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Taken for a Ride,  watercolor on Arches paper,  $ 750.00

They say you can never forget how to ride a bicycle.  If you haven't been riding for a while, you can just get back on and you won't miss a beat.  I'm hoping that also applies to blogging.  Maybe you have noticed that I haven't posted a new blog for almost a year.  I don't know why I quit writing about my art process- I just quit taking the time to put into words the inner struggle that produces my watercolors.

I've missed this, though and as I'm writing this I realize that including other people in this creative endeavor is important.  We all want people observing our lives so we can share experiences and compare notes!

There have been at least two major events this year that have impacted my art.  

I moved my studio to another room in my house.  That sounds so simple but it was an incredible journey.  For the month that I was actively moving, I could be seen at odd hours of the day or night, with a glazed look in my eyes, wandering the halls with random piles of art materials in my hands.  Muttering unintelligibly to myself, looking for storage!!!  My new studio is smaller but much better organized.  

The other big event was an opportunity to be involved in restoring 100 year old stencilling and murals out of state.  I lived at the job site for 5 weeks and I felt so honored to be able to help preserve such a beautiful piece of history.  Because the client requires tight security, I could not post pictures of the work I did or take any photos of the inside of the building.  I hope to do more work like this in the future.

I think there is a connection between riding a bike and blogging- I'm so happy to be blogging again and I feel an uncontrollable urge to put on a helmet.  What does that mean?

See this painting and more in the series, Eugene in Color, at Vistra Framing Gallery at 160 E. Broadway, Eugene, Oregon.  First Friday Artwalk,  October 2,  5:30-8:30

3 Steps to take your paintings to the next level.

Seattle in the Morning, 22x30  $1650.00

This painting has been a threshold for me.  I have set some new goals for my work and I can see in this painting an attempt to stretch beyond what I have achieved so far.  The subject matter is new for me.  I'm trying to put together a collection of paintings for an upcoming show at the Inn at the 5th depicting Urban Street scenes.  The people are intriguing to me, they create such interesting shapes and the varied colors in their clothing create a confetti look.  This is especially pleasing against the large dark shape of the newsstand/coffee shop.  The design challenge was to create enough color and subtle structure inside that dark shape to allow it to "play nice" with the other elements in the composition and not become too dominant.  The buildings on the left will get more attention from me as I turn towards finishing this piece. 

Tips to take your art to the next level-

1.  Try new subject matter.  It requires fresh imagination and new techniques.

2.  Study with someone who's work you admire.  The learning process is filled with discovery and requires new disciplines.  Look for a regular teacher or take a workshop.

3.  Find a critique group.  Matisse said, "Creativity takes courage."  Join with artists who you trust both their professional opinions and their motives.  A healthy critique group can help you see hindrances to your work as well as celebrate a win with you.

Congrats!

Lavonne Tarbox Crone wins Best of Show at Watercolor Society of Oregon Conference.

  My favorite moment of conference was when we came to the gallery and found that Lavonne won this award.  She consistently  enters beautifully designed and executed paintings.  At the awards ceremony she received a standing ovation.  Yay Lavonne!!!

  

Joneile gets an Award of Distinction at Watercolor Society of Oregon.

   My second favorite moment was finding that I won an award as well!  It was such a great conference .  Linda Daley Baker was the Juror.  She was very strong on critique and gave us lots of great design information.  How great to be a part of this group.

The Great Pumpkin

Harvest- 15 x 22 Watercolor. $675.00

The weather is turning, the leaves are falling in my ponds, it's coming on to Fall.  I can hear the Peanuts music from The Great Pumpkin playing as I paint.

This still life was a blast to paint!  The creamy white highlights on the Turbin Squash play against the vibrant oranges and golds so traditional of the season.  The real drama is created by the super warm dark holes in the negative space around the produce.  Not truly black, this color is created by combining Perylene Maroon, Ultramarine Blue and a tiny amount of Mineral Violet.  What a lovely concoction!  Red creates depth in a painting and a few "hot holes" can make it seem as though you can reach right in there!  

To see this painting on display, come to the Pacific Rim Art Gallery, 160 E. Broadway, Eugene, Oregon. 

The show "Fall In Love With Oregon"will be featured at the First Friday Art Walk, October 3, from 5:30-8:00. See you there!

Not Enough Neon

Ivory Court Motel- Blue River, Oregon

You would think by now I would be pretty tired of neon.  The truth is- I don't think I will ever get tired of trying to recreate this advertising art form in watercolor.  I was driving down the Mc Kenzie River Highway, minding my own business, when I saw this sign in all it's rusty glory.  I stopped the car and began taking a reckless number of pictures right there on the side of the road.

Back in my studio I changed the sky from a bright blue to this overcast one.  After all, it's Oregon!

The biggest change was that I moved the top of the sign to the right so it's directly over the "M" in "motel".  This allowed me to make all the letters much bigger.  The power lines were made using watercolor pencils and a straight edge, and also a brush and paint for the wider lines.  Note how they fade out as they get to the bottom of the painting and finally retreat out of sight.  This creates an illusion of distance and perspective.

Boondoggling through a Painting

Are we there yet?

   How many times have you heard your kids ask that question?  Road trips and art-  they both provide the perfect opportunity to display impatience.  We have followed this image through three stages of its evolution from photograph to painting.  That's my current goal, to begin to see photographs as information for possible paintings, not paintings themselves.   I carry hundreds of images on my phone that I took because something caught my eye.  Was it the composition, the light, or the subject itself?  The danger ( and my oft repeated mistake) is to just reproduce the photo.  I jumped into painting this street scene without asking myself some critical questions about composition.  Our brains will accept and try to make sense of bad information in a photo, but not in a painting.  The branches of foreground trees looked like snakes in the painting, the street light coming from the left cut the painting in half, the street in the foreground was weak and didn't provide the depth of color to "ground" all those tall buildings.  Making all those changes has vastly improved this painting but it took twice as long as if I had recognized these compositional issues in the first place.

  I feel like I should know these things by now.  And I know my teacher is constantly amazed at how many ways I avoid immediate success.  Why must I always take the longest road possible to finally arrive at my destination?  Because boondoggling, or wandering around mindlessly, is characteristic of me in general.  I go to the store to get a gallon of milk and come back 45 minutes later with three bags of groceries and an old chair I bought at the second garage sale I stopped at!  

  The moral of this very long story?

 1.    Using the same brain you use in your every day life can be hazardous to your art!  

 2.    The shortest road to success in any painting is to follow the road map of good composition              before picking up a brush!

Who am I, anyway?

 This has been a busy summer!  I've had lots of opportunities to share and show my art.  

Good, but keeps me out of my studio more than I like.  It's always a delicate balance between producing art and promoting it.

   I'm finally beginning a new series of paintings that will depict urban street scenes.  This is the first painting and as you can see it's not done.  How do you know if a painting is done?  A good friend told me if you can identify problems in a painting, and you know how to fix them, you are not done.  I'm pretty good at fixing problems by now cuz I've made lots of mistakes!  It's identifying them in the first place that's tricky.  You can stare at a painting you are working on for hours and simply miss what's wrong.  That's where belonging to a good critique group comes in.  After seeking good counsel, these are the problems I've identified.

  This painting had some branches that were distracting because of the angle they were hanging, so I removed them.  The dark values were too strong, I muted them. There was a street light beam that cut thru the middle of the painting from the left in the trees.  That had to go!  Now I'm down to some issues with the cars and how dense the traffic is, and the way the street looks like it's falling straight down from the cross walk.  This creates an unsettling precipice effect.  A little stronger color in the foreground might be the pop this painting needs as well.  Much left to do.

   How does this relate to my identity as an artist?  I've worked on such varied subject matter- portraits of people and animals, still lifes, florals, botanicals, neon signs, landscapes, and now buildings...will there ever emerge something that defines my work?  I don't have the answer to that.  My watercolor teacher says- in the full bloom of an illustrious art career- that she doesn't think anyone can truly know that.  She says she doesn't even know that herself.   Maybe we will just discover what we love to paint!  And maybe knowing that will set us free to indulge ourselves in just painting what we love.  What would galleries look like if they were filled only with artist's most passionate subjects?

    I was recently challenged with this question,  "What makes you different than all the artists you know?  What makes your work stand out?"  Then I am supposed to make a list of qualities that make me different.  I'm still working on that list but it's a question we all need to ask ourselves.  Then, once you know some of the answers to that, how are you showing that uniqueness to people who view your web or blog site.  Deep, huh?  And you thought all I had in my head was colors :-)