creation in fast motion

I needed one more painting for my big show at the Spori Gallery on BYU Idaho campus in Rexburg Idaho that opens this week...

so I naturally put off starting the painting until the last possible second. I did actually get the painting done, but it is so cold in my studio it won't dry so I can Glaze it! Any way!.. one of the reasons I was able to paint it so fast was that I set my camera up on a tripod with a time lapse timer firing every 45 seconds. the 801 images in the following video add up to roughly 10 hours of work time.

 

 if you can't tell from the video I got a haircut about 1/2 way through... here is the unglazed final painting in the frame.

Russian Olive Tryst, oil 36x36 inches $3800

Two of the Same.... Fall Benediction

Its not too often that I paint a painting multiple times. I use photographs, locations, and ideas again and again, but rarely do I repeat the same painting. The experience of creating is satisfying, but usually when the painting is done I want to move on to another challenge. I have done these 2 paintings in the past month with a little variation.. mostly just variation that happens in the natural process of the process. One was painted on a 9x12 (rectangle) linen/canvas hardboard, and the other on a round piece of MDF approximatly the same size. I think the rounded top had a dramatic effect on the way the second one was painted.

Fall Benediction (1)

9x12 Oil 2014

$625

 This 1st version is in a partially rounded frame, I cannot vouch for the color correction as I took the picture with my iPhone with plain old light-bulbs in the studio... below is the painting without the frame.

I think this second version is more sensitive to the format/support it is painted on. I might do a larger version of this one with a rounded top....

Fall Benediction (2)

Oil 2014

$625 (presently unframed)

watercolor study

I did a quick study for a painting idea yesterday and posted it to Instagram.. the only way to get a long format image to work in Instagram's square presentation was to use a free app called Pic Stitch. The trade off is that your image has a huge white space proceeding the rather small image. Sigh.. what to do?

This small watercolor (5x13 inches) is the beginning stages of an idea for a large longer painting and a symptom of my growing obsession with long landscape format. I was originally thinking a painting ratio of 1 to 3, a triple square, would be good but I like this slightly less long format.

The Scene is of a pond on Pioneer Crossing (a main road in Utah County) looking east toward the Lone Peak and Timpanogos Mountains above Highland and American Fork. I like the atmospheric quality and depth of the background compared to the dark and textured nature of the foreground. I don't have the tree placement figure out yet, I like the ones on the right.. the trees on the left seem stiff.

Open to ponder

5x13 inches, watercolor $300 (presently unframed)

Pleasant Cloud Shadows

 I take my camera everywhere I go, well I used to anyway until I started carrying a cell phone, then I thought it was easier to take photos with the cell phone. Nothing beats a fully adjustable digital SLR. I digress...

Any whoooo... I took a picture one day while I was in the Costco parking lot in Lehi Utah, looking toward Pleasant Grove to the east. The hills were just starting to turn red and golden, and despite a few clouds in the sky it was a beautiful day. In the photo there are houses and trees in the foreground that are in shadow... I had originally intended for those to be in the composition as a way of grounding it. Maybe that painting will happen in the future.

Here is the first small (4x6) study, its not exactly the same format I was planning on for the final painting, but I mostly wanted to see what some of the colors on the top of the mountain would look like..

I started a number of new paintings at the same time, I started this one first, but it came together last.

At this point in the process it seemed like the painting might make it... the bright bluish purple hills in the background to the right are a nice anchor and a good medium value between the top of the hills and the bottom foreground.

You can see that the color is off a little bit between the image above and this "official" image. There was more I could have done with the clouds, but knowing my tendency to overwork clouds I stopped while it still felt fresh.

This painting is currently at the Dixie Invitational show in ST. George Utah. If it comes back I will post the particulars....

watercolors

A few watercolors from the past years I have recently framed.

"Cold Morning on the Colorado" 2013, watercolor $375

"Rock Curtain" 2012, watercolor $375

Untitled 2011, watercolor $200

Spring City Plein Air

The Spring City Plein Air event happened the last week of August; I am just getting around to adding some picture from the event... My bad.

 

 You can't help but be inspired around this place, the combination of old houses, farm land, and mountains makes for magnificent scenes.. pictures and paintings rarely portray the full beauty; you have to be there sucking it up to really get it.

 This was my first painting, felt sorta choppy, but I like the variety of textures not only in the garden but the home that was an amalgamation of many eras.

 Holly Hock with Shadow, I might paint this sometime....

 

Using the back of the Maxima for my studio, it has been a good car studio with 230K miles on it...

When I wasn't painting I took the time to go explore and find photos to work from later. I like these trucks, so retro, I bet I could get this green truck up and running again...

The mountain range in the back ground always seems to be an Ultramarine or cobalt blue that subtly changes throughout the day and into the evening...

 

I asked some very nice folks if I could paint this rock wall from the inside, as I could not see very much from the road








In the end this painting did not need the big red barn in the middle...



 

Here are the 4 paintings I completed for the main competition. Saturday was a tad rainy but the 3 hour paint-out stayed 99% dry. I was painting this old granary that was next to Randal Lake's Studio, about 1/2 way through the painting, just as I was feeling nervous about my composition and time left, Randal came out to talk to me and inspect my painting. He's a nice guy, but it was a little intimidating painting while he watched. (I have always admired his work, but only met him that day)

Progress shot.....and then I forgot to take more progress shots.....

 

My new collectors that bought both this painting, and the garden house at the top of this post. I went to their house before I left Spring City and got more acquainted, great people.

available paintings

A link to current available paintings HERE.

Summit Gold

Oil 2007

36x72

sold

Lapping all the way to the River Bank

I have been very productive the past month but have not been very good posting new paintings here! Sorry about that. Here are two paintings I finished before my family and I went on family vacation, I submitted them to the Spring Salon in Springville, but they were not accepted...Drat!

I think they are some of my best work.

"Lapping all the way to the river bank"

20x40 inches Oil

sold

This is a painting I have done before on a smaller scale, you can see it below, I called it " a running start" I called this one "Rock Curtain". It has some great things happening in it. I love the dark foreground. This is longer than a double square... I like the long format too.

"Rock Curtain"

16x36 inches Oil

$4200

Fall colors series... to start

I have been working a new series of paintings focusing on the colors of fall. These two images are from near my Parent's cabin in Mantua, Utah (just East of Brigham City). I have been listening to Lord of the Rings audiobooks so I imagine Orcs and Hobbits all over in the hills.

 "Limited Access"

10x15 inches  Oil

sold

 "Trail of Red Trees"

20x24 inches Oil
$2200

 

Not totally convince about the frame... might need to be darkened a bit.

Details

this is one of my favorite square inches of the painting...

..this part too, and see, look real close you can see Frodo and Sam hiding in the red bushes...

A Running Start

A painting and frame I finished a week ago. I tried to keep the image a little on the abstract side. I know it is totally representational, but I was able to finish quickly without fussing over textures and details.

"A Running Start"

 9x18 1/2 inches oil

 $925

 I couldn't think of a great name for it, I was listening to "The Hobbit" book on my Ipod, so when I look at it I think of Bilbo and the dwarfs. I call it a running start; sorta a pun on running water.... Image is 9x18 1/2 inches, framed size is 24 1/4x 15 1/4 inches.