Morrison

OK, I'm looking at the image of my painting above and am thinking that it looks like an early American landscape painting. Is that a good thing? It does not seem like a bad thing.

It certainly does not suck.

I would really like to be able to loosen up more.

Anyway...it is good (my wife said it was "good", which usually means that there is something that is bugging her about it)

I do like how the painting can out. The stretched out view shows the entire bridge span as well as the rivers edge. The sense of light is pretty good as it was on my way home from work at about 5:00 PM in the fall. Those clouds were really ominous looking and I thin that I captured the power of the sky here.

Reflections continue to be a challenge, but I did well here. I held back on too much detail on the water, which is good. One could paint ripples and waves forever...no thanks.

This 12 inch by 48 inch painting is for sale. Please buy it. It will look great over your sofa or flat screen TV. I am thinking $600 with a black hand crafted frame if you are interested. As usual, my photo does not do the painting justice, so please come see it in person.

Seriously, I need some cash for a better digital camera and to buy Mickey Mouse ears for my kids when we go to Disney Land in October. The only reason that we are going to Disney Land is that my wife has a fantastically generous sister who wants to get a picture with the kids and Mickey.

Painting Gear

A lot of people ask me about my technique. They seem to be impressed that I use oil paints and consider them to be difficult and messy to work with.
They also consider them to be smelly.
Ok, oil paints can be all of these things, but are not necessarily any worse than acrylics.

Brushes:

I use what are called "Brights" which have a straight, flat bristle. I rarely use any rounds or beveled brushes. The brights can be used to make thick or thin strokes.
The smaller four here are what I generally use to do my painting, with the larger one being used for prepping backgrounds.
I don't have a favorite brand per say, I usually look for a good brush that is on sale.
I like the synthetics vs. the horse hair brushes because fo their uniformity and soft feel.
















Paint:

I use walnut oil based paints by M. Gharam exclusively. My palette is currently what you see below.
Titanium White
Transparent Iron Ixide, dark and light
Van Dyke Brown
Yellow Ochre
Cerulean Blue
Ultramarine Violet
Ultramarine Blue
Cadmium Red, Light
Quinacridone Red
Olive Green
Cadmium Yellow












Solvents:

These are the things that have more toxic vapors. Thinners are used to make paints more runny and for cleaning brushes. I use a low odor type of mineral spirit, which helps make it easier to live with.
Medium is used to make the paint more fluid and hastens the drying time. This has an alkyd that is kind of nasty. I usually mix a little of the medium with my paint as I mix on the palette using the squeeze bottle you see here.
I keep a little walnut oil to use as a thinner as well. You could use the oil almost exclusively as a medium and to clean things. This would make it much less toxic.

I must stress that even though there are these so called "odorless" thinners, you need to always paint in a well ventilated space. I always have a fan going to move nasty vapors out of the room.
Even still, I need to take a break every hour or so to get some fresh air.
I wish that I could afford to build the studio in my backyard so that I would have more room and better ventilation.
















I will have to talk about how I clean my brushes sometime.
Actually, I destroy my brushes, and just happen to run them under water and rub soap into them, which while necessary, seems futile.

Waste:

While taking a painting class I learned that you never have to trash your used thinner. Simply pour the dirty thinner into a mason jar, cover and wait a few days. The solids settle down to the bottom of the jar, leaving virtually clear thinner that you can reuse.
I have a mason jar that I have been using this way for two years now and it is just now getting to the top with sediments.

I have an old board that I wipe all my unused paint on. (it is always a challenge to waste as little paint as possible). This board must weight five pounds by now and I intend to keep piling on the paint. In contrast to acrylic paints, which "clean up" with water, there is little waste added to the water system.

I try to use old underwear and socks for rags. Old under shirts are the best. Once they are nice and dirty, I do need to dispose of them inthe trash. I probably use my rags for vehicle and household projects than I do for painting, which is sad.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that oil painting is the greener alternative.

Morrison Bridge Begins

This is a long painting of the Morrison Bridge here in Portland.
I really like some of the panoramic images that I get from my digital, piece of crap, camera.
In fact, the panoramas seem to be the only good quality of the camera.
Anyway, here is an image taken by said camera of the latest start. This underpainting is around four feet long and I got a little carried away with the background base, which is all the swirling orange that you see.
Please think about buying this painting so that maybe I can invest in a good digital camera.

Musing

While I have not done any actual painting in a few weeks, I have been thinking about it.

Finding interesting subjects is actually a big job and takes a lot of time, luck and presistence.

As we get into the late summer and early fall, the sun starts to cast longer shadows. This is my favorite time to taake photos as the contrast is good and the colors warm.

I have been trying to get more scenes with people in them. It is very hard to walk around and snap photos of people and not feel a little creepy, but these are becoming much more interesting subjects to me.

In addition to this scouting around, I have the layout lines on a long canvas set up in my easle for a painting of a bridge. I was very close to starting the underpainting this past weekend, but just did not get in the mood.

Obsession and Madness and Making Art

Art is a funny thing. Artists are funny creatures and must be strange in some way to make them want to do what they do.
There seems to be a meeting point between madness and creativity which creates a calm place.
I know that for me, when I am painting, I feel very centered and calm. When I am not painting I think about things too much and am probably borderline obsessive compulsive or ADD at least.

I was reading a blog of an artist that I know. He gets a lot of shit from family and friends about his art and how much time he spends on it. He is very intelectual, or somes off as such and may be more self concious about how people see him.
He is a great photographer in a very austeir kind of way. His drawings are very simple, but are built of many layers and so many lines that you would think it would take a year to do one of his large drawings.
His work is very different from the work that I do, yet I admire the dedication to the art.
From looking at his work, I can't help but think that he is driven by some kind of obsession and that if he did not get his thoughts out in this way, he may slip into some mad state of being.
I would show you his work, but I don't know him that well and I would not want to offend.

This seems to be a common thread amongst most artists. The art is a mediator of the artists madness and emotion not just a pretty (or ugly) object.

I guess that what I am getting at is that the artist must make art or they will wither and die.
Make fun or roll your eyes, but they are doing what they do because the have to.

Marysville Paintings Done!

Yes, I finally got the last one finished this weekend.

Well, it has to sit for a bit to dry and I need to see if something is bugging me about it, but it is done.

Next I will oil out the last two and add a temporary varnish.

Then I will add the usual wood "frame" and see if I can get them up in a cafe.

I am very happy to have this series on the way out of the studio.

Sweet!

Young Artist

This is a painting that my four year old daughter Natasha made.

It really caught my eye. She did this all by herself with no direction. I think that it has nice balance and color.

I think that Natasha has a natural talent and hope to help foster her art.

She has taken to drawing and painting more so than my son and has much more patience for it, which is key.

She call it, "Flower Garden"