"Sitting Pretty"

($50.00......6" x 6".....Water Soluble Oils on Gessobord)

"Sitting pretty is all about placement." This painting was inspired by a reference photo I took in Silverado, Co. This beautiful piece of pottery was on the street sitting on a rock post with aspen leaves hanging down. It was a moment of noticing something beautiful in an unexpected place. It is true in life and in art.  It's all about placing someone or some thing in the right environment.

If anyone is not convinced that working from a limited palette is the best way to paint, I am here to try to convince you. You will never need to worry about your paintings being harmonious if you learn to do this and if you leave your tubes of Raw Umber, Black, Dioxazine Purple, Green Gold, etc. in the drawer. All of these colors can be mixed by using a double palette of primaries plus white.

I am also becoming more and more convinced that even abstract and mixed media artists should also set up a palette just as though you were painting an impressionistic or extremely realistic scene. You will learn more about color by doing this than any other way. And if you practice painting something everyday, you will learn this much more rapidly and soon you will be able to mix and match color in your sleep. 

Just to take it one step further, try painting a piece of fruit, a flower, or basically any single object and count your palette knife or brush strokes, changing the color slightly with each stroke. This is a great exercise in learning how to change values gradually, knock down the intensity by adding white or a bit of the complementary color, as well as noticing the subtle value shifts in any reference photo or real life set up. 

This is a skill that requires constant practice, but the reward is the ability to see values like you've never seen them before. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.

Please contact me personally to inquire about this piece.

"Standing Tall"

($40.00.....6" x 6".....Water Soluble Oils on Gessobord)

"Standing tall with discipline." These evergreens are standing tall in a sea of aspens. This reference photo is from Durango, Colorado. The hillside had a lot of trees that had already lost their leaves, but there was still a sea of brilliant yellow. People with discipline are like these evergreens that stand out and grow very tall. They move forward in life.

Discipline is never easy after the first three days. With all of the comforts we have and the continual buffet of technological equipment, it can be very difficult to push past all of that and actually get things done. 

I know an artist that paints so much that I am quite sure she can also do it in her sleep. She is able to mix whatever color she sees in the landscape without hesitation. That is a worthy goal and one which I aspire to, but alas, I have not completed my 1,000 paintings yet. I haven't even completed my first 100. And that is the point.

Rather than wasting time wishing you could paint as well as someone else, it is best to just get started. With just one painting per day, you can at least reach 100 in a few months. There is nothing an artist can do that is quite as practical as learning how to mix colors from a limited palette. The books on color and looking at the color wheel leaves you with head knowledge, but it is useless in teaching how to mix color.

You learn how to do that with disciplined practice....every single day. On the other hand, it cannot feel like drudgery. So it is imperative to create paintings you have a passion to do. That one word....passion.... is what will get you to your studio every day. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.

Please contact me personally to inquire about this piece.

"Amazing"

($40.00.....6" x 6".....Water Soluble Oils on Gessobord)

"It is quite amazing that all colors originate from red, yellow, and blue." When you consider the hundreds of color combinations that derive from these three primaries, we have yet another example of the amazing creative power of God.

This reference photo was taken last fall in Santa Fe, N.M. And yes, the sky really was that blue. It was an amazing October day with the aspens in all of their glory. 

The challenge in this painting was to paint several of the aspens behind the evergreens. No easy task, and my process is different from the oil painters who use brush. I laid down the sky color first followed by some of the evergreens and then I alternated back and forth between aspens and evergreens. It's an interesting effect with some of the evergreens in front and some of the aspens in front. 

I rely primarily on the pressure of the touch to set those colors in place on top of wet paint. One of the advantages of using a palette knife is being able to get cleaner colors. It's much harder to clean a brush when changing color than it is a palette knife and I think that's one of the other reasons I've switched to the knife.

The trees originally went to the bottom of the board, but in the interest of being able to inscribe my lettering, I took a palette knife and swiped off some of that color. I inscribed the quote with a mechanical pencil and wiped the pencil after every stroke. If you really want to know how to learn about color, try oil painting. It's quite the challenge. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about. 

Please contact me personally to inquire about this piece.

"Bird's Eye View"

(unavailable.....water soluble oils)

"A bird's eye view is the best view." I've often wondered what a bird's eye view was. Does it mean the view that a bird has while it sits on a branch or does it mean the view it has while flying in the air?  In any case, the view today is from the branch of an aspen tree.

This piece began with a base coat of lemon yellow plus white. I then painted in the tree trunk followed by the dark blue/purple and then the branches and the leaves. The lettering was the final touch using a sgraffito technique which reveals the first layer of the lemon yellow. 

This was a difficult piece to do because I wasn't sure if I could capture the essence of the image. Generally speaking I am pleased, but I'm still not quite where I want to be yet.  Actually I would like more abstraction with the idea of capturing the image with as few strokes of the palette knife as possible.

The "sgraffito effect" is trendy in contemporary art right now. Many abstract artists are using it with acrylics and scratching through the top layer of paint to reveal the first layer. It does create a nice texture. When using acrylics for this techniques it is best to scratch through the top surface while the paint is semi soft. If it does set up too quickly, it can be softened by brushing on some rubbing alcohol and letting it sit for a minute and then use a very sharp point. When I work with acrylics, I typically use a metal dental pick or an x-acto knife which will achieve the same effect.

This same technique is also effective using Speedball Printing Ink and writing or scratching marks into the second layer following by drying and spraying with acrylic coating. You can then create another layer, leaving part of the previous layer exposed. Since Speedball Printing Ink is water soluble so you can write into it or make marks simply by dipping your pointed pen into water. The point I am making is that "sgraffito" is worth experimenting with and I encourage you to try it using different mediums. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.

"The Aspens"

($40.00.....6" x 6".....water soluble oils on gessobord)

"Give it up for the aspens." Many artists have depicted aspens and this is my version. They really are quite stunning when they light up the fall landscape. The reference photo I used was taken in Santa Fe, N.M.

Much can be learned about variety and alternation by studying the landscape. I chose this photo because I like the alternating effect of the aspens with the evergreens. I am continuing to push the depth by slightly changing each stroke. It takes a bit longer to do, but I believe it's worth the trouble. It would have been very boring to use one solid color for each tree. This is an important thing to remember whether moving towards realism or working in total abstraction. The repetitive and different strokes create variety. And by varying the direction of the strokes and using a fair amount of paint, the light reflects off of the surface in a beautiful way.

Notice also how the exposed tree trunks and branches create nice divisions of space and even an occasional diagonal. You might want to experiment by simply taking a palette knife and mixing up one color in its full intensity, then add a bit of the complement....followed by white, and then repeat this in different percentages and overlay the strokes and make each one going in a different direction. It's quite fun and gives practice in color mixing and how to dilute a particular color. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.

Please contact me personally to inquire about this piece.