Tuesday

Well we have about 18 inches of fresh snow on the ground here at my house and a lot of shoveling to go with it.

Going back to this painting I re-worked the sky with more intense color and defined the buildings some more.

I worked my way along in the background with the buildings and added the clock tower to the left. In reality one would not see that from this location. the tower would be more off to the left.

next I defined the building on the right, or started to at least, there is a lot of architecture there to work on and I'm still not sure how much of it I want to elaborate on.

Most of the afternoon was spent on this building getting all the parts blocked in.

The last part today was to cover the water in the foreground. It will need a lot of work with the reflections, which I can start tomorrow. Larger paintings like this always seem to take a while to get done since the little areas that become a single brush stroke on the smaller works now become larger areas that need more definition.

Richard Boyer

Saturday

I'm driving to Nevada today to get a Christmas tree. Last week I put in the permit for $4 near Elko. So this afternoon I'll drive to Wendover and stay with an old college friend and tomorrow we will both drive an hour and a half south out in the middle of nowhere to cut down a few trees.  It should be a good adventure.

I decided to try a night painting from Amsterdam, just to try something different from the usual rain soaked streets.

So the size is 34x52 and as you can see the composition was the first thing to be layer in. It will be a view looking down the canal with a bridge crossing and the town lit up behind.

Here I started to block in the sky with color and the buildings to the right with the orange light of evening. for me its much easier to work with larger shapes of color instead of the drawing of forms. Blocking in masses like this will tell me very quickly if the painting is moving along in the right direction or not.

Next the water is filled in with a large brush. So now the canvas is covered over with the approximate color and value that I want for the finished product. From here I can tweak the composition and adjust areas where I want the focus of interest.

This last shot I defined more of the building to the right. At this point I want the oil paint to set up a bit, or else when I put down further strokes the brush will just be removing some of my iniscial block-in color.

More to come next week

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

Another snow storm approaching, just what we need. the ski resorts are getting a little thin with rocks still showing.

I did a series of smaller paintings for the Mockingbird Gallery. Jim, the owner was talking about smaller pieces for the Christmas rush. Now I've never experienced the Black Friday frenzy and I seriously doubt anything like that would happen in a gallery.  Most people in my case don't buy the paintings as Stocking stuffers before the holidays.  But I figured maybe a group of little pieces wouldn't hurt, it might attract the people who ordinarily wouldn't buy a painting because of the price.

The first one was a 16x12 of Portland, based on a larger one I did a while back.

This 12x16 was done from a very blurry shot I took after the camera was out in the rain for a bit.  If you get drops of water on the lens it really diffracts the light.

Here I did a smaller 9x12 from Bend, Oregon. Originally I did this during the day while I was at the gallery. Jim couldn't sell it so he returned it to me and I painted over the top and changed it into night.

This 9x12 is looking back at the Gallery in Bend

A while back I did a large 40x40 of this same subject matter and decided it would make a good smaller 12x9

The last 9x12 was of Portland again with a figure walking home in the rain

All of these should be arriving in the Mockingbird Gallery some time today.

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

I finished off the 28x38 painting for the May Gallery, just waiting on the frame to be made. I hope I captured that wet feeling in the road.  That feeling of opening up the umbrella. The big question is going to be if this stuff will sell down in Scottsdale; rainy Oregon might be a different picture, they are use to it there and like the subject matter. Down in sunny Arizona they may want to get away from that all.

This next one, also for the May Gallery is a 30x30 I did of Portland. I'm hoping the buyer won't hang up too much on the location but rather the rainy feel of the cityscape. With these two they have six night paintings, ready for whenever their season starts up.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

Mockingbird Gallery came through again and sold this little 30x28 I did in the Spring. The large painting, the 40x40 of Portland should be arriving today at the gallery.

I just remembered I never put the finished image of the painting up on the blog, well here it is.  I kept it a late afternoon scene with plenty of reflections in the road from the rain. It is fairly similar to the last 40x40 I did but a different street with new buildings. I called it 6th Ave and Taylor from the exact location in the city.  Jim said he has a client who is interested in this one already, so I'm keeping the fingers crossed.

Richard Boyer