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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Secret life of the artist, part 3

I did a pastel of this scene about two years ago from a picture I took in Walworth County, Wisconsin. If I remember right, it's along route 20 west of Waterford. The "secret life" thing has to do with the fact that I have been doing demonstrations for a store (which shall remain nameless) looking to open some painting classes. Since I am still struggling with the acrylics a bit, maybe this is a little amateurish. I decided to use my own source material. This is a 9'' X 12" canvas board that I did in a little less than two hours, excepting set-up, take down and time to chat with the customers. The other remarkable thing is that it's done with acrylics. It's challenging to paint with them since the palette of colors you get from the paint company isn't very good. For the most part, since I thought I would never work with acrylics again (and never do illustration again), I gave my acrylics away to a neighbor. Here I am these many years later using them again. Acrylics dry too fast and just don't have what I like about oils, workability -- is that a word? Keep painting you all --- and, lesson learned --- never say "never".

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Bog Marsh, Rochester, Wisconsin

As promised, here is the completed (I hope) version of the painting that I did this fall. I posted two detailed parts of it a couple months ago. This is oil on canvas; 36 X 48 inches. The canvas was a free one, a gift from a friend. I've entered it in a show: don't know yet if it's been accepted. If it has I will have to get it framed. I had a hard time with the background trees: the red and sienna hues kept wanting to come forward, so they had to be tamed. The rest was a lot of grunt work. Since it's the largest I have ever worked, it just took a lot of time and paint to complete. I don't have anything else to post right now: it's been cold and snowy here, I've been busy with work that actually pays (unlike art) and when the economy is bad and nothing is selling I feel less motivation to paint. I like painting whether I sell or not, but things have been slow and making money at this does have its place.