Madrona Tree WIP 4/30/07

I am able to work on this Madrona Tree painting today so will include another work in progress entry here. I have done the underpainting of the leafy background and will next proceed to darkening that area, hopefully with the intent of darkening that more to make the peeling tree branches "pop" more and remain the center of interest for this painting. More to follow.

Madrona Tree - WIP

Here is the Madrona Tree peeling bark painting WIP that I have done so far. I will continue on with this since I am having so much fun painting it. The background will be of green foliage and leaves, but the center of interest will be this glowing, peeling main branch and bark. These trees are specific to the Pacific Northwest and I was entranced by them as we drove through the mountain highways toward the Oregon coast. Apparently there is a disease which attacks them and they are a dying breed; so sad, as they are so colorful with their peeling bark and wonderful greens amidst the darker green conifers.

More WIPs to follow on this one. I hope to be able to finish with a lush background with greens, blues and yelows, but we will have to see. One more art sale this weekend and then I can work on this more.

Lilacs on Lace

This will be my submission for the online group's April project - lilacs. I tried to stay loose with this and, as usual, when I do that I don't care as much for it, but this is it regardless. It was fun to do and nice to be able to paint again this week.

I have started offering matcutting and archival printing services and had my first printing and matcutting jobs this week. It's enjoyable work, adds a few dollars to my art supply fund and keeps me out of the pool halls and bars. Can't beat that.

NC Tobacco Farm - corrected

I realized, after submitting, that we were in North Carolina, not South Carolina when I took the reference photo for this painting. I corrected that error, as well as following a suggestion from my online critique group (thanks, Rhonda!) where it was suggested that I darken the roofs to highlight the center of interest - the barn and drying sheds. I do like it better with the value shift now.

SC Tobacco Farm

I have had these three paintings on the unfinished pile for quite awhile as I had lost the time to work on them and possibly the inclination after the inspiration left. But, today was the day and I so enjoyed working on them and finishing them. Now, onto the new ideas without guilt!

This sepia painting was inspired on our trip through South Carolina two years ago. There were so many farms set among the rolling green hills, so peacefully. I assume this was a tobacco farm considering what I believe to be large drying sheds and buildings. I may be wrong, but they were pretty farms nonetheless.

Zoltan's Fishermen

The Zion painting has been assigned to the "think on it" pile. It may take that trip to the sink, yet. But, there is no hurry if that is its fate.

I have had this painting, for a family member, on the back burner for awhile as it was on the "think on it" pile, too. I did some refining this afternoon and think it will stand on its own now, for better or worse. It is from step-by-step demo from an old Zoltan Szabo book that I had done once before during the infancy of my so-called painting career. I still like the peacefulness of this scene and enjoyed painting it again.

Zion in Fall

I started this watercolor on canvas in the Thursday painting session and finished it today. It had to be either "punched up" in the color or washed back to white at the sink and start over. I decided to punch up the color and will await a critique to decide whether I make that trip to the sink. This Fredrix watercolor canvas is difficult to work with most of the time, it just gives me fits. I am determined to master it, though, so I keep trying.

Ocotillo

Our Ocotillo has always had nice "foliage" on it and it has grown to be about 12-feet tall, but it hasn't had very many nice blossoms in the Spring. This year it has the nicest blossoms of any year and I am sure some of these will have to find their way into paintings! I guess Ocotillos perform better after having a Winter with some hard freezes since our milder Winters have not produced as many blossoms as this.

Easter Sale

This is my table set-up at this weekend's Easter sale by the ArtChix. It was a moderate success and a lot of fun...a lot of work, too! The fun part is the sale itself; the preparation and setup/takedown aspects are the work part. Today's task is to get everything put away in the studio again.

Office finished

We have officially moved everything into the office area of the new room and, except for a few finishing touches this is finished. After my weekend ArtChix sale anything that doesn't sell (yeah, right!) will likely find its way to these virgin walls. I have decided to store my inventory of paintings on our walls throughout the house as they add color and are more easily viewable if anyone wants to see something. I couldn't show the end wall unit to the right of the one desk in this photo, but we have plenty of storage now which is a delight to have. We decided against going the built-in route. Aside from the expense of that after having the room addition built, from those who have gone that way I have heard that they lost any ability to change things around and rearrange as their needs change. So, I think this will be better for our uses and it is wonderful to have my computer tucked into one end of my art studio since I use the computer a great deal in my artwork.

Now, after the weekend art sale, we start painting the old office/new guest room Monday and will try to get that finished so we can reclaim our garage which has stored furniture, etc. for the duration of our studio build.

New Clayboard Tiles

I have been working on more of these petroglyphs on clayboard "tiles" in preparation for the next ArtChix sale, April 7 and 8. The top two of these struck me as being somewhat "alien" in appearance, but this is a truthful depiction of the petroglyphs found near Moab, UT in Thompson Wash. Although I depicted them as petroglyphs (scraped into the rock), they were actually pictographs (painted onto the rock, usually under a cliff overhang so they have endured for centuries) The bottom right figure was found at a site near Albuquerque, NM and I suspect it is of a chieftain figure and is one of the few petroglyphs I have seen that shows what appears to be a robe or covering. The bottom left figure is from the Fremont people, recognizeable because of the earrings and trapezoidal shape of the figure. These are all 5x7 in size.