Painted Pony

Painted Pony, 8 x 5.5 graphite pencil on paper, copyright 2010

This month's Virtual Paintout is in Clare County on the west coast of Ireland.  I've never been there, but Ireland is on my bucket list.  I didn't have anything specific in mind, so I just randomly picked a spot near the coast.  It took me only a few minutes to find this scene.  I might have to come back to it with pastel or oil, the colors are quite lovely - it looks like the photo was taken shortly after dawn.  

I'm a bit out of practice with pencils, it's been quite awhile since I've attempted a simple sketch.  It was refreshingly uncomplicated.

Should I stay or should I go

I'm having a bit of an internal debate this month.  Every year in December I get a notice to renew my web site, and every year I debate changing it.  There's really nothing wrong with the one I have.  My best pieces are on there, details of my biography and resume and so forth.  But it just kind of sits there.  There's not a whole lot of traffic that I can see - this blog and Facebook get a lot more hits.  I think that's fairly common since sites don't change regularly - they aren't really designed to be interactive.

So now I need to decide, is it worth it?  If most people are looking at my blog, should I even bother keeping the site?  Conventional wisdom says yes, because galleries and serious collectors like to look at a more serious site.  For now I am lacking in both categories, but I'm hoping to change that in the next year which makes me hesitant to abandon the site altogether.

Since I will probably keep the site the question then becomes, should it stay where it is or do I find another host?  I like the one I have now because it allows a huge number of images - up to 240.  For the same price I've seen a limit of only 20.  But other hosts offer things like email newsletters, art forums, direct buy, online contests and prints.

Another thing to consider is my ability to keep my domain name - would it be a big deal if I was no longer ek-excavations.com?  There are now a number of places online where I have this listed, I would have to go about changing each one, although again most of my traffic is through the blog and Facebook.  But if start getting interest from galleries, it wouldn't be a good idea to suddenly change my web address.  So if I don't change, I may be stuck with what I've got.

Decisions, decisions, like I don't already have enough to think about this time of year!  If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Storm at Dawn

Color Study: Storm at Dawn, 8x10 oil, copyright 2010

Another quick piece, this time in oil.  The goal with this one wasn't so much to get a high degree of realism as it was to capture a mood.  I recently blogged about the beautiful sunrises while waiting for the morning school bus, and decided to play with that image a bit.  In particular I wanted to work out how the blue, purple and gray shadows and clouds would contrast with the yellow, red and orange sunlight on the filed and in the trees.  The bit of bright blue undergrowth along the edge of the field was something added as impulse.  It isn't accurate, but I like how it pulls the sky downward.  I think this one has the potential to be interesting on a larger scale, as long as I don't let myself get to caught up in the details of the trees.

First snow

Snowbound 12x9 pastel, copyright 2010
SOLD!

The first snow of the season on the first day of December - a combination that could not be resisted.   These grasses in the snow are from a photo I took a number of years ago at our first house near the appropriately named Plain City.  We were surrounded by flat cornfields that did nothing to block the wind which piled the snow in huge drifts behind the barn.  After one such storm the kids and I bundled up went tromping out to take pictures in the evening light.  They were fascinated by the "sparkles" everywhere and my son was tickled that he could walk on top of the snow.

This pastel was just a quick study, taking about an hour at the most.  The hardest part was getting the snow to look like snow and not water.  A lot of a very pale pink seemed to be the solution.

River rocks

River Rocks 12x9 pastel, copyright 2010

I almost gave up on this one.  At about the half way point I realized the rocks just looked like blobs, there was too much purple and yellow, and it really wasn't amounting to much.  But I kept on it, hoping it was simply, as I've heard one artist put it, at the "awkward teenager stage".  It's pretty common for artwork to look awkward in the middle and for the artist to wonder, "Is this really going to work?"  It's a matter of seeing the potential there and pushing through the doubts.  A highlight here, blend a little there, tone it down a little here and pretty soon it was back on track.

I enjoy these still lifes with deep shadows and strong contrasts.  They make for dramatic images, even with simple everyday objects.  It's been awhile since I've done one of these as I seemed to have been focusing on landscapes lately.   But a recent purchase of a lamp got me back into it.  It's just a basic light, but it has a clamp and a flexible arm which means I can place and point it just about anywhere.  It's great for getting those dramatic shadows.  I might have to start poking around the house looking for more ideas for a still life.

Sunrise

Every morning I have a wonderful view out my kitchen window as the sun lights up the trees beyond our fields.  I couldn't count how many times I've thought "I should try to paint that."  One of these days I actually will, although I'm not sure it's possible to capture such a thing in paint.

This morning in particular was inspiring.  I don't have a photo to share, just an image in my mind.  It was early enough to still be dark to the west, with a heavy cloud cover.  As I watched, the sun found a brief break in the clouds just as it was coming up over the hills behind me.  The trees in front of me were lit in reds and oranges, particularly brilliant on the white trunks of the sycamores.  All of this contrasted against the dark purple gray sky.  It only lasted a moment before clouds moved in front of the sun, but it was one of those moments that makes me grateful for living in the country.

Painting Challenge

A dramatic soccer season has come to an end, just in time for a round of birthdays and the holidays, all while starting a new job at the arts center.  I did manage to finish a pastel last weekend.  I follow a number of blogs of artists I admire, and one of them is Bonnie Griffith.  Bonnie lives in the Northwest and her pastel landscapes have a wonderful depth and vibrancy to them that I am always aiming for.  She recently issued a challenge on her blog to paint a photo she had taken while on vacation in Montana.  We don't get outcrops like this in western Ohio and I decided I needed the practice, so I took her up on that challenge.  This pastel is the result:

Outcrop with Juniper 12x14 pastel, copyright 2010

photo from SE Montana, copyright Bonnie Griffith 2101

It's interesting to me to look at the two images side by side.  I see lots of changes I can make, but I think it might be best to leave it as is.  One of the most difficult things for me is knowing when to stop.  I have a tendency to get caught up in the details and end up overworking the piece.  This time I left the photograph on the laptop rather than printing it out, and blurred the image slightly.  I think that helped and is something I will try again.

Thanks Bonnie!