These are paintings I’ve posted before but have since worked further on. I don’t think I’m quite done with the top one.
11″ x 14″ oil on panel
5″ x 5″ Oil on panel
The paint on this orange was so thick and is mostly slow drying Cad Red Light. It took about a month to dry to the touch.
11″ x 14″ oil on panel
When my daughter was little, we made this toy boat together from scraps of left over lumber. I think she tried to take it in the bathtub, or maybe that was me. If our bathroom is ever finished I’ll try her out again.
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5″ x 5″ oil on paper
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5″ x 5″ oil on linen
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5″ x 5″ oil on linen
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8″ x 8″ oil on linen
One of the things that I hate most about exhibiting is writing an artist statement. Honestly, my statement is that I try to make something I enjoy looking at. I’m not really a very organized painter, as far as what I’m trying to accomplish. I might start out with a vague idea in my head, inspired by something I’ve seen or by another painting I’ve just finished and want to continue on. With the painting above, I started out thinking about Richard Diebenkorn’s early figurative paintings, which are sort of expressionistic……
Richard Diebenkorn “Interior with Flowers” Oil on Canvas
56 3/4 x 38 3/4 inches
1961
… and sort of ended up in pseudo-impressionism. I’ve always loved those early Diebenkorns and find it fascinating how they morphed into the Ocean Park type paintings he’s so famous for.
I tend to spend very little time setting up a still life and prefer to paint a scene I come across. Sometimes I try to put together a thoughtful still life setup but often get bored and just start painting and figure it out as I go. In this painting, I placed the pruning shears toward the end. I’ve painted this blue bowl several times before, in the same size and format and thought this might become part of that series. It’s painted somewhat differently and I’m not sure if it fits as a series yet. Thinking . . . . .
14″ x 11″ oil on linen
Dark paintings are so difficult to photograph. Sorry for the glare.
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8″ x 10″ oil on canvas
.I’m afraid this plant died while I dawdled over this painting.
My wife has always been an advocate of alternative medicine and we have lots of these brown medicine bottles around the house. They’ve come to have more meaning to me over the years.
I don’t know what the sweet potato is about.
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9″ x 12″ oil on linen
I’ve been lazy about photography, lately. I apologize for the glare and push pin shadows.
It feels a bit cliched to talk about things I’m thankful for, at this time of year but I’m going to do it anyway. I’ve written on this blog before that for the last 13 years, my wife has been living with cancer. Three years ago the cancer returned and metastasized. The fact that Les is still with me and, all things considered, doing quite well is the single thing I’m most thankful for. Knowing that I may lose her has drawn us very close, especially over the last 3 years and I would say that these have been our best years together.
Thanks also to those who have read and left comments on the blog this year. I’ve not been a very consistent blogger and I appreciate that you took the time to visit and leave the occasional encouraging remark.
I’ve had to move back out of the studio to allow the electrician, insulation installers and, next week, sheetrockers and painter, do their work. I did get a few more small studies done before moving out.
Here’s a little pumpkin for the Halloween season
6″ x 8″ oil on panel
Both of my daughters draw well. When they were in elementary school, they did some ceramics one summer. We still have many of the pieces they made. They are among my favorite things.
The little clay box in this still life was made by my older daughter.
8″ x 10″ oil on panel
It’s a little odd getting used to painting in natural light, having always done still life painting under lights. I’m painting these recent studies without lights and, although it’s been cloudy, I do notice shifts in light throughout the day. It may take a little while to find the ideal way to set these up.
As with plein air painting, I sometimes struggle to see my panel, in natural light. Maybe there’s something wrong with my eyes. Many painters frown on using photos but sometimes I find it helpful to photograph my still life setups. Often it’s easier for me to see values, I’m struggling with, in a photo than than by looking directly at the objects.
The electrician comes today to wire the studio and hopefully I’ll have sheetrock on Monday!
view of veg garden from studio door, looking east.
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My studio is undergoing an expansion that I’m very excited about. I’ve been working in the back of my garage with only one small window. It was kind of cool in a monastic cell kind of way but I’m really looking forward to having a larger lighter space.
I’m still a couple of weeks (at least) from completion but I couldn’t wait to start using it.
We had a great crop of tomatoes this year.
6″ x 6″ oil on panel
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8″ x 12″ oil on panel
This juicer was, at one time, a big part of our lives. My wife, who has been battling cancer for over 10 years now, has followed the recommendations of Dr Nicholas Gonzalez, which includes the daily intake of massive amounts of freshly juiced carrots. We used to buy big bags of carrots to keep in the garage and one of my jobs was to wash bunches of carrots everyday and prepare them for the 3 daily juicing sessions. Leslie turned a beautiful shade of orange and stayed that way for many years.
As Les developed a reaction to part of the therapy, the juicing fell away. I love fresh vegetable juice but it’s a lot of work to make it three times a day.
I like the the old timey look of the machine. It was sitting out on the counter in the sun and, since Les was away for a week, I set up my pochade in the kitchen and made this painting.
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8″ x 8″ oil on panel
I spent the last week sitting on my deck painting my Weber grill. It was just really fun to paint and since it’s still raining on and off most every day, I can duck into the house quickly when it gets wet.
6″ x 6″ oil on panel
I don’t eat meat so I have to get some use our of this thing.
8″ x 8″ oil on panel
Hoping for dry painting weather soon.
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6″ x 4″ oil on paper
I painted this little study as a birthday gift for a friend. (I won’t mention her name because she doesn’t like having her name associated with an image on the internet.)
Rescue Remedy is a Bach Flower Remedy . It’s “aimed at treating stress, anxiety, and panic attacks, especially in emergencies” (Wikipedia). It’s not clear to me whether it really works or not but I like the concept.
The rose hip in the bottle is also something that has historically been used for healing and preventative medicine. This one is from a Rugosa rose in our garden, which produces magnificent, cherry sized hips.
Happy Birthday, Friend.
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8″ x 8″ oil on panel
Another grouping of similar objects as the last piece. I was thinking of a compositional device I’ve seen in Renaissance era paintings where a figure is looking directly at the viewer leading the viewers eye into the picture. In this case it is the bottle lying on it’s side with the opening pointed directly at the viewer.
Here’s an example in Sandro Botticelli’s ‘Adoration of the Magi’. He paints a self portrait into the composition, at bottom right, looking directly at the viewer. (detail below)
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8″ x 8″ oil on panel
We’re having a very wet November so I’ve been painting comfortably in the studio.
I’m struggling again with the support I paint on. I tried a new ground. It’s the first time I’ve actually prepared a lot of panels but the ground really sucks up the paint leaving dull spots and it even seems like some of the ground mixes with the first layer of paint. I’ve been trying to add other stuff on top of it to seal it with mixed success.
I’ve tried Gamblin’s oil ground, which I find unpleasant to work with and it dries out in the can. I find that I’m moving away from Gamblin products in general. I used to use Galkyd lite but I’ve never finished a bottle before it dried out in the container. I mostly use Utrecht paint now and mix my own medium.
I’ve also tried putting a layer of lead white over this ground I’ve been using and that makes it much nicer to paint on but I left brush strokes in the lead paint layer and they seem to making it almost impossible to get a good photo of the finished piece because of glare from the brush strokes.
I may end up going back to straight acrylic gesso.
The painting above was done on the ground I don’t like and you can see that the background is weird with parts of it sunk in. I even oiled it in with medium before taking the photo and it’s still sunken.
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8″ x 6″ oil on panel
It’s been a while since I last painted a still life. I think this is the last rose of the year. We tried to buy a rose for each member of the family, when we were into gardening. This rose is named ‘Clair Matin’ and was planted for our younger daughter, Clair.
I’m not patient (or thoughtful) enough to spend time composing a still life setup. I look for an arrangement that happened naturally around the house. These objects happened to be on a table in the studio, the rose, paint brushes, a couple of prepared panels and the channel lock plyers.
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I’ve been spending more time drawing than painting lately. I’ve been re-inspired by one of the people who first turned me on to sketching, Russell Stutler. He has an amazingly wonderful site. Something new there, since last time I visited, is his book on sketching. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in urban sketching.
I’ve been working on reducing my blood pressure without using drugs. For about a year, I was taking a drug to control my BP and it made me sick, coughing and tired all the time. When my Dr recommended I switch to another drug that would slow my heartbeat, I decided to see if making some changes in my life could eliminate the need to take BP drugs. I’ve increased my cardio exercise and tightened up my diet. The biggest change to my diet has been a drastic reduction of salt. My BP has gone from around 140/90 to around 115/65 in about 3 or 4 weeks. I don’t know if it’s related to the BP drop or perhaps the increased cardio, but my resting heart rate has also dropped several beats as well.
Thanks to the wonderful painter, Kathryn Law for the inspiration and information to do this.
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5″ x 7″ oil on gessoboard
Quick study in bright saturated color. This is the first time I’ve painted on gesso board. I like that the paint sits up on the surface and it didn’t seem too slippery, as I thought it might.
The green sphere is a Chinese Baoding Ball. I have a couple of sets of them that I enjoy rolling around in my hands but, having looked them up after I painted this, I didn’t realize I’m supposed to do it without allowing the balls to touch. That’s hard! Here’s an interesting video about using them.
Three of my urban landscapes have been accepted in the Town and Country: Oregon at 150 juried exhibition at the Froelick Gallery. The show opens June 2 with a First Thursday opening reception on June 4 from 5 – 8 pm.
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9″ x 9″ oil on canvas
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6″ x 6″ oil on canvas
After completing this I wonder if it’s better cropped as below.
6″ x 5 1/2″
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It was a gorgeous weekend and I enjoyed a walk through Old Town Portland with my sketchbook. You can see a couple of my sketches at my other blog – HERE.
This painting has been on my easel for weeks and I’m frankly bored with it. I’m posting it because of a problem I’ve noticed with my camera that I wonder if anyone can help me with. My camera will not photograph turquoise. It comes out blue. The top photo was taken in RAW mode and then the green was pumped up as far as it would go. It reads pretty close to what the actual background is but it greyed out that bottom. The bottom photo is more representative of what the bottom half of the painting really looks like. I wonder if anyone who wanders by here has had, and hopefully solved, a similar problem. My camera, btw, is a Canon Powershot G9. It takes great photos except for this problem.
These are also different states of the painting, btw.
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6″ x 6″ oil on canvas
When my wife saw this one she seemed disappointed that she couldn’t recognize the clip. I want to lose the objects in the paint. I think my efforts are a bit self concsious at this point, however.
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6″ x 6″ oil on canvas
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8″ x 8″ oil on paper
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6″ x 8″ oil on paper
This pitcher is kind of a weird color because it’s a very tarnished silver vessel.
I had a little too much fun with this one. I couldn’t restrain myself from overdoing the shiny or semi-shiny surfaces. It’s been a while since I’ve done a still life in the studio and I indulged myself.
I’ll try not to let it happen again.
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6″ x 8″ oil on paper
I attended the first of a 4 session ‘Head Studies’ painting class last Saturday. I’ve accepted that I shouldn’t expect to make good paintings at a workshop, where you’re trying to paint using unfamiliar materials and techniques (although I have to really resist the urge to try).
This lemon study is an attempt to get more comfortable with the materials and palette we’ll be using in the class. The instructor, Gage Mace, has asked everyone to use a palette of White, Burnt Sienna, Ult Blue, Cad Yellow and Terre Verte and to use a Gamblin medium called Neo Megilp.
Neo Megilp is a safer alterative to maroger medium. It’s very different to work with than what I’m used to. I usually use only a little Gamsol for most of that painting and maybe little thinned down Galkyd Lite toward the end.
This painting was constructed by first toning the support with Terre Verte mixed liberally with medium. This creates a kind of waxy, buttery surface to paint into rather than onto. Eventually you end up with a surface of paint that you can really move around. I could almost move that entire lemon a quarter inch to the right by pushing the paint. It’s interesting but a little hard to get used to, as is the palette.
Another thing that is different for me is that, I’m used to putting in my darkest values first. Gage is encouraging us to put in the mid-tone darks and mid-tone lights first and work out from there. It actually makes a lot of sense in that, since the value range of a painting is compressed from life, you’re less likely to get outside your boundaries by working from the middle out to the lights and darks.
One more thing that he stressed, and I’m guilty of this, is that you’ll make a richer color harmony if you depend less on white to raise values.
Anyway, there’s a bit of shared insight for what it’s worth. Gage Mace is the instructor at Hipbone Studios in Portland.
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6″ x 6″ oil on canvas
For sixteen years I made my living with these shears in some very beautiful gardens around town. Now I rarely touch them as my own garden goes to seed.
From comments I’ve received on the last painting I did of one of these Mexican glasses, every one has some of them. They’re fun to paint because the glass is a little smoky and wobbly.
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Although it’s still cold and rainy outside I started a guilty pleasure summer reading type of book, The Fifth Woman, an Inspector Wallander mystery by Swedish author Henning Mankel. Listening to Sam Amidon’s All is Well.
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In an effort to add a little meaning to these rather academic studies I’ve been doing, I’m putting this one forth as a metaphor for the state of our political system in the US. It doesn’t matter which side of the spectrum you favor, I think you can find an interpretation that works for you. I, personally, had a specific character and vice-character in mind but one could see it as the House and Senate, (note the lobbyists). Or perhaps the Democrats and Republicans. My opinion is that it’s not hard to see rot wherever you look.
It’s a pretty weak metaphor if you have to say it’s one, and I’m only identifying it this way because I’ve been discussing this with a friend but it’s an effort.
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6″ x 8″ oil on paper 6″ x 8″ oil on canvas
Two more pear and plucot paintings. one painted direct and the other is one of the earlier value studies glazed with color. My camera doesn’t seem to want to register turquoise. The colors are way off in these especially the backgrounds which are turquoise in both paintings. I messed with them quite a bit in Photoshop trying to get the color right but it just made them look weird so I’ve posted them without any of the color adjustments.
I admire the paintings of Deborah Paris who uses an indirect painting method. I had those value studies sitting around from last week so I decided to try some glazing.
This is after a couple of layers but I think I need to get some softer brushes for the technique to be effective.
Deborah Paris explains her method here.
Sketchbook Meditations
