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.