Friday

I finished off this 40x40 inch painting today from up in City Creek canyon looking down towards the city.  I liked the way the winter sky is making everything in blues and purples. I played up the lights in the valley to show that coming of evening. The tall building to the left is the LDS church office building. The domed building to the right would be the Capital. So I figured lets call the painting "Separation of Church and State"

This was really fun and fast to paint. I need to go out and get some more reference material so I can do more of these.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

I decided to block in a painting of the McKenzie River for Mockingbird gallery. I have a show coming up in April so I need to get a few things ready for that. Maybe after doing those larger cityscapes with big brushes I may be able to keep the same style with this landscape. Its an odd size at 28x44 but I really like that format. the problem will be if I need a frame for it, being an odd size I will have to make something simple, or else pay some hug amount for a specialty frame.

Richard Boyer

Monday

We cleaned up on one of those "Going out of business art store sales". Reuel's art store in Salt Lake City had on Saturday their warehouse clearance sale. So me and several other artists went down there and picked up brushes, oil paints and canvases for next to nothing. I can honestly say I am stocked-up for a while now.

I finished off my second challenge with a 36x48 night view of downtown Salt Lake City looking south along Main Street from Temple Square. I'll have to see if Southam Gallery can handle two of these now in their window. With all these extra canvases I picked up for next to nothing I can continue to try more of these.

Richard Boyer

Friday

Its been a while since I last posted anything, busy with life I guess. We finally did sell the duplex, much of which went to pay off the debt on another loan. A new chapter in life now, not being a landlord. It was actually my first house I bought way back in 1988, filled with a lot of memories. I have some mixed emotions about selling it :-/

From the crit session a few weeks ago I was challenged to try something new and different, something bold with a pallet knife, something out of the box to say.

So, I was down at the Utrecht art store and saw some large 36x48 canvases and decided to try a night view of Salt Lake City. Okay I admit it was fun to try something with a house painting brush and two inch wide paint scraper. The paint I was able to lay down rather fast and loose without the detail. I just hope I can find an outlet for this, maybe Southam Gallery if they are open to try it.

I've also started another 36x48 view from Temple Square looking down Main Street, still needs some work, but I will be sure to show it once I work out the problems.

This painting I did a while back, a 12x24, needed a little "Je ne sais pas quoi?" So I decided on a horse. it required some element of life in it and what better than an old horse grazing by the tree. Now maybe it is ready to try again in a gallery.

Richard Boyer

Thursday

I've been working more on the figures and foreground water in this one. I had the water a little to blue right below the stern of the boat so it gave the illusion that she was pushing off in deep water which wouldn't make much scenes.  What it needed was some more warmer colors in the foreground to show the sand just under the water. So now it reads as shallow water by the shore.

There has been this interesting challenge going around on Facebook; where one artist posts three paintings a day for five days in a row and each day with the new images you have to nominate a new artist to do the same. Its quite interesting now but I can see how this pyramid idea will just saturate Facebook and become old quite in a short amount of time.

Its going to be day number four for me so I need to dig through my images and find three to post and then nominate an artist.

Richard Boyer

Monday

It's been a while with the holidays, but now its time to get back to reality.  My daughter wasn't too happy with that idea as I drove her back to school again. She was getting use to idea of sleeping in; I guess all good things come to an end sooner or later.

I started this piece a week ago and have been working on it a little here and there between Christmas and New Years. Lina, my daughter and her cousin Sofie are the models that I shot last summer on the lake up in Hälsingland Sweden. I've tried a little different format with the odd sized canvas, 24x38 done as a gallery wrap. Today I painted in the lilies, they still will need some more work done on them, especially the foreground ones where I'll show some of the stalks going down in the water. The reflections also need some work, something that I can attack tomorrow.

Richard Boyer