Friday

The service for Jerry White, known as “Trundler”, or by some as “T” went well. It was good to meet old friends and catch up on times gone by. It was a time of many tears and a few laughs reminiscing about the man we will miss. Kevin Holdsworth read a nice story about a very long slog up in the Uinta's they did eons ago, recanting the adventure and the personalities of all those involved.

Afterwards we all went back to Penny’s house for libations and more tears. We promised to connect more with old friends and we relived the many trips of our youth. Connecting with old friends always sounds like a good idea. It’s the reality of our lives that sometimes makes us too busy to connect, never finding the time to get together again, so involved with our own families.

If I can collect emails I will try and gather us together for an evening dinner, just like the old times.

I changed the Grand Gulch painting around a bit, adding a little more color here and there.

And also worked on these two pieces which I will take down to Recapture Lodge in Bluff, Utah. Jim Hook likes when I decorate the breakfast nook at his hotel.

We leave this afternoon for some camping in the San Rafael Swell and then on to Bluff, Utah.

Richard Boyer

Thursday

Today we celebrate the loss of a good friend Jerry White. I’m not going to get into details but it was a senseless way to go and we will all miss him.

Jerry White
2/27/1960 – 3/22/2012

On to a happier note I started a commission piece for Jim up at the Mockingbird Gallery. He has some clients who own a few pieces of mine and would love for me to do a view from a place they spend their summers. The mountain in the background is Mt. Jefferson in the Cascade Range and it is actually a nice view with the creek meandering through the lush green grasses. They wanted the deck chairs left in the painting, so I don’t have much choice there.

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

It’s that time of season again, tax time!

Maybe if I just don’t file they will think I don’t exist; but then again that might be like cheating death. It’s not going to happen!

I worked on this 12x16 Anasazi cliff dwelling piece today. Monarch Canyon is about a mile long cut through the sandstone which ends with an over hanging cliff towering above you. Many of these cliff dwellings are up and down Comb Ridge in the four corners area and have made for fun hikes over the years for our families, and in this case for some interesting paintings as well. In the afternoon light, usually the hottest part of the day, the ruin is all in shade and stays relatively cool. Most cliff dwellings are facing usually in an easterly direction, so they would get the warmth of the morning sun and avoid the late afternoon heat. About a thousand years ago water flowed out of cracks in the sandstone behind Monarch Ruin and provided drinking water for the residence.

It would have been a nice place to hang out until the population exceeded the food production, combined with a prolonged drought; civilization soon turned into more survival instincts and the entire area broke down into chaos in the 1300’s.

Richard Boyer

Monday, March 26

It’s a blustery day outside as Winnie-the-Pooh use to say.

We are going down once again to southern Utah this weekend to do a little camping for Spring Break with the Strayer’s. Our destination is some place in the San Rafael Swell.

Then on Monday I’ll continue on down to Bluff, Utah with some of the kids to hang out and hike for a few days. Since we use to go there quite often, we know the owners and for a few years now I have been putting paintings up in their breakfast room. I’ll admit it is a little unorthodox not dealing with galleries, but with them not taking any commission percent out, why not. It’s a good place to show off my southern Utah work and they have actually sold several, especially from the San Juan River trips we do.

I decided to try and squeeze off two smaller pieces to bring down there with me.

So this is today’s little 14x11 study of some fall tree colors in Cottonwood Wash just outside of Bluff. I’ll adjust some of the colors better tomorrow and also work on a 12x16 piece from an Anasazi ruin as well.

Richard Boyer

Saturday

Jerry White rest in peace. 3/22/2012

Friday

We had the weekly figure painting session over at Rick Graham’s place last night. He said she was a really good model, another words she was able to hold a difficult pose and keep still. Rick wanted to try something with the arms up in the air, as she ties a long red shawl on top of her head. For most models this would be next to impossible since the arms would soon be going to sleep, but she managed to pull it off. The arms did lock up after some time so she needed a few more breaks than normal. That being said I wasn’t able to finish the face off since the arms influenced the lighting. We were able to take pictures, so hopefully I can finish it off next week.

I worked on the southern Utah piece this morning. We had the crit session last night up at Nick’s, after the model session, so it was a full night. But any ways they felt I needed a path of some kind leading up the canyon, so I opened up the creek more and now it leads the eye in to the left around the bushes. I also added some lighter oranges and reds to the rock to make it more interesting.

Richard Boyer

Thursday

It’s depressing; I didn’t make it into the Oil Painters of America show. Some friends of mine made it in, so I won’t be joining them on the trip to Denver in June for the show. That will be a major bummer as they say! These shows are always left up to some judges personal preferences, if they don’t care for landscapes, they don’t get in and so on. I thought the pieces were fairly strong, and was hoping at least one of them would make it in, but alas the reality is I will be staying at home for that show.

These were my two entries for what it’s worth!!!

Well today I worked on this figurative piece. I intend to work on a lot more until I get better at this career as an artist. Maybe I just need to get a thousand figurative paintings done before I see an improvement?

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

The snow is melting and spring seems to be finally coming back; which is a good thing when you are working outside with cold stone. We are building a sandstone path down the side of the house to the backyard and since it is in the shade it can be quite chilly, especially handling rocks. My son is the one actually doing the labor, since he wants the money for spring break, but as they say “I feel his pain!!!”

So back to reality. I did work on the water today and rather like the way it turned out. Now I still have some more work to do on the background cliffs. I want to pop out the colors more and define some of the bushes more; so maybe one more day on it should do.

Richard Boyer

Monday, March 19

We woke up to snow on the ground, winter is once again upon us: or at least until Wednesday when the temperatures come back into the 60’s. That’s the way the month of March is in Utah.

I worked some more on this piece, defining the sandstone cliffs and some of the background trees. Tomorrow I’ll get the water in the foreground as it runs over the sandstone.

Richard Boyer

Friday

Well I think it’s close to done, Bill Negro Canyon just outside of Moab, Utah. I’ll bring it down to Southam Gallery next week after it dries a bit.

My daughter had her ears pierced today, so we went out for lunch to celebrate. At age twelve its one of those things on the “to do list”. So now she has the posts in there and has to keep them from becoming infected over the next six weeks. This is most likely why I would never have my ears pierced! Maybe I could stretch my lower lip out and fit one of those plates in there like they do in Africa. That would make it easier to eat large amounts of food.

Richard Boyer

Thursday

I got hung up on the water. Mainly I just wanted to spend some time on it to get it right. So I really took a lot of care to look at the water and see the characteristics of it as it flowed across the flat sandstone. Most of the stream only seems to be a few inches deep so you get a lot of variations in the color.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

Southam Gallery called me today, anxious to get more paintings. I told them I was busy working on a new southern Utah river piece, which I can hopefully have done fairly soon. As long as I don’t screw up something along the way?

I worked a lot on it today, mainly the bare trees and bushes by the side of the creek. There are a lot of twigs that will add some character to the scene and then if I can introduce some light green buds to some of the branches it will have that nice early spring feel. That’s the great thing about March in southern Utah, the foliage starts to bud and you sense the coming of the warm weather. We have the crit tomorrow so I would like to get a lot more done on this so I have something to show.

Richard

Tuesday

Just never enough time to finish the face off in the two and a half hour sessions. Here is what I got done any ways; the face could use a good make-over job. Maybe I could work on that tomorrow from a photo. The big question is, do I really want to waist the time doing that or not, and after all it will just go on the pile of figure sketches in the corner of the studio, never to see the light of day again. I suppose it is the exercise in finishing it off that counts.

I worked a bit on this piece also, warming up some of the figures and surrounding areas. I’ll set it aside in the studio and see what it needs in a few days.

Richard Boyer

Monday, March 11

The show at Southam Gallery went well last Friday night; I actually sold these two pieces.

Old Boats in Stockholm 16x20
Boat Harbor in Stockholm 24x36

So now they would like a nice red rock painting to keep the ball rolling, so I figure why not do a few of them.

This 24x36 I blocked in this morning. It’s a view looking upstream at Grand Gulch in southern Utah. I’m going to lie and put more water in there. When we were down there, the only water we saw was a small stream, barely enough to filter out something to drink.

Richard Boyer

Friday

Still more to go on this one.

As you can see I worked on the older woman’s left hand and shirt. I also defined a little better the table and what my daughter is doing there. It still might be a little confusing to the American crowds, but in Sweden it will be well known that she is making flat bread; with a roller that has small knobs on it to make perforations in the thin dough before it is put on the skillet in the fire. There is still a lot more to work on, but that will wait until next week.

I have the show tonight down at Southam Gallery to go to. Lets hope for a good evening!!!

Richard Boyer

Thursday

In keeping with the conservative attitudes in this great State of ours, I have made sure plenty of cloths are on these women. We even have the hair covered. I was suggesting to my wife that maybe a Burka might be better, but she told me to knock it off!

I did work more on the faces and some of the clothing, since that will be the center of interest I like to finish it off first. I would really like to have the light just flooding into the center there and illuminating the figures as much as possible.

Tomorrow night I have a group show at Southam Gallery between 6 and 8 in the evening, So I’ll be hanging out there answering questions about the fine art of painting. Mainly Kim and Linda want the artists there so they can meet the clients. It’s always good when they can attach a face to their paintings. If anyone is around please feel free to drop by and say hello. There address is 157 South Main Street in downtown Salt Lake City

http://www.southamgallery.com/index.html

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

What goes around comes around, again !!!

I have my daughter’s cold; these persistent little viruses seem to be hanging around the house for a long time. And because of that I didn’t get much painting done today.

Here is Monday’s figure session at Rick’s place. I tried a full figure so I had to race to get it done.

Richard

Monday, March 5.

I started an 18x24 painting of Skagen, a park on one of the islands in Stockholm where they have collected old buildings from around the country and set them up as a village. All the employees there are required to dress up in period costumes, so when you enter into the different structures it’s like going back in time. Perfect subject matter for the artist!

Here my daughter is being taught how to make Swedish flat bread, then they put it on a skillet in the fire and get to taste the results a few minutes later.

Richard Boyer

Friday

We had the crit session last night and I brought out these two 12x16’s.

The first here I added another figure, the little brother, who is trailing behind the older sisters. It seemed a little more harmonious with three figures instead of two.

With the red umbrella painting I changed around the figures totally. The woman I painted in larger and moved the two kids farther down the hill to balance out the composition better. That of course led to re-painting areas of the dune grass. Seems to always be the case when you change something around it affects some other thing and that then needs to be addressed.

The first 90 percent of the painting can go quick, it’s that remaining ten percent that can take weeks if not months!

Richard Boyer

Thursday

I finished off the beach painting with the red umbrella and added a few figures for interest. The dune grass was fun to work on, it has a nice shiny surface when turned the right direction to the sun, which helps to make it more interesting to look at.

This next piece I had done for the gallery last year but the girls were in bikinis and of course it didn’t sell. As Linda from the Southam Gallery say’s, here in Utah you really need to cover up the skin! Actually it was down at the May Gallery in Scottsdale, but I’m sure the general population was thinking the same there as well.

So I put some cloths on them and made them more respectable!!!

Anders Zorn would have made them all naked; maybe I should just do that next time.

Richard Boyer