Friday

Still battling this obnoxious cold, now its moved down into the chest and I'm loosing my voice….good thing I'm an artist, alone in the studio. At least I don't have to deal with the general public.

We had the crit session last night, also a skeleton crew of four. From their input I added more lights and detail to the center section of this night scene. Now I think its ready for Southam Gallery. One point being, although its a night view of Salt Lake City, I did not use any black paint. All the darks were mixed with cobalt blue and indian red or transparent red oxide; then to knock down the resulting purple I would add some Raw Sienna. I'm finding this made for a richer color and by varying the mixture I could get the subtle nuances in the buildings structure without having it pop out too much in value.

This painting I was inspired by one morning when I had to get my daughter up at 6:00 am for school. I do that every morning but on this day the clouds were catching the morning sun as it came up over the Wasatch Mountains and they looked so cool.  It was fun to work on this 18x24 and hopefully Southam Gallery can find an interested buyer.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

Two days ago I started a 24x24 city-scape painting. Southam Gallery said they wanted to have a few smaller paintings around for those less inclined for the large stuff. I find its easier to do the larger format though. I have to be a little tighter with this smaller canvas.

I'm still tired from this damn cold. I feel it after spending yesterday afternoon helping Nick with a bricking project. I've been working with him on the side with a few projects. Bryce Liston, an art friend is putting in a new kitchen and the window needed to be moved down about four feet. Laying bricks is not my kind idea of fun…


Richard Boyer

Friday

So last week my daughter started it, came home from school complaining of that achy feeling. The next day she is lying in bed with a nose like "Rudolph the red nosed raindeer".  I knew what was going to happen. My son got it a few days ago and now me. Its like a ticking time bomb when they bring it home from school. Its not a question of "if", but "when".  For me it was about five days...

On Wednesday I blocked in this 20x30 beach painting from southern Sweden. I liked the girls working their way down the hill. Most people who have experienced walking amongst the dune grasses know how sharp and spiky they can be. So both the girls on the left are having problems navigating the path down the hill.

This morning I worked on the background, finishing off the sky and most of the water. As I get the main figures defined better I will most likely change elements with the beach and water to help with the composition.  There was a slight breeze that I want to capture as well. I can most likely show this in the blowing dune grass and the waves at the shoreline.

Southam Gallery came through with the sale of this 36x48 painting. I'm glad since it was a gallery wrap, meaning I didn't have a frame for it, just wrapped the canvas around to the back of the heavy duty stretcher bars. It gives it a little more of a modern look.

One of the local law firms bought it for their main office.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

Here is the finished 28x44 painting of the McKensey River in Oregon.; with fly fisherman as well.  This one I will do as a limited edition print on canvas, that is once I get enough images done. Before I put any of these up on-line I would like to have around twenty paintings for people to choice from.

There were a few elements I worked on in the painting. the foreground rocks needed more definition and color in the water. I played around some with the placement so it has a good lead-in to the composition, almost like an arrow pointed upstream. There the viewer stops to look at the man trying his luck with the fly rod.

We finally got the large box from my driveway into the house and put together. I feel guilty after asking my neighbors to help me lift the thing in the house. It weighs 180 pounds and did a number on a few backs. There are still some parts to it I need to get put together and mounted.

My next project will be figuring out how the wireless connection works with my computer…

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

Here it is my painting of downtown Seattle from Queen Ann Hill. Kind of a night scene with the last rays of sun casting its alpenglow upon the buildings.  This one was fun to do, maybe a little too much work with the architecture, but it was needed to capture the city.

Today I added some more neutral grays and purples to the foreground trees, they had a little too much chroma before with the greens.

Richard Boyer

Monday

Today I was back on to this piece. I want to get it done now so I can start maybe another river painting. So this morning it was the foreground that needed definition. the flat rocks I had a little fun with designing them to produce an arch pointing back up the river, this added a nice compositional element. I'm still thinking of putting a fly fisherman out there on the left side to add a little human connection and if he happens to be wearing a little red that might just add some more excitement to the painting.

Over the weekend I met up with Robert Duncan to learn the ins and outs of printing your own posters or limited edition prints. He has build up a rather large enterprise producing limited edition Giclee's with his own store right there on Main Street in Midway.  With the sale from our duplex I am going to dive into the same business. The whole thing sounds a little nerve-racking, but its something I feel I need to get into to help smooth out those ups and downs of the income of being an artist. Tomorrow I'll order a 44 inch printer from Canon and start learning the process.

First up will be getting familiar with Adobe Photoshop, the program needed to run the printing.

I'll let you know how it all developed.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

Today I worked on the city buildings bringing up the color and brightness. Most of the time that meant just going back over the paint strokes with a second pass of heavier paint. That popped up the color quite a bit.

Now I still have more.

Tomorrow I'll look it over and do a little orchestration, bringing up some areas and playing some down a bit to make it work better. I know the foreground will need a little more work, the trees down there look a little sloppy.

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

I started another 36x48 for the Howard/Mandville Gallery. They are having a landscape show sometime in the spring and I figured why not try one of the newer style paintings. The scene is from Queen Ann's Hill just north of Seattle. The views from there are to die for with the city spread out below and I would imagine so are the home prices. The painting is just blocked-in and will need some more work to get the buildings to glow with light. that's what caught my eye the contrast of light against the dark foreground.

I'll let it dry a bit and go back into the city lights and bring them up a lot more, see if we can get it to glow.

Richard Boyer