Sunday Afternoon Painting with a Friend - First Sunday in 2025

 I had a friend over and we spent some time this afternoon discussing an upcoming project with the San Antonio Art League and Museum about art and the joy of breaking bread together.  It is an odd topic and my friend is ferocious about keeping us on the topic.

Well, we then turned to a little painting -- here we had choices too -- finishing up a Sorolla cover we were doing and had started last week or starting something a little simpler.  We both wanted to work on this Walkway toward the Sun.  We were looking for varying amounts of light, medium and dark.  I think it has a lot of dark, a medium amount of medium, and a small amount of light.  A focal point might be that lightest light next to the darkest dark, or a focus point, in this case both the railing/darkness edge,  and the bridge as a whole -- and the highlighted part, bring out interest to the bright sunlight.  That light is snuggled interestingly in the tree branches and the dark sky above.    Great way to spend a Sunday evening this new year.  Thanks for taking a minute to read.  John

Larger Landscapes -- the integrating power of the Wash

 Hello Dear Reader, 

I would like to back up a little in time to some larger paintings (36 x 24) that I completed using acrylics while I was in Colorado this past summer -- in this case my paint area was outdoors on a porch with eastern light.  These paintings feel different than my earlier landscapes.  Will leave that to you.

I have a friend in Colorado, Marjorie Cranston, who I had a chance to paint with oil pastels one afternoon, and she firmly convinced me that a painting need not take a long time to be lovely.  While these paintings took longer than the one, I worked on with her, the principle of working through problems quickly and thoughtfully still applied.  

I also discovered that the underpainting really contributed to the cohesiveness of the last two or three pieces.  This was such a treat to see!  The last piece was the Aspens at Boreas Pass and the next to the last piece was the Point Royal from Dillon Nature Preserve, both of which turned out better than my usual landscapes.    Let me see if I can add them both here.  John

Landscapes and Value

I have two landscape studies that I completed recently nearing Christmas of 2024.    One is Spring in Summit County, this is a view over Dillon Lake Toward Peak One of Ten Mile Range, and the second is a Winter Creek in Morning Light, a copy of a small Matt Smith piece.   I took a zoom class in Mid-November from the Tucson Art Academy Online by Matt Smith called "5 Key Steps to Achieving Convincing Values."   With his teaching insight in mind:

1)  have a value plan -- and paint from dark to lighter structures

2)  attend to value before color foundations

3) master simple subjects before doing complex paintings

4)  if the painting is more about color...simplify value, if the painting is more about value...simplify color  (Would be interesting to hear from you -- whether these two paintings each fall into a separate category!)

5)  get the value structure into the painting early on; moving from large to small; thin to thick; and dark to light.

Monarch on Sunflower

 

So as the year is starting up -- perhaps I can do a little better job of painting more frequently -- and gracefully.  

Its a New Year -- What Will Happen in 2024? Start with Playa

 

Hello patient blog reader, at least I hope you have returned to my page.  Let me show you a painting that I did for the San Antonio Art League and Museum, and that was accepted by the Juror Harold Joiner who is the gallery Directory at the Archway Gallery in Houston.  I got to hear him speak for a few minutes a few nights back and he was explaining what his criteria were for accepting paintings -- I sure enough though he was talking about this painting.  The theme of the show was Texas Landscape.  I tried to personify two major factors of nature in the Texas plains:  water and sun.  Of course, there are the towns -- and the agriculture.  The playa are remarkably important in recharging groundwater and in providing habitat for the region.  There are about 20,000 playa in the Texas high plains alone.  The style of the sun is after Hundertwasser, Friedrich Stowasser, an Austrian artist.  In fact I used his features as I styled the sun.  The playa face is from Benny Andrews, also an artist, who was recently featured here in San Antonio at the McNay Art Museum.  I considered originally making this artwork three dimensional in the Andrews' style.  

If you are in San Antonio, head down to the King William Area and enjoy the exhibit.  SAN ANTONIO ART LEAGUE & MUSEUM - HOME (saalm.org)

May you be Safe, Happy, Healthy, and Live with Ease every day.  John

Old and New

 

Well -- not in a creative moment, but in a practical one -- I have added this 18x24 painting to my Etsy page listings.  

The things I see on the doctor's walls help me to realize that this simple, monochrome outline of a mustang might be something that will fit a space -- perhaps a youngster, or an oldster.  Maybe.

This is perhaps the doodling around that is keeping me from more 'serious' play.  Yes indeed.  It may deserve a marker just for that point.  Hmmm, maybe less of this, although it is fine and accurate.

 

gosh this picture was a bit hard to find.....the piece on the Ogallala Aquifer after the style of Hundertwasser.   So -- this art tells more about water in the mid-west.  It does have a story, and a bit of a mystery.  Those are of course playa's, which seem to recharge the aquifer in a disproportionate amount, to their size(s).  There are of course the irrigation fields operating under unsustainable water laws...and the forces of sun and water.  It was a fun start -- into a new way of storytelling. 

So nice they changed the name of Ft Benning to that of a couple -- LtGen Moore and his wife Julia.  This is a story about community and family's contribution to our ability to succeed in our geopolitical efforts.  It SO resonated with my family and my upbringing.  https://www.fortmoore.com/

On this mother's day -- after these 50 years since her passing, it is very special to run across this today.

Namaste --

Five Year Update

Howdy!  

Thanks for being here for a moment or two.

I saw some collage work done by Benny Andrews https://www.bennyandrews.com/here in San Antonio at the McNay in January of 23 and got together with some friends on a 'collage' date and made a collage after the style of Benny which is shown below the Hunter.  Benny makes his collages out of fabric which he twists around to the shape he needs and lets it sit in a resin until it hardens after which it appears he painted it with oil.  I loved the way the piece came together -- it had perspective -- as Benny's do, it had the texture and volume, and I think it had even more narrative than his pieces seemed to have.  My guitar teacher's piece uses guitar strings and the music streams out of her guitar in a lovely green bow.  She is wacky and her cat, Basura, is her foil...with bristling whiskers.  

The first piece was one of the highlights of my regular representational painting -- the photo was a selfie by Ashley Jones -- talented and creative, and she shared it out on FB.  For me the narrative here was the overlap with mask-wearing of covid, as in a protection mode we had all become accustomed to.  However, for me, she was even more-so the hunter -- as an Army officer and shooter, she is smart, dangerous and deadly while paradoxically being beautiful.  I am proud that this art was selected at the Texas Friends and Neighborshttps://www.irvingartscenter.com/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/ show in 2022 in Dallas.  Gosh time flies.

I think my art is moving away from the latter and toward the former.  Next blog entry will be about my practical art experiment about the Ogallala Aquifer https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/the-ogallala-aquifer.htmlin a Hundertwasser style.  https://www.hundertwasser.com/en/art/paintings  with a touch of information about what I have learned about the importance of playas.  

 

Namaste my friends.  John