Jasmine

Jasmine

12" x 12" Oil

Little Babushka

Little Babushka

12" x 16" Oil

Oil Painters of America Show

"Forest Apparition"
Oil and Silverleaf
24" x 36"
2008

I am so happy to be part of the 2008 Oil Painters of America Western Regional Show. After only a year of getting re-focused on my painting and exploring the possibilities of art as a career, this is a huge honor for me. I love painting dogwoods since they remind me of my childhood back in southern Indiana. Every once in awhile I'll run across someone who recognizes the blossom - usually they're someone who came from the Midwest or the south. Just last weekend I sold a smaller dogwood painting to a man whose parents lived in Atlanta for the past few decades, and had recently moved to Washington state. Apparently they had remarked to their son how much they missed the dogwood blossoms so when he saw my painting he had to purchase it for them. I thought that was such a nice gift!

Anyway, the opening of the OPA show was last month at the Devin Galleries in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. I am happy I decided to fly up there - it was such fun to be around all these amazing painters. It was standing room only in the gallery - what a great experience!

First Bouquet

"First Bouquet"
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"
2008

I am happy with the way this painting turned out. There is something about the deep, rich reds of the roses that appeals to me. I didn't use the silver leaf border this time and it felt nice to focus only on the painting itself.

Gesture Paintings

Some of the most fun that can be had either drawing or painting is doing gestures. Like scales played by a pianist or any other musician, gestures are an integral part of any artist’s regimen, providing a “warm-up” for the main event. Usually gestures are done within a limited time period, never longer than 5 minutes, like the one above, down to 10 seconds, like the ones to the right. The point is to get the artist out of their analytical brain (the part that says, “this is an arm”) into the part of their brain that recognizes space and makes judgments based on what is seen, not what is known about what is seen. It is the part that says, “this is a shape that is next to this shape which connects to this shape” and so on.

Studies

Today’s open studio was very nice, and our model was superb; expressive, steady and very subtle in her poses. This three hour session was mostly focused on drawing, so we did lots of five-minute poses (as are the ones above), and gradually moved up in time. I was able to get a modest color study done in our last two 20-minute sessions (right top), when she held the same pose for both. I tried an exercise from Virgil Elliott’s Traditional Oil Painting and used a very limited palette (right bottom): Ivory Black, Red Ochre, Yellow Ochre and Titanium White. I was pretty impressed with the range of purple and greenish tones you can get without blue on the palette!

I’ll continue with this palette for some time to come. With only forty total minutes messing about with it, I didn’t even scratch the surface.