Two Oil Paintings - Large ones

Here are two paintings I have been working on for the past three days. They are at the stage where they need to sit and let me look at them in a couple of days to see if there is anything glaringly wrong. My motto (if I can actually follow it) is "if it won't make a significant different, then don't do anything."

The tree and barn is oil on gallery wrap canvas and is 36" x 48". The scene is from near Lula, GA. The beach scene is from my trip to Charleston, SC -- and is Sullivans Island near there. This painting is oil on canvas and is 24" x 30". Comments are welcome, especially if you see something glaringly out of whack!

Saturday Painting in Blue Ridge

Just a short note to let you know I will be demonstrating at my gallery in Blue Ridge on Saturday from about 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 P.M. The gallery is High Country Art & Antiques -- which is the best gallery in Blue Ridge. They do a very good job for me!

Come watch me paint during the day! It is so much fun to meet the public and answer questions about my work and my methods. Sometimes I even get to meet people that have bought my work -- or even better, sell some while I am there demonstrating. People really enjoy getting to meet the artist and I believe that I sell more work because we get to become friends.

So . . . come to Blue Ridge --- a wonderful North Georgia town -- much to do and some great stores and scenery!

Trip Out West!

Okay, sorry I have not been good about posting to the blog. Have been extremely busy -- but I know I could find time to at least post a painting and a sentence, right?

I'll start by showing a painting plein air that I did in Taos, NM. I am keeping this post short. We are still on our trip, but are on the way back to Georgia -- this night we are in Tucumcari, NM.

This is on Canson paper -- which many people say is not worth the time. I like it for working quickly. If you use a sanded paper, it takes longer because it takes so much more pastel!

Let me know what you think!

The Paintings Are Hanging!

So sorry I did not have time while painting these pieces for the hospital to keep up with my blog. I was working 10 - 12 hours each day to get these paintings done. Although I did stop at many intervals to document each one as I was working on it.

Here are photos we took last Thursday while attending the reception/unveiling of the new North Tower at the Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville, GA -- which was an invitation only event for the donors, staff and artists. Getting to see the paintings hung in such a beautiful facility was very nice. They did look different than seeing them in my crowded studio!

My paintings are located on the Second Floor Elevator Lobby. This is also the Surgical Floor and the waiting room for patients is here at the Elevator Lobby. When you step off the elevator, this it the painting you see immediately in front of you.

This is a triptych painting, "The Ballet: Ballet of the Boulders". All the paintings are 44" tall and on cradled wood panels. These panels are 22" wide each -- creating a painting that is 66". Of course, you can see there are a couple of inches between each panel also. This creek is Little River near Woodstock, GA, at Rope Mill Park.

The next one is also a triptych painting, "The Waltz: Dance of the Nickajack". After stepping off the elevator, this one is to your right. As I said, the panels are 44" tall and these are each 24" wide. This creates a painting 72" wide, plus the addition of the inches between the panels. This creek is Nickajack Creek located near Smyrna, GA, in the Historic Concord Covered Bridge area.

There are two single panel paintings also -- which are to the left as you step off the elevator. One is on the wall with the elevators as you can see in the photo. This painting is 36" wide and named, "The Disco: You Should be Dancing the Fiery Gizzard!". This next photo is the last single panel, "The Shag: Rock 'n Roll On the Nickajack", which is 30" wide.

I know this is not the greatest shot of the painting, but it does give you an idea of what the paintings look like hanging in the lobby. They are located where many people will get to enjoy viewing them. They have also installed wonderful lighting for each painting, and a very nice lucite covered label with the title of the painting, what it is painted on, and my name and where I live. I could not have asked for better marketing for my work!

The public can go in and see the paintings, I would assume you would just need to stop at the information desk in the first floor lobby and let them know you wish to view the artwork. Be sure to let me know if you did get to see them.

Close Up of Work on Triptych Two

Here is the central rock in this triptych. One of the early stages of the rock and then where I have added many more layers of color. In the shadow side of the rock there are reds, blues, greens, lavendars -- and all of them I tried to make transparent layers so that it would have depth.

The sunlit part of the rock is a little more difficult for me. I want there to be many different layers here also, but lighter colors are more opaque and glazes don't seem to work as well. So . . . I usually put several different light colors in various spots -- some warm and some cooler. I let these dry a little and then scumble a different temperature on top. Building warm and cool in this way seems to help the layering process.

These two close ups are of the very top of the panels -- trees that you can't really see any of the foliage attached to the trunks. You can see the simplicity of the structures and the bank leading down to the water. It is a starting point. Something to build on. I try not to sweat the outer edges of the paintings. Remember, how the eyes see. When you look at something, the peripheral vision is out of focus. So . . . that means less details. Agreed?

Here is a shot of the left and middle panels -- I would say they are about half finished. At least I can now take the left panel off the easel, move the middle to the left and put the right side up with it. Then I can start taking them both to the next level -- what I might say would be about 75% done. I try to get about two layers done on each panel before I take one down and put the other one up. This helps me not get too far done on one panel before bringing another one up to that level.

You don't want to get one part of a painting finished before working all over the painting. Bringing it all along at the same time seems to be the better method of working for me. Not the only way to do it, but it is my way!

The Second Triptych

Well, I have finally started on the second triptych.

I am letting the first triptych (set of three panels that make up one painting) sit and vegetate! I need for it to sit in the room where I am working on this one -- and let me look at it every so often and think about what I might like to do that would change it into a painting that is worthy of putting out there in the public eye.


This triptych is a portion of a pastel painting -- taking a center slice out of it. The focus is on the rocks and water. I had to add a little of the land area at the top to make the painting compositionally better. The people choosing this for the triptych had sliced it so that there was just a very slim line of land -- which looked a little funny to me. It created a spot in the painting that people would wonder "what is that?".

These are the two left panels started with a dark wash on the areas that will be the darkest. I like using different of my darkest transparent colors to do this -- Winsor Violet, Alizarin Crimson, Sap Green and Ultramarine Blue. Laying the composition in is a very important part of the process and the darks help me do that.

The next photo is where I can choose either to put in the lightest light or the most intense color. Here I did choose to use the intense color of the greens -- the mossy greens mostly. You can see many different colors used here. I mix most of my greens from either Ultramarine Blue or Cobalt Blue and many different yellows: Cadmium Yellow Pale, Gamblin's Radiant Lemon Yellow to just name a couple. Each of these combinations create a very different green. I also add Ivory White to lighten them a little -- I don't like using the Titanium White to lighten as it seems to make colors very chalky and cooler.

The third image you see here is adding blues -- which are very close in value to the greens.

The two images below are as I am adding more of the yellows into the painting -- some of the lighter areas. I have included a grey scale image on the left of the image on the right. You can then get an idea of how close in value some of the yellows, greens and blues are.


















I was so busy painting, putting up the right side on the easel, I forgot to take photos of the beginning stages of this side? Sorry. But, we have below the first photo I did take, I have brought this side up to a level where there is one layer of paint on the whole surface.


This is the busier side of the painting and will require quite a bit of thought on what I need to simplify. I struggle with simplifying -- I tend to paint what I see. I am making progress with putting in only what makes the painting better and says all that needs saying.

There are many wonderful colors on this side of the painting and I tend to want to put them all in. You can make this successful, if you will try to use the same value -- changing only the color or temperature of the color.

The photo below on the right is a little further along where I have softened some of the edges, trying to simply the transition from one object to another. There is a little glare on the painting because of my use of Archival Lean as my medium. This does a wonderful job of keeping all the colors that are more matte in line with those that have a sheen.


You can also see that I have started adding some of the dark ripples in the water to make there be motion in this painting. There will be many more additions to the water to make the build up I prefer in my paintings. And again, you can see the grey scale of the photo on the right to show how close in value some of the colors really are. Tell me what you think so far.

All Three Panels about Half Done

When you see all three panels together you get an idea of what I am trying to do . . . keeping the colors consistent, and also making it look like one painting -- even while trying to make each panel a painting in its own right.

Here is a close up of the left section of upper trees. You can see some nice transition of colors, but it is still somewhat splotchy. I also talk to my students about "spottiness" and how not to break up the masses. There is a fine line between changes that need to be made and those that can be left to the imagination. So . . . I have totally wiped off this section down to the initial underpainting. It is now quite dark, but a good beginning again.