Painting Away the Blues

It has been 3 weeks since I posted anything.  I enjoyed a bit of summer slow down when we finally had a week of 90's here in the Northwest, which slows most folks. Hillsboro's art center sponsored a 2 day plein air workshop, with Elio Camacho, a fine painter form the Bay area. It was part of their Plein Air paint out event on Saturday July 17th. So I painted on location 3 days and even tried using oils for 2 paintings. As as studio painter it was very much a challenge. Elio is a very knowledgeable, generous  teacher, an excellent colorist and a painting fool who slathers on the paint with creamy thickness. I enjoyed learning more about color, color  temperature and his loose style of realism.                                                      

Elio's demo on day one.

   An evening 24x36 demo about 90 minutes in.

He waited for the last light to finish it and add the dramatic light. Sorry but I failed to get a shot of the finished painting.

As a change of pace here is a diptych on my easel that is almost finished

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Kinds of Blue 40x60 Acrylic Mixed Media on Canvas

Thanks for looking and let me know what you think.

May Daze

Started the month of with an outdoor show in California,on a picture perfect 80 degree and blue sky day.
The drive is a bit much but the people and other artists made it worthwhile. This past Tuesday Hillsboro's Walter Art Center and Sequoia Gallery both opened good shows  This past Saturday David Dunlop, artist featured on Landscapes Through Time, gave a lecture at the Attic Gallery. He is an excellent, entertaining and informative speaker in person and in his Emmey wining show. I also saw several good shows in the Pearl area Galleries prior to his talk.
I trust all the Mother's were suitably feted this weekend and enjoyed their day..
Some work and new starts were made in the studio this week. I've been drawn to the fresh strawberries at the farmers market and did this 10x10 of some.fresh ones.
















 Strawberries 10x10 Acrylic on paper


This painting painting came out of my workshop with Robert Burridge.














Revolution 9x11 Acrylic on paper


Let me know what  you think of the paintings and get out and visit the galleries in Hillsboro and Portland, there are always interesting shows to expand your horizons.

Ready to Roll

I've been getting ready this week for my first art show of the new season. I'm headed off to Saratoga California for the 40+year Rotary Art Show. A long drive yet artists are ever hopeful of a good selling show. Lots of finishing, varnishing, inventorying of work and label making for the paintings. The abstract from last week has been changed 2 more times, Saturday it looked like this:


By Monday I had edited it to this, I think it may be done,but I'm not sure the original intent has been achieved.

30x30 Mixed Media

Have a good May Day, and let me know what you think.
Thanks for looking.

Art Full Weekend

I had a very visual weekend this week. I met an artist mentor for coffee on Saturday morning and got more good advice. In the afternoon I met another artist friend to view several of the new shows up in Portland. We both enjoyed Katayma Framing and the Murdoch collection of Oregon artists. We also went to our usual galleries, Attic, Augen,Broderick, and Laura Russo. We'll hit the Pearl area another day. Before leaving downtown I stopped in at the Contemporary Crafts Museum to see 4 fellow artists from the Portland Open Studios demonstrating their art.
On Sunday afternoon I went into Portland again and saw the documentary Our City Dreams
at the Hollywood Cinema. Its a great film about 5 women and their art. It spans generations of art making from the 60's to the present, well worth seeing for the history and the artist's insights. I finished the day by going to Carol Shaerer's opening at the Iorio Resaurant, a good show and fine time.
I did have time to work on a painting that was bugging me and this how I left it Sunday night.


This is where the painting is now,it was just too much about the squares and I was following the design of a very tight abstract that seemed interesting when I started, but the things I liked the most were the edge incidents. The rest was boring me and I enjoy the mark of the brush in a painting.

Squares v3 36x36

Thanks for reading and let me know what you think.
Bruce

What to do today?

That's a question all of face, and some times we are fortunate enough to choose our activities. We all have our daily necessary chores and how we spend the rest of our time marks the quality of our lives and whether our goals our reached.
I guess the start of a New Year and the hopes of a new administration starting, causes me to reflect on my own indolence. I need the prod of goals set in making and marketing my artwork, from improving my technical ability, and learning a new media, to applying to shows and art events. I'm lucky to be in the age of the Internet, because there are many good sites and blogs the learn from, but they can distract me from the main activity... going into the studio and painting. If I don't have a big idea I just need to practice on the basics and subjects that appeal to me.
Hence my focus of late on wine bottles and glasses. I think the reason for for so many bottle paintings historically is from the empties artists have to sooth the ache of rejection letters or slow sales, plus there are all sorts of things you learn while painting them.
Here are a two from the last week or so.
"Two for Z" Oil on paper 12x12


"Sake & 2" Acrylic on paper 12x12


Enjoy today and tomorrow and thanks for looking.
Bruce

Image Update

I said I would get some images up here to show what I am working on. I am a day late but I have cropped and sized two stages of one painting. This is just one on several projects that can fill the days in the studio.







This is stage 1 from Tuesday night Nice but to literal for my goal.




Stage two from Thursday is getting closer to my goals for this painting, who knows what further iterations it will go through.
I hope this glimpse into one way of making an image is of interest. If you have any questions leave a comment of email me. Have a good weekend.
Bruce













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Color Notes

I have a few more thoughts on my palette and some of the colors of paint used. I usually have two of each primary. In the Munsell color system that is Red Yellow Green Blue and Purple. The reason for two of each is to have a warm and cool of each color/hue. Most of us recognize that colors have a temperature component and we think of reds and yellows as warmer than blues and greens. Our language references it when we say "something is red hot". Blue or green hues can be warmer if they have some red or yellow in them and are perceived to be cooler when they are not in the mixes. In real life all colors/hues are evaluated by the colors next to and around them. By using this knowledge an artist can create the illusion of depth in a painting or enhance a mood or emotion in a less representational painting.
Currently I use cadmium yellow light and medium, cadmium red light, alizarin crimson or quinacridone red, ultramarine blue and phthalo blue(red shade) viridian or medium green, and dioxazine purple, plus white and black. I use several earth colors sienna, yellow ocher, transparent yellow iron oxide and transparent red iron oxide.

Night Bottles 2
Wine Tasting
Thanks for reading, please let me know what you think and feel free to email me any questions.
Bruce