Valentine Demo

"Valentine Bunch" - Demo

11x14 Oil On Linen Panel

This is the demo I did for the still life workshop. It was fun to move the paint around!

2 Day Still Life Workshop!

What do painters do on Valentines weekend? Paint! And what better a subject than big bunches of vibrating colored flowers! It always amazes me to see what the painters end up with, it's very exciting to see their eye develop throughout the 2 days! The energy in the studio was truly inspiring. What a great group of people!

The workshop started Saturday morning with a short lecture and a full demo of one of the still life set ups. The emphasis being color temperature vibration and their relationships to create form, light and the space around the piece. The idea of the so titled 'still life' workshop is not 'how to paint a still life' but rather USE still life to work from LIFE and study color! I have primarily studied the landscape in the past until a few years ago when by the middle of winter I was just not feeling like going out in the freezing elements of a Minnesota winter but wanted to paint from life. So, I went to the market, bought a bunch of veggies and started studying life in my warm studio. I was hooked and completely curious about what I was seeing and learning from what I used to think of as 'boring'. I was so wrong! I had never seen such delicate degrees of temperature shifts and everything I was seeing was exploding in color in front my eyes. Working on still life has helped me to grow tremendously as a painter and I would highly recommend it to any landscape painter out there! It will only improve your work!

This is the reason I started this particular workshop and what's happening in the studio with these painters is really exciting to see!

-By early afternoon on Saturday they were at their easels eagerly armed with brushes and paint. Most everyone had their drawings and large masses in place by 4:00. Sunday morning we gathered again for a full day of painting and by the end of Sunday they had put in a good weekend and had pieces they could be proud to bring home!

Boom Site Winter

"Boom Site Winter"

11x14 on Masonite Panel

This was great day to paint! We've had some really nice temperatures for painting lately. This piece I did on Friday when I was out painting with Marc on the St Croix near my home. A frequently painted spot for me, I've painted this bunch of trees in several different times of the year, this is the first winter piece though. I couldn't believe how pink the light was looking into it. There was an amazing quality to it. I was looking more closely into the light and Marc was looking North up river at more of a distant composition. Interestingly enough, it was stunningly obvious how much more yellow he had in his snow. Opposite of what one might think would happen. Pretty fun to see!

Summer Remembered

"Summer Melody"

22x30 Oil On Linen Panel

I must be longing for warm summer afternoons. . . . :) It's February in Minnesota, ya know!

I think this painting helped!

I've painted this lily pad pond several times from life and turned most of them into larger studio paintings. There's something about this place that keeps me coming back to see what else it does. It's interesting how many painters become drawn to a certain place and paint it over and over again. It is never the same place or moment twice. The world is full of never ending fleeting effects! I find it gets more challenging each time and each time I find there is something else out there that I don't know and it draws me even more curious to find out. I've become very pulled to the spot in both memory and location. It's really pretty embedded in my mind. This is a memory painting. Meaning, I did not use any sort of reference to paint the piece. I was completely thinking of the THIS painting and simply using the memory of studied information to allow this painting to happen. So, here it is!

I JUST delivered this piece to the Tamarack Gallery In Stillwater MN to be displayed at the Stillwater Art Crawl on Friday Feb. 13. The art crawl is an event that the Galleries along Main St in Stillwater Open their doors to the public to walk about touring the galleries, meet some of the artists and enjoy a glass (or 2 or 3) of wine! All are welcome! Hope to see you there!

A Moment To Remember

" Paige And Her New Guitar"

11x14 on Masonite Panel

Home with a cold the past couple of days, I decided to do a sketch of my daughter with her new guitar she got for Christmas. (please ignore my poor photography of this sketch, I just wanted to get it posted quick) I'm currently in between large studio landscape pieces and have been finding it quite freeing to do something completely different between studio pieces. This sketch was done from a photo I took in the corner of our kitchen on Christmas morning. It is SO Paige! She's wearing her favorite old blue t-shirt (that I've tried to throw away with no luck), playing her new guitar, and her hair a great morning mess. (I don't think she ever actually brushed it that day) :) These are all the things I love about my daughter, it's who she is. She's so uniquely spirited and creatively driven. THAT'S what I wanted to get in the painting! Doing this piece was surprisingly interesting with how emotionally connected I felt to her spirit. I felt a huge sense of pride in her just being who she is on her own and the person she is becoming.

I asked her what she thought of the painting and she said "the walls look like they need more paint". I said, "I like the rawness of it!" "Thanks though Paige" :)

"The Journey"

24x30 Oil On Linen

This is the studio piece I did off the study posted below. I had a very clear idea of the mood I wanted to achieve in this painting. That can be a good thing or a bad thing for a painter. . . . I learned a long time ago that each painting tells YOU what it wants to be and sometimes visions get in the way, each painting has to be 'their own' right? - and the study is information and inspiration! I laid this entire painting in, in a day. Felt good about it, came back the next day, thought a lot, painted a little. Got mad at the painting, put it away, came back SEVERAL more days and finally got it. I spent more TIME the last 5% of the painting THINKING than painting.

I knew instantly when seeing the place that this would be a piece I'd like to do larger. This place was like heaven on earth. The trees completely full of personality, the road a possible journey to take you where you wanted to be and the soy beans golden richness along the way. The thing that struck me the most was the texture of these beans. I truly wanted to get their character with paint! That part was really fun!

A New Year!

"Farm Study"

Oil On Linen 8x10

This is my field study I used to do a larger studio piece. I knew instantly when driving up this road along that gorgeous soy bean field that this was the piece I was going to do in a larger scale. I loved the sense of infinity this roads implies. I'm really drawn to places with a little unknown around the corner. This was very moody, wet fall day. The trees seemed very full of mood and personality the way they gracefully drooped with richness. The two days before it rained non stop. As we were packing up to head home after three days of rain, the sun came out.