A few portraits

Here are a few more portraits from earlier in my project. Now that summer is stepping away and I am feeling well prepared for the upcoming Tumbleweed Gallery show I will be painting portraits a little more ferociously. If you or anyone you know want to step up and be part of this let me know and I'll get you in the queue.

Taylor


Oliver

Eira

Judy

Late one afternoon

Forgotten Fruit

Its all quiet on these clay banks above the lake. Super heated summer air is heavy with sage. Evening approaches and the departing sun washes everything with warm, diffused light. I sit before an eighty year old apricot tree, abandoned and forgotten by a previous generation. Blackened and brittle boughs are laden with an abundance of startlingly orange fruit. With no farmers to reap the harvest most will fall to the earth. The only visitors I have are a tribe of deer, two large four points with their harem of does and fawns. They carefully and silently weave through the trees enjoying a sweet feeding before the sky turns from red to violet. I wait for their passing before sharing in my part of the feast.

Another great day of painting.

Time

I must begin this post by apologizing for my inconsistency lately. Summer presents plenty of distractions including some travel and family events. I have been busy painting throughout the past two months but my blog posting has suffered. I will make an effort to keep you updated on my progress for the foreseeable future.

Here's a picture of Joanna with our new toy, an '86 Westfalia. We've been wanting one of these guys for a few years and finally were able to purchase this one. I'm looking forward to many painting excursions in comfort. My Samarai is wonderful for crawling into the backcountry but not the machine for road trips. I'm already planning some west coast painting as soon as possible.
It's sad to lose one of the great painters of our time. Lucien Freud died at 88 years this month.
A completely dedicated artist he exemplified commitment as he soldiered on with his work for seven decades. His process was overwhelming to consider. His paintings took months to complete as he worked and re-worked paintings until he had extracted all he could from his subjects. One nude took 16 months to complete, with 5 hour sittings per day the subject was present for all but 4 days during that period. 2400 hours were invested in that piece. Lucien shunned celebrity and so interviews are rare but given the massive amounts of time he spent with his subjects I expect there will be some illuminating biographies forthcoming. I always anticipated seeing each new painting so it very sad to witness the end of such an amazing body of work.

In my own way I am pressing on. I have completed 27 portraits to date and am enjoying this project immensely. While some are more successful than others if you are aiming for likeness, and I am, they all have an element of the subjects unique personality that sings out to me at least, and hopefully for others. Time will tell that story.

I also continue to prepare for my September show with Ken Gillespie at the Tumbleweed Gallery. Its a bit of a big deal for me to have a commercial gallery support me in this way. Many thanks to Prema and her team. The painting "Windfalls", below will be featured at this show. I will have more information in upcoming posts.
Many thanks to those who have purchased my work this month. It's been very encouraging.

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.