One of the things I was determined to do after I became thoroughly besotted with pastel painting was to make sure that I got organized. I am into my third year painting now and while I do not have a huge number of paintings to catalog, I surprised myself as to the number I had painted when I began to take inventory. My first year in only a few months as I began my journey, I painted thirteen paintings. The second year when my interest began to build, and my desire to challenge myself outside the classes, I painted 51 paintings. If this year is anything like last year, it will be a similar number.
Thanks to a very organized pastel painter whom I respect tremendously I received a lot of insight and guidance from his new book. Richard McKinley has written an excellent book for pastel painters describing his techniques, how he sorts and organizes his pastels by colors and value, what paper he uses, how he uses washes, and how he catalogs his paintings. The book in case you are interested, is called "Pastel Pointers" and even has a DVD in the back to demonstrate some of Richards techniques. There are many more good chapters than the ones I listed, but you get the idea. Richard really shared every aspect of his art.
One of the chapters that really caught my interest was a chapter devoted to cataloging pastels, developing an artist bio sheet for use in shows, and also a sheet to affix to the back of framed pastels that gives their catalog number, title, the artists copyright signature and also a nice little bio about what he hopes to achieve with his paintings.
That chapter resonated with me, so I made the decision to get more organized and look more professional. I developed my own Bio that I can now use at a show, or future shows. I also made up my own log in Microsoft Excel, to list my paintings by their number in order of completion, whether they are a pastel or some other medium, the month painted, the year, the size, type of paper used, what size the framed piece is and whether they have been sold, given as a gift, or entered in a show. It took me a quite a few hours to create this log and then enter all of the data into it. However, I am now up to date and all of my paintings are cataloged. When I go to deliver my four entries into the Vistas show next month, each painting will be readily identified with my personal sheet on the back providing all of the necessary information to the gallery, or to a buyer. If a painting sells, I can indicate the name of the buyer in my log in case there is some reason I need to contact them in the future. If there was a worst case scenario and I had a fire that destroyed my inventory, I would have a complete record of everything lost.
Another wonderful aid to organization was a Christmas gift from my wife, a Degas pastel carrying case that has straps and will hold 196 whole pastel sticks, or three times that number broken in thirds. I have organized my pastels by color and value in this wonderful case and can close it up and take it with me if I want to go out and paint on a location somewhere. The pastels are packed individually in foam slots, and foam goes over them to keep them from moving when you are ready to close them up. The other nice addition was four separate extra pastel box inserts that fit into the pastel case and I can store a back-up inventory of every pastel I have acquired, so that when I run out of a color in my portable easel box, or my working easel and carrier , I know exactly what color to replace it with.
These little first steps will go a long way to helping me stay organized with my art. My next goal is to gradually reorganize my home studio so that everything in it is functional, useful and easy to find. One of my first goals is to build a new easel that will be so much more functional and practical than the old aluminum one I am using currently. I hope this behavior on my part motivates you to think about organizing your studio, inventory or reference library. If you have some great tips you use, or some other ideas, please share them. We all get better when we share our passion our techniques, and those little things that help make it all come together.
This is my journey from day to day, some mundane and some fun. That is how life is and what we make of it. Hopefully you will have a beautiful sunrise day and enjoy it to the fullest.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Painting an Evening Beyond Compare
I joined the Pastel Society of the West Coast (PSWC), a very prestigious and talented group of successful artists last August. Unfortunately, I joined just after the deadline and missed the opportunity to enter a painting in their summer show at our own Placer Arts Gallery on Lincoln Way in uptown Auburn. I was very impressed with the talent and quality of art that was displayed at the show. Some of the paintings in the show were quite large and very beautiful. The PSWC show is going to be in Stockton this year at the Haggin Museum. The call for entries has already gone out and the deadline is February 18th.
This show will be my first opportunity to enter paintings in the PSWC show and so I made a decision to paint Southwest paintings of various sizes for my entries. While one can submit three or five paintings in the show depending upon the fee of $40.00 or $55.00, each member will only have two maximum in the show. Since this is to be a juried show, and an important opportunity I thought three paintings of various sizes would be an excellent way to show my artistic ability. The jurors will examine the digital images we submit and select two from those submitted and notify members of their selection choices.
In my previous blog, I displayed the other two paintings I have painted for this show, and the pencil sketch of the third one, a scene of the Mittens in Monument Valley. As I mentioned, I visited Monument Valley in early June 1964 as a young man, with my younger brother and have been enthralled with the beauty and wonderful colors of the buttes in and around the Navajo Tribal Parklands ever since. The particular scene I have chosen to paint has thunderheads rolling across the valley above the Mittens. That first night we had pitched our camp at the campground and were treated to the rolling and crashing of thunder bouncing off the buttes and canyon walls surrounding us. At times we would be in the middle of a heavy rain shower that managed to soak everything down in a matter of minutes as the storm clouds swept overhead. The rain made the valley sparkle with bright color because it deepened the hues. The sun was hidden behind the canyons to the west, but its light was illuminating the clouds and beginning to make them turn shades of pink and lavender. My challenge was going to be to capture the magic of that incredible evening I had experienced.
The Kitty Wallis paper I was using for the painting was the Belgian shade, almost the color of red violet so it is a help to have that shade. When pastel painters are painting a picture as in other mediums, it is necessary to put in some under darker colors first in some of the major areas of the painting, those will be overlain with medium and lighter colors as the painting progresses. Here is an example of the first stage of adding under colors of darker pastel to my painting. 
work on the sky and the clouds so that I could make sure that I could capture the intensity of the thunderstorms and also the beautiful soft tints that the clouds picked up from the setting sun. One of the very fortunate things for me with this painting is there were no visible shadows since the sun was hidden. The rain had made it so bright and colorful, even though the sun was going down. One could see for miles, and there was no haze to obscure the distant canyons or valleys. Getting the clouds right was going to take layering of colors, and also some blending. It took quite a while to get the right feel of the billowing cloud formations, and the various shades. Darker underneath where it was raining, lighter where the sun was highlighting them, and softer where the tints were reflected. Eventually I accomplished the right feel by adding the rain showers and then it was time to work on the buttes themselves.The three buttes or Mittens in this painting are north of the old Trading Post established by Harry Goulding and his wife Mike in 1923. While it is called Monument Valley, it really isn’t a valley at all, it is a vast plain with large buttes and mesas that have been eroded over thousands of years by wind and water. It is a very dry area at the 5400 foot elevation with very few trees and a lot of the famous purple sage. Some of the land is rough, jumbled with rocks from collapsing buttes, but much of it is sandy soil with washes that cut it up by water seeking a lower elevation. The tough part was to make the buttes look much like they do with all of the layers and weathering, and also to portray the uneven and irregular landscape with all of its colors in a realistic way. There is not a lot of vegetation in this beautiful arid area because of sandy soil and low amount of rainfall.
I had done one version of the landscape under the Mittens with a purple area to the left because it seemed more shaded by the clouds, but it just did not look natural even though it was a very pretty contrast. I went over the purple with various shades and values of Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber, and a little Quinacridone Magenta in Rembrandt and Winsor Newton pastels to get the right mix of color. The I spent several more days paying attention to various areas on the buttes and landscape to tweak it until I was satisfied.
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| An Evening Beyond Compare |
Friday, January 14, 2011
Painting a Series
Over the last year I have painted a lot of paintings and it dawned on me that I was painting things all over the map. I know I have painted some of these paintings just because they were subjects I liked and wanted to challenge myself to paint. I do have a several paintings of the ocean, done at different times, and of mountains, or rivers, but I really didn't have a series of paintings from any one place, or with any one theme. I had entered three very different pieces in a Masterpiece Medley Show at the Blue Line Gallery. I was very fortunate to have secured a spot as one of ten artists to show their works in the Vista Gallery next month. Perhaps for this show it will be good to show very different kinds of scenes, but perhaps for the next show, I will enter several with the same theme.
The Pastel Society of the West Coast is calling for entries for a show in May June of this year at the Haggin Museum in Stockton. I thought for this years show that I would go with entries from one locale, and I chose a series of paintings on the Southwest. I have been enjoying a number of artists paintings in Southwest Magazine and perhaps that is what sparked my desire to do a series on the Southwest. I finished one a couple of months ago, a 12" X 16" pastel of a flash flood in the desert that would be a good entry. It was a scene I witnessed when I was 21 years old and driving across the desert in north eastern Arizona, on my way to Monument Valley. The skies in the distance were a dark purplish black, and one could see the lightning flash and hear the thunder rumbling even though it was a long way away. As I was crossing a wash, I saw water coming down in a big wave, so I pulled over to get a picture. I missed the initial wall of water, but did get a shot shortly after that I used as a reference for this painting.
Last month I completed a second painting that was a larger format, 18" X 24" I have called "Morning Sun in Monument Valley" that should also be a good entry for the PSWC show. This painting is from reference photos I took when my brother and I were exploring Monument Valley Tribal Park in my brothers old Triumph convertible sports car. We had camped there under the stars, and got to drive far into the interior of the valley on the dirt roads. Today tourists must take a tour on one of the Tribal touring buses to venture into the park. That takes away the ability to stop whenever one wants to to take photographs. I am fortunate to have over 100 that I took on slide film that still have their bright colors.
I feel good about these paintings, and thought I would also paint one of the beautiful buttes one can see from the old Trading Post, near the park entrance. These buttes are magnificent, and one feels awed by their size and colors. For this painting I thought I would do my first large format pastel, a 24" X 36" painting on a sheet of Wallis Belgium Mist that I had purchased. I recently tried the Wallis paper, and really like this texture to work on with pastels because it has a lot of tooth. I drew the scene I wanted to paint on the paper in charcoal so I would have a guide to follow for laying my under painting colors. I used a lot of purple for this one because it will work so well with the reds and browns one sees everywhere.
I have included the initial sketch so you can see the scene that I wanted to paint. I can tell you right now, it is very daunting to paint a pastel painting this large for the first time, but it is also very exciting. I have to tell you about the scene, and why I wan to paint it. While the memory is from over forty years ago, the moment comes back to me like magic when I look at some of my slides that I took that evening. The scene I want to capture is at sundown, when the sun has dropped below the canyon rim but is still lighting the clouds in the sky with soft pastel colors of pink and mauve. There are big thunderheads everywhere, and the thunder is rolling and echoing through the valley and bouncing off the canyon walls and the buttes. Periodically there have been torrential rains and so the colors in the valley are so bright and vibrant. The sweet smell of fresh rain and wet earth is in the air. The colors are overwhelmingly bright now in the soft evening air. There are no shadows because the sun is hidden behind the canyon, but its light is shining brightly in the clouds and reflecting down on the land below. One can see for miles, there is no haze only more thunderheads many miles away. The landscape looks like a painters palette of colors all running together. I hope that you can visualize this scene. On my next blog, you will see be able to view the completed painting and learn all about my journey to capture this marvelous homeland of the Navajo Indians.
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| Flash Flood! |
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| Morning Sun on Monument Valley |
I have included the initial sketch so you can see the scene that I wanted to paint. I can tell you right now, it is very daunting to paint a pastel painting this large for the first time, but it is also very exciting. I have to tell you about the scene, and why I wan to paint it. While the memory is from over forty years ago, the moment comes back to me like magic when I look at some of my slides that I took that evening. The scene I want to capture is at sundown, when the sun has dropped below the canyon rim but is still lighting the clouds in the sky with soft pastel colors of pink and mauve. There are big thunderheads everywhere, and the thunder is rolling and echoing through the valley and bouncing off the canyon walls and the buttes. Periodically there have been torrential rains and so the colors in the valley are so bright and vibrant. The sweet smell of fresh rain and wet earth is in the air. The colors are overwhelmingly bright now in the soft evening air. There are no shadows because the sun is hidden behind the canyon, but its light is shining brightly in the clouds and reflecting down on the land below. One can see for miles, there is no haze only more thunderheads many miles away. The landscape looks like a painters palette of colors all running together. I hope that you can visualize this scene. On my next blog, you will see be able to view the completed painting and learn all about my journey to capture this marvelous homeland of the Navajo Indians.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Gaining Confidence as an Artist
We all seem to have insecurities of one kind or another. Some of them are passed on by our parents anxiety, but most of them are a result of our own inability to throw ourselves into the world with abandon and make our mark. If we were to share how terribly insecure we felt at moments in our lives when we wanted to try something new, and just didn't have the moxie to take that step, some people would be incredulous. That is only because they have a self confidence that some of us lack. Some folks are paralyzed by insecurity and let it rule their very lives, too afraid to take little steps that would help them grow. Overcoming those anxieties is all about growing up and gaining confidence through our trials and good experiences. We all deal with it in a different way.
I have had a good life and although I started out somewhat timidly, I gained confidence gradually through some successes in employment that gave me responsibilities. The event that changed my confidence tremendously and level of maturity was being inducted into the U. S. Army and going through intensive training to prepare me for combat in Vietnam. The training helped mature me, and let me know how to behave in a combat situation. However; until I was actually faced with that life and death struggle, I had no idea of how I would actually respond. When my platoon was confronted with a major ambush that felled some of our ranks and wounded others, I found myself performing confidently and almost methodically the way I had been trained. Yes, it was a frightening, horrible time, but I lived to fight another day, and each day thereafter I got stronger inside. That is true for every journey if you keep going.
After the Vietnam war I chose law enforcement as a career and successfully went up the ranks through my career, retiring as a lieutenant 25 years later. I had a second career with another State agency that oversees law enforcement training and retired from that also. I resolved to do something different when I retired, and while I did some consulting for awhile, it was not the direction I wanted to pursue really and the economy was not cooperating.
My wife had a brilliant idea, and one I will always be grateful for. She gave me the gift of pastel lessons with a local award winning artist and I realized when I went to classes that I really wanted to get back into art. It had been my first love as a teenager, and I felt on fire with the desire to paint again. Getting over those first jitters was the hard part. Going into a field where one has had no formal training and knows very little about color, or design makes one gulp with in trepidation. Having our own cheering section to boost our confidence is a necessary and a very critical part to assuring a modicum of success.
My second encourager after my wife (She was first) was my pastel teacher and mentor, Reif Erickson. He is an exceptional painter, a natural teacher and the author of a number of books on pastel painting techniques. He guided me, taught me and I watched him, listened and learned so much from him about various techniques that would make me a better painter. Each week we would assemble in his studio, only four or five students at a time, to watch in awe as he would demonstrate the painting of the day. He would begin by sketching it and then painting the entire landscape scene in about 45 minutes explaining what he was doing and why he was using a particular dark color as an under painting. Once he was satisfied with his painting, he would set his pastels down, stand back and look for a moment and then say, "There, now its your turn." With that he would take a sheaf of photos and pass one out to each student to use for "their" painting.
Those weekly challenges in his studio helped me gain confidence. While I would get a pretty good rendition done in class, I would always take them home to work on them until they met my personal level of satisfaction for being finished. Cindy was very complimentary as was my daughter Amber who was living with us at the time. Early on it was just personally satisfying to create a pretty landscape. Then the bug bit me deeper and I began going out looking for scenes I wanted to paint, so that I had something that was original and all my own. For a while, I was painting two scenes a week, one in class and one on my time that I would take in to have Reif give me feedback on. As my confidence grew, I got better. I gave a landscape painting to my brother for his birthday of Half Dome, because the two of us had gone to Yosemite for a weekend photo shoot like we used to do when we were young and single.
My son Colin a successful Graphic Designer encouraged me to get a Flickr site on the web and put my paintings on it. He sent me the link and I enrolled in their free program and began uploading my paintings to an artists pastel site. The feedback from other artists on my paintings helped my confidence tremendously. Eventually I chatted with some of those that became friends, just like the Face Book Network allows people all over the world to connect. It was another source of knowledge, learning and most importantly, peer support. It has also given me the opportunity to encourage other artists to keep creating beautiful things for others to enjoy.
I began getting different kinds of paper to experiment with different surfaces, and also added to my pastel collection. I had started with the list Reif had wanted us each to have in class, but was now expanding my color spectrum so I had more greens, blue and browns to use in my landscapes. I tackled more difficult subjects to push myself. A good friend who liked my painting style came to me and asked me if he could commission me to paint four paintings of places that he and his wife loved. I jumped at the chance and threw myself into the challenge, determined that they would get paintings that would indeed remind them of their favorite places. I found that painting scenes that others liked was very difficult. The scenes were not ones I would necessarily have chosen to paint, but since I wanted to make sure they were pleased, it pushed me further and I gained more confidence as I finished each one.
By this time, I was buying frames and cutting my own mats with a professional C&H mat cutter I had purchased from a shop that was down sizing their framing section. Once I had matted and framed all four of these paintings in two foot square custom frames, they were all ready to hang. I went to my friends home, and we carefully measured and hung the grouping on a wall of their newly decorated living room and they looked wonderful. My clients were delighted, and I was beaming with satisfaction that I had accomplished a major hurdle in my newest career as a fledgling artist. I joined our local Placer Arts Council and also the Blue Line Gallery in Roseville to meet other artists, and to open other art opportunities.
As my technique and knowledge increased, so did my desire to paint bigger and better paintings. I finally began entering national contests with some of my paintings that I felt confident about. While I have not won any, it has not dissuaded me from continuing to try. I have been reading many books by different successful pastel artists, Richard McKinley, Barbara Secor, Maggie Price, Margot Schulzke and others including my mentor Reif Erickson's, to learn more of other techniques and wisdom. I also began some self promotion attempts with my art with some local places taking my portfolio around to show merchants. I was successful in having a meeting with a local restaurant owner and will have an opportunity to hang some of my paintings in her business establishment next month. I was also contacted by a local doctor who asked me if I would be interested in hanging some of my paintings in her remodeled offices beginning in March. I entered a juried show at the Roseville's Blue Line Gallery where I am a member, and received a huge break. I was notified I was one of ten finalists invited to show their paintings on a Masterpiece Medley Show at the Vista Gallery in February.
This has been over a year's journey and the ride is wonderful. It has filled me with a desire to succeed in a completely different field. It has also given me a wonderful sense of fulfillment and satisfaction at this time in my life. The best part is that it has fueled my creative side and given me new confidence as well as new goals to work toward. Whatever your journey is, it is up to you to strive, and struggle to get there. Reach for that goal, work for that confidence and satisfaction that comes from the journey. Nothing is impossible if you keep going and want it badly enough.
I have had a good life and although I started out somewhat timidly, I gained confidence gradually through some successes in employment that gave me responsibilities. The event that changed my confidence tremendously and level of maturity was being inducted into the U. S. Army and going through intensive training to prepare me for combat in Vietnam. The training helped mature me, and let me know how to behave in a combat situation. However; until I was actually faced with that life and death struggle, I had no idea of how I would actually respond. When my platoon was confronted with a major ambush that felled some of our ranks and wounded others, I found myself performing confidently and almost methodically the way I had been trained. Yes, it was a frightening, horrible time, but I lived to fight another day, and each day thereafter I got stronger inside. That is true for every journey if you keep going.
After the Vietnam war I chose law enforcement as a career and successfully went up the ranks through my career, retiring as a lieutenant 25 years later. I had a second career with another State agency that oversees law enforcement training and retired from that also. I resolved to do something different when I retired, and while I did some consulting for awhile, it was not the direction I wanted to pursue really and the economy was not cooperating.
My wife had a brilliant idea, and one I will always be grateful for. She gave me the gift of pastel lessons with a local award winning artist and I realized when I went to classes that I really wanted to get back into art. It had been my first love as a teenager, and I felt on fire with the desire to paint again. Getting over those first jitters was the hard part. Going into a field where one has had no formal training and knows very little about color, or design makes one gulp with in trepidation. Having our own cheering section to boost our confidence is a necessary and a very critical part to assuring a modicum of success.
My second encourager after my wife (She was first) was my pastel teacher and mentor, Reif Erickson. He is an exceptional painter, a natural teacher and the author of a number of books on pastel painting techniques. He guided me, taught me and I watched him, listened and learned so much from him about various techniques that would make me a better painter. Each week we would assemble in his studio, only four or five students at a time, to watch in awe as he would demonstrate the painting of the day. He would begin by sketching it and then painting the entire landscape scene in about 45 minutes explaining what he was doing and why he was using a particular dark color as an under painting. Once he was satisfied with his painting, he would set his pastels down, stand back and look for a moment and then say, "There, now its your turn." With that he would take a sheaf of photos and pass one out to each student to use for "their" painting.
Those weekly challenges in his studio helped me gain confidence. While I would get a pretty good rendition done in class, I would always take them home to work on them until they met my personal level of satisfaction for being finished. Cindy was very complimentary as was my daughter Amber who was living with us at the time. Early on it was just personally satisfying to create a pretty landscape. Then the bug bit me deeper and I began going out looking for scenes I wanted to paint, so that I had something that was original and all my own. For a while, I was painting two scenes a week, one in class and one on my time that I would take in to have Reif give me feedback on. As my confidence grew, I got better. I gave a landscape painting to my brother for his birthday of Half Dome, because the two of us had gone to Yosemite for a weekend photo shoot like we used to do when we were young and single.
My son Colin a successful Graphic Designer encouraged me to get a Flickr site on the web and put my paintings on it. He sent me the link and I enrolled in their free program and began uploading my paintings to an artists pastel site. The feedback from other artists on my paintings helped my confidence tremendously. Eventually I chatted with some of those that became friends, just like the Face Book Network allows people all over the world to connect. It was another source of knowledge, learning and most importantly, peer support. It has also given me the opportunity to encourage other artists to keep creating beautiful things for others to enjoy.
I began getting different kinds of paper to experiment with different surfaces, and also added to my pastel collection. I had started with the list Reif had wanted us each to have in class, but was now expanding my color spectrum so I had more greens, blue and browns to use in my landscapes. I tackled more difficult subjects to push myself. A good friend who liked my painting style came to me and asked me if he could commission me to paint four paintings of places that he and his wife loved. I jumped at the chance and threw myself into the challenge, determined that they would get paintings that would indeed remind them of their favorite places. I found that painting scenes that others liked was very difficult. The scenes were not ones I would necessarily have chosen to paint, but since I wanted to make sure they were pleased, it pushed me further and I gained more confidence as I finished each one.
By this time, I was buying frames and cutting my own mats with a professional C&H mat cutter I had purchased from a shop that was down sizing their framing section. Once I had matted and framed all four of these paintings in two foot square custom frames, they were all ready to hang. I went to my friends home, and we carefully measured and hung the grouping on a wall of their newly decorated living room and they looked wonderful. My clients were delighted, and I was beaming with satisfaction that I had accomplished a major hurdle in my newest career as a fledgling artist. I joined our local Placer Arts Council and also the Blue Line Gallery in Roseville to meet other artists, and to open other art opportunities.
As my technique and knowledge increased, so did my desire to paint bigger and better paintings. I finally began entering national contests with some of my paintings that I felt confident about. While I have not won any, it has not dissuaded me from continuing to try. I have been reading many books by different successful pastel artists, Richard McKinley, Barbara Secor, Maggie Price, Margot Schulzke and others including my mentor Reif Erickson's, to learn more of other techniques and wisdom. I also began some self promotion attempts with my art with some local places taking my portfolio around to show merchants. I was successful in having a meeting with a local restaurant owner and will have an opportunity to hang some of my paintings in her business establishment next month. I was also contacted by a local doctor who asked me if I would be interested in hanging some of my paintings in her remodeled offices beginning in March. I entered a juried show at the Roseville's Blue Line Gallery where I am a member, and received a huge break. I was notified I was one of ten finalists invited to show their paintings on a Masterpiece Medley Show at the Vista Gallery in February.
This has been over a year's journey and the ride is wonderful. It has filled me with a desire to succeed in a completely different field. It has also given me a wonderful sense of fulfillment and satisfaction at this time in my life. The best part is that it has fueled my creative side and given me new confidence as well as new goals to work toward. Whatever your journey is, it is up to you to strive, and struggle to get there. Reach for that goal, work for that confidence and satisfaction that comes from the journey. Nothing is impossible if you keep going and want it badly enough.
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