Two at Roby King, 10x12 and 20x20

This month Roby-King Gallery is featuring paintings with water themes.  Here are two of the four that I plan to show.

The first is from a magical place that changes every time I see it.  The rocks and water are always flexing their colors and shapes.   It's up the Kootenai near Florence, MT on one of the many painting trips to the area with good friends Cathe Gill and Bob Phinney.   The water doesn't just flow, it dances it's way to the valley below.  Hey, that rhymed.  See.  I told you it was magical.

 
This 20x20 is somewhere around Poulsbo.  If you squint you can see that its about some simple shapes of light and dark intertwining with one another.  Sky and water form the bulk of the light.  Distant shore, docks, boats and logs form the dark.  The trick for me was describing the water in such a way that it wasn't dominant but created enough visual interest to pull the viewer across the surface and into the painting.

A Few Repairs, 7x9

 

A true boatyard for working vessels is hard to find so when I found this fishing boat in dry-dock it called to be painted.  I like the contrast of the differing reds.  Actually, it's pretty much a red, blue and yellow piece with variations of red/brown dominating.   Amazing how a sense of place and size can be put into such a small canvas.

Bouquet for Tuesday, 20x24, and Sergei Bongart

Tuesday night.  What to paint?  I realize that most of my still life postings have 'demo' after them because that's what many of them are, including this one.  Still life is a great teaching tool, especially during the cold rainy winter months.   The energy a demo generates translates to the painting and, when they work, are fun to look back on and remember that, due to limited time, these are so much 'seat of the pants' paintings.

A closeup so you can see the colors, not all of which show up in the photo.

I stumbled upon this the other day....a photo of Sergei Bongart teaching the movie star Jeanne Crain dated 1962.   Many people have been influenced by his paintings and teaching.  You can find out more about him at his wife's website HERE or in the five star book by Mary Balcomb HERE or at the Scream On Line HERE. 

The Tuesday Painter, 11x14

How many hours have I stood in front of an easel like this madly muttering under my breath because something wasn't going right and I had absolutely no clue what it was?  On Tuesdays persevering painters get together to try and figure out what makes a piece work and another flop.  While I try to tell them what I know, much has to come just from doing it again and again.  It's amazing how we can learn the most difficult things.

Too much time giving them my advice doesn't leave room for those personal 'ah-ha's' so I keep myself occupied in the background.....and this student became my target.  It also allowed one more inclusion of the still life already posted a few days ago.

Since I have a couple larger pieces in the works I'm going to take a small blog break so I can concentrate on finishing them.   Later.