Mineral Point painting

This is another stage in the painting I've been working on for the last several weeks. I've gone down the right hand side and center putting in the weeds, reeds, rocks and snow. Right now I am in the midst of working on the left hand side (will post that soon) and making adjustments as needed. You just can't "complete" one piece of the painting without making changes to what you thought was finished elsewhere. My plan is to enter this in the Farms and Barns show this fall. If the painting does not sell there I will offer it on the Xanadu Gallery website -- I am one of their "Studio" artists. I have about ten of my paintings for sale on their website at any one time.

Secret life of the artist part 8

....at least I think this is part 8....I haven't looked to see if I'm in numerical sequence. I think I started this "Secret Life of...." series when I came back from the John C. Campbell Folk School some years ago. The point of it is, of course, that artists often have many abilities, some undiscovered. My wife and I were down in Brasstown, North Carolina at the Campbell school. She quilted as she usually does and meets the same excellent teacher and many returning friend quilters. I have to find a class for myself or else I just go painting in the local area. As I did last year, I chose Woodturning. Pictured first is my Woodturning instructor, Steve Ainsworth. My wife took this picture and got him to smile. In the classroom he is quite a bit more serious, but yet funny and helpful. He does some incredible bowl turning and turns pewter as well. Last year he told us if we take Woodturning again, to take someone else. Well, I was so excited to see that he was teaching the same week as my wife's favorite instructor that I signed up immediately, but with a little trepidation. All was well and I found a groove and turned (woodturned) out twice as much work as I did last time.

The next picture has three "natural" edge bowls -- bowls with the bark still on. The other picture has two bowls and a goblet with a captured ring. At times I had 4 to 6 inches of wood shavings at my feet. The next thing for me is to find the funds to buy a lathe of my own. All this will take time away from painting, but bowl turning is fun -- tough, but fun. The last picture is of the large painting that I'm working on -- the "Starting with a mess" painting. I prepared to work down into the foreground reeds, snow and rock. I'm much further on now and will be posting soon.

Painting a tree

These are three images of the tree in the landscape I'm working on: the block-in, second stage and third stage. I've since added a few brushstrokes to it. What I can say about it in a few words (pictures are worth a thousand...) is that there's a simple value study to begin; light and dark, or sunlight and shadow with plenty of airiness from the first image to the last. I'm trying to keep it light and airy because of the tree being against the sky. Don't be afraid to pop in a few skyholes to keep it light and don't reach for anything too dark in the shadows. This takes a lot of work -- comparing, keeping the whole painting in mind without focusing totally on the one thing you are painting. And.....don't paint that trunk too dark. Yes, it's dark, but it's a dark surrounded by a light sky and a light background. It pains me to see tree trunks painted in black by new artists who haven't gone out and painted outside. I am now working on the reeds, snow and sticks in the right foreground. I was away for about 10 days on a trip to North Carolina to the John C. Campbell Folk School doing a Woodturning class. More about that later.