Friday, November 13, 2009

Wednesday




With a coffee in my hand this morning I started working on a smaller 11x14 coastal painting that needed a few changes. Southam Gallery, my local gallery here in Salt Lake City is having a show this weekend and they wanted a few more beach scenes. They seem to do well with European subject matter, this might be because of Salt Lake's large population of people who went on missions to Europe. They seem to identify more with the subject matter.


In the painting above, I had a white hat on the girl walking down to the shore and it, of course, blended in with the background sand color. So she lost the hat and I gave her some flowing dark hair, which contrasts better against the lighter background.

After I finished off that one, I turned the radio on to X96, my local modern rock station and put yesterdays painting back up on the easel. I like having music play when I am working, especially something that gets the tempo going. My wife, upon entering the studio, will inevitable blurt out, "How can you listen to that stuff?" That's usually when groups like "Linkin Park" or "Breaking Bengamin" are screaming into the microphone. But what can I say, it keeps me active. I'm afraid classical and soft hits from the elevator music collection would slowly put me to sleep.

This painting I am working on from two sources, the first being a small 12x16 inch painting I did on location last summer, when we were up in Seattle visiting my brother. The second is a computer monitor next to my easel, every time I do a "plein air" painting, I will take a digital shot of it as well for reference. With the smaller painting for the correct lighting and the digital for all the detailed information on the subject matter, I have it covered to work on a larger piece.

Today I worked on the sky and background trees, trying to finish that area off as best I could. It’s more of a logistical process, since my foreground will be filled up with boats, masts and rigging, any changes to the background would be next to impossible. I just have to be sure to keep the atmospheric quality in the background so it doesn’t compete with all the foreground boats.

Richard Boyer

http://richardboyerart.com/

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