I am finally in a gallery!

I got some good news today!
A few weeks ago, I submitted this painting and some others to the Portland Art Museum Rental Gallery with the hopes of getting on their list.
They liked my work and I am now a member artist (or something to that effect).
They will be having a show that will include my work on June 22nd (Friday) from 5 to 8 pm.
There is an amazing selection of artwork at the gallery and it is a great honor to even be considered, let alone be invited to join in.
Things are starting to look up!
I will let everyone know about the details.

Ok, so let's switch to the other part of my life. 

As an architect, I have always struggled with the idea of the competition.  Competitions are nothing new in architecture and it is very easy to get people to submit ideas for free in the hopes of gaining fame and fortune.

I have had some time lately, and some new toys, so I entered an on-line competition for a new Hotel in New York.  The contest closes in a few days.  There are many entries and many have nothing to do with the requirements of the competition except that they propose some kind of hotel.

Here is the link if you are interested:

http://www.jovoto.com/projects/rethink-hotels/ideas

This is a thing put together by a group that does an admirable job providing a platform for these kinds of things.  The sponsor is a hotel outfit and they are offering $20,000 in prizes.  What they get in return is something like $1,000,000 worth of design ideas.  Design is a commodity and we are all quick to sell out.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to win, but I did not enter with the sole purpose of winning.

I wanted to keep my design juices flowing and test some techniques.

One of the new tools is a Wacom Bamboo digital tablet.  It is a digital sketch pad that lets you create hand drawn effects right in the computer.  Very cool program and for $60, it is a steal.

I have made this an entry in my blog because it is what I have been doing instead of painting.  It is creative and the concept proposes a hotel for artists and creative business travelers.  I wanted it to have a comic book feel.  Wish me luck.  I never know what they want in these things, but they can be fun.

I can paint better than you!

Ok, I have had a few beers, but these are pretty good.  These are the continuation of the previous blog entry.
I really like the lighting in the first painting of the street scene.  I used deep violets for the shadows and gray violets for the clouds.  This use of color in the darker areas has been working well for me.
I have been keeping on my painting schedule for the past month or so since I have been relieved of my work duties.
If I could make a living as an artist, I think that I would try to do it.
You may know this already, but artists don't make much money. There are a lot of really good artists in Portland and very few make a real living.  If they are, they either have a significant other who helps pay the bills or they have a day job teaching or slinging lattes.  In my case, I will hopefully be doing some great small architecture projects with my wife.

More painting starts

I am very excited about these next two paintings.  The first is of a ship at the Willamette and I was happy to see how the composition came out in the tonal study.  This is an 18" x 18" on canvas.

River Ship

My daughter talked me into doing this painting of a row of california style homes in SE Portland.  It is a larger (36" x 36") painting and the light and darks work well.  There is a lot of sky, which will be tricky to paint around the power lines.  I did my usual 4x4 grid to lay things out and made a goof early on.  If you click on the image and see it enlarged, you will see ghost lines above the house at the right.  I started painting it in the wrong place.  It just goes to show that no matter how many times you do stuff, there is always the chance to mess up.  Bigger paintings can amplify this potential for error.  I rubbed some mineral spirits on the goof and just kept painting.

Pink Houses

Smaller Paintings

Here are a couple of new paintings that I hope to sell on Etsy.  The first one is 7" x 9" and is of the Burnside Bridge.  This has a lot more detail than I had hoped for this size of painting.  It took me a lot longer than I thought,  so I have figured out that I need to focus in on things for these.

Burnside Bridge

 This painting of my wife Jennifer works fairly well, but her face is a bit too severe and I think that I am going to try to fix it.

Jen in the Sun