Awestruck

While discussing this painting with Reverand Mother over lunch one day, the conversation turned to the fact that I like to show my paintings because I am awestruck and amazed that paint comes off the end of my brush like this in a relatively short time frame. This painting took about 3 hours. When I paint there is this element of self discovery and growing confidence. (But that came after years of darkness). Thanks and gratitude to Instructors Joe Paquet and Richard Abraham for making this possible.

The photography for this one was done in the excellent studio lighting of my car and the lines from a former painting add some interesting texture. NOTE TO SELF: No more car photography.

Trumpeter Swans

My nephew Brett and his wife Kathy live 1/2 mile from the Mississippi River near Monticello, MN. Based on its proximity to a nuclear energy plant, which pumps gallons of warm water into the river all year, hundreds of trumpeter swans gather to winter and feed in the warm water. There is signage, designated vantage points, and photo contests to honor these magnificent birds. This was painted from one of the photos that was submitted for the photo contest in 2009.

I selected this based on the degree of difficulty and novelty. I love the rhythm of the wings and connectedness of the birds. I thought Brett & Kathy would really appreciate this as a keepsake. Hope they like their present...

Wonder Where the Flowers Is?

Spring has sprung,
Grass has riss,
Wonder where the flowers is?

Always wanted a place to use that little ditty. This was a great exercise in painting the entire background carefully and then integrating the trees over the top. I am too tired now to go into the drama of the day. I will  only say that the mystery people in hard hats returned (from a previous post) and turned out to be great allies when my car was vandalized in the parking lot. They guarded my car and belongings while I continued painting and were very compassionate about the incident. Way to go Conservation Corp members!

Bruce Vento Morning

You may look at this and think "I've seen this before," and yes, you have. This is the studio painting from the sketch in a previous post. It was fun to improvise and make up the prairie grasses effect.

I am sad that winter melted in the course of a couple of weeks. Thin strips of residual snowbank are a nice constrasting touch to the quiet landscape grayness before spring pops into citrusy yellow fringes around the treetops. The next few months will be challenging for me with the mixing of hundreds of green hues (and usually none of them are correct), but this year is my year to conquer greens!

Portrait #2

After finishing Ron the Portrait in Instructor Richard's Studio Class, I brought it home looked at it for a couple of days and then spent eleven more hour working on it. Another artist asked how many of those were "good" hours...well, there was a lot of destruction in the first five (and no "undo" keys) and then some very good decisions were made in the last 3 hours. Those decisions were about simplifying the form and paying attention to plane changes as if his face was another element in the landscape. It is far more painterly than this digital rendition indicates, but then that's why we go to see original works. Original works have a quality that can't be duplicated in pixels or printed pages for that matter.

Will there be other portraits? Yes, I found painting a portrait intriguing and now have rediscovered 17th century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer and The Girl with Red Hat, in particular, as an inspiration for another. It is not the composition or subject matter that is compelling, it is the simplicity found in all of his work. It looks complex, but is elemental in execution. Simplification sounds easy to do, but in reality it is harder than making a photographic likeness. It is the illusive bird of paradise from a painter's perspective.

Portrait #1

The blog appears to have been abandoned in February. I have been feverishly working on a portrait as a portrait for paddle barter. It has consumed my painting time and even cut into my planned time as I carry the panel looking for various light sources and angles to see what changes need to be made each week.I am becoming obsessive about it. It was completed on Wednesday and then on Saturday morning I started repainting again...

As a break from Ron the Painting, I turned the easel on another elusive image--my Amazon parrot. As many times as I have tried to get "his character" in paint, I have failed pretty much every time. This is a 15 minute sketch in grey tone that shows his fluffy-slouchy-on-the-perch mode.

Make no mistake about my painting productivity. I may not have much to show for it. but there is some paint being flung around. Some version of Ron the Painting will appear in the next post...

Extreme Safety Precautions

What do safety glasses and hard hats have to do with this painting? They are loosely connected if you hear me out on this thing. One November Saturday I came down the Bruce Vento Nature Sancutary path to find 4 mini-vans parked in a circle and about 20 ardent people dressed in fluorescent orange vests, safety glasses, hard hats and rubber gloves. They were moving through this grassy area in the painting and stroking the grasses with their gloved hands. My curiosity was piqued and I found the only friendly person in the group to ask what they were doing. "Collecting seed," was her curt answer. Then I asked about the gear and she retorted, "For safety purposes [idiot]." With that I backed away and left for a quiet corner of the sanctuary. So when you look at the painting above, you see a mono-culture of little blue stem (Minnesota Native Plant) in a flat perspective, and when I look at it, I am amused by the Seed Gatherer sighting (a paid position, I might add). It appeared to be a covert government operation and native seed gathering is one covert operation I could get behind.