Saturday

Yes I'm ready for Halloween. On Wednesday we carves the pumpkins with some friends. We had a nice dinner and wine before the creative project got started. Then the table was covered with pumpkin guts as the carving got under way.

At the end we came up with some scary results!!  

This morning I changed the painting around that I got back from Jim at Mockingbird Gallery. The building was destroyed and a tree planted in its place.  Now the problem was once I removed the building I had to change a bunch of other thinks. Suddenly the sky was too empty, or rather there was just too much sky so the eye was traveling up there away from the center of focus, the road and cars.

 The tree I had to break up a bit and carry it over the top a little so the viewer wouldn't just race up a diagonal line off the upper left corner of the painting.  I added a light to that upper left side to bring a little yellow into the dark area. The sky was re-worked as well to add more definition to the clouds. Now I sent off an image to Jim, and he will forward it to the client….. we'll see what he says.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

Well Jim at Mockingbird found a buyer for this big 40x40 I did, but I guess he knows Portland and wants the artists mistake corrected. I was interested in capturing a certain kind of light quality in the painting and felt it needed a strong vertical on the left side. So I made up a building, a rather large building and have now been busted…it doesn't exist. Okay, okay I learned my lesson, never make stuff up in a city-scape…somebody will call me on it every time. I was originally thinking of sending it to Scottsdale where the buyer wouldn't really know the city of Portland, just be interested in the light quality.

Now Jim is mailing me back the painting to correct the problem. I need to paint the tall building out and figure some other solution, maybe a tree branch or something!  I just found it funny that I was caught in the act of making up a building..

Yesterday I figured I should also start a new 40x40 for his gallery since he sold this one so fast. This is a view of the river flowing through Portland with city traffic on the bridge. I want to have it really glowing on the bridge and bring some of it down into the water.

Today I just worked on bringing the colors into the piece, there is a nice sense of purple in the sky that I want to capture. The water was too wet with paint to really work on any detail, I guess I went too thick with the paint yesterday, so I'll have to wait a few days for it to set up. I'm excited about this view I really think it will turn out good.

Richard Boyer

Saturday

here is a better shot of the painting, done in the morning light on my porch.  I added a few more strokes of purple in the foreground and also extended the light more to the left side of the painting.  Over the next several days I have a feeling I'll be doing still more touch-ups to this piece; as I learn what would make a boring underpass exciting to the viewer?!

Southam Gallery is having an Aspen show sometime in November and so I did this little 18x12 a few days ago and finished it off today. I used a lot of thick paint strokes on the trees and leaves, which turned out to be fun. This is quite a deviation from the cityscapes I have been working on lately.

Richard Boyer

Friday

I started a little more gritty painting yesterday; The 8th South bridge under I-15.  Its a subject I wanted to try for a while. And the trick is to keep it exciting with the paint quality, most underpasses are not the most attractive subjects to paint. So I need to keep it abstract in a way.

We had the crit session last night and they suggested more color in places. So this morning I lightened up the cement in the foreground and added the train lights, along with a few more cars and people. With the addition of that there seems to be more to look at under the bridge.  Now I need to photograph this in a better light, instead of in the studio; but that will have to wait until the morning. I find the light is a little softer then than the strong afternoon light for copy work.

Richard Boyer

Monday

Over the Fall Break weekend we went camping down in southern Utah, the Burr trail Road to be exact, about 9 miles downhill from Boulder, Utah. The first night I was down there with my daughter and the skies were filled with stars; with a good pair of binoculars we were able to see the Andromeda Galaxy. The next day some more family members came with friends and the weather slowly turned for the worst. Rain storms were on the schedule for the weekend.

We hiked to Calf Creek Falls, six miles round trip of heavy rain and mud filled paths. Here is a picture of the lower falls. Under clear skies it would be worthy of a painting and some day I will have to return to get that done. The upper falls I have heard is even nicer.

This was our camp site…no comment !!!

Richard Boyer

Thursday

I took a break from the large Aspen painting. yesterday I added some pallet knife work to the trees and it seemed to help, but for now I need to set it aside and look at it later.

I went back into this 40x40 and added some cross walks in the lower part. With the horizontal lines there your eye doesn't race down the road, it stops to linger a bit, kind of like a speed bump!

If you remember I did a smaller version of this subject matter a while back, a 16x12 and thought it would make a nice larger painting. So this morning I block-in this 30x30 and tried to keep the light in more of a yellow hue.  I'll try to shoot for that end of day feeling.

Richard Boyer

Teusday

I'm still waiting on Lycos to switch over my domain name to my new website, they seem to be the most unprofessional company out there, with obviously the lowest customer service rating in history.

Well getting back to business, Mockingbird Gallery sold this large 40x40 painting today of Portland. They have had it for most of the summer, most likely because of its size. A painting this big commands a rather large wall to hang in on, and thats what most people don't have.

Southam gallery called me and wanted me to try an Aspen painting. They keep going up to Park City to look in the galleries up there and see what's selling. A few of their artists up in Park City just paint Aspen trees all the time and seem to be doing a good job at selling lots of them. So Linda got the idea to call all her artists and have them work on Aspen tree paintings for a show.

So on Saturday I blocked in this large 36x48 piece of Aspen trees in Fall color

This morning I worked more on the trees and yellows of the leaves. I'll let it set up over night and work some more on it tomorrow. Then I can bring up some more colors in certain areas. After looking at it I know I can get more texture in the trees, maybe use a pallet knife to get some thick paint on them

Richard Boyer

Friday

A couple of days ago I did this small 12x18 study of Portland in a blue and purple light.  Well it turned out rather nice so I figured it would make a good large format.

So I stretched up a 40x40 canvas and am trying it as a square painting. I still have a few more days on it, right now I can tell the trees will need some more light, they seem a little too dark.  I mixed up a large quantity of paint and put much of the road down with a big 2 inch pallet knife and I'm liking what I see so far.  There are some horizontal road crossing lines in the foreground that I want to get in but after the thick paint sets up a bit, or else it might just turn out looking too sloppy.

The cars are also farther back in the larger piece so I might have to move one forward to help with the composition.

Richard Boyer