Rail Bridge 1912, Morning Sunshine

I made a little diagram on a short drive during my lunch hour....painted at about 8:00 pm that evening. I like this hidden road with the old rail bridge at a turn....the morning sun was beautiful and encouraging.

Sunday Sun, Lost Dog Hill

A very cold and bright Sunday afternoon. A snowmobile trail cuts right through at right of this. For a portion of my walk I need to be prepared to step into the underbrush at a moment's notice.

January Days

I try to steal some time and put myself in the landscape around lunch.....the little diagrams made on paper always in my breast pocket are produced at times like this. The two little paintings are on gessoed panels....I was lucky to get them done on the same day....about 1.5 hrs painting time in total for both. More and more I sense how important it is to record the days as they pass.

Coyote Hill, Deep Winter

Painted today....we're now into the coldest part of the year. Winter really does deserve a very close study. The range of effects in the short days can be at times dramatic, at other times, subtle.

Stuart Shils, Making a Monotype, Part 2

Stuart Shils, Making a Monotype, Part 1

Donald Baechler, Monday Artist at Noon Lecture, Part 2

There is always great surprise and similtaneously, great design principles and process at play in Baechler's work. He's a fascinating artist on many levels.

Donald Baechler, Monday Artist at Noon Lecture, Part 1

Donald Baechler, Monday Artist at Noon Lecture, Part 3

A Wonderful Home!

A big thank you to Kate Lottridge for sending along a photo showing how she framed and presented two of my paintings in her absolutely gorgeous home! It warms my heart to see how the paintings travel....and these two pieces have landed in paradise.

Halfway Home

Midday....on the backroads.....10 minutes from home...the clean, cold smell of sunshine and snow cover in January.

Lost Dog Hill, Overcast

Lost Dog Hill as it looked a few days ago.....the way the land is arranged, this location and motif are always there as I leave here and return......noticed many times during the day, in all weather, all seasons. Not even 6:00 p.m. yet but it's dark now. Time for a snow walk and I'll go in that direction.....you can actually see a great deal in the dark.

Brushes.....and.....

I had a few questions about brushes and procedures. Perhaps the picture will help. I wear brushes down to nothing....especially the bigger ones for filling areas. I tend to favour a distressed brush perhaps because it can do rough things....I get worried when things start to look too predictable. The stiff bristle round brush that you see...all worn down, was used for the top layer of many of my skies...I liked it for applying thick impasto. Haven't used it lately though...perhaps its time is done.

I AM careful about the smallest rounds that I use to draw fine lines with. I try to hold the brush very easily and make the lines almost accidentally. The paint is often thinned a fair bit for those lines. Small rounds are replaced quite often. I use a few flat synthetic brushes, but favor the rounds.

Almost everything gets underpainted very simply. A blue sky will have a thin wash of perhaps pink, applied in 10 seconds....little bits peek through.

I'm primarily a tonal painter. The Value...the degree of dark/light of the colour is most important. I'm also very conscious of how colours are greyed. I use a simple method of 'approximate complements' to grey. As I instinctively sense that a colour needs to be brought down in intensity, I go to an approximate opposite to grey it in stages. Finding great greys is so important.

I'm more intuitive rather than scientific in the way I find my colours. Red is the complement of green, and small bits of red will grey or reduce the intensity of green, but so will a whole variety of browns, reds that move towards orange, etc....that's why I think of this method as greying with approximate complements....they will all grey your colour, but in different ways.

A little exercise for anyone who feels they haven't exploited greys enough yet:

Grid a 20" x 26" sheet of bristol or any stiff card into one inch squares. Set out a full palette of colour plus white. Fill every square with a greyed colour....no full intensity colours allowed. I have no black in my palette but am a great fan of Paynes Grey. I wouldn't use the Paynes for this exercise though. You'll be surprised by how much exciting variety you'll find just by consciously reducing the brightness of colours.

Windbreak

Made one day prior to winter solstice...later in the day, a bit of snow falling.

First Storm

Snow fell this morning and now it is raining which should last all night. If we can avoid freezing rain I'll be happy. This painting from earlier this afternoon....diagramed quickly...painted in studio.

December 4th

Painted yesterday...the shortest days of the year. This is morning light, but I painted this later in the afternoon when the light was fading. Almost impossible to do these without enough light, but I surrounded myself with standing lamps and it was ok.

Flickr

I'll be posting lots of pictures to Flickr in the next while....please see me there.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/paintbox1/

Last Dance

The painting, just made now, was done from the little diagram. The sky was doing all sorts of interesting things....a certain kind of clean hopefullness sometimes seems to arrive in September. The golden rod in certain light is shockingly yellow.

Evening Sky, August 27

A little subtheme has been these sky paintings, usually from notations made in the evenings

Rain on Home Field

It started raining as I returned home....stopped at the top of lost dog hill to make a little diagram for this and was able to make a few pen lines only, as they were washing away in the rain...but it was enough. This was the first of two paintings made today.