The Summer Painting Campaign!

Here are photos of some of the paintings I have done this summer. I didn't here include works in progress or the mentor paintings (copies I made, in order to learn, from the old and modern Masters).

Please leave comments here on my blog if you can--I love to hear from others and when I find a comment on my blog I am surprised by the gift and encouraged. Thank you!

A Flower Kicked My Butt!

Monet once said that if it were not for flowers he probably wouldn't have become a painter.

I can understand that kind of love for the beauty of the flower, but what Monet didn't say--at least not as a quoteable quote--is that the flower can kick your butt.

This flower kicked mine.

I have a feeling that I will be painting many more flowers.

I painted this flower on Thursday, 08-04-2011, using a palette knife to apply oil paint to a 6" x 6" masonite panel.

Chasing The Summer Sun

I have begun doing a painting a day.

I did this painting this morning, Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011.

One reason I want to paint daily is because I know that I will not be able to paint as much as I am now when I go back to school in the fall--ironically for a degree in Fine Art!

(However, I am looking forward--after a summer break-- to going back to Lane Community College and learning more from the great painter and Instructor Adam Grosowski.)

I like painting the sunrise because no matter what happens during the rest of the day I know that I have done at least one painting.

I like the painting that I did this morning, which I call Pink Champagne Sunrise.

I don't always like what I do and occasionally scrape the paint off my painting surfaces. At times like this I wonder why I am crazy enough to try and be an artist. 

I like Pink Champagne Sunrise  because of its strong value contrasts, abstracted simplified forms, and it's impasto texture. I got the texture by applying the paint with a palette knife.

I started using the palette knife because I am trying to use bolder simplified forms and trying not to overwork my paintings. When I get down there, close to the painting surface, with a small brush, I tend to move the paint around and around and add too much detail: I get lost in the forest for the trees.

I am looking forward to doing many more paintings before school starts, but I know that I am also going to want to paint the fall with its varied colors: cadmium yellow, cadmium red medium,  alizarin crimson, moss green, ochres, and orange--as well as other colors.

Now, I need to get out there while I can and chase the summer sun!

Knife Attack!

Last night, I did two paintings: one was very small (2" x 2 3/4"), which I overworked and the other was slightly larger 4" x 4' and turned out better, being stronger and abstracted.

I painted both of the paintings with a palette knife--no brushes!

I hunched over the smaller sized painting for almost an hour and consequently put in too much detail,

then, as I was packing up, the sun dropped even lower over the hills and the sky turned a burnt orange with some reddish scatttered patches; the hills went from a greyish-orange to a blue color.

I couldn't walk away from that!

I dug through my pack and pulled out a 4" x 4" wooden art panel and began slashing at it with my palette knife.

At first I didn't even care whether or not the painting worked out, but when it did begin working my main concern was to stay out of the way and let it just develop.

Finally, I reached the point where I dare not touch it and I knew I was done.

I packed the finished paintings into a cigar box and rode away.

Behind me the hills had turned into dark sillouttes and there was only a slight pinkinsh color in the Prussian blue sky.

The air smelled of mint, lavender, and freshly cut hay and grass.

I felt happy as I rode my bike with my paintings packed safely on the back. Happy that I had decided at the last minute to ride out into the West Eugene Wetlands to paint the sunset.



The first, smaller painting.







The second painting.