Busy Days

Busy painting outdoors these days although it is still rainy and overcast with only the occasional gift of sunshine. Yesterday I lost one painting to the wind. I was perched on the clay banks above the lake and a sudden squall lifted my easel off the ground and spit my canvas onto the ground. Everyone's a critic. I designed a device to anchor my easel to my truck so I'm armed for anything short of Force 10 . Sorry for the short blog today but that means I'm busy doing whats important, painting. More next time.

Painting in the Okanagan Falls area. Beautiful violet wildflowers kept me there for two days.

Standing Again

This week I tried out my new platform. This is a 24" tall sturdy chair stand for my portrait subjects to sit on. Now I can stand at my easel and step a few paces back to compare my painting with my subject eye to eye. I have some space limitations so I can't launch backwards with abandon or I'll take out a partition wall. I may choose to tear that out later. I've also made my platform and work table easily movable so I can work by a large window taking advantage of some natural light. This seems much softer than the spots I've previously used.

Our FCA chapter teamed with the central and north Okanagan chapters to host the Tryptich show at the Shatford Center. Reception was last night and there must have been about 250 people attending. Renowned artist Robert Genn gave an engaging talk on the life of the artist. I found him to be very encouraging and had some sage advise. Joanna enjoyed him too, even though she is not a painter. The show is worth a look-runs for a few weeks.

I have some landscapes underway. I hope the rain leaves soon so I can do some work on site. Soon I'll hopefully be able to post a few sneak peeks of paintings I'm working on for the Tumbleweed show in September.

The portrait below turned out especially well I think. There's a real strength of character as well as a vulnerability that speaks to me through this lady. I called it "The Decision" because when I contemplated the final piece I really felt this could be a point of departure.


My '73 RS painting is off to a new home this week. I was reminded how important frame selection is again. I chose a brushed pewter fairly wide one on this and it really makes the blue and white body panels sing . If you know anyone who might enjoy a classic car painting please let them know that I'm always happy to have an excuse to paint great old cars.



Talk to you next time.

Weekly Rambling

All the paintings from Penticton en Plein Air are framed and hung at the Penticton Art Gallery. They will be auctioned off on July 7th at the 34th annual Starry Starry Night to be held at the Lakeside Resort. Come out to support this great regional facility and maybe bid on some art. A few examples below.








This week I've been considering time prioritization and how the perceived urgencies of others can sidetrack us from our goal or calling. No matter what we are endeavouring to accomplish external demands can undermine our "mission" like persistent beavers gnawing on a brookside aspen. How to stay the course? Most of these distractions are good and worthy but can you cull the bitter from the sweet?
Here's an idea; find some solitude and list the important things in your life in order of importance. Next accept the reality that you cannot realize all you've compiled and jettison each item starting from the bottom until you land on a realistically achievable list. We have to be accountable to ourselves to protect these essentials so when an outside demand jeopardizes them we have a benchmark to defend.
Narcissism isn't the objective because its only by serving others that we can realize our calling but we need to recognize the value of our uniqueness and the need to refine our God given talents into something precious that blesses our fellow humans and our Creator.

"To get all there is out of living, we must employ our time wisely, never being in too much of a hurry to stop and sip life, but never loosing our sense of the enormous value of a minute. "(Bob Updegraff.)

Or my favorite quote that I'd tattoo over my heart if I was needle-friendly by that sage T-Bone Burnett, "The frightening thing isn't dying, The frightening thing isn't living."

I built a platform for my portrait sitters so will be standing to paint this week-looking forward to it. Have a great one.

PP11 Continued

I've been asked to keep posting examples of my recent portrait paintings so I'll continue to keep you abreast of my Portrait Project regularly. I'm still happy to accept any volunteers so drop me a line if you are interested. I'm booked for about a month right now.


Here is another example of the process I go through when dealing with portraits. This is Bev (portrait #14) . I'll stick with this procedure for a few more and then I think I'll introduce hands and other elements into the compositions. I want to purchase some suitable lighting but need to make some $ first. I am planning to build a platform to elevate my subjects as this will allow me to paint in a standing position. That will be much more natural for me.
First off I do a very simple line drawing. I use vine charcoal and lightly dust it off before paint application.

A basic two value study using ultamarine blue, transparent red earth and white.
Add a third value and scrub over the background a bit to engage the subject a bit.
A little more refinement, solve any value problems and push things around until the features resemble my subject to my satisfaction.
Choose colours, tighten up some shapes and lay in a violet backgroud to punch up the fleshtones a little. Declare the painting finished.

Painting people

My time is split between my portrait project '11 (pp11) and landscape painting these days. I'm having a great time reacting to the divergent individuals that have partnered with me on pp11. I'm learning new things with each session. If you haven't checked out Chandra's time lapse video take a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y00ZCuEr5A


Here's a couple of portraits in sequence.

This is my painting buddy Cal.






This is my lovely daughter, Renee.


I didn't take time to optimize the photo quality so next year if I can arrange for a showing you'll have to come out and see all these great people in person.

I'll give you a preview of some of my larger landscapes in future posts. Have a great week.

Art, Love and Time -Lapse Photography

Big news out of the University College of London this week. Researchers have been investigating brain activity of people standing in front of art. I presume this is art that has elements of beauty or positivity. Look what they have discovered.

“Looking at art triggers a surge of feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine into the brain and results in feelings of intense pleasure,” says Professor Semir Zeki. “We have recently found that when we look at things we consider to be beautiful, there is increased activity in the pleasure reward centers of the brain. Essentially, the feel-good centers are stimulated, similar to the stages of love and desire.”

Of course artists have always known that there is something emotional happening when people connect with art but a little scientific reassurance is always good.

Here's one of my portraits from the week. This is Chandra. She surprised me by setting up her photographic equipment and recorded a time-lapse sequence of my initial block-in of her portrait. She graciously uploaded it to You Tube so copy and paste the link below to see what she created. For the tech challenged just go to YouTube and search for Bill Hibberd

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y00ZCuEr5A

Us painters tend to squirrel away in solitary confinement while we work which can be a good thing but this is another reminder to me of the importance of other people in my journey. I never would have pulled off this little video without Chandra's effort. Many thanks.

While we're looking at videos and since you have a long weekend ahead of you let me highly recommend Robert Hughes "The Mona Lisa Curse". If you wonder whats going on in the art world where people pay millions of dollars for shark and pig cadavers, not to mention human excrement this is a great documentary. Check it out and have a great weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbQ0GqX0Its&feature=related

Painting at Marichel Winery

This past saturday 25 artists infiltrated the Naramata Bench vineyards to knock off some open air (en plein air) paintings in support of the Penticton Art Gallery. I had the pleasure of painting with four others at the beautiful Marichel Vineyards. Elizabeth and Richard were very gracious hosts and rewarded us at days end with a complimentary bottle of their wonderful 2008 Syrah. I've just had a little taste so far but highly recommend it. Beautiful!

The day was overcast but the scenery was lovely and it was a healthy break from my current portrait obsession. I appreciated the comradery as the family of artists gathered at the Art Gallery for some celebration of the days achievements and a surprise party in appreciation of several peoples' long service to the areas artistic community.
Ken Gillespie, Robyn Lake and her apprentice.



Robyn Lake
Loraine Stephanson

My contribution to the day. Me.

Next week I will return to my studio to explore facial surface anatomy; if you or anyone you know would like to be included in this adventure you can contact me through the comment link below. I'm booked for the next month or so but will put any willing person on my list.
If you'd enjoy seeing more process photos like the last post let me know and I'll upload more.
Have a great week.