Wednesday

Over the weekend, actually three days of it, we did a raft trip down the Green River from Flaming Gorge Dam.  The river level was very high with all the mountain snow melt, they had the dam release opened up all the way.  This usually means most rapids are washed out with too much flow, you just don't notice them anymore.

Here is a picture of the top section as it meandered through pine trees and cliffs.

A few of the rapids were still left and it made for some good practice for those members of the group who have never rowed through white water.

This usually meant we got a little wet sometimes. My son,. Markus tried his hand at fly fishing but never really caught anything. Its always a question as to what they are going for on a certain day , it might be flies or worms, who knows!

It was a relaxing trip any ways and a fun time to spend Fathers day on the river. I do feel we had out dose of vitamin D from the sun and it might be good to spend the next couple of days out of it. 

Richard Boyer

Monday

I never finished posting the other two video clips from the "Where in the world is?" This time I was painting along the Provo River up near Heber, Utah. My son was with spending the time catching fish, he actually got three while I was working on this painting. Unfortunately he lets them all go, so there was no fish for dinner that night.

Thursday

I'm part of the on-line painting event called "Where in the world is?" put on by the Illume Gallery. they have a bunch of artists out plein air painting all over the country for the next three days and we all have to post small film clips of our progress. I painted this 12x16 view overlooking Salt Lake City yesterday.

I'm not the best actor, but then again nobody doing these are.Here is the link to see the clip if it doesn't turn out here on this post.

http://www.whereintheworldispleinair.com

Richard Boyer

Thursday

Its been a while working on paintings for Mockingbird gallery and the New Masters Gallery, and to get them all out the door. I also got a call from May Gallery in Scottsdale that he was closing his doors for good, no longer could he make a go of it. That was a bit of a shocker since I've been with them for twenty years or so.. So last week I had to drive down there to pick up all my work, 23 paintings in all.  I've never had the car so packed to the top as that; five paintings were even on the roof tied on to the luggage rack.

I did go around to the other galleries to see if they had any openings but most were in the same boat, just barely hanging on in the election year economy.  The last gallery I walked into, Brennen Gallery liked my cityscapes and decided to give me a try. He closes down for the summer months but opens up again in September; but still he took three smaller 12x16 San Francisco works of mine to try the market with in June.  In the fall he will contact for more larger pieces.

Well this morning I decided to try something new and fun. I bought a roller and a couple of other tools to push the paint around and produced this 22x22 cityscape of Portland. Its nice to get most of it done in one session.

Here is a picture of the Las Vegas painting. I finally finished it off,  the last one and sent them off to Carmel. There the gallery will frame all four up and put them in their main window.

This 36x36 I did last week for the Mockingbird Gallery and its now some place driving on a Fedex truck to Portland and then Bend, Oregon.  Jim is having his gallery walk night tomorrow so hopefully he'll get the box that day and put a few on the wall for the crowds. 

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

I took a better shot of the painting and got the real contrast. This one I'm calling done, the gallery owner seems happy with it. And it has a little bit of a story to it with the woman waiting for the last train home.  I have another 36x36 I've started that needs to be finished and then I can send them both off to the gallery next week.

This one is number three in the aerial paintings. The 40x40 inch view is of the Missouri River at sunset. Its a little different from the New York City painting,  to give some variety to the collection.

I'm making number four a view over Las Vegas. On our last trip to Sweden we landed in the evening and I got this shot. So today I worked on the sky and will progress down to the city tomorrow.

Richard Boyer

Friday

This is the finished version of New York City, as for the elevation I'm not really sure. The lower section took some time to do with all the architecture and in the end I did blur out some of the detail so the eye would linger too long on Brooklyn.

The 36x36 here for Mockingbird Gallery should be close to finished.  I'll have to set it aside to see what else it needs. It might need some other element in the painting.

Richard Boyer

Thursday

It took two days to finish off the lower section, just a little too much detail there. So now I'll set it aside and think about it. Maybe it might be good to go back into it and blur a few buildings out in Brooklyn.

Some place, somewhere I caught a stomach virus. So for the last few days its been a lot of yogurt and mild food. I have a feeling I most likely picked this up in Portland. Well its slowly working its way out and I am feeling better.

Jim Peterson from Mockingbird Gallery sent me a text yesterday that he sold this 30x30 of Portland and is in need of more. The pressure is on to paint, which believe me is better than not selling which tends to be the norm in the artists world.

So I started this 36x36 painting of the tracks line in Portland. It had just rained and the setting sun was reflecting off the rails; something I can blast in with a pallet knife so it should look nice and juicy when done. I'll have a guy waiting by the left side of the line there for the last train home feel.


Richard Boyer