Thursday

Today was another quick study of the Metolious River near Bend, Oregon.  Jim Peterson was saying that most of the works I do of this area sells, so why not have an image in the brochure printed up.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

The pressure is on now; Jim Peterson called from the Mockingbird Gallery and wants more work by Friday, at least the images for a publication. I sent him a bunch of figurative paintings, but he now needs more local landscapes.

So today I finished off this 16x20 of Smith Rock. It will still need more tuning here and there, but I'll wait until after the crit session tomorrow to get some more input.

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

I'm back in Salt Lake City now, back to the 9-5 grind.  Well I can't really complain after all it's fun to paint. 

The drive back was without snow, thank God. I actually went only halfway and stopped to visit an artist friend, Brent Nageli and his wife in a small town near Page, Arizona. On the way down to Scottsdale the road over to Page was just barely washed out from strong rains, a victim of the earths ever changing erosion.  They will be most likely isolated now for a year or so until they blast away a new channel through the cliffs to get a new road in place. In the meantime they have the back country road open for those hardy soles with four-wheel drive from the small Navajo town of Gap, there you take a dirt road for thirty some odd miles around to the back side of Page.

It was good to meet them again for a burger dinner watching the sun set over the cliffs of Lake Powell. In the morning Bonnie took their dog for a walk and Brent took the artist for a walk out to Horse Shoe canyon on the Colorado!

We just need to take a few steps back to get the better view in the camera lens!

Today I started on a new landscape from the Bend, Oregon area for my show in April.  This is the first session on a 16x20 of Smith Rock with the Crooked River in front.

Richard Boyer

Saturday

I'm watching the news with snow in the mid-west; here its going to be sunny and warm in the seventies. In the middle of winter Scottsdale isn't that bad.

Well the show last night was a little light, not too many people came by.  Ron sent out thousands of invitations and what happened was they came by the day before to buy art.  I guess the clients did not want to wait, so after adding it all up I sold 12 paintings over the weekend....yes !!!!


It was a good show!.

Friday

I'm in Scottsdale, Arizona now. The drive down through Utah went well, I had a feeling I was dogging bullets. Dark clouds seemed to be to the right and left as I slipped through the middle on clear roads. I stopped in Kanab for some lunch and pressed on over the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Here is a shot of the Kanab plateau looking north.

As I drove up in elevation the skies over the canyon began to take a turn for the worst. They said it was moving in from the south and I was heading straight into it. Here is a shot from the rim at 7000 feet.

The roads were still clear over the top and I descended down towards the Colorado River, watching the clouds build up.

As I got to the junction of 89A and 89 the road over to Page, Arizona had collapsed, the police and news people were all there with the road blocked off. I had chosen the right road in this case. If I had decided to go over Page to this very spot I would have been forced to back track 80 miles. 

I continued on to Flagstaff and started to climb in elevation again, the snow began to fall and stick to the highway.  The ice built up and traffic began to slow down. I was in it.  From then on it was a slow crawl through the high altitude mountain town.  I was hoping that all this would vanish as I dropped in elevation off the plateau.  I was so wrong in that assumption. 

I found out later that they had closed the interstate, but since I was on it, I was unaware. The highway descended down to Camp Verde at some 4000 feet in elevation and that's when it hit. The snow began to really come down, visibility dropped to less than a hundred feet and I passed by cars that were spun out left and right off the road. Several had slid off the side and down the ravine.  It looked like carnage all over the place.  I was glad I outfitted the Subaru with new tires, as I drove on past. Maybe it might have been the fact of more experience in snowy weather living in Utah.  Most of the cars I saw were two wheel drive with summer tires. I pushed on along a single laned path through a foot of snow; an eighteen wheeler was behind me. We drove through the valley and up the other side, where the weather let up a little. The roads cleared up a bit and we could relax for a while.  

Little did I know they were getting a half inch of snow in Scottsdale, something unheard of at this time of season.  Traffic was back up to the normal 75-80 mph when it hit again; another section of highway obliterated with snow and wreckage from automobiles.  

I finally pulled up to Ron Bailey's house at eight in the evening, the car covered in snow and salt.  

Tuesday

I worked a little on this painting in the morning, changing the light on the basket and lightening up parts of the tree.  This piece will be for Jim at the Mockingbird Gallery, so I have time still to work on it.

I have about six paintings to drive down to Scottsdale tomorrow, so the car will be filled up.  And as usual there is a snow storm moving in tonight which will make the driving ever so pleasant over the mountain passes. Why does it always seem to be the case when I drive down to Scottsdale?  This storm is suppose to center over Flagstaff, Arizona, so that will mean a winter white out for traffic. Once I get through the town the interstates starts it's decent into low lying Scottsdale.  Temperatures there are up in the 60's

Bring it on !

Richard Boyer

Friday

I finished off the boat painting, mainly the water in the foreground.  With the crit session tonight I'm sure they will find a few more minor problems.  I just have to make sure it dries a bit before driving down to Scottsdale.

Looks like I'll have to get new tires for the Subaru before  heading down.  When the snow flies, the traction is really bad and I've been through Flagstaff, Arizona in a snow storm. It took us several hours to get past it, crawling along at 20 mph.  I don't want to re-live that experience.

Richard Boyer

Thursday

I worked a little more on the stairs, playing around with the light as it hits the rocks.  Some flowers were also thrown in on the right side to add some color. We'll have the crit session tomorrow so I'll take note of some other changes that might be worth while from the group.

Since the larger painting is wrapping up I decided to try a quick smaller 12x16 of some boats in Stockholm. Just something for fun, if it turns out I'll throw it in the car and take it down to Scottsdale next week. 

The paint was getting a little thick, so I had to end the session for today.  I really just need to work a little more on the foreground water and give it a better feeling of sunlight on a few of the objects.

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

I added a few figures in it today and worked more on the stairs; so it is getting close.  Tomorrow I think I'll start looking it over carefully to see where I can play certain parts of it up, or diminish areas down.  Its the orchestration part now.

So looks like Dave pulled a permit for the San Juan River again in the beginning of May.  I wouldn't mind fining another artist or two to go along.  The last couple times its been just Neuroscientists analyzing the lack of cell phones in nature….right, talk about a waist of government money.

Might be better to sponsor a few artists instead!

Richard Boyer

Monday, Feb. 11

Ron at the May Gallery wants me to squeeze in one more 40x30 inch painting before I go down to Scottsdale for my show next week.  He is still working with some client who claims to be looking for several vertical paintings of mine; we will see about that!

I did a smaller version of this several years back and decided to try a larger one now.  The steps will be the real fun part, they were so broken up it will make the viewer take care as they visually walk up them. I'll try and capture the heat of the day on the stone as well.

Last Friday night my daughter played the lead role in Shakespeare's The Tempest at her school.  We were all so proud of her as she carried and captivated the audience with her voice.  She played the role of Prospero and had some two hundred lines to memorize for the production, all without a single mistake!!!

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

Back on the laundry painting today and hoping all over the place.  I've changed that sheet on the far left so it still is not finished off.  I want to bring some light glowing through it to add a little balance to the work.  The sky I also lightened up to give more of the feeling of sun, which of course lead to more light on her dress and hair.

At this point I have one more session on it to wrap up the odds and ends in the detail department. Then it will be ready for the crit session tomorrow night; after which I'll end up with a new list of things to change!!!

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

This 24x36 painting of Van Gogh's Cafe in Arles, Provence I did several years ago and handed it off to the Howard Mandville Gallery.  I though it would sell within a short amount of time, how wrong I was, it sat their for years gathering dust.  

I finally asked for it back and today started working on it, trying to figure out just what it needed.  I added a waitress and defined some of the figures in the piece; s maybe now the viewer is more engaged in the cafe. Sometimes it can be a little trial and error to figure out what will make the painting sing.

With these changes I'll take it to the critique session and see what some other advice might bring.

Richard Boyer

Monday, Feb. 4.

It was early on Saturday, but once we were up there it was sunny and warm. Kind of like going to the beach for the day, except that we were recording bib numbers as they crossed the finish line on the cross country ski race at Soldier Hollow.  They did provide us with lunch and gave each volunteer two free day passes to their resort. I at least walked way with a sun burned face and a good dose of vitamin D!!!

I decided to work a little on the sheets in this painting and have some fun with the light shinning through them.  There is still more to go on it and I have been thinking it might not be too bad to have a basket of cloths on the ground there bellow the tree, it might help to add a little interest over on the right side.  And I certainly can not forget the clothes line, can't really have floating laundry in the wind. 

Richard Boyer

Friday

From the critique session last night I was told that the anatomy on this figure was off, not quite right. They thought she was sitting at a table reading the book. That's when I realized I had a bigger problem, she was actually lying on a bed reading. Some how I had to show that in the small 16x12 painting. So I brought up part of her dress and legs and indicated the elbow resting on the hip more. Hopefully it looks better now and more like she is lying down.

Tomorrow it's up at six in the morning. I have volunteered to help with the race results at Soldier Hollow Cross Country resort. My daughter will be racing there at 9:00 and we need to be up there at eight in the morning, it's an hours drive up there :-/

Actually we did it last year, quite fun setting up everything and recording the times as they raced across the finish line. We were part of the action and I guess the agony of defeat for some!

Richard Boyer