Painting Update: A Walk in the Woods

I’ve been fussing around with the colors on the new painting, and think I’ve finally settled on a target here. I’m keeping everything in a middle range of values for now, going back and forth between darks and lights, gradually getting further apart on the value scale. This helps me keep them balanced as I go.

The orange outlines are only partially drawn at this point. The sky area will get much brighter, but I’m not sure how much darker the trees will be yet, and I might bring in more color variety there. So far so good, I think.

New Painting Started: A Walk in the Woods

I’m starting a new painting. This will be based on a few photos I made not too long ago in some woods nearby the house. I added the two figures. This is hard charcoal on loose acrylic primed canvas, 16 x 20 inches.

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My inspiration for this is the dappled light through the trees of many of the late series of paintings by Bernie Fuchs. Here’s a cropped version of one of them on the left. It will require much thinner oil paint than I typically use, applied in glazed layers, but that’s the challenge. I made a few tests of my idea as well as some texture experiments. Should be interesting to see where it takes me.

“The Big Show” Art Award!

Some good news comes from last night’s “The Big Show” art exhibit – a 3rd place award for one of my two drawings, “Greeting For the Weary Traveler!”

Although they categorized everything that wasn’t photography as “paintings,” even though there were also mixed media and drawings on display, I didn’t want to debate it with them. I was very grateful. I was initially worried that few people would see my work, since it was at the end of one of the side hallways, and not in the main area, but it didn’t turn out to be a problem. I received several compliments while I was there. I snapped these photos early before most of the crowd arrived.

Two Drawings in “The Big Show”

I’ll have two drawings in the exhibit, “The Big Show” sponsored by my local Arts Council on the Texas State University campus. The opening reception is tonight and the show will run until August. Stop by for a visit if you’re in the Austin/Round Rock, TX area over the next couple months.

By the way, as I was about to crop off the top 3 inches of “Watching Passing Clouds” as shown here I happened to notice a requirement for bigness in the “The Big Show” was no artwork under 16 x 20 inches. Cropping it would have made it too small, so I held off on the slicing. Always read the fine print first.

Three Drawings on Exhibit

Three recent drawings of mine were accepted into a group show at the local gallery, Artspace. The opening was last night when I snapped these photos. The show will run until June 30th. Stop by if you’re in the Austin, TX area this month.