SOLD I really liked the way the grass was glowing and everything else was cool and in shadow. only the sky, the rim of the hood, grass and flatbed were in the light.
this is another case where something has to be dominant in the composition, whether it be a color, a shape, or as in this case, the shadow shapes are dominant over the light shapes. this means the midtones dominate. there are very few light shapes and very few really dark shapes. this gives the piece more strength than if it was equal amounts of both.
thanks to everybody who's emailing me and telling me they like the blog. the blog is recieving over 100 visits a week. thats crazy! thanks y'all!
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This is the bridge spanning the cape fear river with the city of wilmington in the background. i paint regularly at one of the tugboat companies near the base of the bridge.
upcoming news:
i'll be having a show of my work at my gallery New Elements on front st (wilmington) some time in the summer. the date is still up in the air. Also going to be in a 3 man show at City Art Gallery in greenville nc. in august.
I'm also pleased to announce that i'll be the judge for the Lenoir County Arts Council Plein Air Paintout in the spring. i'll put the date and details on the blog when it gets a little closer. they are offering prize money-$5oo- for first place, so if you paint consider entering.
$300 inc. gold plein air frame
Windy Repose1- 30"x24"-Acrylic on gallerywrapped canvas
Click here to bid
Had alot of fun with the clothespin in this one. i love these funky little still life setups. as i'm thinking of how to set it up usually an offbeat title comes to me at the same time. weird.
the reason i do these is to train my eye to pick up color where most people would just see gray and to see color relationships (like reflected light, cast shadow colors, etc). for example, i saw an orangy-gray in the shadow on the clothes pin where the pepper shades the light. after all that makes sense since the orange is in such close proximity and casts its color everwhere. its on the clothes pin and on the cloth under the pepper as well. then the pepper itself picks up a reflection of the cloth on its side. then i kept a lot of warm red underpainting near the front of the pepper. all to give the illusion that a warm red-orange pepper would give off. and not just the pepper. every object throws itself around the scene. this is what we must TRAIN ourselves to see for our work to mimick reality. wow that sounds like a life-long pursuit. exactly!
this is all art is to me. translating what the human eye sees a million times a day but is "unseen" or is not comprehended. we as artists make people see this beauty in the ordinary, by calling it to their attention. even a lowly pepper pinched by an ordinary clothes pin can get what andy warhol called its "15 minutes of fame"
these little paintings look great grouped on a wall and is an excellent way to start or add to a collection without breaking the bank. so bid why dont ya?
Blondie checks out a painting where the frame matches her hair. the process was much like i do a plein air landscape. acrylic underpainting and then adjust those shapes with oil.
when you lay in the acrylic use warm colors (yellows, red, blues and pinks) for the shapes hit by the gallery lighting and cool colors (green, blues, violets, purples) on the shadow shapes.
if you look closely you'll see little hints of this in the frame. these warm up the midtone areas. you dont have to paint up to every edge. these midtones in acrylic are small so you cant tell the difference between them and the oil paint. if you leave large areas of acrylic you'll see flat spots in the painting.
SOLD Here's one of the tonal excercises i did this week. beginning artists (and experienced too!) should do more excercises i think. i took a photo reference, turned it into black and white, painted tones of black white and gray on it. then i resketched it and painted colors from memory that matched the black and white tonal study. here's what i came out with. showing that color is secondary to values when painting a representational piece of art.
Beware EDITORIALIZING AHEAD!
i have had a lot of workshop students that were eager to get the excercises i have them do in class over as quickly as possible. they want to get on with the "good stuff"= as in the "painting". this is the wrong approach, i think, in a workshop environment. here you have folks that on average paint once or twice a week (if that) eager to pay upwards of $75 per day to go out and paint one, maybe two, paintings in the field. they want some help with values, color etc and to get a critique of the finished product.
Count that up! thats $35 per painting for some help and instruction on ONE painting. But for the most part they are painting for two hours (each) the way they would have on their own.
so they gain very little this way. how much better would it be to learn new stuff for four hours and practice it, doing excercises that will make your painting better when you do actually step up to the plate out there on their own. taking a finished painting home should never be more important than learning how to do a bunch of nice ones once the workshop is over. but thats just me.
comments are welcome. lets have a discussion of this. i'd like to hear your views on this.
SOLD- collector in San Francisco, Ca. Thats cool to me! some semi's from a little NC town hanging on a wall in "the city by the bay"*note- Journey is the greatest band ever!
Another urban still life. this was done on a chilly new years day. love the orange wall and pinkish-yellow semis in the sun. i'm drawn somehow to these lonely industrial sites in the heart of the city. wonderful shapes and colors everywhere. i much prefer it to the countryside. has a hopper-esque feel to it "me thinks"
have sold many of these little studies. now to decide which ones to do large for the galleries. hope they have the same fresh feel these little 6x8's have. you usually have to do these pretty fast. never know when some derelict will jump out of some abandoned warehouse to wreak havoc! Painted one yesterday in raleigh in the middle of two two lane highways with cars wizzing by and kids yelling at me the whole session. i can still hear their shrill voices incessantly yelling---"hey painter man, whatcha paintin?" doing that one was a crowning achievement for plein air concentration. all in a days work!
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couldnt help it. meant to post some beachy stuff (have done quite a bit) but put this little gem on instead. studied how ken auster did such wonderful glass and after taking a good look saw that you super simplify the reflections and just paint the shape that represents the part youre looking thru either a half shade darker or lighter (depending on what you see). also dont over due the very white highlites. still have a long way to go but i like this one a lot.
these are great fun when its cloudy or cold outside. give it whirl and tell me what you think. hit the comments button below to reach me.
Rose in a Glass-6x6-oil on c.b.
i shot this on a kitchen table and not my fancy lightbox i made for shooting pics of paintings. the colors are off on the cottage. imagine carolina blue skies and pinkish-salmon cottage. sorry. the downside of doing a blog on the road. a beautiful little painting. 
even notice until its too late. 
