Figure Paintings

Today was a great morning working from the model. I am continuing to explore ideas using lots of texture before I start the image, laying, adding and removing paint, and throwing in some unusual tools to apply the paint. I am posting 2 images from today and 2 from last week. I work on both paintings at once, waiting for one to dry a bit, or for me to slow down in my layering. It is fun to see where the work takes me..These are all acrylic on gessoed paper. I am having a lot of fun with these.

More Paintings

I haven't posted some of the most recent small paintings so here you  go...They are all oils 9x12 or smaller...

Painting Rainy Arizona

We have been in a weather pattern lately that has been great for our thirsty desert. The storms have seemed to hit on my plein air painting Mondays over and over though. That makes for quite a challenge for sun lovers, especially when it is cold too. Here is what got painted out in the stormy desert. It was a very different color palette than usual. I loved the streak of light that showed up briefly...had to work fast to catch it.

Fancy Frame

A few weeks ago I participated in a silent auction fund raiser. I donated some paintings and ended up buying one. In addition there was a rather hideous (really it was) painting in a big carved frame. It was 30x40 and really heavy duty. I got it for $32 with my eye on the frame and not the painting. Because the frame was off white I had to find a subject that would work so I started going through my photos. I ended up picking one of cliffs going down to the Salt River. The shoreline has white rocks and boulders so it was perfect. I used acrylics and spent a lot of time building up thin layers of texture for the cliffs. I went back and defined them with more opaque paint. I had a lot of shadowed areas that were contrasted by the areas hit by the sun. It was really a fun painting to do where everything when pretty well. Usually you pick a frame for the painting, but this time I did a painting for a frame!  I think it goes perfectly with this fancy frame.

Stormy Monday

We had a cool stormy Monday last week. The clouds kept coming up and down on to the mountains. The colors were cool and interesting. Here is my paint set up on the trail.

Patio Art

Alan and I saw an idea sort of like this at a local fair and zoomed down to the scrap yard. We got all the stuff we needed down there and made this to hang on the patio. It is all natural metal except for washers that I spray painted blue, purple, red-orange and black. It was a fun project.

Painting Without Fear

A couple of weeks ago I attended a really fun workshop led by Stan Kurth called Painting Without Fear. It was really a fun day. Stan had worked for years doing tight graphic design work that was driving him crazy. He finally broke free to do his own art and it is loose and fun. He showed us lots of examples of his work and explained the process of building up texture, layering color, taking away color, layering more...He then begins to look for suggestions of imagery that he can define more with added details and often opaque paint around the negative spaces. This really wasn't new, who hasn't imagined images that accidentally occur? But what was new was the timing of the joy of playing with your images like you used to! Most of the participants are competent artists who are serious in their work. We all had fun and did indeed feel like we were enjoying painting without fear. Lessons for me included being way more patient building up layers of texture. It is worth the time to layer and consider those additions and subtractions. I was working on thick nice watercolor paper instead of canvas. There was something yummy about that paper. I also learned that you can scrub off acrylic with alcohol. That was news to me and a great new tool! I already use gesso when working with acrylics, but that is part of the opaque layers. Stan mentioned contrast of opaque and transparent and I sometimes forget to let that contrast be one of my tools. Here are my results for the day with Stan as well as some additional images, including some working from the model.

Painting at the Fair

It was the nicest weather in a long time for our plein air painting at the Arizona State Fair. It was sure a different subject after so many desert sessions. We started early before the crowds came. It was fun to watch the fair come alive with people showing up, rides starting up, music going. My 10x10 oil is of the view towards the merry-go-round and ferris wheel. (After the judging I found out I got second place in the contest.)

Paint Out at the Farm at South Mountain

Yesterday was the perfect day for the paint out at the Farm at South Mountain. The event had 70 artists registered to participate! Sandi Ciaramitaro is an artist in residence there. She arranged for Oil Painters of America to sponsor the day. The Farm has some restaurants, gardens, cool buildings, big trees..so many nice spots to paint that we were all spread out. I quickly settled on this view and had shade all day. It was wonderful. A different subject for a plein air painting than what I usually do here in Phoenix.

Sedona Paint Out

A "paint out" is a gathering either formal or informal for plein air painters to work at the same location. It is a lot of fun to find a new spot to paint at and meet new artist friends. Arizona Plein Air Painters had a paint out yesterday at the Sedona home of Sue Davis. It was a beautiful day and Sue's backyard is 360 degrees of views of Sedona's famous red rock scenery. It was bliss! Sue and her husband were gracious hosts sharing their art filled home and a delicious lunch. I got three 11x14 oils done...photos are a bit tricky with the paint too shiny in the sun and a bit dull in the shade...but here they are. I started "tighter" with the one with the big tree in the front right. The middle one is catching some of the yellow flowers and junipers and red rocks. Then I turned back to the same view of the mountain as the first one.and did a quick one (40 min.) before we left. You can see how the time of day changed the colors. I really hoped the Davis' would invite me to move in their guest room, but they didn't so I am back down in the valley.

Back Painting the Desert

Finally the weather has let up and we are back to painting the desert. I was walking away with 2 paintings most mornings before we stopped in July. So far after a month back at the weekly plein air session I have only been able to complete one painting each morning. I guess I am rusty! One day we had lots of moving clouds that changed the lights and darks a lot. You really have to decide what to "chase" and what to stick with.  This week I challenged myself by doing the painting with only painting knives. No brush work at all. It really put me through the paces. I had to think and be very deliberate with each bit of paint. It was hard work, tiring and fun at the same time. I knew it would use up a lot of paint so I loaded up my palette with a generous bit of each color. I had a variety of knives, but ended up using only a few and one in particular was the main tool. I think you will be able to tell which painting it was by the globs of paint.

Here's the Exception

I have always loved books. I grew up in a home where books were always given for birthdays or Christmas. It was a favorite pass time to read and still is. In fact even with a Kindle I accumulate books without even realizing it. Of course when you are an artist looking at beautiful art for reference, inspiration and pleasure is a given. All of this has made me treat books reverently. Notes were not in the margins, but on separate papers. Book marks are used instead of folded page corners. But Brian Dettmer makes books into amazing pieces of art. His altered books are the exception to the rule when taking care of books. Instead his precise cutting makes magic of those pages. Check his work out and don't look at books the same way again. (Google his name to find his website. It doesn't seem to link properly from the blog. It is worth the effort to see his interesting alterations of not just books, but those old cassette tapes too!)

Steve Jobs Made Me Do It

The other day Steve Jobs passed away. The media coverage was extensive, as it should be. Besides covering the genius of his inventions there were several airings of his graduation speech made after his cancer diagnosis. This speech tells the audience that it is a gift to know you are going to die and to therefore be compelled to "live your life." I sometimes spend a whole day watching the tube or sitting on the computer. I know my days are not infinite and yet I often squander the hours away. After hearing Steve Job say more than once that day to "live your life" I set up for a day of painting. It is finally that glorious time of year where Arizona can once again brag about the weather. I love setting up on the patio once the summer gives up.

This painting is of Oak Creek Canyon in Sedona Arizona. It is acrylic on a tall skinny canvas 60x15". I love the idea of showing a slice of a view. The photo was a little hard to take and didn't quite get the top couple of inches but you get the idea. I also put a shot of a portion of it...I tried to not over tell the story..give enough to make the impression, but stay just a bit loose....

Life Drawing Mornings

Life drawing twice a week is a great way to make sure I practice drawing. I love painting and can forget the fun of dry media. When I go to life drawing I use a variety of tools. I am posting a felt marker page with some gesture drawings. These are a minute long usually and the model takes positions that they could not hold longer. This model, Eric, is really athletic and can stand on his head or do other poses that can be very challenging. I am also practicing losing edges and outlines so you will see a few pastel drawings that don't always clarify the outline. Suggestions instead of telling is what I try to do on these. I use soft pastels, oil pastels and nu-pastels on these. The time for these poses vary from five minutes to twenty.

Plein Air Artist of the Month

The Arizona Plein Air Artists group that I belong to highlights one artist member a month on the website. I am it this month. You can check it out at http://arizonapleinairpainters.com. It's a bit ironic to be the member of the month of a group dedicated to painting outdoors when it has been a month of not going out. It has been a super hot summer (well I guess that is no surprise when you live in Phoenix) so paint outs would be more of a fight for survival than for artistic accomplishment. But just the other day I actually experienced what some might call a cool breeze. Yes it will cool off again! (we begin to doubt it ever will about this time of the year) In fact, my pals and I have already scheduled the first session back out at our favorite desert spot. 

The desert areas of Arizona go through a real rejuvenation when the nights begin to cool and the high temperatures dip below a hundred now and then. It means we survived the summer. Shoppers at the nurseries begin to anticipate the first batches of new plants arriving to plant. Those empty flower pots can once again be filled with color. Even more exciting for some is the color we can once again apply to canvas out in the sunshine.

Got a Little Crazy

I got a little crazy at life drawing today. One drawing is really pretty abstract...another just loose..another pretty real..one just a sketch. Had fun with all of them.

Painting Red Hair

Painting from the model yesterday ended up being about an hour and a half. I focused mostly on the face. This model has dyed her hair a bright light red that is a fun color. I only wish it had been down so I could have used more Cad Orange!

Two for One

My life drawing group has two models for the price of one every month or so. It is really fun, and tricky to get both models done well. It is really difficult if the pose is short.  Sometimes I end up focusing on just one of the two during the pose. Here is a fairly long pose where I get both models in the drawing to start and then go back for a second drawing of just part of the woman. That drawing was on a rough toothed paper so the pastel skips as I apply it. It forces you to suggest more than define too much.

Long Pose Painting

Today I managed to get to the long pose session. Tuesday mornings seemed to always be tough for me, but I made it today. What a fun morning! I did an oil painting and the 3 hours flew by.

Life Drawing with fun hair

I love this model for several reasons: skin tones, great poses, fun personality, but especially her HAIR! It is just fun to squiggle those lines! Today the three hours flew by. Here is a twenty minute pose...with hair squiggles.

More Studio Shots

I got my cabinets cleaned out and reorganized in the studio yesterday. I am posting a picture of one of the two which stand next to each other in the studio. It is jam-packed but things are pretty accessible now. Picked up a couple more plastic containers and feel pretty good about that storage area. I am also posting my desk. It is really one of those plastic banquet tables with a piece of glass on top. That solves the textured surface issue with those tables. I stuck some blue shelf paper under the glass to make it a bit more appealing. My light box is on top that I use for calligraphy on wedding envelopes. Finally a shot of part of my bulletin board...it is layers deep of stuff I like, photos etc....I've mentioned before how much I love seeing other people's work spaces so it is only fair that I share.