General Chat July, 2011

Most plein air artists I've heard, always prefer the long shadows of the early and late day. I have the same wish about putting more pizzazz in my paintings. I look at some watercolor paintings where they put in so many vibrant colors from where, I don't know, and they are gorgeous. I wish I could figure it out and do the same in oils.

I try to play around with composition when the scene is too flat. But I am learning that the photos I take on overcast days do not make the best paintings:)

So can composition make up for lack of value range? Can you make an interesting painting with little value range, but with the other design elements in place? Maybe I will start looking at it a little differently and see what I can come up with.

I'll bet use of color would help, too, if I could figure that out better instead of trying to always match exactly what I see. I keep having to remind myself that a painting is not a photo, that it is more interpretive than that and therefore doesn't have to be exact in the colors and shapes, but when I sit down to paint, I keep reverting back to trying to copy the photo.

Hi
I like to look at Laurel Daniel's work. She's an American artist who does small paintings that are very well composed.
She somehow manages to capture a unique view of her subjects. Sometimes it's a tree, or a clump of grass, with very little going on, including limited range of value. Pretty inspiring, and she makes it look easy. Here's her blog:
http://www.laureldaniel.blogspot.com/

There are a few pages of posts you can enjoy there, going back a year or more.

Hi Folks;

Just got back from our vacation trip to Southern Oregon Coast, Portland area and return through Washington.   On our way we swung through Driggs, ID where the cancelled workshop was to have taken place.   The back side of the Grand Tetons (which we hadn't seen before) is also very scenic.   It would have been a great place to paint -especially if you had someone to point you to good places with good parking.   We also ventured to Crater Lake Nat'l Park (another first time visit).   One side of the drive around the crater was still closed by snow and rock slides.   My what a winter it has been here in the west.

Lots of photos.   Hopefully they'll lead to a painting of two.   But first I REALLY have to finish those that were started before.   I'll catch up on everyone's posts after doing all the other stuff that didn't get done before when we left .

Glad your back and that you had some really great places to visit.

watermixableguy wrote:

I like to look at Laurel Daniel's work. She's an American artist who does small paintings that are very well composed.
She somehow manages to capture a unique view of her subjects. Sometimes it's a tree, or a clump of grass, with very little going on, including limited range of value. Pretty inspiring, and she makes it look easy. Here's her blog:
http://www.laureldaniel.blogspot.com/

There are a few pages of posts you can enjoy there, going back a year or more.

Thank you, Alan. Her pictures are wonderfully, and in some cases, deceivingly simple while still capturing the light and the mood. She does make it look easy. And she makes such good use of such small formats! This is what I wish I could do - and still be happy that there aren't a ton of details! I guess if I keep painting, I might be able to eventually reach that style. I just really got started, so I have a lot of years to develop into that.

Thank you for the inspirational site!

Had a good show yesterday at Colton Country Days in my home town. That is the only show I'm doing any more so I've been trying to reduce the inventory of prints I had from before when I used to do 2 and 3 shows a month.

I'm actually saving money by not doing shows. They hadn't been doing real well the last few years and promoters kept raising their prices so that soon it was only the promoters that were making the money.

It was fun yesterday seeing all my friends and neighbors. It was pretty hot but I was under a tree. I still do this one because I can roll out the awning on my small RV and set up right under it...much easier than the "Easy-Up" tent I used to use.

Hope everyone had a good weekend.

This past weekend was a good one for local shows. Helen and I visited two. One was outdoors at a tourist centre. It was incredibly hot here on Saturday, with sun and temperatures around 31C and humidity values bringing it up to about 37C. Some beautiful work there, some paintings in WSO. It is always fun to meet other artists.

The other show was held on Sunday in a new warehouse/gallery. A wide variety of hand made originals, such as fired sculpture, photography, paintings and so on.

Both days were good for taking photos, so I had to content myself with doing photography and seeing artwork rather than creating my own paintings:)

It sounds like it was fun. I'm glad you met some using water-soluble oils. I did meet one artist who tried them, but was used to regular oils and didn't get beyond the initial stickiness of w/n. He said he might try them again after taking with me about ways to solve the issue.

Judy, the one we spoke to the longest was using Artisan paints, and liked adding Artisan Fast Drying Medium to his paints. In fact, he had applied a coat of FDM as a kind of varnish, to 'oil out' one of his paintings. It seemed to look alright.

I never know what to make of that kind of experimenting. I am not one to try new and unproven remedies, as I have seen a few of my paintings crack, and have had to either repair them or 'hide' them.

But it is so refreshing to talk with other people in my area who paint with the same paints that I use. Hey, long lost brother!!!!

I am finding that the oil in my Artisan Titanium White (in large size tubes) is separating out.   This makes the paint a bit harder to push around and it is really messy on the palette.   I understand that in the past there were some QC issues at Artisan (so said on another forum).   Unfortunately I stocked up on T.White around that time (W&N T.White regular oil paint was supposedly in short supply, which turned out not to be true).   I'm probably going to switch to another brand for T.White.

Judy; I've cut back on the number of exhibitions I enter.   The cost of shipping and the shipping containers was really adding up.   The containers protected the paintings well, but in some cases aren't lasting too long because of the rough handling they receive.   I haven't tried any shows with booths.   I don't have display boards, tables, etc.   I wish I did, but am really reluctant to sink money into this, especially with the art market the way it is.

Alan, I wonder how long he let the painting dry before using the FDM. I would think that he would have to wait at least 6 months just like with regular varnish.

Jim, It is too bad you don't live here in northern NY. We're having a town wide garage sale tomorrow and Saturday and I keep debating about selling a lot of my art fair setup things. I'll probably keep them for a while longer. You never know when they come in handy. Right now several of the metal grids are stretched across saw horses as light-wight tables.

I finally finished my loon painting last night if you want to take a look.
https://watersolubleoils.forumotion.com/t703-summer-outing#9001 It only took me a month mainly because of not taking the time to work on it.