A New Series For September

September 28, 2010

September was a month of fun and travel. Between climbing mountains, a family road trip to South Dakota and a weekend trip to run the Chicago half-marathon, I managed to complete a rendition of a Zimbabwean stone sculpture located in Cape Town’s Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. I took a series of photographs of similar stone pieces that are scattered throughout South Africa’s haven of flowers. Table Mountain and its wispy tablecloth of cloud fill the background. I struggled to maintain the value structure in this piece, and it was tough to capture the three-dimensional subjects’ facial features without them appearing too angular. I think I will keep this painting because I like the end-product and color selection of the African piece.

I have recently been working to reproduce a painting of a pastel drawing that I completed while visiting the Badlands of South Dakota. I took my set of pastels with me and spent one morning capturing several different views of the unusual rock formations decorating the canyon. This is the first of a series of three that I will attempt. I anticipate the next two will be more challenging to reproduce because my pastel drawings are not as good as my first drawing.  A successful drawing results in a successful painting… (I hope!)

Summer Fun…

August 31, 2010

The months of July and August allowed me a break from commissioned paintings so I had some fun with the following pieces. One July Sunday afternoon I went on an outing with my parents to Foxton, Colorado. I set up my transportable easel and began painting this landscape scene plein air and completed it from a photograph. I am not enamored with the outcome. The colors are good but the abstract piece has too many jagged edges. Perhaps the size of the canvas is what I don’t like?

On the other hand, my rendition of these colorful cactus flowers photographed during my mid-June hike into the sweltering Grand Canyon has received several compliments.  Figuring out how to photograph these varnished paintings is proving to be tricky.  Please excuse the awkward bright spots while I try to improve in this area…