Oct 16 - Demo forty minutes in

Ah, finishing up and adding the last details... that was what took up the last ten-minute section of the demonstration. Adding the huan element of that picnic table is what pulls the viewer into the image. And all of that is planned from the get-go, and with the careful orchestration of the brushwork and keeping the values down, now you see the angles of the table and know the scale of the place. The viewer (you) now "fit" into the scene.

Here's an interesting part of this... taking the image into Photoshop, and doing a levels view on it, I see this graph showing the amount of the values in the painting. Note the nice bell curve shape of the values. HUGE amount of mid tones, and small darks and lower values, and also small lights. Note that the majority of the painting's values are humped to the LEFT of mid point, showing that this painting is darker in values than a more balanced image. Using the "Levels" can teach you about your work in ways that are not accessible through just looking or asking your significant other or spousal unit, "Honey, do you like this?"

I hope to begin a larger, special painting tomorrow, and will share the development of that one with you as well.

This painting, entitled "Sanctuary" will get some more tweaking before I call it finished, but I did sign it.

The newest DVD on the Color System is HERE
You can see my entire blog HERE.
My workshop schedule for 2010 is HERE.
Color System information can be found HERE.
If you need to email me directly, please click here.

October 15 - Thirty Minutes into it, and changes!

Oh, look! The trees are back!

In ten more minutes with the fastest (one inch filbert) brush in the west, I've gone BACK into my dark pigments and put in those trees, their major needles (Ponderosa pines), and make the green areas of the lower right more interesting. What I'm doing at this point is "shaping" those larger marks into three-dimensional belief builders. They look like rocks now.

The filbert brush is an amazing tool--giving the artist the broad strokes that start and finish thinly as one puts down and picks up the brush. That brush also made all of the branches--thick to thin, out to the ending tips. All with a one-inch filbert.

I've mentioned before that making water isn't tough--first the verticals, and then the horizontals on top. I'll add to that a general guideline--make more verticals (at least 2/3 more) than horizontals. I've held to that pretty much by this point with the lake. I like how the whole scene feels wet, and I can testify that this is because of the Cool Box colors.

On other news, tonight 20 people are coming over to my theater to watch a special movie screening of a private debate held last year. I'm chasing dust bunnies and trying to make the yard resemble something other than a dog kennel. Dog puppy toys everywhere, sigh...

Did any of you see the National Geographic "Worst Fix" show last night with the installation of Ron Wood's project in Salt Lake City? After the structure is in place, the glass will be installed over the next few months. Ought to be spectacular when finished!

The newest DVD on the Color System is HERE
You can see my entire blog HERE.
My workshop schedule for 2010 is HERE.
Color System information can be found HERE.
If you need to email me directly, please click here.

Oct 14 - Another Ten Minutes, and the Salt Lake City Sky Bridge

Ten more minutes in and the mid-tones are set in place. The colors used for these mid-tones are completely out of the Cool Box, and all I've done is add white to them. I didn't even clean my palette, but mixed down into the colors already there with the white.

Now the lake's furthest edge cuts through my original trees, but I need that complete line, as it is important to have it go fully across, since we all know water "seeks its own level". During the NEXT ten minutes, I'll paint those tress back in.

So, I've laid in thin darks (structure, first ten minutes), mid-tones in large shapes (second ten minutes), and... can you guess what will come next? Tomorrow will be revealing...

On another note, it is SO exciting to know that National Geographic has picked up on the massive glass project of Ron Wood (the last project of Ron's partnership company before Ron went solo). You can see the framework for the Salt Lake City's glass "Sky Bridge" going up as their "World's Toughest Fixes" and it is happening TONIGHT (Thursday, 8 pm) on television. Wish I had cable! Here's the LINK. I had mentioned that Ron did large projects? All I can say is... WOW.

We're still working on the collaboration of the fused glass panels. Just love the creative energy!

The newest DVD on the Color System is HERE
You can see my entire blog HERE.
My workshop schedule for 2010 is HERE.
Color System information can be found HERE.
If you need to email me directly, please click here.

Oct 13 - Demonstration Painting in Stages, First Pass, 10 minutes

The Corona Art Association welcomed me as their demonstrating artist last night, and I put the 16 x 20 acrylic panel (from yesterday's blog) up on my easel and began my talk.

I asked a member familiar with an iTouch to set my timer for ten minutes, and with much laughter, I started painting. At the end of the ten minutes, here was the result. The canvas is covered for the most part with dark tones and mixes of Cool Box Ultramarine blue, Burnt Umber and Thalo green. No white. All I did was paint over the underpainting using various strengths of this trio of colors using a one-inch filbert Ruby Satin, by Silver Brush.

In my talk to the group, I stressed the importance of getting that abstract structure with dark values before ANY of the details show up. As you can see, the identity of the painting is clear even at this murky point. Howard Pyle, the "father of American Illustration" used to teach his students that they had 30 minutes to get a value structure in place that would hold up to the viewer 90 feet away--"Thirty minutes, thirty yards!". He was a great teacher, and still influences artists today. Having strength of design before the objects that create that design overwhelm the viewer is a good practice. Objects by themselves do not create good paintings. Design is EVERYTHING to making good art!

If I make this painting tiny, as though it is away from you 90 feet, you can see in only ten minutes I've been able to create a value design that holds up with clarity. Whew.... OK, let's reset the timer for another ten minutes, and look at what happens to this painting... tomorrow!

The Riverside workshop in November is full. Sorry if you didn't make it into this last one for 2010. There are several offerings for next year, though, and I'll be announcing those in the weeks to come. Gift yourself the gift of knowledge!

The newest DVD on the Color System, Twilight and Misty Days, is HERE.
You can see my entire blog HERE.
My workshop schedule for 2010 is HERE.
Color System information can be found HERE.
If you need to email me directly, please click here.

Oct 12 - Acrylic Art Demonstration Painting in Stages

I'm headed out this evening to do a demonstration painting in acrylics for the Corona Art Association, and I wanted you to see this one develop in stages. Here's the first cover, done in the studio so I can talk and not think about composition as I start. (Yes, I'm taking the timer along with me! Every ten minutes I'll take another image and post a blog on that stage of the painting.)

The under painting on this 16 x 20 is done with a mix of cad orange and sap green, with a touch of thalo blue thrown in. I know it is going to be a Cool Box painting, so I put in a warm under painting, in case some of that shows through. If you look earlier in my blog (Sept 21-26), you'll see another painting in stages which is similarly done. This one, however, is in a different atmosphere, and won't have much of the mist on it. I used one of those rubber-tipped "brushes" to make the marks of the drawing so I know the basic location of the coming shapes. I also spritzed it with alcohol mist when the paint was wet enough to react to it. Makes an interesting visual texture, even though most of it will be lost in the coming layers.

I'm looking forward to seeing how it will develop, although I can almost "feel" it finished in my mind. The canvas is now packed in the Honda Fit along with my art supplies and DVDs for the evening demo.

The source image for this demonstration tonight is below, and is from my recent trip to the White Mountains. I hope you'll enjoy how it develops and my writing about why I make the changes I do. Let's enjoy our time together as this one develops over the next several days!

On another front... the painting that I revised on October 7th SOLD at the opening, along with eight other artists' works. So even though some of you were divided in your comments about its changes, it is now in someone's collection, so no revisions are possible! ( The 7x5 picnic bench is still there... sort of glad it hasn't sold.)

The newest DVD on the Color System is HERE.
You can see my entire blog HERE.
My workshop schedule for 2010 is HERE.
Color System information can be found HERE.
If you need to email me directly, please click here.

Oct 11 - Memories of Ski Areas, Oil 8 x 10

This was the last painting of the trip--done on Thursday from my camper. It was done from inside the camper, because I was sited on the side of the road in the middle of a high, wide mesa, and the winds were buffeting so strongly that my camper roof was rippling and occasional thunder came from above!

Done in oils, I enjoyed coming back into the sumputous feel of this media after the details inherent in acrylic layering. This is Sunrise Ski Area, and I painted the runs with a dusting of imaginary snow. As is the wish of everyone who enjoys downhill winter sports, that first snowfall heralds the coming of winter playdays!

The ominous snow-filled clouds were painted with the ultra blue, alizarin, yellow ochre and white combination that is so useful for all skies. Never pure, these three make marvelous, clean sky grays with infinite variations!

Here's yet another image from the campground, showing the many ways this part of the White Mountains presents itself. This one may end up in a painting--perhaps as a backdrop to a living creature--or another picnic table! In any case, the beauty and peacefulness of Hawley Lake cannot be minimized. I'm glad I brought back so many photographic memories.

You can buy my latest DVD "Twilight and Misty Light" HERE.
My workshop schedule for 2010 is HERE.
Color System information can be found HERE.
If you need to email me directly, please click here.

Oct 10 - The Best One

Here's the painting--a tiny 7 x 5 acrylic, and I just love it. The photograph doesn't show the subtle light grays in the mid ground, but it does show the variations on the lichen-covered rocks and vegetation in the foreground. Why do I love it? Memory reinforcement. This is a recreation of the memory I shared with you yesterday, and it is what makes artists who we are. We live, feel, and then it comes out of our brushes to visual results.

I don't want to sell this one, and almost pulled it from the four that are in Pinetop. But I realize that in making art, the sharing of the paintings is part of the connection I have to humanity. So these ones that are so meaningful to me must go on to others.

The underpainting didn't speak of what was coming, did it? The vision was in my head of what it would be... that's the hopeful optimism of an artist! And doing it is the practice that all artists must pursue to be able to effectively convey his or her vision.

The good news is that the workshop in November is now full, but I am taking a couple for wait listing. I won't have another workshop until March of next year, so this is a great time to get a snoot full of Color System! All have their supplies lists and I'm looking forward to teaching face-to-face (versus online courses at the college).

I do have a demonstration coming up on October 12 at Corona's Art Association. This will be at the Corona Heritage Park and Museum, at 510 Foothill Parkway in Corona. I'll have my new DVD there and will be painting a misty light painting in acrylics. I know the subject matter will be from my recent trip! Hope to see you there, or at the Temecula demo the following week on the 19th.

Did you notice that today is "10-10-10"? As dates go, this doesn't happen all that often. We get it for the first twelve years of a new decade. Then it is gone again, for 100 years. Wouldn't it be nifty to have been born on one of these unique dates?

Congratulations to new collector Shannon Hennigan of Penn Valley, California for her purchase of "In the Park", a 6x6 oil.

You can see my entire blog HERE.My workshop schedule for 2010 is HERE.Color System information can be found HERE.If you need to email me directly, please click here.