Time to Get Out

 It’s almost time to get back out on the trail for my fall-spring studies of trees and nature. I’ll set up my paint box and move it up and down the trail. I put a big heavy trash bag over the box, so it can stay out for months at a time, safe and dry. 

 My October series will be done with my favorite winter palette. I use cadmium red light, yellow ochre, ultramarine blue, Payne’s gray and titanium white. It is a modification of the Anders Zorn palette. I have loved this palette for years. I’ve always loved single primary palettes. Few choices and endless variations thereof.

 This palette gives a lot of subtle neutrals, but the cad red offers an intense choice if desired. The purples are subtle like the winter atmospheric quality of distant trees. My paintings are gradually becoming more neutral. I rely more on value structure than color saturation. I have a long way to go toward being a fine painter. I’m taking the slow and steady journey.

 Experimenting is swell for country painters.... 

Design

  

 

There are lots of important parts of painting, but the most important to me is design. I always call design, values, and color mixing the BIG THREE of painting. Without good design, the other two have little value.  Many artists use over saturated color as a crutch because they don’t understand good design and value relationships. The vibrancy gives them a feeling of shock and awe! I have seen many wonderful paintings with minimal color. 

 

I had a marvelous design teacher in my BFA program. He had the marvelous skill of using minimalistic subjects and limited palettes to teach design. His pieces were wonderful. Over the years I have studied design extensively as well as values, and Notan.

 

I would love to teach design again if we ever rid ourselves of Covid.  

 

Country painters love design…

Best of Friends

  

 

Now and then I have the privilege of spending a morning with a dear friend who is a professional full time artist. We have very different styles, different genres and different approaches to painting. This is a celebration for us. We have never allowed ourselves to be competitors, just friends. We have done many residencies and projects together along the way in our careers. 

 We get together and talk shop about our interests, our work schedules, and directions of discovery as painters. She is very sophisticated and a world traveler. I am a country painter. None of our differences matter a bit. We are in sync with our quest for discovery, painting, and love for the natural world. We have watched each other change and grow over the years. We share being a painter in the best way. 

 The thing I like the most about aging as an artist is that I no longer have to be good, or compete as a painter. Painting is so much fun. I never think about bad or good paintings. I just love doing paintings. I’ll never be as good as she or some other painters I know. I no longer see that as a disadvantage. Painting is truly the great equalizer. Someone will be more gifted, or not as gifted. No one will really care, because I don’t. I consider painting to be the great privilege of my life. How could I not like any part of it? Stepping into my studio each time is like going out for a hot fudge sundae! All of the angst of art school, the years of competitive art, galleries and openings, have faded out of my career. Only the joy remains of putting brush to canvas! I vow to keep it that way onward.

Commissions

  

 

I have a perfect commission collector. Those are hard to find. He brings me lovely vintage frames, and I do paintings to fit them for him.

He sometimes gives me vague subjects of interest and sometimes just tells me to do what I like. He never gives me a specific timeline and he never butts in,asking me to change the painting. When I show it to him, he says it is exactly right. What a dream collector! I’ve never had another like him.

 Most of my commissions go fairly smoothly, with minor changes along the way. Some are from corporations, some from interior designers, some from individuals. 

 I have been lucky to have only two commissions that were disasters. One lasted 18 months before the collector was satisfied. She expected many changes over the time line. It was finally finished. What a relief. The other went through three large canvases with no satisfaction to be found. I finally sent the client her deposit just to end the pain. She never thanked me or responded again. 

 Commissions take patience and understanding. It is always about the collector, never about the Artist. Leave your artist ego at home if you do commissions. 

 Country painters love their collectors…