. the feel of crunchy leaves underfoot on a forest trail, and that pungent aroma that fall brings to the air.
3. the sight of Mt. Monadnock, guardian, solid, ever present.
4. stone walls that go on for miles, slowly sinking into the earth, covered in moss, but testament to herculean labors of man and beast in days gone by.
5. the sound of a hermit thrush deep in the forest.... those clear flute-like notes echoing through ancient woods like some hobbit inspired tale..
6. eating at Harlow's Pub in Peterborough. Simple, good food, good beer, and friendly faces.
7. daffodils in the spring.
8. the first snowfall, and the squeaky feel of snow on a really cold winter day.
9. hoping to catch sight of the moose on Wapack trail in Sharon, but always having to be satisfied with tracks and scat.
10. running along the rail trail in Jaffrey, my "home trail" - and knowing every single footstep for 10 miles.
11. water, ;plentiful, cool, clear, flowing, everywhere along the trails. New Hampshire is blessed with abundance of this precious resource.
12. Old houses and old barns.
13. The outrageous colors of autumn.
14. The White Mountains.
15. Art-friendly communities. We are mighty lucky here in that regard.
16. Real maple syrup.
17. my friends. This goes without saying, but there are some dear folks that have touched my heart deeply, and I will never forget them. How do you say goodbye to folks like that?
18. my church family. Monadnock Congregational in Peterborough has been a warm, caring, and encouraging
sanctuary from the troubles of life. They have given me hope and stood by my side when days were hard.
They have pointed me towards the truth, and made me accountable to live by it.
19. My dog, Tucker, whose grave is here,, but who goes with me in memory.
20. Most important, my two sweet grandbabies. They're not babies any more, but all the times we have spent here are etched deep in my spirit, and I can recall countless small joys we have shared. Sure, they will come to visit us in our new home, but this is the hardest thing of all to leave. Almost too hard to even think about.

There are probably a hundred other things - all the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and memories that are deeply embedded here. I am feeling a longing for "just once more" of so many little things, that are never again to be experienced. I am greatly blessed to have been here. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the adventures that lie ahead. - and the mountains out west are grand and wonderful. There will be good times and happy days, and new friends, and new things to paint, and a new dog to share the trails with. Even so,
leaving New England is a hard thing to do.

This will probably be the last post for quite awhile. I wish all of you happy mosquito season, and the hazy lazy days of summer that approach, time with family and friends, holidays and vacation days... gardening and mowing, and apple picking and leaf raking. Do you all know how lucky you are?

Tucker, A Tribute

2010-04-23T06:13:00.000-06:00

I miss this dog so much. Thanks for everyone's kind words. I haven't had the energy to even respond individually. He had such a sweet soul.. everybody was his immediate friend. If you
ever said a friendly word to him, he remembered you the next time he saw you, and would greet you with joyous enthusiasm. Almost without exception, everybody who knew Tucker immediately sensed this special spirit about him, and loved him. He loved my son, who was with him as a puppy, but then went in the Army and was gone for several years. No matter, when Tucker would see him, he would literally jump into Josh's arms, singing and howling with pure love. That was something to see for an 80 pound dog. He came upon tiny newborn deer fawn twins on a hike onetime, and gently sniffed them but didn't touch them. However, if you were a squirrel or a marmot or groundhog.. watch out! And of course, he was convinced he was going to catch an elk one day.
The cats would come rub up against him, and he'd just lay still. He used to give us "hugs" by pushing his head against us and just loving us that way. He had the softest fur - everybody thouht he was still a puppy because he was so soft. We never figured that out, because the breeds that he was a mix of have course hair.
He had great trail manners. He would always go way off trail to do his business, and didn't
hog the trail or get in your way. He was in his glory out there - especially if there was snow.
He didn't like water, though.. and would only swim across a stream or river if it was choice between swimming and being left behind.
He was so friendly, that I often wondered if he would be protective if I were ever threatened. I never really had to test that, but only once, I passed some pretty rough looking young men while out on a run, and instead of his usual tail wagging and greeting, Tucker slowed down, head went down and he stared at them intently as they passed. No aggression, but it was as if he sensed that they were a possible threat by their negative energy (I certainly felt they were a possible threat!). So I do think if it had ever come to that, he'd have done his best to protect me.
Well I have so many great memories of Tucker.. he was one in a million, and we were so lucky to have spent 8 years with him. I wish I had him back.