Friday

After the crit session I decided to add some early Spring greens to this one, it may have been looking a little too cold. So I warmed it up a bit through color and adding the greens to the trees.

I also blocked-in two starts from the Grand Canyon. The size on this is 10x18 inches and the location is just before Phantom Ranch. For those wondering, you can hike down here from the North Rim. The hike is over ten miles and a drop of 8000 feet; a long way down, but much worse coming back up.

This one also is the same size, the location is towards the end of Marble Canyon, the first part of the Grand Canyon River. I'll work on these next week

Richard Boyer

Thursday

I worked on a small 12x16 fly fishing painting today, actually started it yesterday, but added some more color and white water. Its a winter day up in Heber, Utah, but unfortunately this winter we didn't have the snowfall, so much of February and March was quite warm - which also brought out all the fishermen. What I liked about the subject matter here is the blue colors. the mountains still covered in snow have a cool, bluish look to them and it plays up nicely against the warm colors of the barren trees.

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

I added the tracks in and decided on a trolley car on the left side.  I'm still not sure on this one, so its best to set it aside now for a few days and look at it with a fresh eye later.

Over the weekend I did block in two 30x30's

This will be more work for the Authentique gallery. They wanted pieces from Salt lake City, so I started this on looking down South Temple towards the setting sun. The buildings will be bathed in the yellow light similar to an earlier piece I did for Southam Gallery.

The next one is looking down Main Street a little later in the evening, so I'll capture more light reflecting on the wet streets here. The colors in here will be more on the blues and purples.

Richard Boyer

Friday

Well I'm in Authentique Gallery down in St. George, Utah.  I spent about an hour and a half talking with Jane the owner up here at her gallery in Salt Lake City. She liked my urban work and wanted to try them down there; I told her I was already in Southam Gallery here in the city so that was out of limits.

It will be fun to try another location for the cityscapes in Utah.

I did start another 24x24 San Francisco painting.  I've got to start building up an inventory of them. This one has the late afternoon light raking across the buildings and glissening off the parked cars on the left.. I'll put a street car at the top of the hill as well. The tracks still need to be added, the light was reflecting off the steel rails and helped to define the steepness of the hill.

Tonight I'll be down at the Southam Gallery for a group show. Looks like its going to rain again, so it might be a small crowd showing up!

Richard Boyer

Thursday

Here is my 24x24 study for the last few days, another view of the midday light at San Francisco. I liked this one with all the figures walking along the sidewalk, the cars are more secondary off to the side.

I'm meeting with the owner of the Mission Gallery and Authentique Gallery of St George today, she called me yesterday about my urban paintings and seemed very interested in maybe trying them down there.

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

I added a figure to this one. I felt with the lonely tracks it needed the solitary figure waiting for the train that will never come. The whole painting now becomes a bit more narrative with a potential story; why is she standing there at an abandoned station. I did have to work some on getting the tracks just right; that perspective can really be a nightmare. The tracks are still in use, its just the station is no longer a stop on the line, Thompson Springs has long been forgotten. So if you were to take the train from Salt Lake City to Denver, you would pass right by this location in the middle of the night!

After doing the one Grand Canyon painting I decided to try another. I did something similar to this many years ago for an art show they had called "Arts for the Parks" and it won an award. Doing it in a longer format was a nice change and I think it turned out well.  It will make a good companion to the other piece.

Richard Boyer

Friday

I finally finished off the painting of Marble Canyon, which is the first part of the Grand Canyon.  I decided to re-paint the cliff a little lighter as well as the water. Now it just looks better. The only thing left to do is to build a frame for it before next weekend. Southam Gallery wants to have it in a group show

This painting as well went through some transformations. The car that was in the foreground was removed and I added a bus behind the middle car.  I pulled a shadow line across the road as well to help with the composition. Before it was also a little on the blue side, so I added some more color in the shadows.

Richard Boyer

Monday

Yesterday we had to cut all the trees back by ten feet in order to make the insurance company happy for the cabin we have. They gave us a deadline and Sunday we had to get it done; unfortunately the weather didn't agree with us. The clouds would roll in and snow would be flying, then the sun would come out and it was back to tee-shirt weather, then back again to snow. Such is the weather at 7000 feet in May. I was able to get our old electric chain saw going and take down a massive amount of branches. So if and when all that debris dries we can have one huge fire.  At five in the evening we were done and I took some pictures for the insurance people which I hope will be enough. They can be rather picky about what they consider fire hazard.

I started in on this one today, working on that late afternoon light on the right side. the real problem is going to be those damn tracks; its one of those perspective nightmares,  if I don't get it right it will never work.  So tomorrow I'll have to focus in on them

Richard Boyer

Saturday

Its been raining here everyday for the past week. I've never seen grass grow so quick, the whole yard is this rich green color now,  as opposed to the yellows and browns under the normal parched Utah sun.

Today I started something that I wanted to paint. Last year we were part of an all expense paid trip down to Moab with Dave Strayer and the cognitive research scientists.  We decided to show then Sego Canyon on the way down and stopped by the one horse town of Thompson Springs along interstate 70. This long forgotten town still has a few diehard reidences but it lost its former glory after the uranium bust decades ago. This was the old train station and with the setting sun I thought it would make a great painting.

This is the block-in so I have another day or so on it still.

Richard Boyer

Thursday

I didn't quite finish this one today, its going to need more work on the water and a few spots on the cliffs.

I have five frames  to pick up from the framer and get around those city paintings so I can send them off to Mockingbird Gallery. Those works have been sitting too long now in the studio and are taking up space. The dust is beginning to settle on them.

This was the view from the porch last afternoon. Then the rain started and came down hard; within minutes we had a river coming down the street. Drains were clogged at the intersections shooting the water straight up in the air.  It looked quite impressive, that is except for the cat, who was hiding under a table on the porch. He was rather nerved by the ordeal.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

Yesterday I finished off the odd sized piece here from Colorado National Monument. And I have to admit it was a lot of fun doing something like this where you could just let loose a bit and not have to worry about perspective angles in buildings, or those pesky cars on the road. I think I'll apply this one to the Oil Painters of America Western Regional show if it gets in that is!

Today I started another odd shaped one for the Southam gallery here in Salt Lake. This one is 13.5 x 23 inches in size. A view of the Grand Canyon back when we ran the river in 2006. This area in Marble Canyon was one of the best for subject matter, the cliffs were straight up and the water was a deep green color.   hopefully tomorrow I can finish it off

Richard Boyer

Monday

I made another odd sized masonite board to paint on today, a 20x33 which I really like with the elongated format. The board which I put gesso on makes it so I can push the paint around better with such a hard surface. The view is from Colorado National Monument near Fruita, just over from the Utah boarder along interstate 70. I've always thought the cliffs would make a nice painting, but held off on it when I thought about which gallery would want to have it. Its kind of a remote spot where they don't have too many visitors. But I figured what the hell, lets just have fun and try it. There is a Western Regional Oil Painters of America show in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where I could enter the painting.  If it turns out okay!!

Richard Boyer