Friday, May 16, 2008

Dawn...

Everything is dark at the beginning. Especially the Skagit needs to become very colorful, it stays on the dark side at this stage.

Raccoon would lose the edge because the background is very dark at night. I'm imagining it would become just like a traditional portrait, balancing lost dark edges and highlighted part.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Painting for Skagit Valley

I decided painting the tulip field in Skagit Valley from the photo I took the other day. I didn't paint on site at that time. But the colors were quite impressive and I can still remember visually. So I broke the rule "paint on-site before paint in studio".

On the other hand, I didn't paint on-site often lately anyway. The size is 18"x26".

Saturday, May 10, 2008

13th Annual Greenwood Phinney ArtWalk

Even though I couldn't be a part of this artwalk in the North Seattle neighborhood as an artist, I got more of it by browsing a quarter of 72 venues today, which I wouldn't be able to do if I was showing my pieces. Each venue was local business along Greenwood Ave N and Phinney Ave N, from a salon, bookstore, yarn shop, restaurant to a church. Half of artists was juried participants and the other half was resident artists. The media was from photography, oil, acrylic, bronze to pottery and knit/sawing. One thing in common among those was contemporary. Now I understand why I couldn't make it.

I definitely enjoyed the artwalk. But I'm not sure if I would try again to be a part of it next year. Two photos below are some of shows that I liked.
Jennifer Phillips : oil

Ron Schmitt & Ric Hall (collaboration) : pastel

New Pastel Piece: Raccoon

After wrapping up Valley Creek, which would be on my web site soon, I started a relatively small (about 18"x18") pastel piece.

Since it's been more than two years from Meditation - Yellow-pine Chipmunk, I completely forgot how to draw animals with pastel.

It would be good for me to try something different with completely fresh mind.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Wenatchee Trip


Current "Valley Creek" is at the final stage. Then I didn't have any other pieces I could work on next. Luckily the weather was expected to be good today. So I took off with my stuff last night. Stayed at a motel in Wenatchee. Then painted at the site a little south from Chelan along Columbia River, or Lake Entiat this morning.

The cliff is on the opposite side of the water. I thought about the composition a while if I would put the water in, or not. But I decided putting the apple orchard on the center. Most of apple trees in the valley were full bloom. Workers were busy watering, fertilizing, or pollination. At the end, I felt I failed to capture and put shadows into this painting. I spent about 2.5h on site.

I would come back and paint some others. I like the balance between desert and water in addition to human effort to build orchards in the valley.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Easel Modification



I adjusted values of trees and mountains in the background tonight. It's getting close to the final stage. From here, I would adjust colors of snow. Currently left side is too cool and right side is too warm. This was my original intention but doesn't look like a piece of painting. I need to decide how to handle this problem.



A week before, I upgraded my main studio easel. Not by buying a new one. But by modifying the current one with a saw and a drill. I had been considering getting a Best Santa Fe I, which is more than $500. But the main reason I was considering this was my current Best Dulce's (that was about $250) back supports are not as high as I want them to be except for the center post. As the result, a bigger canvas like 24"x32" or more is not stable when I paint top corners on both sides.

But after thinking this many times, I concluded it's too expensive for me. Then I suddenly came up with an alternative solution as you can see in the photo. It costs only about $15 for hard wood, screws, nuts and bolts from a Home Depot.

Japanese ingenuity!