Sunday September 7, 2008

“Powerlines” 12 X 16”

Motivation has been pretty low the last few days. I had a few good days of painting last week, but now I’m in a lull. I’m heading out to the studio to stretch some canvas and do some framing. Nice mindless work. I’ve been spending alot of time on chores these days. I have alot to get done before the cold weather settles in. The last few days I spent a while chopping and stacking wood. I also just dug up our potatoes and laid them out to cure. I was hoping to get both of those done before Hurricane Hanna got to us.

Plus yesterday I coached the workout for Master’s Swimming at the local YMCA. I’ve been swimming with them since last November and I really enjoy their workouts. Now I’m one of the volunteer coaches once a month. It was pretty easy, except for how hot it was standing on deck, and I spent an hour and a half pushing everyone else, and I didn’t get a workout myself. It’s frustrating being at the pool watching everyone else swim and not getting in myself. But I feel like I should give back to the group a little.

Next Saturday there’s a group of painters headed up here to Port Clyde where we’ll all be staying in a rental house for a week and painting up a storm. I’m psyched to get to know some of these guys and check out how they put a painting together. It should be interesting. For now I need to get some canvases stretched before they get here so I can something to paint on.

Summer's End

Wednesday September 3, 2008

“Windy Water” 16 X 20”

Another summer has slipped by. I always feel like I missed out on something when the summer ends. It’s the time of year when I have to work the hardest so I have mixed feelings. I know the warm weather is on it’s way out, but I also know my life will slow down a bit too. This past weekend I took a break and visited some friends on a lake in southern Maine, where I got to waterski, go tubing, swim, play horseshoes, try to play tennis (I’m not very good), and then we went surfing Monday morning! It was a great weekend. Plus I set up my easel on Sunday and gave some painting lessons to the people I was staying with. It’s pretty interesting watching them struggle through a painting and thinking about what I can do to make their painting time more producitve. It was fun. Maybe one day I’ll post a photo of one of their paintings. It was also good practice for my next workshop, which will be Columbus Day weekend in Damariscotta, Maine. I’ve been offered to teach alot of workshops lately, and I’m trying to figure out if it’s worth it to get involved in doing alot of these. I think I’ll end up doing a couple every year, but I don’t want to lose my painting time.

As for painting, these days I’ve been hot and cold. I feel much less consistent when I’m working. Every time I start a new painting I wonder if I’ll be able to pull it off. Every once in a while I go through one of these phases, and I’m hoping to get right out of this one. Monday afternoon and yesterday I did some good work, and I’m hoping to keep that up. I do have a few new paintings I’m hoping to get on the website in the next few days. I’ll post here once I’ve updated the site.

work-in-progress

Thursday August 28, 2008

I’ve been asked by some folks to post some photos of paintings in progress. This isn’t really a typical scene for me to paint, but I remembered to get the camera out, so it’s the one I’m using. For the last few days I’ve been spending a few hours a day trying to clean up some wood we have lying around and start stacking firewood for the coming winter. It’s brutally exhausting work, but it lead me to notice this scene of an oak tree that fell down in our backyard. We had it cut to length and are now splitting it and dragging it to our woodshed.

The first photo is my easel set up. It’s a great little easel that attaches to a camera tripod. The canvas is 20 X 24” and its held in place by a bungee cord that wraps behind the easel. The metal jar hanging from the easel has turps in it. I keep Gamblin medium in the honey jar on the easel. The palette has all of that paint on it becasue I don’t clean it more than two or three times a year.

Quick wash of Burnt Sienna, or Yellow Ochre, or some mud from the palette. Then wipe off excess turps and paint, and do a quick line drawing of the composition. This is when it’s easiest to make adjustments, so I make sure it works for me.

Cover the whole canvas with big areas of color. Get a rough idea of the color scheme. I jumped the gun a bit to get the axe handle painted in littel bit in case the light changed on me. I don’t usually do this but I knew it would be an important part of the image.

Colors are blocked in and I’m building up some more careful painting. I’m focusing alot on using the color to get the sense of light.

A bit more detail getting added in. I’m being more and more intentional with brush stroke and color as the painting progresses.

The changes at this point are small, but do alot to unfiy the painting. I’m also looking for the places where I can make the painting grab the viewer’s interest. As the canvas caught the light from the sun differently at differnt stages, the digital photos have a slightyl different look to them. Sorry about that

The whole time I’m working, I’m looking at the canvas as a whole. Even as I work on areas of detail, I’m thinking about them as part of the whole. Generally the entire canvas should grow together.

Now I have to go rest up for chopping more wood in the morning!!!

Resources

Friday August 22, 2008

The sun is shining so I should really be out painting, but I’ve been messing around in the studio getting some framing done this morning. I’m caught up enough that I’m heading outside.

First I wanted to point any painters out there to a great post reviewing options for travel easels/pochade boxes. This is from one of my favorite blogs to check up on, linesandcolors.com.

http://www.linesandcolors.com/2008/08/17/pochade-boxes/

This must be the most extensive review of options for outdoor painting set ups that I’ve ever heard of. It’s well worth checking out if you’re thinking of buying something. I’ve seen a couple of these in action and my easel of choice is one from Artwork Essentials. I’ve also spent alot of time with the Julian French easel, and I very much prefer these lighter, tripod set ups. Less issues with parts breaking and generally lighter weight. No matter what you choose you can customize your set up to be more useful. My easel is advertised as being good for canvases up to 16” tall (or somewhere in that range) but I will use it to work on a painting that’s 30×40” by adding a cross brace and a bungee or two.

Another thing I wanted to mention is that I’ve been checking out some new blogs and have found some painters that I like checking in on. One is named Carol Marine. She does beautiful still lifes that are usually pretty small and she sells them online for really good prices. Alot of her paintings are around 6X6” from what I’ve seen, and they have a great sense of light with adventurous brush strokes. Plus she posts a new painting everyday, which makes it rewarding to stop by every morning as I turn the computer on.

http://www.carolmarine.blogspot.com/

Another is Karin Jurick. She’s another blogger who posts pretty often and has very nice paitnings, often with figures in them. Her paintings can also be tiny little things, but with a really nice handling of the paint and vibrant color.

http://karinjurick.blogspot.com/

And I’ll end this post with a print from my college days. This is a lithograph of the view from the window of the printmaking studio looking down St. Mark’s St. I don’t remember the size but it’s probably about 12 X 16” or so.

Workshop photos

Monday August 18, 2008

Abby, from the Roseway, posted photos on her website from the painting workshop, so I grabbed a few and I’m posting them here. You can get an idea of how beautiful some of the spots are that we painted. We did some work on land and some from the boat. Painting from the boat went suprisingly well. It did a minimal amount of moving, so we stayed on the boat when the weather was a bit less certain.

Dwight, the captain, let me drive the boat for a while one day. This is me being a ham. All I was really doing was keeping an eye out for other boats (we only passed one) and watching the compass to try to stay on a heading (harder than you think with that massive boat and changing currents.)

This is Patty and me painting in a meadow on Vinalhaven. It was a beautiful and secluded little field.

This is me talking to Carol about her painting in the same meadow. We spent all afternoon on Sunday painting here.

Kathy stood on the edge of the meadow facing the house and barn.

On the first day I started the workshop with a demo, and to make sure the students had plenty of time to paint when we got to land, I just did the demo while we were under sail. The boat was pretty stable, so I just picked out some islands to paint off in the distance. It worked pretty well and got the ball rolling.

Walking back through the field you could see the Roseway waiting for us.

When Ari, Roseway crew member, and I went for a swim we jumped off the bowsprit. It was deceptively high. Above is me and below is her.

« Summer's End