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