Blog

Have to say, it's tough to find the right balance between producing work and promoting work. Both take time and as I move further along this tangent I find ever more and more time being spent on the things that "don't" involve painting. Be it sitting at a show, working on internet (a dragon that ALWAYS has to be feed) or just ordering materials. Sounds like I'm complaining, but I'm not. I'm finding out, probably like everyone else who paints full time, it's much more than just standing in front of your easel. 

Last few days I've been in the studio. One commission piece and a couple of pieces for an upcoming show. I took part of a day to make some panels. 12x24's, 11x14's, 18x24's and a few 8x8's. About 25 panels in all.  Ordered frames and hanger wire and did some much needed framing. It's so easy to get lost in all the little things that need done. 

I did find time to paint though and that makes me happy.  My intent was to try and carry the waning  sunset light as forward as possible as it skipped across a picked bean field and a couple fence rows.  When I studied with Roos Schuring she pushed those little finishing points of light (sparklies as she called them). Learned a lot from her.  Here's a few shots of the progression of the piece:

That's the sketch in french ultramarine and burnt sienna. 

I should have taken more shots up to this point. Thing is, the music was jamming in the studio and I was in the groove. There's a lot of layers in the sky. As I was working on the distant tree line I tried to warm it up as it neared the sun. That light that sort of bleeds over the tops of the trees as the sun is setting is hard to capture sometimes. My goal was to carry that red glow forward. 

I ended up pushing the foreground highlights (sparklies) more towards the pink side. I knew it would need to be warmer but it made more sense to me, to have it cooler than that background light. 

At any rate, this was an 11x14 and took a little over 3 hours. My palette was titanium white, cobalt blue, ceruleum blue, french ultramarine, burnt sienna, quinacridone magenta, hansa yellow. I used OMS for the sky block in (which I should have photographed, I'll work on that in the future) and for washes in the foreground. The rest of the time I used turp and walnut oil as my medium.

:-)