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.
I got a little painting in during our stay in Tepoztlan, Mexico. Beautiful classic Mexican town surrounded by rugged mountains and even an ancient pyramid.
This is a watercolor of the morning light looking from our balcony.
Bumpy cobble stone streets and amazing wall textures mixing adobe bricks, stones and stucco. I especially appreciate the little broken tiles inserted between the adobe bricks.
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In the winter of 22-23, as we were getting out of the covid era, maybe, I painted over 200 small watercolor landscapes. Some “en plain air” some from shots I took on my phone. From those I picked 30 of the best to paint in a larger format on full sized sheets of good watercolor paper. We had scheduled a show at the Clymer Museum a year earlier and I thought we could fit about 30 paintings, matted and framed in their large room without being too crowded. I about 3 months I completed over 30 new paintings. After leaving out a few clunkers I had 28 new works for the show.
My wife Ren and Matthew Lennon, the curator of the Clymer helped arrange the show. It was so satisfying to see that many works up in such a beautiful space with good lighting. Thanks to the Clymer Museum for expanding what their show and supporting local artists. 28 Landscapes 2023 will hang through June 2nd 2023.
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.