Night Birds

12x12 oil on panel
The Birding Life
at Ferrin Gallery, Pittsfield
October 8 ~ December 31

they do look better than this.   I have so many coats of varnish on them that they don't photograph well. each one has many layers of paint/varnish/paint/varnish/paint/varnish....

sanguine

day 4 (32x23)

 

day 3

day 2

day 1

Kites

I've been painting enormous kites for a party.  4 in total - they are painted on Tyvek - the material used to wrap houses - it is very good to paint on.   Just regular house paint and a black sharpie oil paint marker for materials. Tyvek is very strong and durable, takes the paint immediately and doesn't rip either, so it can take some abuse.

You can see the skeleton of one of the frames next to me.

here are a couple shots of them in progress:

 

the 4 kites are:  fish, gorillas, jaguars, and hares.  

I'll follow up with more pics as they are finished and mounted to their frames.

Summer Showing

I will have my painting Balance Rock (above) and Tattooed Jesus on display at the Lichtenstein Center as part of the Pittsfield Art Show Invitational from June 10~July 17.  I was happy to be asked to show work as part of this event.  The opening reception will be on Friday the 10th from 5-7. come on out and say "Hi" if you are in the area.

Because these two paintings are so very different, I have asked that they not be hung together, but rather on opposite sides of the space.  we will see how that goes....

more to come!

Balance Rock

 

Plein Air Adventures - Melville's Hills

Cloudy days present consistent light, but not direct light, so everything is lit equally from all over.  Not necessarily ideal, but I want to do it learn what to expect.  I set up off of Holmes Road, overlooking a field and the mountains that inspired Herman Melville to pen Moby Dick (seriously)  it wasn't supposed to rain this day, so I figured I had 4+ hours to get this done.

This is what I spent most of the time doing.  sketching the composition in Cobalt Violet.  I do this so I don't have to worry about my "drawing" while I'm painting.  I do this first and then add color later so that I'm not suddenly moving mountains out of the way half way through the painting.  It also gives everything a nice warm tone (and looks great in shadow areas)  I really pushed my content together horizontally to fit my panel (16x20)  As you can see from the photos above, there were quite a few things I left out of the painting (trailers and random debris), and a few things I added (notably the foreground)

I snapped this just as it started to rain.  Oil paints don't really care if it is raining - oil and water don't mix.  but I got wet.  and a wooden easel doesn't like to get rained on. note to self * keep rain gear in the car.  I was able to work for about two hours on location before the sky opened up.  heavy rains.

brought it home and worked on it for a couple hours the next day because it didn't stop raining for 3 days.  all in all, I think this one came out pretty good.  I'm painting thicker and more confidently.  my mixing has gotten better too

Plein Air - Magnolias

Following the State Forrest adventure, I headed into Williamstown after seeing a picture a friend took of a Magnolia tree by a small brook.  It looked so lush.  After finding out the secret location, I packed up the car and headed out shortly before 1pm.  

Armed with deet (because this was in high grass) I set up underneath a very high in the sky sun and got to work.  Note to self *start paying attention to the sun more in relation to where you set up because it moved from behind my easel to shining directly on it.  I was blinded by the light within an hour.  Everything got washed out and looked light blue.  I'm not ready to get an umbrella - no way - not yet. A nice woman from a local paper snapped some pics of me working.   

I had to leave after two hours because of blindness.  when I got home and propped the picture up, I was not pleased.  I hadn't realized how off my colors were in the bright sun. I tried to tweak it that night, but got nowhere.  very frustrated with it.  hardest thing I've tried to paint in a while.  seriously.

Two days later I was back, slightly earlier in the day, and determined to get it right.  

I didn't spend enough time working out the drawing/composition initially, so I had to re-do quite a bit of what I had done previously.  Plus my color choices were piss-poor.  but I stood there and got as much in as I could before snapping a couple pics and bringing it home to the studio for finishing.

Even at home, I spent a lot of time trying to get this to look right (or at least better). 

Very strong sun on half of my body for 2+ hours left me a nice shade of red, but eventually turned to tan.