Back in Nederland 2010 Again

Looks like I have not been too active on this blog, but perhaps will try to be more faithful this year. Have been painting a lot and hopefully just finished a painting that I have been working on for a year. It is large 36x42 and I have really enjoyed working on it. Will post a picture shortly.

Entry in All About Art Spring Art Show

Marsh Glow at Riverbend, South Carolina

This is an acrylic painting 24 x 30, which I entered in a local art show. I was fortunate enough to be judged First Place in Mixed Media. The glow of the marsh was created by using pastel and acrylic glazing, while the trees were done in water soluble oil.

Because the painting was so big, and included a lot of things that were painted in the same manner, I did develop "Painter's Elbow" or repetitive motion syndrome. Who knew!!! All this time I thought that when I got old my legs or body would give out, but never thought about my arms. Will have to figure out another way to paint.

Attitudes

Attitudes

A Bird Painting

This is my entry for the upcoming Boulder County Senior Aging show. Yes, as you all know I am a senior. We had to submit a short writing about what the subject meant to us. So it is off to Boulder County Colorado where the birds originally live and probably still do Up in Nederland, Colorado.

Joyce and Don Nagel Class

Took a wonderful pastel class today given at All About Art Club at Sun City Hilton Head. Joyce and Don Nagel are well known professional pastel artist who give workshops in Hilton Head and other areas. They have a very interesting technique that I was eager to learn. No paintings from the workshop today as we concentrated on thumbnails and value studies. Nice to know that I am not the only teacher would uses these excellent aids for beginning a painting and enhancing the painting experience. Learned a few new things and had a great revisit of things I thought I was doing but found out I was taking a few too many short cuts.

Getting started again

I am finally back in South Carolina, in the Low Country. I just love the marshes and the wildlife here around Sun City Hilton Head. We are close to the May River. This is a painting that I started at a Demonstration that I gave in January for the All About Art Club at Sun City. I had a very appreciative audience of about 70 people. It was a lot of fun for me to share how to start a painting with so many people.
I then taught a small class in February and will be teaching another class in acrylic landscape painting in March. For those of you in Sun City please check the board in the art room to sign up. What a wonder bunch of people here in Sun City. I love almost every minute.

Back in Nederland, Co

No picture today, but thought that I would start the blog up again after a long hiatus.  Many things have happened in my life since I last posted some good and some bad.  But more on that later.  For those that are following me, I hope to be able to post more painting and share in some of the good news that has happened over the last months.

I went to a cute little Gallery opening this evening here in Nederland.  It is called the Palette Gallery and is a group of women who enjoy painting and also selling art.  They decided to go together and founded The Palette Gallery two years ago.  They have represented me in the past, and under their guidance I had a one man show at the local church.  I was very fortunate to have sold a painting at that time.  These gals are real go getters.  They have just started a new website thepalettegallery.com , so they are really trying during this very hard time.

As you can tell, I am up in Nederland, Co for the summer and hope to start painting again soon.  

I did plant a garden today, very small, but hope for some fresh veggies later this year.

Will post some time in the next week.

New Technique in Oil

I had an opportunity to attend a class of a local artist Julie Hanson, who had attended the Cape Cod School of Art under Lois Griffel. (Her book is "Painting the Impressionist Landscape). Julie teaches this impressionistic style of plein air painting. The style can really only be done in oil. Basically, the technique is with palette knives only, and involves an under painting of the local color and values. First the lightest light is chosen and then the next 3 lightest values. These are called first notes, and are put on a white canvas or primed Masonite board. Next the darkest dark is established scaled down 2 more values. The under painting then consists of 7 values.

Concentration is also placed on the temperature of the color, warm or cool, and this is the basis of the under painting, rather than the local color. The local color is then applied wet into wet. It is a very intense process and ideally should be done in one sitting.

Julie uses Graham oil paints, which are in walnut oil. I used Lukas 1862 oils, as they are very reasonable on ASW or Jerry's Artarama.

One of the greatest advantages of this style in Plein air is the limited palette and the use of the palette knives. You do not have to take any solvents with you, just paper towels and a disposable palette.

The paintings here I did in the studio after the class to enforce what I learned.

Also see, posting on The Strange Tree.

Venice Art Center Floral Show

Just returned from the opening reception at the Venice Art Center in Venice, Florida. It was the opening of the Floral Show. The last juried show of the season. I entered the three paintings shown above and am happy to report that they were all accepted. All in all it was a very nice show. A lot of oils, some photographs and a cross section of watercolors.

They had it hung by predominate flower color and it really worked well. A calliope of color. I will probably go back several times to absorb it all. They also have a great little tea room with the best homemade soups and salads.

The Strange Tree Revisited

I decided to revisit this picture and try to clean it up a it. The first tree looked like a wild golfer to me and a strange animal to others. I needed to define the darks more and ground the trunck. Also the pilings needed some work. This painting is in oil and done solely with palette knives. I have not done a painting like this ever, so it was a new challenge in this painting journey. As I explained before it is done in a different painting style than I ever used, with an underpainting of red values reflecting both temperature and value.

See a previous post to compare the before and after