What's Important, April Newsletter

February Newsletter

"Somewhere near here."

This painting is currently hanging in the new Davis County Courthouse building (I think that's what they call it.)  Might possibly become a part of the permanent collection...lets keep our fingers crossed!

How to "Train" your painting.

How to ""Train" your painting.

Much like a popular movie that my kids watch (I haven't actually seen it yet) when we endeavor create new things, or change them to suit our will; frequently WE end up undergoing the greater change. This is true with my most recent venture into the world of trains.

I've been doing a series of train paintings recently. I find that they are a most interesting subject that often gets overlooked for the artistic qualities they possess; the dark and light differences, the shadows, reflections, structure, dynamic lines, hard and soft edges. All these work together to make an object, in a setting, that begs more attention. The beauty of the subject revolves around the possibility to express it in extremely abstract terms, or in a very literal voice. Much like figure painting it makes things interesting, and the possibilities of artistic manipulation and expression endless.

I find structure interesting, especially structures that deal with natural settings, trains make the perfect candidate. I have a feeling that structures will make a larger presence in my landscape paintings in the future.

Here's a recent study that just got sent to Mountain Trails Gallery in Jackson, Wy. I've got a larger one at the Springville Museum of Art's annual show "The Spring Salon" that I'd like to show, but I don't have pics yet...I will have to post that soon.

Consistency is the death of great art.

The Yellow Horse

The Yellow Horse

One of my newer pieces that is slated to be exhibited in International Contemproary Masters of  Fine Art at Greenhouse Gallery.  I'm happy to have been selected, I think this will be the fourth year I've done the show, it never disapoints.  There are always a number of very fine works of art. 

This piece is centered around an idea of balancing the man-made with the natural elements.  It seems that the longer the human race survives, the more important it has become that this idea develops into something real and sustainable.

This piece comes from a photograph that I took recently.  Strangely I did not venture out with the purpose of painting a train, but for some reason this is the only really great image I brought home with me.  Sometimes one doesn't know what the day's adventures will bring, I suppose what's more important is that we recognize the special moments when they cross our path, capture them and enjoy them. 

"Gold in the Hills"

First I would like to preface this post with a personal bias, this is one of my newest "favorite" paintings.  There are always a few paintings that I am particularly happy with, it changes all the time, this just happens to be one of them at the moment.  Being a full time professional artist these favorites come on rare occasion, for they must stand-out among the rest, for reasons not always clear to myself.

This painting has a great sense of harmony, probably one of the reasons I like it.  

Anyway, let's talk about color harmony.  Finding harmonies in artistic ventures is not all that difficult... honestly.  The simplest harmonies are monotones.  I would daresay that it's impossible for a monotone NOT to be harmonious, almost by definition.  Moving from one side (monotone) to the other (a full-color spectrum,) however, is a completely different story.  Most artists become comfortable with a narrow range of colors, the stick with them, and learn them well.  Not a bad idea, and helps paintings maintain a certain cohesive quality.  From what I've noticed the more mature the artist becomes (not just older, but more experienced) the more they tend to experiment with pushing the harmony envelope.  Perhaps due to boredom, or perhaps because he/she has mastered the other colors and feels that they need additional growth.  Regardless, the fact is that the closer one comes to a full-spectrum the more difficult harmonies become.  Nature somehow finds a way to push colors to their very limits in nature, while still maintaining a harmony.  Nature is the great harmonizer, but I find that perhaps nature plays tricks on us, as artists (or perhaps it tricks us into thinking we've been tricked. ;))  

Harmonies are achieved by identifying the colors in a given scene and restraining the compliments.  Sounds simple enough. But if you think about it, trying to achieve a "full spectrum" harmony AND restraining some of the compliments is impossible, since full spectrum means using all colors.  I venture to say that it is impossible to use all colors, especially given that we are lacking with our imperfect pigments.  Is attaining the impossible really the goal?  I say no, it's getting as close to it as possible, the trick is, still making it believable!

Kind-of a rambling post, sorry.