Fall Art Tour

I have been busy preparing the Chicken Coop Studio for this years tour, which is October 18,19, &20. The Fall Art Tour is the longest running studio tour in Wisconsin and this year we are celebrating the 20th anniversary. It will be my third year on the tour and it is always a hilight of my autumn. There will be demonstrations at each studio which was always one of my favorite reasons to attend the tour in the years before I got onboard. fallarttour.com

Sunsoaked Summer Post 11

This still life was painted during a couple of days of nasty weather. Black coffee and Bananas.

Sunsoaked Summer Post 10

While painting this yellow house, someone pulled up to talk to me, and blocked the driveway of the house across the street. Of course, the owner of the house came home as the gentleman was talking to me, and they were a little upset. I enjoy talking to people while painting, but please pull the car over in a decent spot!

Sunsoaked Summer Post 9

An old wooden boat painted under an overcast sky on the first night of the Door County Plein Air Festival. The boat is off of HWY A. I heard stories about painters being kicked off of the property, but managed to finish this one under the radar.

Sunsoaked Summer Post 8

Summer would be nothing without spring, and I am easily influenced by the drug that is painting blossoming trees.

Sunsoaked Summer Post 7

Here are some paintings from my backyard. There is a hammock by my studio, that sometimes I lay in and watch the clouds from. 

Sunsoaked Summer Post 6

A couple more from my fishing trip. The trees give some opportunities for dappled light, which leads to a shoot first ask questions later approach. I had 30 9x12 panels with me, and did more sketching than fishing during the week.

Sunsoaked Summer Post 5

 A paintings from my fishing trip in July. Sap green always makes it into my painting from Chetek, it seems that they tried to match the color of the trim on the cabins to the evergreens up there.

Sunsoaked Summer Post 4

This still life was painted under an overcast sky. My mother has a garage sale every spring. I purchased a bunch of crocks and fiestawear from my Aunt Marcie this year, along with a little white table. The local colors of the items seem to work well for colors that I like to mix. Some of the items in this still life were made right here in Reedsburg. The shell was not. We are landlocked for the most part.

Sunsoaked Summer Post 3

This painting was a demo piece from a color workshop that I gave in June, at my Chicken Coop Studio. I was working indoors for this one. The blue color behind the pitcher is the color of my studio floor.
When I thought about painting the studio floor, I figured that there would be floor paint in a few stock colors... easy to choose, right? When they told me they could mix any color I knew this was going to be a tough decision. I took in a swatch of Bonnard Blue from Senellier, and Sherwin Williams scanned it and mixed me the exact color. It works well for my studio, as all the warm colors in my paintings hanging on the wall pop even more against the dirty cerulean color.

Green Lake

Arts of Daycholah hosts a fun painting day during Memorial Day weekend. Last year, I still had my black painting car, which if you have seen it - you know it, and I got pulled over by a state trouper which caused me to be very late. He just didn't understand what was going on with my car! This year, I headed to Green Lake a day early, and had a chance to live it up with some other painters for the night before a full day of painting. The piece shown above, is available at Arts of Daycholah. I enjoy much of the work that is shown there and feel that Margaret does a nice job when selecting her artists. 

Sunsoaked Summer Post 2

This kid hangs out at the skatepark. He is going into 7th grade. I like that the skateboard is almost up to his waist. I like going after the major divisions of light and shade, and saying to heck with everything else. 

Here is another of the Hess sketches.

Sunsoaked Summer Post 1

Summer. It's now. I've had plenty of sketching over the past couple of months. These months are always a high key blur when I think about them in hindsight. Too many smiles to remember.

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This is my friend Hess. I usually am up and out painting by 7 or 8 in the morning, and then we meet up and go skateing about noon. He usually sits for me after we skate. Sometimes I can get two out of him. Hess is a good skater, he was really good a couple years ago, but ended up taking too many slams, and now he just likes to cruise around and not try anything too death defying. He moves around like crazy when I'm painting him, swatting bugs, answering his cell phone, and generally acting like the 20 year old that he is. I like it.

Transitions Post 8

Flowering

Reedsburg Neighborhood

Transitions Post 7

Forsythia

Field Study Reedsburg

Transitions Post 6

Backyard wood pile

Tulip Trees

School is out for summer. The top piece was painted one morning, before I had to be in class. The second piece was painted between classes, during the last week of school where all that is left to do is hand in the last papers and jump through a couple more hoops before they send you on your way.
I am studying art education, and got a 4.0 both semesters this year. Painting has made studying for school much easier. Painting in one shot combines an athletic performance with intense concentration. I have found that it is not anywhere as difficult to complete homework by approaching it in the same way, just get it done in one shot.

Transitions Post 5

Morning Light Magnolia

 The light was so intense that I couldn't see much when painting this piece. There are times when a wipe might be the right move, I don't know that this was the place, but I felt like trying.

Interior

Transitions Post 4

Debt

I painted this tractor after arriving home from Minneapolis about a month ago. As soon as I got home, I made an oil sketch of my wife, and then rushed out and painted this during the last hour of light. I felt good about the simplification of shapes.

Georgia Magnolia

Transitions Post 3

The Dead of Winter

Drying Time

A few more, showing the change of season. The Dead of Winter piece,  is a favorite plum tree that I revisited while walking around with my pochade box. I enjoyed the conversation that I had with this piece, and felt that I said a little less than usual, which I like.

Transitions Post 2

Storms coming over the bluffs

Signs of Spring - Flowering Trees

A couple paintings showing the change of season that happened withing just a few weeks this year. 

Transitions post 1

Mud Season

Dreaming of Spring Green

I upgraded my camera and am going through work that I created during the transition from winter to spring. I have a few posts loaded up and ready to go, spread out over the next couple of weeks.

The two paintings shown above were done during the mud season on Hwy 23, in the Spring Green Hills.

Winter

We have had a winter this year. It has been snowing and grey for much of it. I have been painting indoors more this winter than in the past, mainly focusing on some still life setups to play with compositions. It's mainly a time thing. I'm a full time student, and for the past 8 weeks have been spending my time pre student teaching in the public schools, in addition to my 18 credits.

Hunting for subjects will always be my favorite thing to do, and I'm sure that many outdoor painters feel the same way. We are all chasing for that new feeling, the uniqueness of that situation.  I'm lucky that next week is the final week of my pre student teaching. That, combined with the latter sunset means I can get back outdoors 6 days a week. I hope I am not coming off as complaining, but nothing feels better than painting to me. I have bad FOMO syndrome (fear of missing out) and driving 75 miles to school and back makes me a little anxious when the light is good.

That said, here are some paintings that I've done outdoors in the past couple weeks. Every color is out there in the blue landscape, and depending on the time of day they can be very warm.

Fuel Truck 14x18"

The Cat 16x20"

Hidden Valley Light 11x14"

Big Red 12x16"

You've Got Mail 9x12"

Throwing Shadows 8x8"

Workshops 2013

It's hard to believe that the painting season is almost here! I'm happy to announce another season of drawing and painting classes.

The schedule is:

April 5,6,7 Drawing Fundamentals and Gouache (Opaque Watercolor Painting) Workshop

May 10, 11, 12 Values Workshop

June 8,9,19 Full Color Workshop

August 24,25,26: Plein Air on Location Workshop

I am also teaching a workshop in Door County, at the Peninsula School on July 11 - 13. To view more information on that workshop, please visit the Peninsula School website at: peninsulaschoolofart.com

The venue for several of the workshops is the Chicken Coop Studio, which is a renovated chicken coop on our 100 year family farm. 

Please view the photos on this post for more information. Page three has several pictures from last year's workshops. If you have any questions, please email me at blksquirl85@yahoo.com

On Turning Five

Hwy S Barn

It is my birthday week. We constantly measure ourselves by how many years old we are, our age defines us. it would be impossible to separate from being __ years old. Remember in your early twenties, when anyone above thirty was a fossil? I am sure that many of us look back fondly on those days, but quickly snap out of it when we realize that we are lucky to have survived them. Reality.
More importantly (at least to me) is that this week also represents my REbirthday, the day that I started to paint. Now, I've been painting for much of my life, but February 11 2008 marks the day when I began really working. In high school and college, I was always drawn to paintings from life, thing is, I was never very good at it. I understood that it was going to take much time and effort to be able to paint landscapes outdoors, and I was alright with putting it off until the time was right. I envy those who were able to paint through these years, but also value my own perspective. The years after college were spent designing skateboard graphics and t-shirts, I had stuff to do before I could set up my easel all day. It's been five years of painting so far, and 2013 is my last year in my second round of college, I'm looking at it as another time of change. I cannot wait to finish school and paint more.

This was my first experiment painting outdoors after returning to  painting in 2008.  

This is my second outdoor painting after returning to painting. This old co-op remains one of my favorite places to paint.

This is the third painting after returning to painting. 

We cannot live by the past. The present is so transient that it almost does note exist. As a matter of fact, we live by the future; or more accurately  we are unceasingly preparing ourselves toward it, trying to anticipate it. From this flow all ideas. It is impossible to be alive without the effort to create and to  bring something new into concrete manifestation. - Nicolai Fechin

Art in Sauk County

The Sauk County Fine Arts Festival will be held this Sunday, February 3rd. This event will bring together some of the finest musicians and artists from Sauk County. This year I have been invited to give a demonstration and lead a discussion on painting, and the area. The discussion will start at 12:30, and is at RAHS. 

The piece above is one, BP Sunflower Farm, is of my favorites from late summer. We had a terrible drought this summer, and these sunflowers suffered because of it. They are normally over head high, but none of these grew past my waist.