First Show of 2019

A few of my plein air paintings are in a group show at the Brown House Gallery in Springville, Utah. The opening reception for the show will be from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM this evening at the gallery, located at 274 South Main Street in Downtown Springville.

Here's a few examples of (mostly small) paintings I'll have in the show:

  

The exhibit will be up for the rest of June and Most of July. Come by and check out the show if you're in the area. Hope to see you there!

We See What We Expect to See

This happened a number of years ago, in an apartment complex I lived in at the time. One day I went to the laundry room to wash some clothes, as I normally did about once a week. A week's worth of laundry takes a few washers at once if one doesn't want to wait and run several loads of laundry through a single machine.

On this particular day I needed four washing machines. I selected four adjacent machines and checked to make sure they were empty. The inside of each washing machine is colored grey, with white specks. I was certain that was what I saw when I looked in each machine. Empty. One by one I poured a measured amount of dry laundry detergent into each washer. I heard the dry detergent rattle against the bottom of each empty machine - except the last one, which made no sound when I poured in the detergent. Confused, I looked inside the fourth washer again.

Oh no! Inside that washing machine was someone's freshly washed laundry, all black clothing, now covered with my laundry detergent! After having looked inside the previous three washers, I was certain I had seen the same dark grey interior with white specks in the fourth as I had seen in the previous three machines. But I couldn't have.

I had expected to see an empty washing machine, grey with white specks, so I thought that's what I did see.

My first impulse was to close the washing machine lid and pretend it didn't happen. Then I realized I owed whoever the black clothing belonged to some money for a new wash. So I put some quarters into the coin slots and started the machine again. Then I found another washer (really empty this time) and went back to my own laundry.

A couple minutes later, two men walked into the laundry room. Both men were younger - and taller - than me. And both were dressed entirely in black. I continued to sort my laundry as they walked up to the newly started washer, which was right beside me. The first man had a confused look on his face as he looked at the now running washing machine. He turned to me and asked,

"Is this your laundry?"

With a convincing display of disinterest I glanced at the machine and nonchalantly answered,

"Nope."

And continued to sort my laundry.

The first man in black, after staring at the washing machine for another several seconds, opened it, revealing black clothing sloshing around in soapy water.

"Dude! How long do these washers run?!" He exclaimed to no one in particular.

"Dude! When did you put those clothes in there?" The second man in black responded.

I tended to my own laundry as if nothing was unusual.

Probably less than a minute passed before the two men left the laundry room, still wondering to each other how that washing machine could still be running after so long. I didn't feel inclined to tell them. I completed my laundry without further incident.

What might any of this have to do with painting?

Sometimes the brain uses experience to interpret a scene in front of it instead of relying solely on what the eye at the moment sends to the brain. I won't take time in this post to explain how that works, but you can do some research if you like, perhaps starting here, or this article here, to get a better understanding of what I'm referring to. That, I believe, is how someone can look at a painting, and instead of seeing blotches of paint, see leaves on a tree, flowers in a meadow, or the glance of a person gazing back at them. This is what painters depend upon to get their paintings to work, at least at that level. It doesn't even matter how large or small those "blotches of paint " are. if they are put in the right place, in the right way, it will trigger the mind to "see" depth, shape, atmosphere, and even life where there is really only a flat inanimate surface.

Or, how your brain perceives things might nearly get you into trouble...

A Brunette and a Redhead

8" x 6" Oil on Panel

Two more recent portrait sketches from live models. Both were painted alla prima in oil in two and a half to three hours each at the weekly portrait sessions. The first one was painted with my usual "Zorn (ish)" palette of yellow ochre, cadmium red, ivory black, and titanium white.

8" x 6" Oil on Panel

For the second painting, I did something very different, at least for me. I usually keep my oil color choices for portraits much simpler than when I work in pastel. This time the model wore a turquoise colored blouse, and I really didn't want to miss getting the color contrast between her orange hair and the blouse. So I put blue on my palette. Not only one, but two different blues. The palette for the second painting was cadmium yellow, cadmium red, sevres blue, ultramarine blue, ivory black and titanium white. Sevres blue is an unusual color for me, and I only have it in the particular pochade box I used that evening. There are other blues which also would have served the purpose, but this one worked fine. Who knows, I may become more adventurous on portrait night and start putting more colors on my palette!

For more about portrait sessions, go to "Labels" on the side bar and click on "portrait", "sketching" or "drawing".

Last of Winter

This post squeezes four separate hikes, all in the same canyon, into one post. 

The snow is gone from the lower slopes and washes in the Wasatch Mountains, but quite a bit remains higher up. You might think that as winter changes to spring and moves on into summer that all would return to just the way things were the summer before. However, common to these mountains, a little bit of geological rearranging frequently occurs over the colder months. I've seen it as it has happened on occasion. For instance, this five foot wide boulder wasn't here in the trail last year:

This hike took place April thirteenth of this year, in one of my favorite canyons in the Wasatch range. Higher up the trail, the hike eventually became over snow. That's the way hikes go this time of year. Passing clouds put me in shadow sometimes, but some part of the landscape was always sunlit.

Every once in a while I stop to take a selfie, enjoying the outdoors as always.

I hiked as far up the trail as I could before postholing in deep snow became a problem. Then it was time to return. 

In and out of sunlight and shadow, the section of trail shown below was illuminated as I returned down canyon.

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A week later I was back up the same trail. The weather forecast that day called for a chance of rain. It was a chance I was willing to take. There was, of course, less snow on the trail. An avalanche tongue I've hiked across each time I've come up the canyon had shrunk considerably and was showing more of the debris it had brought down the mountainside earlier in the year.

Here's a view back down canyon from the receding avalanche tongue:

Dark storm clouds moved over the canyon, and an occasional clap of thunder echoed off of the canyon walls.

I didn't want to stay up that high if lightning became a concern, or if heavy rain became a possibility, turning the yet deep snow into a messy slush. As raindrops began, I donned my rain gear and headed back down the trail.

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On a very pleasant day late in April I was back up the canyon. There was, of course, less snow this time. The avalanche tongue had shrunk even more since the last time I visited.

In fact, snow had receded off of most of the rocky trail that had been covered by the avalanche earlier in the year. Standing on the trail below the avalanche tongue, I observed how smaller trees which had survived the avalanche had become visible again as the snowpack had shrunken here. Judging from those small trees, and how they had revealed themselves incrementally over the past weeks, I was able to see that the trail where I was standing had been buried under about eight feet of snow when I was up here earlier this year.

There were still large patches of snow in the canyon, but it was such a pleasant day for a hike. I had packed a jacket in my day pack, but it was such a shirt sleeve kind of day, I never needed it.

One more look up canyon as I headed back down late in the day:

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Early May saw me up the canyon once again. Down in the valley trees are well on their way to being fully leafed out. Not so up in the higher elevations, where trees are just beginning to bud. There was, however, much less snow than the week before. The avalanche tongue was growing thinner by the week.

The day had started out with very nice weather, but as it grew later in the day and I climbed higher, scattered storm cells began to form and pass over the mountains. None of the storm cells hit me directly, but I did get a little sprinkling of rain as one passed near. It wasn't enough to make me change my plans though. With less snow I was able to hike farther up the canyon, up into the elevation where aspen trees grow.

Not everything up here has the drab greyness of late winter. I took the right fork at the top of the trail and hiked to a nearby meadow. There I found large patches of bright yellow glacier lilies beginning to come into full bloom:

The meadow was mostly free of snow, though large patches still surrounded it.

This meadow is a good place to stop and rest. I planned to stay there a little while that day, so I built a fire of rocky mountain maple wood and cooked myself something to eat.

Apple cinnamon oatmeal, along with an outdoors-appropriate pot holder ;)

Here's the view I had to the south of the meadow:

There was plenty of moose sign in the area, but I saw no moose that day. To the north my view was of a mountain that rises nine thousand feet above sea level. As the sun moved toward the western horizon, shadows cast by mountains west of me began to creep up the sides of mountains to my east.

After dinner (which besides oatmeal, also included some whole grain fig bars), I cleaned the pan with snow and heaped a pile of snow on the dying fire to make sure it was out. Then I hiked the short distance back to the fork in the trail, and went up the left fork to a meadow I call "Moose Meadow". From there I had a great view of a mountain to the east, one that rises over eleven thousand feet high.

As I began my hike back down, I met a man who had decided, just on the spur of the moment, to hike up the canyon that day. He told me he was sixty seven years old, had always lived in the area, and was recovering from months of cancer treatment. We hiked back down together, telling each other our experiences in the canyon, and about animals we've met there. We saw a couple mule deer as we descended the trail. I dearly hope that when I'm 67, I'm still hiking in the mountains. Is 77 too much to ask?

One for April

12" x 9" Pastel on Sanded Paper

Here's one of the sketches I made in April at one of the weekly portrait sessions. I might have done it in oil paint, but went with pastel this time. Of course I'll use oils for sketching from life again, but a few weeks ago I went through my art supplies and remembered that I have rather large quantities of pastel sticks, pastel pencils and paper for pastels. So, I'll bring out the pastel supplies from time to time for the live drawing sessions. Maybe I'll even try a large finished piece or two in pastel. We'll see.

For more about portrait sessions, go to "Labels" on the side bar and click on "portrait", "sketching" or "drawing".

Three Women - More Sketches from March

12" x 9" Charcoal on Grey Paper

Here's some charcoal sketches made at portrait sessions in March. The first one is from a session at Howard Lyons studio. Materials used for these sketches were "extra soft" charcoal pencils, "charcoal white" pencil, kneaded eraser, and of course, ever useful sketchbooks.

10" x 8" Charcoal on Paper

The second drawing is from a session at Casey Childs studio. The last one is from a session at either Casey's studio or Howard's studio, but It's been a while and I can't remember which one now.

12" x 9" Charcoal on Grey Paper

For more about portrait sessions, go to "Labels" on the side bar and click on "portrait", "sketching" or "drawing".

Three More Color Studies

12" x 9" Pastel on Sanded Paper

I'm way behind on posting my portrait studies, so here's three at once! These are three more color portrait sketches from the weekly portrait sessions in March. The second one in this post was painted in oil, and the other two were done in pastel.

8" x 6" Oil on Panel

They're posted in reverse chronological order. The most recent one is at the top, while the oldest one is at the bottom of the post. I hope to post a few of the charcoal studies I did in March soon.

12" x 9" Pastel on Grey Paper

For more about portrait sessions, go to "Labels" on the side bar and click on "portrait", "sketching" or "drawing".