Thursday

Tonight we have the crit session, so its usually my job to send out the emails. We tend to switch back and forth between studio's, so one artist doesn't have it every week. In reality most of the time it's either at my place or up the street at Nick's studio.
This week I decided to send out a disclaimer with the notification

"Once again we have a crit night, this time at the lovely Rees home, come one, come all to the holiday festive occasion. Your friendly Crit Management Committee.

Disclaimer - "Friendly", is a term that in no way should be associated with the Crit Management Committees demeanor, henceforth referred to as the CMC, the term "friendly" is used in this case as purely suggestive within the boundaries of holiday expressions and in no way should be construed as the opinion of the CMC. Any false representations of the term "friendly" in association with the CMC will be met with swift legal prosecution.

The term "friendly" should in no way be associated with the monthly dues owed by all CMC members. Failure to pay said monthly dues will result in "unfriendly" legal prosecution.

With the exception of the term CMC used in the capacity of email communications (used by permission), all references found in this email are the property of said "Crit Management Committee" who holds the Copyright and exclusive rights to these references they represent.

Reproduction or use of any of these emails in any form -- electronic saved and displayed on a computer or "hard-copy" or as derivative works -- without the written permission of the Copyright holder, CMC, is strictly forbidden by US Copyright law.

This communication, including any attachments, is intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information which is privileged, confidential, exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you have received this transmission in error, please notify the sender immediately. Thank you."


Sounds rather official, doesn't it !

What can I say, sometimes you end up with too much time on your hands when you are finishing off your morning coffee. Today I was back on the Amsterdam painting again.


I first darkened down the trees on the right, they will be the closest to the viewer and I need to give them the most contrast.


The height of the trees on the right bothered me, so I thought they should go up off the top of the canvas, this will give the painting more perspective as you look down the canal.


Then some of the lighter greens were added to the foreground. Since the light is coming from behind, I need to make sure and keep the lightest greens at the edges of the trees, so they appear rim lit from behind. I'm using cobalt blue mixed with yellow ochre for the front of the foliage, it gives the leaves some definition in the shadow areas. The rim lit leaves are cobalt blue and cadmium yellow light mixed with white, just make sure its not too warm with the yellow.


Slowly I worked my way back into the middle ground with the rim lit trees, making sure that the yellow green is diminished as I move back in space.


The last half hour was checking if the trees looked right as they went back into the distance. I also added a little more yellow to the tree on the left side.

I'll let you know what they say at the crit tonight, I'm bringing the water painting with the three girls and the smaller boat painting. Oh, and of course a bottle of wine!


Richard Boyer