My Life As A Painter: January 2015

Back in the studio after a little Holiday Break! During Christmas I was given a big bag of oranges and lemons picked fresh from the trees in their backyard in AZ. Very exciting was the fact that the stems and leaves were still attached! We just don't get that here in Minnesota! So I went fast to work in the studio 'practicing what I preach', studying the color!

"Make much out of little, not little out of Much!" - Charles Hawthorne

I tell my students to keep their lights and darks separate, and even if it's painful, block in the average relative colors. Not a literal interpretation of what you see when you look directly into the color, but what it is compared to it's neighbor colors.

They often ask me if this is how I REALLY paint, well here's the proof!

For this entire study I used a basic primary palette of Cadmium Yellow Light, Cadmium Red, Alizarin Crimson, Ultra Marine Blue and Titanium White.

Starting by blocking in the average darks (shadow areas), identify as best you can the difference in colors between the different darks. I eliminate the tertiary at first to really 'push' the differences. I will modify this later on in the painting.

Once shadows are blocked in, start blocking in the areas of light. If your light is warm, then your shadows will be 'cooler'. It's all relative remember. You might think that the red in the far right orange is warm, but it's cooler than yellow! And Orange is composed of yellow and red. Making orange 'warmer' than red! Again, it's all relative!

Notice how each lit area in the oranges are slightly different than each other. This is not by chance, it was carefully studied and observed. Painting light with color is a manipulation of color temperatures and saturations.

Getting all areas relatively massed in and making any adjustments I see needed. Until you get all the averages covered, it's difficult to tell if you got it right! It 'ain't' over till it's over!

The rest of the painting is careful and subtle observation of notes of colors within the averages. Each stroke I make represents a plane change in each light or dark to best represent form and light.

The finished painting! It's finished because I like it and each stroke symbolizes either a plane change, light, or dark and it's all relative to each other creating harmony and unity!

Keep posted in days to come. I'll be breaking this process down further.

It's not what you paint, it's how you paint it!

Where do I even begin? I thought of completely starting over with a new blog. . . had a brilliant idea for a brilliant new blog name, "Miles Of Canvas"!!! Well, thought it was brilliant and original until I went online to register, only to find 100's of others using that name for their blogs, websites, company names, etc. Guess it WAS a good idea, but not so original after all.

The last post I made was in February of 2014. I have not dropped off the face of the planet, but have most certainly been busy completely altering life as we knew it one year ago! Not to take Martin Luther King's line, but I had a dream! A vision. A vision for a place on a beautiful and inspiring piece of nature, where I could have my studio, share with my students and fellow painters, and finish raising my children. To get rid of the rent I've been paying in my past studio, simplify life, and paint, paint, paint in a place that moved and inspired painters from all over! Non of it makes sense if you are a person of logic, it only makes sense if you are a person who chooses not to function out of fear, believes life is what you make it, and believes that hard work and risk is worth every drop of sweat. That would be me. I thought, "what's the worst that could happen? I might not get it . . " Would be no further than I was without going for it, so I did! And I did it solely from my art.

In the past year I have sold my house of 15 years, purchased a 15 acre property in the country with a 150 year old house and a 100 year old hay barn, a 150 year old silo ruins, lots of trees, wetlands, buck thorn, which I have become completely obsessed with removing, trails, bats in the attack (hopefully got rid of them by now) . . . moved out of my downtown Stillwater studio which I had been renting for nearly the past 10 years, converted the 100 year old barn into my new studio and school, and now am doing a major renovation on this sweet little farm house which with might I say, lots of 'character'? Ha! Good word for lots wrong with it! It's okay though, we love it and it is now the place we call home. You see, the property was meant to be. It's the only explanation besides faith and the hard work it took to get here.

My plan had been to blog daily about our big adventure of moving the house and studio to the country. Well, it just didn't go that way! Every single day has been a challenge of enormous or small, but a challenge just the same. It's been quite a year and quite the journey, and we survived.

June 1st, I held my first plein air classes on the property. They went all summer long. In September, fall semester of classes started in the studio barn. In October I had my first show in the new 'old' studio barn. In October I also hosted OPM, The Outdoor Painters of Minnesota paint out. We had nearly 50 painters here painting the grounds all day! In February of 2015 winter semester will start up and painters will be here again weekly to study painting. The dream came to life and life we are living!

The day we moved. January 24, 2014, 30 BELOW ZERO PLUS windchill! You bet!

Brutal winter. . .

Yup, cold.

Our pretty, cold, road. Pretty though! :)

First dinner in the new studio with students,

Winter finally left

Time to get the studio barn functional for classes, but we needed a way to get up there besides the 'death trap stairs' coming up through the floor with a trap door.

Grateful for talented architect Peter Curtis for designing these amazing stairs!

Spring's finds, 150 year old silo ruins. This is after hours and hours of removing overgrown buck thorn with the help of my kiddo, Nick! We found tons of old artifacts from the original farm!