I am painting like crazy to prepare for "Colorado Pathways," my upcoming July show at Around the Corner Art Gallery in Montrose, Colorado. Here is a recent painting reminiscent of our adobe landscape from a paint out that Dan Deuter and his wife, Ellie, so kindly hosted. This scene is an 18x14 original oil painting on panel. I'm using the palette knife more frequently these days. The painting knife creates a luscious, thick paint surface that you can carve and create textures on. The drawback is that the thick paint dries ever so slowly which gets concerning when you need to wait for the painting to dry before adding more effects.

The Monitor Article

Kind of unnerving being photographed and interviewed for a cover page and article, I must say. I'm usually on the opposite side of exhibitionists, usually content to enjoy my quietude. In any case, I shared a bit of myself to Mavis Bennett, Editor of the Monitor Magazine for the Fall publication, which with her deft pen, was turned into an article and published this week. It's really quite a good thing to take a moment and express why we do the art we do and how our background influenced our genre of painting. Paintings don't always speak enough for us.  Click below if you would like to see the article in the Fall, 2011 issue on pages 12 and 13, or copy and paste the following into your browser:

http://www.themonitormagazine.com/issues.html

Part 2 of "View of Velarde" Painting

Took a bit to get back to the studio to work on this little painting! Here again is the first stage:

Here at last is the middle state of the oil sketch I talked about last post.  As you can see below, I've blocked in all the color notes and more details, while trying to keep a painterly looseness. I wanted some farm animals so sketched the 3 under the big tree. I'll work on their shapes & shadowing more. I'm still tenuous on the overall color and may adjust the temperature as I feel my way through the painting in the next session since it has more of an orange tint than I would like. I may even add a vehicle or two next to the house. Often, though, if elements like trucks or animals are not in my initial oil sketch, they don't ever find their way into the almost finished painting. See you soon with the finished painting!

The corn fields have always fascinated me with the sprigs of native sunflowers popping out along the edges of the fields. Often the old white farm houses are nestled in a cluster of trees in the middle of expansive corn fields. The proud crow was not originally in my design but he really plays an important role, helping the eye move through the 3 panels towards the farm house.

This was an exciting project for me, experimenting with 3 separate images that together create a whole composition. I thought it would be an easy exercise but it proved to be more difficult in the challenge of treating each panel as an individual composition but yet flow the design throughout the panels. I hope to do more!
 

This triptych landscape is made up of 3 15x30 inch cradled panels. The 2 inch sides are painted black.

Reflections on the coming year

Every artist dips his brush

in his own soul,

and paints his own nature

into his pictures.

~Henry Ward Beecher

This is the time that so many of us pause for reflection on what went right or wrong in 2010 and set goals for 2011. As an artist, we are continually trying to understand and reflect in our art the world as we see it or the world that could be. It doesn't matter whether it is the dead of winter on December 31st before the new year or the middle of a hot July. At any time of the year I find myself trying to rationalize the making of my art and place it on a scale to measure the worthiness of this painting or that, the merits of making art that attempts to re-interpret a place of beauty, to bring serenity to the viewer. Making art solely because I want to express the beauty I find in nature is quite an idealistic aim but one that I gravitate and aspire to. I'm not trying to change the world, make a political statement or bring to light a social injustice.

So the simple truth is that my artistic goal for 2011 continues to be to create paintings that stir the soul to a place of rest and feeling of peace and tranquility for those who view my paintings. I'll strive to continue to develop my skills, trying to paint spontaneously with fresh, color loaded strokes. Oh, and of course, it would be great to find another gallery that would provide the perfect collaborative atmosphere for my work :) 

Guess I better get to work and quit talking.

Happy New Year to all!

Visited my favorite gallery, Around the Corner Art Gallery in Montrose, CO, and dropped off this and another small cradled panel painting.  "Rustic Rico" is an original oil, 6x6 with 1 1/2 inch sides that are also painted as you can see by the 2nd image. It sells for $85, a great price for an original. I love these old mining shacks that are so common through the Colorado mountain mining towns. The waves of golden aspens in the background were so incredibly intense when I saw them, I am still in awe.

Today is the final wrapup of all the loose ends for this weekend's "Art on Trout Road" show in

Montrose, CO. It's exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. Too easy to fill in the time with details I think I need to complete but may not be important at this late stage. I do need to title the new paintings, make labels, get together with my fellow artists to move furniture and hang the show. Then tonight, make cookies... All is good & will surely come together. Just hope the weather holds out through the weekend!

Here is one of the 6x6 original oil paintings. The house is in Rico, CO, where I took a landscape painting workshop with Jill Carver during the San Juan mountain's most magical time of golden color at September's end.

I unveiled this new painting at the Beyond Words Library show a week ago in Montrose, CO. It was fun playing with thick paint using a palette knife. I like the way the light reflects on a luscious thick layered painting. I hope to do more! "Pathways" is 24x18 and now displayed at Around the Corner Art Gallery in Montrose. I've been exploring using the palette knife to paint with on some of my little 6x6s I'm working on for the next show, "Art on Trout Road". Will be posting some of them soon!

I've been a little quiet on the web lately while painting my little 6x6s for upcoming shows. Here's a glimpse of a few of my little originals. I will be posting more as I go along. These are promised for 3 holiday season events so I hope to complete a few each week. Each is painted on a "cradled panel" which is frameless and painted on a board that has 1 1/2 deep sides so they have contemporary look hanging on your wall. It's been a great project for me exploring the many exciting images I've been gathering to paint. I'm having alot of fun playing with the immediacy of quick and spontaneous brush strokes. My painting hand has become looser while I explore some palette knife work, thicker paint and the graphic qualities of painting the image directly to the edge. Painting to the edge of these panels breaks away from the traditional method of enclosing a painting within the frame and allows objects on the panel to push out from it's bounderies.

Let me know what you think, I'm a little bleary eyed from staring at them too long!

Twin Lakes View through a Pinon

Started this painting plein air (on location, outdoors) of a view where we were fishing in Twin Lakes, Colorado. I then finished up the painting in the studio. As is so easy to do, I found myself fussing over the colors, tightening up the painting, & spending too much time on it so that it lost some of its freshness and clear color that plein air paintings usually have. I still like the painting but will continue to strive for looseness and intuitive strokes in my paintings.