Wednesday

I’m back in the studio now painting away; actually I got home Sunday night and was painting on Monday, but feeling a little queasy in the stomach. Something just wasn’t quite right. I went to the model session at Rick’s that evening and produced this piece, but the whole time had this feeling of impending doom. Another words I was coming down with something, it’s been going around the family for the last few weeks, so I figured it must be my turn! That evening the joints hurt and I was shaking with fever. At three in the morning I found out what it was churning in me, the 24 hour stomach flu. I felt like I was hit by a freight train. Tuesday was a day of rest, feeling like something the cat dragged home, just watching mindless DVD’s on the television and generally just hating life.

Today it’s much better. I started the morning out with a steaming, stout cup of coffee, my wife shot me an inquisitive look, “you’re drinking that after a stomach flu?!” I was figuring 24 hours is twenty-four hours, it should be gone and out of the system. My stomach complained a little, but at least it stayed down. I was ready to go, so today I worked on a small beach piece, just blocking in for now. Southam Gallery is having a show on the 8^th of the month and maybe a few beach paintings might be in order.

Last Saturday night the opening show at the May Gallery went well; they sold another larger 30x40 and had a couple very interested in a 24x36 Amsterdam painting I did, but they wanted more time to decide about it, so we shall see. As they say the economy does seem to be picking up. They did put on a good spread with food and wine, so everyone was in a happy mood and we avoided all the freeloaders who come for the free wine on Thursday night gallery walk.

The real test will be how they do during the next couple of months. I’m hoping for the best!

Richard

Saturday

I'm down in Scottsdale, Arizona now and yesterday it was a sunny 78 degrees. I was out in front of the gallery working on some paintings and chatting with people as they walked by. Every time I am down here I'll just grab one of my paintings from the wall and start re-working it, Ron likes it since it's like getting a fresh new piece and it creates the ambiance of a resident artist at the gallery. Another words the place smells of oil paint! The show is tonight and the good news is that they have already sold three pieces, yes, yes, yes!!!

Now it would be nice if the trend continued and they would sell more at the opening event. Ron has a catering group that comes in to serve wine and go around with trays of creative finger food, so hopefully that will put people in the right mood to take something home with them!

Right now I'm on my way to set up the easel in front of the gallery again and attack some more paintings.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

I went back into the piece here and re-worked the figure on the bridge, the umbrella needed some work. Carlie was wondering why the umbrella on a sunny day? But I’m shooting for that old fashion romantic feeling with the white shade umbrella they used in days of yore! Sorry Carlie, it’s staying! A few walls were also darkened down in shadow areas here and there, as well as the stone bridge in more reflected orange light. Now it’s ready for transport down to Scottsdale, dripping wet as usual. This is why my wife complains about the car smelling of oil paint when I get back from these trips.

I’ll load up the car tonight and set out tomorrow morning for the long ten hour drive down there. Actually it’s not that bad, going down through the picturesque small towns along highway 89 through southern Utah, then over the north rim of the Grand Canyon down to Lees Ferry and the Colorado. From there it’s a few hours through the deserts of the Navaho Reservation until you hit the high mountains around Flagstaff. I really like the descent from the Ponderosa Pines at 7000 down to the Saguaro Cactus near sea level in Scottsdale.

Most of the work is already there, but I’ll still have about five paintings in the car along with the easel, the easel so I can touch up a few older pieces when I am there. People love to see the artist with easel out painting away on a piece. I’ll be staying at Dan and Elaine May’s house in the evenings and parking myself in the gallery during the day. The opening night is Saturday for my one man show. Ron, the owner thought it best than doing it on the Thursday night Gallery walk, which I kind of agree. The only people that seem to come in on Gallery walk nights are the kids looking for free wine!!!....and they never buy anything.

Richard

Tuesday

So here is my result from the figure session last night. I feel I need to bring some more cool colors into the figure. But the problem being, since we are painting in the evening indoors with artificial lighting, the model is bathed in to warm a light. Somehow I always end up painting faithfully just what I see and I need to get away from that and lie a little with some cooler colors like blues and greens.

I worked on the water today and added the figures on the bridge and yes, threw some flowers on the buildings. It’s not like I’m lying or anything, Brugge seems to be dripping with flowers around every corner to the point sometimes of being overkill. They actually have a committee that goes around making sure the floral decorations are kept up to standard. If you don’t take care of your flowers underneath your window, by watering them and pulling out the dead stuff, you might just be fined.

It’s a hard life living in these picture perfect medieval towns, but somebody’s got to do it!!!

Richard Boyer

Monday, Feb.20

I worked on the buildings to the right today, as well as some of the greenery of the hanging plants from the wall. Once I get the left tree more in place with some of the sky flickering through it will start to come together more. I want to make sure I keep the contrast of light and shadow. Once all that is finished then I can blast in the water and bring the reflection of some of the objects down into it. If I started to water too early on I might find myself re-painting it if things are changed above the waterline.

As it is developing along now I see that a figure on the bridge would be a nice addition, maybe carrying a white umbrella?

Tonight we have another model session at Rick Graham’s place

Richard Boyer

Sunday

A nice little snow system blew through the state last night and left a few inches on the ground here around the house, hopefully there will be several feet from this in the higher mountains.

I worked on the Brugge painting today; blocking in the architecture of the buildings, so now for tomorrow I need to work on the old bricks more to show the age.

Richard Boyer

Friday

The wife is leaving for Sweden today, off to win the Vasaloppet.

The Vasaloppet is an annual long distance (90 km) cross-country ski race held on the first Sunday of March in northwestern Dalarna, Sweden between the village of Sälen and town of Mora. It is the oldest, one of the longest, and in popular consideration the biggest cross-country ski race in the world in the 80th race, held on 7 March 2004, some 15,500 skiers competed in the main event. More than 40,000 participated in one of the seven different races held during the first week of March. The race was first run in 1922, inspired by a run by King Gustav Vasa in 1520.

Now the trip is also planned to be with her mother, brother and sister, not just the race. So that being said I will be the single parent to take care of the house.

We all wish her luck!

I started a new 30x40 of Brugge today and I am hoping I can finish it off before I leave for Scottsdale next Thursday.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

We changed the crit to tonight, since most seemed indisposed for Thursday. With that in mind I worked on this one. It was a piece I did about a year ago, sent off to the Mockingbird Gallery and subsequently had it returned back to me. People were complaining that there was something wrong with the horse. So I took more pictures of horses around Robert Duncan’s house in Midway and decided to re-paint a different one in. It’s still not done but at least a start.

Richard

Monday, Feb 13

My brother came down from Seattle to visit over the weekend and in usual fashion we had a lot of wine, food and reminiscing about family, the past and life in general. It’s amazing how philosophical you can get when you’re drunk!

I worked on the boat painting some more; mainly the face needed to be darker, a few anatomical fixes to her right arm, the shape of the hull needed some work and more paint was applied to the Lilly pads. Now I’ll put it aside and look at it in a few days time.

Richard Boyer

Friday

Well after the crit last night I was told to work on the snow painting a little more. They thought the house was too light in value. Now usually at a crit session you take everything with a grain of salt, either you accept it or say to yourself forget it! In this case they were right and I darkened it down a bit. I also found the foreground a little boring so I added some larger rocks to help with the composition. Now I think it looks a lot better.

Richard Boyer

Thursday

It’s a gray day today with rain coming down. It should be snow, but so far our winter has been a disaster with near record warm temps and they say global warming doesn’t exist?!

Here is an older piece I worked on today and ended up re-painting vast areas of it.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

Today I went back over some of the water lilies and added to the background water, giving it more reflection. The boat I also worked on and gave it more definition in the inside, still don’t know if I’ll stay with it as is or re-work some aspects of it.

I just sent off four boxes of paintings to the May Gallery in preparation for the show on Saturday the 25^th in Scottsdale. Looking forward to some sun and 70 degree weather down there! I also plan on bringing the paints down so I can work on a few paintings there in the gallery.

Richard

Tuesday

Here’s my result from the model session last night, just a quick 16x12 sketch in oil. On the whole I think everyone in our group did a good piece!

Some progress is coming along on the boat painting. I worked on the water lilies today which added a lot to the composition. It gives the eye something more to look at than just the girl in the boat. I was working wet in wet and what happens when you try painting green on top of orange is that it can get a little muddy when mixed. So I’ll have to go back over some of the greens tomorrow which will pop a few of them out more. And as somebody commented I did add the oars back in!

Now I just need to figure out the boat interior more and the figure.

Now it’s time to head up into the mountains to do a little track skiing!

Richard Boyer

Monday, Feb 6

We have our model session tonight at Rick’s.

This morning I decided to work a little more on the water and boat in the painting here. I’m still on the fence about the inside white color of the boat, it’s actually a painted fiberglass hull, which may not be the most romantic of subject matter for the painting?

Richard Boyer

Friday

We had the crit last night, finally got to sleep around 12:30. That always makes it hard to get up early the next day. Just one it would be nice to sleep in.

Any way I worked some more on the snow painting; adding more detail to the house and darkening the facade down a little. Some pinks were also added to the sky to help with the early evening light.

I also worked on this smaller 12x16 piece. It was an older painting I did a few years ago and decided that now was the time to attack it with the brush again. So I added a stormy sky, put a little more light drama in the buildings and re-arranged the crops in front. Somehow it gives you the sense of ultimate power when you can create storms, change around a landscapes and move buildings!

Richard Boyer

Thursday

Just worked a little more on this one, mainly the figure. Since that will be the center of interest I decided to finish that off first then I can apply a little looser style with the boat and water.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

I worked more on the trees today. But as I look at it the house could be toned down a little, it just seems to read of too much yellow brick. Just maybe a little blue would help knock it down.

This afternoon I dropped off four new works at Southam Gallery. The show they were having next week was postponed until March sometime; it sounded like they needed a break from it all. The move into the new location required a lot of renovation work, which they must have burned out on. At least they are saying the location on Main Street, just a block down from the new open air City Creek Mall is bringing in a lot more traffic. I also think with some of the higher end restaurants nearby, there is bound to be more foot traffic walking by as they wait for their reservations.

Richard