Sunday, November 8, 2015

HOLIDAY ART SALE

The Holiday Art Sale is in full swing. The sale ends at midnight Saturday, December 12th. Ending the sale on the 12th guarantees delivery by Christmas. There are a few things you should know about the sale:

- Purchases are made from my website. Review the     sale below then go to my website to make your         purchase. On the home page click the "Holiday Art     Sale" tab.

- Prices on artwork sold UNFRAMED, but I include 
  a small wooden stand with each sale.

- If you choose to frame the painting I recommend
  the frames at www.kingofframe.com. Best prices
  and customer service is the best. 


SAMPLES OF FRAMED ART




- Payment made through PayPal ONLY.

- Shipments guaranteed within five days upon receipt of  
  payment. Payment by check delays shipment until your
  check clears the bank.

- Returns accepted up to January 1, 2016. 

HOLIDAY ART SALE PREVIEW

"April Along the Bear's Tooth"
9" x 12"
$350

"Bear Lake Log Jam"
9" x 12"
$350

"Canyon Entrance"
9" x 12"
$350

"Clear Lake Cove"
9" x 12"
$350

"Coastline Formations"
9" x 12"
$350

"Edge of Moran"
9" x 12"
$350

"First Big Snow"
10" x 12"
$400

"First Methodist"
9" x 12"
$350

 "Ghost Ranch Bluff"
9" x 12"
$350

"Hilltop View"
9" x 12"
$350

"Study in Contrasts"
8" x 10"
SOLD

"Leaning But Standing'
9' x 12"
$350

"Living on the Edge of Paradise"
9" x 12"
$350

"Ranch House"
9" x 12"
$350

"Rocky Mountain Runoff"
9" x 12"
$350

"Sprinkling of Blue"
9" x 12"
$350

"Trailside Aspens"
9" x 12"
SOLD

"Winter Range"
9" x 12"
$350
"Hill Country Two Lane"
9" x 12"
$350

"Hay Bale Field Study"
9" x 12"
$350

Friday, November 6, 2015

COLLECTORS COVEY MINIATURE SHOW 2015


November 13, 2015
Meet the Artists, Show and Sale
6:30-8:00 pm


Next Friday night is one of my favorite of the year. It marks the opening reception and sale for the annual Collectors Covey Miniature Show. It is a fixed price sale with many of the participating artists in attendance. For many it is the one time a year they get to visit about the previous year's adventures.

In addition to the fixed price sale there will be a live auction of John P. Cowan's "Wrong Side" a 27" x 40" original watercolor.



My experience over the past five years I've been in this show is if you want to see the show in its full glory you need to be there on Friday night because most of the show will sell opening night and the buyers go home with their newly purchased gems.

I have three pieces in the show. All three are field studies completed on location. Okay, there was little studio time spent on them to make them gallery worthy, but for the most part what you get is what I saw and painted.


"Into the Vallery"  
9" x 12"   oil/linen
$1,100



"Golden Pond"
9" x 12"  oil/linen
$1,100



"Mountaintop Hillside"
9" x 12"  oil/linen
$1,100


Other artists in the show are a who's who in the world of wildlife and landscape art including sculptures. Some of the artists featured include John B. Cowan, William Alther, Ken Carlson, Julie Chapman, Len Chimel, Calvin Carter, Chase Almond, Bruce Peil, Matt Smith, John Dearman, Mark Haworth, Frank Serrano, Luke Frazier, Brian Grimm, Dan Meltz, George Northrup, Bernard Vetter, Tracy Avant, Andrea Almond, Greg Beecham, Kay Northrup, Julie Jeppsen, Chuck Rawle and Sherry Sander.

Hope to see you there.

Friday, July 10, 2015

NOTAN SKETCH VS. IPHONE6

"Notan" is a Japanese term referring to exploring the harmony between light and dark. Artists use Notan sketches to explore the composition elements of a scene and the relationship of major shapes. A good Notan drawing simplifies a scene into three values...dark, light and halftone. It also acts as a memory and planning tool that helps the artist focus on essential elements of a scene, draw simple shapes and record important elements should the scene change as weather and sunlight alter a scene.





I was first introduced to the importance of the Notan sketch in a workshop I took with Skip Whitcomb. Skip starts every painting session with two or three quick sketches of the scene. The process takes him about thirty minutes. As part of the workshop Skip required students to do at least three sketches before starting a painting. Since that time I have come across many artists that rely on the Notan sketch process and for years it has been my practice as well.

The advantage of a Notan sketch over a camera is the camera records everything in the scene indiscriminately leaving nothing to the imagination. That being said I have come to prefer the camera over the sketch as the smart phone increasingly takes over every aspect of our life. Using the photo app in my iPhone has reduced the time to produce a Notan to a matter minutes rather than a block of time that cuts into painting time.

I recently took the opportunity to produce a Notan sketch and a Notan photo to decide once and for all what my routine was going to be going forward. Below are my results.



South of Monterrey on the way to Big Sur is this amazing scene, painted by many. On the day of my painting the fog was rolling in and out all day constantly changing the light. The scene was so captivating it was hard to decide what to leave in and what to take out. It was the perfect time for a Notan sketch so by the time I put brush to canvas most of the major decisions would have already been made.


Like many plein air painters my "go to" format is the horizontal on a 9" x 12" or 12" x 16" panel. I also like the long, narrow horizontal format I use frequently in Texas due to the lack of mountains or anything taller than a fence post. My first inclination was the long horizontal as seen in my Notan which took about ten minutes.




Just for kicks my second sketch was a square format and my third sketch was my usual horizontal.



The whole process took longer than expected because of the fog that would come in and obscure the distant cliffs that I wanted to include in my painting so all total it took almost forty minutes to get the sketches done.

Simultaneously when the sun was just like I wanted, I took a single photo with my iPhone and as the fog destroyed my scene, I quickly opened the photo app
to look at the scene in different formats.



I first looked at the long, horizontal format, cropped it accordingly and saved the image for future reference.


Then I cropped the same photo in the more typical horizontal for a 9" x 12" painting. Again I saved it for later.



Then I used the halftone filter to give me a Notan photo of my scene. The whole process took less than ten minutes which is an important consideration when the goal was to produce four paintings this day.


"On the Way to Big Sur"  9" x 12"  oi/linen

When it came time to paint, the fog became unavoidable. In the end I gave in and included it in my painting, but the Notan exercise was well worth the effort.

Below is another example of sketch versus photo Notan.



I'm a sucker for old farm houses and this one is a favorite. I quickly produced two Notan sketches.



The long horizontal.


The standard format. Then I created Notan photos.


The long horizontal


The standard format.

The halftone Notan.


The painting.


"Historical"  12" x 16"  oil/linen

There is something that makes me feel more "artistic" drawing Notan sketches before beginning a painting. But at the end of the day, for me at least, its all about evaluating the scene for composition and values and the iPhone provides me the quickest means to an end while also providing me a permanent record. In less than ten minutes I can produce several Notan photos with complete halftone evaluations of my scene and I think it gives me a clearer understanding before I begin to paint.



Friday, March 27, 2015

IMAGES THAT WON'T GO AWAY

Sometimes an image burns into your brain and you can't get rid of it until you paint it. Almost ten years ago I was painting with a group of friends in Ouray, Colorado. We had gotten up with the sunrise, ate an early breakfast and headed out to paint. I remember it being extremely cold and my teeth chattering with the first painting or two until the sun got up over the mountain and warmed things up.

I was painting down in a riverbed because there was still snow on the ground and I rarely get to paint snow. It was 38 degrees up on the road where we parked and 18 degrees down near the river where I chose to paint. Don't think I have ever been that cold while trying to paint and within fifteen minutes my paints were frozen so I did not get to finish the painting and it was too cold to wipe it off. 

The thing that captured my interest was the cold blues and purples in the shadow areas in contrast to the bright greens and yellows from the morning sun lighting up a distant hill. I took one photo before leaving the scene promising myself that one day I was going to paint that scene.
TODAY IS THAT DAY!


"Canyon Sunrise"
16" x 20" oil on canvas