Apr 18 - The BonFire of Paintings

Did I mention that I was going to burn about one third of my body of work? Over 220 paintings went into a bonfire last week, and it was cleansing and freeing. I've been sorting through the work I have created over the last three decades, and decided it was time to cull the ones I wouldn't want around to be examples of my legacy.

Was it hard to do? Yes, and yet no. Seeing and evaluating each work on an individual basis was like going back in time... remembering the places I've been, the events surrounding each of the paintings. In that regard, it was hard. But for the quality of the work, it was easy. After all, who is going to know or care what I felt or thought while I painted that garbage piece? Most collectors only want the best works, and they want to know the back story on those paintings alone. The angst I felt when I struggled through (and never completed) poorly designed and poorly executed paintings is of no importance to anyone except me, and YOU. You? Yes, because everyone wants to know that even the good artists have cr*ppy paintings.

The image above is a 12 x 16 reworked from that pile of bonfire paintings. I demonstrated how to fix a lousy painting during the Fallbrook workshop yesterday, by painting over it using the Color System to change it from almost evening light to DEFINITELY evening light. This is now a survivor of the bonfire. Here is what it looked like before I pulled it from the flames....

I'm sending my stuff to Georgia tomorrow and am flying myself and Sparky there next Saturday. Tons to do before that, and I'm SO looking forward to Georgia and Florida in Spring!!!

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My workshop schedule for 2010 is HERE.
Color System information can be found HERE.
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April 28 - LONG ride, and 95 degrees

I thought you'd enjoy seeing the terrain I rode over with 20 other riders today. I led a ride up on Box Springs Mountain for my riding club, and we enjoyed five hours in the saddle with a lunch break, and some quite steep pitches. This image isn't a painting, but shares with you that being almost 60 doesn't mean one has to slow down at all! I love to ride Raindance, and today's ride with friends and cowboys was a real corker.

Tomorrow I'll begin the big paintings for you. Tonight I'm dog tired, and fun relatives are visiting, so I will get some sleep and hit the brushes tomorrow!

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March 14 - The Morning Wrangler Lesson Painting, Second Pass

The canvas is 98 percent covered now with the colors that will be the basis for the final pass. At that time I'll put in the details and the highest contrasting points of light. Squint your eyes at this stage and you'll still see the abstract composition in there--hidden mostly now by the similar values. If you would like a peaceful painting, make similar values--Edgar Whitney called it "Large Dark in Midtones", and this painting will fall into that value category. But the light passages will make drama, and take it to a different value structure--Small Lights, Large Dark in Midtone. If you're interested in Edgar Whitney's teaching, he wrote a book on (ulp!) watercolor painting. But the section on designing paintings is spot on for any artist. "Complete Guide to Watercolor Painting" is the title.
In this painting I'm finding the most pleasure in mixing the harmonious hues, keeping to the two color families of warm and cool where appropriate, and just enjoying the journey. I hope you do, too!

March 13 - The first pass on the 12 x 16 Wrangler

I prepped the canvas to get rid of the glaring white (which always messes the values and intensity of the hues I'm mixing) and then quickly delineated the outermost edges of the figure and the two horses. Now you can clearly see how I re-designed the structure, moving the heartbeats up and to the left, giving them all room in which to move. I added in the concept of the diagonal shadows in the foreground, cementing completely the diagonal "X" composition, without even putting in any details. The "X" is formed by the implied direction of the figures counter-pointed by the opposing lines created by the shadow shapes. It is true that the abstract structure of the painting needs to be strong enough to see at the simplest early stages, else the painting might end up weak and unexciting. Even without the lights that will come later, the design is pleasing to the eye. All of the colors are intermixes of at least two hues, establishing the grays against which the more pure colors of the blue jeans and sunlit areas will play. What fun!

Complete blog here.

March 12 - Lesson Time Again! Wrangler with Horses

I just couldn't put off painting this guy. This is Butch, one of the long-time wranglers from Grapevine Canyon Ranch, and the source material gathered from the early-early morning hours before breakfast brought me some wonderful sources! This is just great to make a wonderful painting! So the lesson begin again, here with the source material and the sketches that go into the establishment of design for the work. As you can see, I've moved the subject matter (horses and man) to the upper left of the rectangle that makes up the painting surface, because I need some space for him to move into, and also because I need to establish that this is a "ground" painting (versus a "sky" painting.) Tomorrow we begin the lay in and covering the canvas!

Complete blog here.

March 6 - Another Day on the Horse

One of the greatest things about living on a working cattle ranch is the photo opportunities that abound in the wee hours of dawn. I was able to get out of bed and head to the corrals for picture taking as that morning light came streaming across the valley, almost horizontal as it lit the horses and wranglers in their morning chores. Then off to breakfast, and a return for a ride over the rangeland, "brush poppin" and going up to "the Fortress" near the Apache stronghold. Four of us were on horse back to do that this morning, and then returned to the ranch to do separate things. Me, I painted this first pass on a 12 x 16 oil of one of those "morning horses" in a different palette than the acrylic of a few days ago. I'm also sending you a smaller image of me on Socks, the horse I've changed to for the last couple of rides. He's more like my Raindance mare at home. With memories of knowing I was traveling on a trail used by Apache chiefs Cochise and Geronimo's people, I write to you in the evening of quite a memorable day! (And it is only Tuesday!)

March 3 - Lazy Horse Warming Up, at the Ranch

"Warming Up" This morning at the Arizona Ranch, Grapevine Canyon Ranch, I took some images that later became paintings. This is an oil, 9 x 12 inches, from seeing the many ranch horses warming up after eating their morning meal. The temperatures last night were down in the teens (verrrrrry cold!!!) and there was ice on everything wet, including the bottle of water I had in the car! Horses are used to colder temperatures, but this boyu liked the idea of getting that sun on his hide in the morning hours. I then had a great four hour ride on a cremello quarter horse, going through some wonderful high desert mountains--humidity is at eight percent, so things are really dry!
This painting just just sold to Louise Mellon of Aiken, North Carolina.