Friday

We had another figure painting session at Rick Graham's last night, 30 minute poses with the model. A very humbling experience. You try and capture as much information as possible with the paint brush, a rather daunting feat and sometimes next to impossible. The exercise basically teaches you to look at the big picture, capturing the gesture, correct form, color and value of the model. Any detail you have to throw out the window. My four attempts, not worth posting on the site, sorry!!

After the session we had our crit evening and I brought out a few pieces. this one needed some more work which I did this morning. I added more color to the sand and also introduced a few figures in the background. Now I feel your eye leads through the painting better.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

Okay I know the photo came out crooked, but you still get to see the progression, just tilt your head a little.  This morning I was working on the water and waves, trying to capture the evening light on the beach. The figures I blocked in with more detail yesterday, but now after working on the water I'll have to re-paint parts of them to blend in better with the evening light.

Richard Boyer

Monday

Last night they had the Santa Lucia festival at the McGillas School.  The kids are all part of the event, singing and walking around in a row with candles to celebrate the swedish holiday. For me its a good time to see old friends, seems like with our busy lives you just don't see enough of each other. So its good to have this yearly event that forces us to gather together. I just wish it was more often.

This 18x24 I finished off today. Last Thursday I blocked it in rather fast and liked the way it was looking with the loose brush strokes. The next day I painted the boat and worked on the lilly pads and it seemed to come together rather nicely. This morning I added some flowers and punched up a few areas with some more intense color. 

Southam Gallery told me they had a client interested in a water painting without a figure. I really liked doing this subject and can see it in a much larger format.

Richard Boyer

Friday

I mounted some of my quick figure studies on board and figured why not try to sell them on Facebook. They were fun to work on and I will continue to do more of them.

This size of 9x12 is normally $1200., but I'm thinking let try $500. unframed

This would be your chance to own an original for next to nothing!!!

Visitor at the Bath 

In thought

Hanging Laundry

The Actor

The Wood smith

Encounter on the Bridge

The Pick-up line

If interested anyone can contact me through my website and I could work out details.

Richard Boyer

Thursday

This morning I worked on the background, making sure things fell into place atmospherically. There was a morning fog that also added some depth, so I played up the contrast between the middle ground and those trees against the horizon. The grasses in front of the mist I slowly started to warm up with yellows, still making sure the color didn't jump out too fast. With the foreground I can now get much richer in color and contrast. When done the painting will have a nice atmosphere to it.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

I decided to add some more to the French alleyway. It definitely needed something. So I painted flowers on the left and a few potted plants on the right. The bike I noticed didn't have any mud guards, so that was fixed and the addition of a basket on the back makes the the thing look more in place. After all you need something to put your morning croissants in and think of the workout every morning riding up and down from those mountain top villages.

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

With the Oil Painters of America show deadline coming up soon I figured it best to start working on a few paintings, something I can throw up against the judges. I was rejected last year, so I got a bone to pick with them!

I'll go for two images both 20x30 inches in size. So the block-in here is of a scene I painted in Coos Bay.  While driving around with Dutch Mostert we stopped off at this river outlet where some kids were playing in the sand, trying to dam off the water. My kids would have wanted to do the same thing as well, so if I can capture the light it will make for a great subject matter.

Number two block-in was actually just 100 feet away looking towards the open ocean at sunset. there I was photographing a family playing in the water. Once again the bright light of the setting sun will be the key to a successful painting. the contrast with the yellow light was gorgeous as I remember.

Richard Boyer

Monday

Thanksgiving dinner was nice we had the family and some friends over and one of the best turkeys, taste wise that I can remember. As usual it was a lot of food and wine that went late into the evening.

I started this 38x27 last week, its an odd size, but the Howard/Mandville Gallery said they have a frame size for this. They wanted a replacement painting for the one they sold. It still needs something more in the painting, so I figured I would set it aside for a while until an idea comes to me.  Potted flowers or a figure might just be the ticket to balance it out more.  I think I'll bring it to the crit session on Thursday and get some feedback.

This morning I had some time to work on a smaller 9x12 painting to practice the figure. These two I shot in Amsterdam the last time we were there. It was the last day and we all went out for a beer at a canal-side cafe, we had a little fun with the cameras in hand shooting all the people at the place and walking by.  It looks like he was really putting the pick-up moves on her with the body language. The reality is they were a couple already. I made them holding hands under the table.


Richard Boyer

Thursday

A few days ago Howard/Mandville Gallery sold this large 40x30 painting. they told me someone was buying it as an anniversary present…wow, is all I can say about that !!!

So the pressure was let up a little and I decided to work on something fun for a bit. this little 9x12 i did yesterday. Something bothered me about the guy, so I painted him over three times until I felt he was right.  I hate that when you have a painting in mind, but it takes so much longer than you think to get it on canvas, at least to get it right!

I think I'll title this "Who is she?"  It looks like she heard some bad news on the bridge.

Tomorrow I have a show with A.D. Shaw at Southam Gallery; A.D. is actually coming out with a book about his work and will be signing it. I once asked him what the A.D. stands for, but he said he would have to kill me if he told me!  Obviously a first name he was not happy about so he took the abbreviation instead.  It will be fun to hang out for that at the gallery.

I re-worked a 30x40 painting also for the show

The town of Bonnieux, which I did last year needed a road I thought. Something to bring the viewer into the work.

This is generally a lot of fun, playing around with a painting and trying different things here and there. The road I like since it invites you to slowly walk along the gravel path to the town.

Richard Boyer

Friday

This one I re-worked a little after the last crit session. The water I think was too dark and needed to be lightened up, more sky reflections in it. Now it seems a lot better. The fly fisherman was also moved down along the bank more, I felt he was a little too small in size for the painting. that also left room for another smaller figure near the bridge, a fishing buddy.

I finished off my fun painting as well. The 14x26 format looks really nice. I just need to build a frame for it over the weekend. All of these need to be brought down to Southam Gallery next week for their show.

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

Three weeks or more have gone by with the duplex on the market and still no real bites. I was kind of afraid of this, heading into the winter. Seems like most people buy houses in the Spring and Summer when all the flowers are out and lawns are green. So every week I go by to rake up leaves and leap the yard clean. They are having people interested and they do go through the place with clients, but no contracts have been signed.

I worked on this 12x16 yesterday and today of the Provo River up in Heber. Southam Gallery sold the other 12x16 river painting I did with Fly fishermen in it. They said it was out the door quite quick after I brought it in, so now they want more river works, especially from this area.

This one I also started today, its a new format for me. I'm doing a gallery wrap where the canvas is wrapped behind the stretch bars leaving the side of the painting clean of staples. then I'll float it in a more modern frame that I'll make from wood myself. Kim from Southam Gallery thought maybe I should try more contemporary frames for those clients living in modern homes, as she put it glass houses.  The nice thing is that I can do odd sizes, I'm not bound by ready made frames. This one is 14x26 inches.

Richard Boyer

Friday

I finished off the painting of Charlotte today. The way the dress was blowing in the earlier version made her look a little fat, thick at the waist. And I know she would not approve of that. the wind was actually filling up the dress from underneath, so I had to lie a bit and take it down in the waist area. I also added more color to the dress pattern and the towels she is carrying.

The path has a nice lead-in which I like, your eye moves up it to the top of the dune where the clouds have a diagonal to counteract the hill.  I'll keep it around the studio for a while to make sure there is no last minute changes I want to do before handing it off to the Southam Gallery.

The Zions show went well last night. Several artist friends of ours sold rather well. They seem to be able to pull in the high end buyers at that event.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

I worked some more on Charlotte, mainly her face and clothing. I really like the way everything seems blowing in the wind, she is actually fighting it as she works her way down the path. Oh yes the path will come in later when I start working on the dune grass. Tomorrow I'll start in on the sky to show the nice diagonal in the clouds.

Tomorrow night we will be heading down to the Zions Bank show, a collection of about 70 local artist selling their work. Rick Graham and Karen Horne, both from the crit session will be trying their luck at the show. So the rest of use will come along to give them some support. They do a nice job with the catering, but alas being an LDS church event there will be no libations !

Richard Boyer

Thursday

I started a new 24x30 painting of Charlotte walking through the dunes. It was a windy day and I liked the way she is fighting the breeze.  Southam Gallery will be having a show for me next month, so I need to get a few pieces done for that.

On a side note I did manage to break a tooth this morning. Didn't even feel a thing, just an audible crunch as I ate some bread and discovered that half my back molar broke off. So this afternoon I'll see the dentist and hopefully find out what it will cost to fix..My insurance plan doesn't cover dental.

This small 12x16 I got back from Mockingbird and decided to spice it up a little with some Fly Fishermen. I'll send it off to Southam Gallery.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

Yesterday I was back to work on this 24x36 from Stockholm. I spent much of the morning working on the boats, with the light and shadow of the noonday sun. The fun part was adding the smoke from the one ferry boats as it drifted up across the buildings. It makes a nice haze to the work.

I also blasted in some waves in the water from a boat that had just past by. The direction of the waves adds a nice lead-in to the painting.

This morning I spent my time defining the water better and adding more highlights to the waves. I've been adding quite a lot of yellow to the water which comes from the sky; so now the paint is rather thick in the foreground, impasto as they say. I'm liking the way its turning out now, but still I'll set it aside for a few days and look at it with a fresh eye in a few days.

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

Back in the studio and it feels good to be painting. the trip to Moab was relaxing even though we hiked long distances every day. I guess it was good to get out and use the leg muscles again. Its a nice break from painting and/or in this case working on the duplex.

We drove down on Thursday, Victor and Lina had Fall break from school so that first evening we watched the sunset from inside Arches National Park at the Windows Section. It turns out that so did a lot of other people, the entire town was booked up with families on Fall break. The restaurants were all over flowing with lines out the door; so we figured it best to go to the grocery store and get dinner there. The hotel had a microwave and frig, so that was better than facing the crowds.

That figure would be Lina standing on top of Double "O" arch. We decided to do a hike in the Devil's Garden area of the park, the section at the end of the road. We found one of the last parking spots at ten in the morning, it was filling up fast with over weight tourists. Now I say this because most are there to just walk the mile and a half to the first arch, which happens to be the largest, Landscape Arch. The sad thing is about half of them don't even make it that far and after that arch 90 percent drop off from the hike totally.
  Our initial goal was "Dark Angel" at the very end of the trail; that would be the dark spire off to the left of Lina. Well we made it there and decided to go exploring farther past the point of the trails.

After several miles of wandering we came upon countless more fins and narrow slot canyons between them. One of them we were able to climb to the top and take this shot looking back at Dark Angel

Looking ahead the fins of Arches kept going on for miles. It would really be fun one day to get far in there and explore. Here we were totally alone and heard just the sounds of the birds.

On Saturday we got a permit to hike in the "Fiery Furnace" section of the park. This area is very tight and involves some climbing skills. Starting at the bottom, we worked our way up through some tight slot canyons. Many time finding dead ends to our route, forcing us to retreat to another parallel canyon.

Once you got up some of these so called chimney's the views were spectacular. After five hours we finally made it to the top via a rather exposed climb up a steep angled sandstone ledge.

I can't wait to get back there again.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

It's been a rough week I guess, emotionally and physically but I am hanging in there.  Tomorrow I'm taking a break and head down to Moab to do a little exploring with the kids, it should be sunny and warm. I'm looking forward to some exploring in Arches National Park.

Over the weekend I did this little 12x9 of my daughter hanging up some laundry, now it may still need some work, especially in the face. This shot I took over in Sweden with her cousins.

With winter coming up I also figured I will need to get some large boat paintings going for the galleries. This 24x36 I started yesterday. Shown here is just the block-in, where I establish my composition and values..  I did a smaller 11x14 version of this a while back for the Howard/Mandville Gallery and thought it would make a nice larger painting.

Today I went back into it and defined the buildings; trying at the same time to keep it loose but yet accurate. If you set yourself the goal of finishing all the buildings in one session it does force you to work fast and make some quick painting decisions with the brush strokes.

Richard Boyer

Friday

Duplex is all done and on the market. The Real Estate Agent plans on having an open house this Saturday, so we will see if anyone is interested. I need to head over there now to rack leaves. We need to keep it all clean for the clients.

I got several paintings back from Jim at the Mockingbird Gallery. With all the new ones he got from the Coos Bay show, he had quite a lot. So I decided to take a few for some of the other galleries.  This snow painting I worked on a little this morning, adding more broken ice in the foreground; yes, giving it that un-safe feeling to cross.  The house is from back east along the Erie Canal, with the warm glow of lights it has an inviting feeling.

I've also started up again with some small figure studies. this one is of Sofie over in Sweden. I gave her a butterfly to add some interest.

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

Finally back from my trip to Coos Bay and Bend, Oregon. The weather actually held out and I was able to paint under blue skies almost everyday. I stayed two nights at Dutch Mostert's place in North Bend. From his porch you can see the harbor of Coos Bay, he has one of those houses any artist would love to have, as they say in Real Estate, location, location, location.

On Sunday I loaded up my work from the summer show at the museum and then we went out painting with a few other artists on the beach. I was rather insisting on a coastal thing since we don't have that in Utah. It's not that often I can set up the easel looking out across the Pacific Ocean.

This little 12x16 I did from the sand dunes looking towards the sun. I was trying to capture the light on the water and my eyes felt it at the end of the session. The figures I added today in the studio from another photo shoot I did in July in Coos Bay.  It's actually two kids building a sand castle.

Monday morning I was off to Bend, Oregon driving along some gorgeous scenery. First up the coast to a valley with a river coming down.  There I follow the road as it winded along the river up a broad green valley, up to I-5 then north to Eugene. There I followed the McKensey River Valley all the way up to basically the source then over the pass and down into Sisters, Oregon.

Jim told me to paint a falls on the way up, just before the pass Sahalie spills out over a limestone formation. There I set up by this moss covered area to work on a 16x12; that is until it started to drizzle. The forecast called for rain that day.

The next day I went to Smith Rock to work on another 12x16; where I was entertained by climbers on the wall to my right.

In the afternoon I worked on a small 11x14 of some rabbit brush; I decided to title it Wabbit Brush from Bugs Bunny.  On Wednesday I went down to the gallery to spend the morning touching up some of the work I sent him in the spring. Adding a little extra paint here and there, it's something I tend to do every time I go to one of my galleries.

That afternoon I was out again following a road up into the mountains to another falls, Tomalo Falls. I liked the way the cliff was making the entire foreground in shadow. So I set up at the end of a little view platform not far from the parking lot with all the visitors taking pictures of the scene I was painting. The next day it was back into the gallery for more painting and chatting with clients. Most gallery owners like when the artist sets up in the gallery, it helps to draw people in, they are always curious as to what the artist is working on.

Later on in the afternoon I went out to paint Mirror Pond, behind the gallery with the setting light.

On Friday it was Gallery Walk Night in Bend with two sculpture artists at the gallery having a show. For me it was fun to meet some more members of the gallery.

The next day I was back on the road to Salt Lake.

Richard Boyer

Thursday

This morning I decided to do a quick 12x9 study. It would be nice to practice more of these. I seem to always get caught up in gallery obligations. This Saturday morning I'll be leaving bright and early for the 6:00am drive to Coos Bay, Oregon to pick up my work from their show. The drive is around 14-15 hours, but if it's any consolation I do gain an hour as I cross into Pacific Time Zone. The museum did actually manage to sell one small 11x14

A study I did over in Stockholm of some wooden boats. So it's one less to carry back. the car should be loaded to the top since I'll be doing some painting there on location as well as in Bend, Oregon for the Mockingbird Gallery. The trip will last about a week to paint outdoors and it will be fun to plein air paint again…that is if the weather agrees. the forecast for Friday and Saturday is rain, so maybe with some luck I'll drive right through the front to the back side and enjoy some sun on the coast.

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

I've been busy lately with the duplex, working and working trying to get everything done before putting it on the market. The list seems to never end. We did get new carpet put in through-out which really made a difference.  I'm now working on the front doors adding some fancy woodwork to spice them up a bit; still have to find a nice bold color to paint them with. 

This painting I'm been having some fun with. I looked it over and found it too blue/green, it needed a little more variation in color.

I went back into the piece and changed the color of the boats first off, adding reds and orange to the sail covers and pin striping along the side of the hulls.  Then I thought it needed a little life in it, so why not put some figures on the Canadian boat and a third figure in the center one. It will still need some fine tuning, but I feel its heading more now in the right direction.

Richard Boyer