Last week I took this commissioned oil painting up to Mount Vernon and hung it in Dave’s beautiful house overlooking the Skagit Valley. The frame I made fit right in with the decor and the painting looked like it was made for the place……. well it was!
I haven’t been painting with oils much in the last couple years. The watercolors took me on a journey. Many months after my show in Mount Vernon, Dave Oneill gave me a call about doing a painting for his dinning room. He had seen the show and had some ideas for a commission. After going back and forth a bit with his vision I came up with a few ideas in rough sketch form.
Dave wanted it pretty large, 5 x 3 ft painting, so instead of a watercolor I recommended an oil on canvas.
I transferred my sketch and did a thin “imprematura” underpainting. This seals the gesso ground so the oils don’t suck in as bad and it provides some color coming through the layers that will be added on top.
Next comes the block-in, to get the darks, mids and lights all established and really start to understand how I’m going to paint this scene. At this stage I start to make the planes or shapes, sit in front or back of each other.
The painting starts to come together at this point as I listen to a CD of the high school kids from Maui.
After a couple weeks of painting it was almost done. I really had fun painting those crazy, electric splashes around the salmon. I’ll let this dry thoroughly for a few days, oil it out with a very thin rub of Galkyd thinned with Galkin to even out a few sunken in areas. After that is completely dry, I’ll put on a final varnish, mount it in a frame I made and take it to it’s new home.
Here is the first song on my new album, scheduled to come out early 2025. 3PlusOne is a latin inspired instrumental with a good, mid-tempo groove and a great guitar solo at the end by Al Kaatz. It feels like a sunny day dancing out on a grassy field. I play the main melody on electric and acoustic mandolin, Kelly VanCamp on drums and Walt Singleman on electric bass and David Parker on accordion.
Listen to this and many other songs on BandCamp: https://samalbright.bandcamp.com
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I have an interesting relationship with painting portraits. A loose, confident application of paint is required in watercolor to keep the paint fresh and clean while an accuracy in the positioning and drawing of the main features and structure of the forms is required to make it convincing. I’m after a balance between the cartoon and photo realism. This is the demo I did during a class I taught at our local gallery.
I’ve been teaching a Saturday afternoon oil painting class at GalleryOne in Ellensburg, WA. We started with a small still life of a lemon…. not so easy, but everybody did great. The second Saturday we got a good start on a landscape, learning to simplify and look for values. Next week we’ll dive into a portrait. It’s an interesting process to figure out where people are at and what they need. I hope I’m doing a good job.
We’ve been socked in with winter fog for days. This morning the glorious sun hit the hills outside our kitchen window. I’m trying to narrow down my view in a few small watercolors trying to catch one fleeting effect. An enjoyable hour with morning coffee at the kitchen table.
Each season has its own lighting effects. In small colored notebook sketches I can explore different techniques to find the magic I’m after.
When I’m a bit lost I remind myself to get back to the basics. Composition is the foundation for all that sits on top of it. Value is where form is described and color is like the flavors that make up a good meal. Out of many tiny thumbnails a few will stand out and call for more exploration and refinement. It’s design at this stage, pushing the shapes around and easy to adjust anything at a small size, no more than a few inches. Then after many small idea sketches a few will stand out and hopefully one will be interesting enough to take into a painting. This is just one process of many, but a good one to remember.
In my little watercolor notebook I start working this out. I want the brightest glow from the sky to just hit a bit on the right wall and around the figure. Perhaps the left wall is still too light. And I have to do a couple real vanishing points so the walls read correctly. And then the water reflection shapes need to be worked out as I don’t have a real photo of this, just a snap from a TV image.
After being completely focused on the straw bale building project for eight months, I’m feeling a bit burned out. So my watercolors and notebooks showed up and I started to play with some little landscapes again. It feels good to put the brush in the paint. The curves and shadows of nature are endlessly inspiring.
