Wednesday

Time to move on to the next show at the May Gallery in Scottsdale. I started this 30x40 inch painting today of Amsterdam. My first step was to block it in and figure out the composition. I'll have a few boats traveling down the canal also to add some interest. The light is from the afternoon sun off to the right, so I'll try and play that up as well.

Tomorrow is the big day, dishes have been planed and I'm off to pick up the turkey. Tonight I have Nick and Rose coming over to help make the stuffing and pies. The rest will be made tomorrow morning for the big feast; it will end up being the usual over the top kind of dining with good friends. 

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

Well today I haven't even started to paint.  

The Volvo didn't pass inspection because of a check engine light. so I had to take it down to the dealership, where they found out its the Catalytic converter,  $1800 to fix and a week out to order the damn thing.  

So then I figured I'd head to the Apple store to fix our laptop that doesn't work. My son told me the Gateway mall is where they are, well turns out the store is boarded up and they have moved to the new City Creek Mall. Half hour later I'm in their empty store with them telling me, one can not just walk in and expect service….you need to make an appointment…"but their is nobody @%#@ here, why would I need to make an appointment?"  I couldn't argue with their business model.  I'm figuring it might be cheaper to fix the stupid thing than to buy a new one.

So last night Rick Graham decided to stir things up a little at the model session and we had half hour poses. So with such short time one doesn't have the luxury of fiddling about. I had to blast in as quick as possible what I saw. It is a good exercise in how quick you can measure up your anatomy.

Friday

I sent off the image to my friend and got a small critique on some changes. Less yellow on the right side and tone down the green of the grass. So I cut down a few large Aspen trees and put some frost on the grass in the foreground.

Tonight I am having a show at Southam Gallery with three other artists; A.D. Shaw, Kimball Warren and Jerry Hancock. Time to get dressed up and hang around the gallery for a few hours. Actually it's kind of fun to meet the clients and other artists. Kim told me they have already sold an 18x24 painting

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

I worked some more on the commission piece here, finishing off the foreground and adding some more fall colors. The Aspen trees were made up, I figured it needed a little more autumn flavor. The problem with the predominant pine forests up there is you can't tell what kind of season it is. The Aspen help there, along with some ground colors.

I worked some more on Lillias, bringing the water to the left side of her legs and defining the reflections more.

Richard Boyer

Monday, Nov.18

Well Ken, who is a local tech expert was able to fix the problems with the blog site.  They had put a calendar at the bottom of the page which pulled the viewer down and also was responsible for misdirecting the links to a spam site.  

An old friend of mine contacted me a while back and wanted a painting done of the Wind River Mountains up in Wyoming. They use to go camping there every summer and he wanted a little 12x16 for the wall. I did a quick block-in over the weekend and started in on the background mountains today. The high peak in the middle there is called Flat Top Mountain, not too inventive with the name!

Richard Boyer

Thursday

I decided to have fun and paint a figurative piece here. Last summer we did a photo shoot with Lillias up in the Uinta Mountains. So I tried one of the images of her by the water. It still could use some tweaking here and there, so I'll bring it to the crit session tonight. 

My blog site is still being sabotaged by some advertisement on the links. So it looks like my option is to try and find a number to call for Google tech support..which will be impossible.

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

So now I've had it, some idiot has sabotaged my blog site with spam. Seems that every time you click on a link it takes you to an advertisement with no way of clicking out of it. I called a friend who is wise in the ways of "html" and he said he could look at it when he has some time. Personally I would love to send some kind of really nasty virus back to the clown who waisted their time putting it on my blog site. 

I did find out if you right click and scroll down to opening the link in a new tab, it will work. 

We had a figure painting session at Bryce Liston's place a few days ago and here is my result. Just wish I could get more done in the allotted time. But I figure if I keep doing them I should eventually learn something.

My next project was to add a small boat in the canal here to see if that would take care of the empty space lower down.  It does seem to help, but will be one of those things where I have to set it aside and look back into it later on. Maybe I'll see a different solution.

Richard Boyer

Thursday

I finished more off on this piece, but am still undecided if I want another boat going down the center of the canal or not. I know that would help to balance it off better, but maybe there is another solution I'm not seeing yet…Ah you say..That's why we have the crit session, and speaking of crit sessions, we have one tonight!

So I figure, let them give a little feed back, perhaps they might come up with a different idea.

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

When I woke up this morning we had snow on the ground, the first snow of the year in the valley. So with coffee in hand I took a few pictures from the porch at 7:30 of the first rays of light hitting the clouds.

We had a model session last evening at Rick Graham's house. Lillias was the subject; so for around two and a half hours we tried to capture as much on paint as possible…never an easy task!

Here is my result.

This morning I was back on the boat painting, mainly the front boat which will require some detail and care.  Two more days to get it all done, so we shall see..the pressure is on.

Richard Boyer

Monday, Nov. 4

Its snowing out the studio window today, yup…winter has arrived.

 I've been working on the row of boats, methodically moving forward along the dock, as each boat overlaps the next. I can see this piece will require a lot of time to complete with the rigging and architecture. I also need to address what I will do with the water; all of which needs to be done for the Thursday crit session.  Rick will be having his model session tonight, so I'll have some more evening painting.

Richard Boyer