Post 5 Arizona

Hi out there in the real world

Again sorry about my tardiness, the time is just zooming by way toooo quickly.

We have been in Desert Gardens RV resort since we ran freezing from Las Cruses NM.  It is 60 miles SE of Phoenix  and the same north of Tucson, beautiful park in the middle of a Saguaro cactus desert. Saguaros are the cactus with the arms (see paintings below). Anyway love the desert, everything here is a panoramic view of subtle changing colours, hope I don’t get claustrophobic when we head back to Huntsville ON. in all those trees and no room to view.

Louise and I have finally caught up with good friends Bob and Helen who we met last year in Rockport. We have been having a great time exploring, hiking and my favorite, searching out the local brew pubs and sampling their tasty treasures. Yummmmm good, but this is very time consuming and takes a lot of planning, that and the fact that there has been no bad days here in the desert since we arrived in Arizona is my excuse why I have not got around to Blogging. Today is the first rain we have had in 2 months and the temp is only going to be 60, what we have to endure. As one guy put it ” I’ve worn out 3 brooms sweeping the sunshine off the patio”.

About painting, lots of changes. I have painted 4 canvases and 1 quick sketch on board. You can view 2 of the canvases and sketch below, the other 2 are going to the land fill where they belong, ashes to ashes, not all paintings are worthy of showing, I do have some standards. I have finally got a handle on the colours and subtleties of hues here and I think the brush work is more conducive to the atmosphere  than the knives.” I'm a man, but I can change, if I have to, I guess. …” Red Green.  I am loving going back to brushes.

The size of the canvases have to change. I brought larger 16X20 and 18X24 sizes mainly for the knife style of painting and they are taking too long to paint for the time frame we want to stay in one place. We meet a great couple Bob and Carol from Northern California, they are staying on the site adjacent to us and are both artists. Bob has a good small set up for oil painting on 8X10 boards and I think this is the way to go out here on the road. He and I are going Plein Air painting this week before they leave next Monday. I have all weekend by myself because Louise is flying to Indiana to see the grandson Mason, oh and his entourage, Michael, Kelly and hopefully to elusive son Brian .

 Next year we plan to come back to Arizona but we want to travel around more, only one month in each palace, there is too much to see and do(now these plans are only written in jello). We will have been at this location for 2 ½ months when we leave on March 4 and still have not explored ½ of what is here. We are heading north to Dead Horse Ranch state park by Sedona then to Grand Canyon south rim park.

Anyway the rain has stopped and the sun is coming out again. Have to go.

Happy trails

Brian

Catalina State Park

5 miles 954' el climb

Old abandoned house

Sketch of Superstition Mountains

New Mexico Post 4

Hi out there again it’s been a while, a month and a half since my last Post. We were in Las Cruses, New Mexico freezing our butts off. Before this southern freeze it was great, but at 4100 feet and the weather patterns being what they are these days who knew. We took a trip to Fort Worth, Tx. to visit family and had to drive back to Las Cruses, 654 Miles, in snow and ice and they are not prepared for that here. The last 40 miles from El Paso to Las Cruses was at 15 mph in FWD, cars everywhere in the ditches. They closed the highway at Las Cruses. Need I say more -14C or 7F is not my idea of fun times. We are now nice and warm in Florence Arizona about 65 miles SE of Phoenix, it is raining here but not snowing.  Before the freeze,  Louise had me hiking the Organ mountains, White Sands National Monument and biking all over the city of Las Cruses and out to a small village of Mesilla really great old buildings back to 1848. FYI (http://www.oldmesilla.org/html/history_of_mesilla.html) Las Cruses is worth a visit, Great Mexican food, and lots to see and do.

I took lots of pictures there and painted one of the doorways from Mesilla ( see below) I love this Spanish type architecture it really lends itself to the palette knife but I have to learn not to put so much detail into the painting, I have to get looser, still too tight. I like the intense sunlight on the wall and streaming through the cracks in the door. This is a time when the sunlight works for me not a panoramic view where the sun washes the colour out.

The second painting is of Northern New Mexico, We went on a drive from Santa Fe to the Ghost Ranch area. This is famous for Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting of the ranch and I can see why any painter would be drawn to the area unbelievable south west scenes. I was lucky when we were there that it was a cloudy day with breaks of sunlight streaming through and illuminating the rock faces, tons contrast, heavy skies, deep shadows and really bright accents.  Still working on the reds of the rocks in the sunlight I am not happy with them. In Las Cruses there was a well stocked art supply shop so I pick up some “Indian Red” and I will play with this colour for the rocks. I do not have many reds in my palette do not need them for up north greens and water/skies, so this will be fun.

Note to all; when traveling try to keep you art stocks up, it is a long way between good art stores.

I am starting a new painting today. Yesterday between the rains I walked out from our site to snap some pictures of the clouds and desert with the Saguaro Cactus, turned to the east and there was a beautiful vibrant rainbow. Right place at the right time luck. I am going to try this cliché painting, but what the hey.  No red rocks in this painting but again contrast and colour, can’t get my head around the subtle colours, but maybe next time.

Well that’s it for now,

Brian

Mesilla

Ghost Ranch

Colorado & New Mexico

Howdy from Santa Fe New Mexico. Thank heavens for rainy days. Louise and I left Canada on Oct.5 to head for the sunny south Texas, via Colorado and New Mexico and this is the first rain we have seen. So I can get some work done, Oh I can hear you “first rain poor you”. Well let me tell you it’s not all fun and games out here on the road. We have to decide what scenic places we can squeeze into our very busy schedule, what lunches to pack or eat out. Then there is editing all the photos I shoot looking for the perfect painting. It is tough that is why I like the occasional rainy day

Colorado was great, we spent a week around Colorado Springs, took the train ride up the Royal Gorge, very scenic but I like the out of the way places so I dragged Louise on 2, 4 wheel drive roads that were only enough room for the truck so if you were unfortunate to meet an oncoming vehicle, one had to back up for a long way. The scenery was pristine and spectacular. I think I have a couple of paintings in that group. We found Victor, an old Gold mining town with a lot of the old building left to see and photograph. Victor still has an operational open pit mine, quite a scar on the landscape, and you can get there via black top but that’s not as much fun as driving Phantom Canyon  an old narrow gauge rail road pass that transported the gold ore to Canon or The Shelf Road that used to be a stage coach road to Cripple Creek. The Shelf is the road that really got Lou. She was on the outside with a  hundred foot drop with just enough room for the truck and a lot of twists and up and downs. All I saw was a rock face.

OK enough of that. Let’s talk about atmosphere. Colorado 6500’ to 10500’ the air was crisp and the colours the same. Sharp, vibrant with lots of contrast like I am used to in Canada and the Eastern US. Beautiful deep shadows, Alizarin Crimson and Prussian Blue.

 Now let’s talk about New Mexico.   First Louise will not let me near a 4 wheel drive road (I kid). We have been on some driving tours from our home base just south of Santa Fe. Taos was the first, we got up before dawn to catch the sun rising over the canyons on our way (see I told you it was tough out here, we don’t sleep in all day). The thing I have noticed in NM is the lack of contrast and I think it is all the light reflecting into the shadows from the exposed rock and sand. Not to say it isn’t spectacular, I am looking at the scenes from a painter’s perspective. The canyons are awesome, but subtle. I am not and neither is my style.

We visited the Taos Pueblo that should be named the Red Willow Pueblo for the wonderful peoples that have inhabited it forever, before the Spanish. It is the oldest continuously occupied village in North America and is still inhabited today. I took a lot of pictures and asked about painting a scene from their Pueblo.  I have painted one of the scenes that I photographed and to the wishes of the Red Willow Tribe this will be going into our private collection, if it is ever sold I want ½ of the proceeds to go to the Red Willow council to help their peoples. 

I started this painting (the only one since we left, too busy) in my usual way. I always do an under painting first to get the colour and contrast balance and correct any compositional errors. As I was painting with brush I could not see this scene lending it’s self to a heavy knife effect. This painting is 2 colours and white, Burnt Sienna and French Ultramarine Blue.

I am keeping the painting the way it is because I think putting a knife effect on it will spoil the scene adding too much texture. The next painting will be from Ghost Ranch where Georgia O’Keefe resided and painted.

More about that later.

Brian

Here are 2 architectural paintings of mine. First  the Taos Pueblo from New Mixico and then a saw mill from Northern Ontario.

Summer of 2011

Here I am again, Post 2. The nice thing or bad thing about blogs is that no one on the interweb will ever find them, so I can just ramble on about art and stuff to my heart’s content.  If there is anyone out there, Hi.

Sept.19 today. It is raining outside, that cold autumn rain, I hate to use the W word but it is coming and we are going, south that is. What I don’t like is that I have to wear long pants and the Peter Pan in me says NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Spring, summer and fall all OK, but winter, not if I can help it.

That being said I love the fall, I think it is God’s gift to those who have to endure a northern winter. The big guy’s palette cannot even come close to being copied, and I love using colour but he (or she) invented it. The northern Maples are just starting to redden and the Birches are turning that lovely apple green then into cadmium Yellow light. 

The summer was great being surrounded by the forests, streams and lakes I love here in the Muskokas, (Ontario Canada for my American friends). This was an eye opening experience to say the least. I only did 6 canvases but it was some of my best work ever. Studying the light, colours and contrast on a daily basis is priceless. Use to run up north here for a couple of weeks on vacation, take lots of pic’s then go home and try to remember all the little nuances of the scenes but now I live here well for the summers anyway.  The only other time my creative juices were like this is when I went to a Painting work shop for 5 days, where the studio was open 24hrs. a day and all we did was paint. I have never liked painting summer forests before, it’s is like my friend Jean once said “ too much F---ing green” but I like the new mix of blue and yellow that I am using now and the contrast is what I have been striving for.

My thanks to my wife Louise who encourages me to paint sometimes with a cattle prod. I use to try and paint Plein Air when we were out and about but I am not a Plein Air painter. I like to take photos and then work at my own speed back at the camp site. This works for us, yesterday we went on a bicycle ride in Algonquin Park on an old railway bed that has been converted for cycling (29K)and I can stop along the way for all the Pic’s I want. I pretty well know the ones that will turn into painting, but sometimes I am surprised by a small scene that I see then editing later. It works for me and Louise is happy because we do more Kayaking, hiking and biking to find the perfect scene.

Well that’s it for this post, no more painting until we get to Colorado and New Mexico. Have to get ready for travel. I tried to paint last winter in Rockport Tx. where we spent most of the winter, but I made the mistake of reverting back to using brushes because of the soft lighting do to humidity in the atmosphere. This does not work for me, I like the texture and purity of the oil applied with painting knives. I think that New Mexico will be more to my liking.

Here are some more of the summer paintings.

Brian

My first posting

Well this is it, my first attempt into the E-world.
My idea in creating this blog is to try to share my ideas about the creative side of painting and also a place to showcase my paintings with those in the art community and art lovers in general.

A short background. Born in England in 1946, came to Canada in 1953 all the usual childhood indiscretions ( too many to go into).  In high school we had to take art or typing along with shops, so I took art. I took typing later because there were good looking girls in that class. I loved the art classes and was hooked. The teacher was very liberal with rules and conventions.  Tried all the different mediums but oil was mine, just the way it flows under knife or brush. I took all the training and read all that the school had to offer.

Had to earn a living came along after High school; joined the RCAF- Areo engine Tech. Left the Air force; family came along.  We moved to Alberta in the 70's. for a job at an aircraft  manufacturer. I was still trying to paint but time restraints got in the way. So I took up photography. It's the same as painting, right? Composition, lighting, contrast and subject matter, but not the control like painting. In 1978 moved back to southern Ontario for 2 years then out to Brithish Columbia, north end of Vancouver Is. Unbelievable scenery, if you have ever wondered about Emily Carr's works, go and stand alone in an old growth forest, you'll understand.

Moved back to Ontario, work related, still doing the photography but started camping more in and around Algonquin Park and Killarney Park on Georgan Bay. It was Killarney that was the catalyst for my return to painting. My wife Louise and I canoed into OSA lake and camped on an island. Sitting there looking at the white quartzite rocks of the LaCloche mountains I finally understood the "Group of Seven" and their renditions of Canada's north.

So I started to study and find my way as an artist. This whole summer we have spent in the Muskokas and I have painted my brains out, with a smile on my face and glass of wine in my hand.
Well that's enough for now.

 Here are some new works.