Friday

The crit went well last night, Roberts wine glass came oh soooo close to breaking, but still made it unscathed through the night.

I had a long list of things to fix on all the small Santa Fe pieces and of course the 24x36 horse painting. The weather hasn't been the best today, with dark clouds hanging over the studio. So I decided not to photograph the final fixes until I have better light on a sunny day.

After lunch I started up this little 14x11. Its an old door from Provence, with the hollyhocks, I thought it might be a good subject matter for the Wade Gallery in Santa Fe. Its not quite done, with the poor light, I had to quit around four this afternoon. On Monday I should be able to finish it off.

Richard Boyer

Thursday

Study number three for today, just another quiet dirt road outside of Santa Fe. They seem to love the coyote fence down there, just a bunch of sticks pressed into the ground and then lashed together with cross bars. It makes for some good painting subject matter, since they are always so broken up and uneven.

The odd thing is behind most of these old broken down fences are multi million dollar adobe homes. Its a very desirable place to live, just ask any movie star!

We woke up this morning to snow on the ground, in fact all morning long its been @#%@ snowing !!! I did manage to scrounge up more pieces of plastic to cover over the garden, don't really know if that will do much good or not?

Its crit night again at my place. So I'll show them all these quick studies and see what they say.

Prey for no broken glasses!

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

Here's todays 12x16 study, just another alleyway north of Santa Fe.

It was snowing a little this morning, welcome back to January !!! We had to bring in all the tomato and basil plants and cover up the garden with plastic so the ground doesn't freeze all the seeds. Good thing I'm not a farmer.

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

I worked on a small 12x16 painting for the gallery in Santa Fe today. Its just a quick study, so I don't want to finish it off too much. I figure with a few more of these they will have a good collection of smaller pieces to sell for the summer season. It was fun to work on and since no architecture or figures are involved, it's really quick to do.

We have another one of those winter storms pushing into the valley tomorrow, they are even talking of snow !!!..............Damn, I'm so ready for Spring now, not more of the wet snow.

Richard Boyer

Monday, April 19

I worked on the horse painting today. First just finishing off the background, I decided on more detail and color back there than what I had. Now it has a little more interest on the horizon. The waves I broke up more and lightened the water more in value.

The foreground sand I also defined better. It helped to throw a little water on the sand, so now I have a place to reflect the brown horse on the right. I used the pallet knife on some of the sand, which helps to give it more interest.

We got the garden all planted over the weekend, so hopefully this summer we'll have fresh produce......that is if the quail don't eat it all before its ready! Last summer we had about two dozen that parked themselves back there and munched down everything that came up. I finally had to build nets to go over the garden beds. This summer I wouldn't mind catching them and eating them. I've heard they are really good with an orange glaze!

Richard Boyer

Saturday

Today its actually sunny, so we are making the best of it and planting the crops. Yes, we have a little garden area and have been tilling it up and getting it ready for the season. Here's some pictures of the garden. That little house I build myself to keep the table saw and other tools in!

Thursday

The figures were the main focus for today. I tried to keep the brush strokes clean, so as to define them better. The person in the middle I gave a white shirt to play down the importance and put instead a red coat on the woman to the right. With that in mind your eye now moves over there first and gives a little more dynamics to the painting.

My wife was thinking that the background cliff is too purple and needed some green, but there in lies the dilemma. If I add green it will compete with the green in the water and push the whole cliff too close to the viewer. So I think what it really needs is more atmosphere. If I let it dry another day or so, I could always glaze over it with a slight milky white color and that should push it back more.

We have the crit at my place tonight, it should have been up at Nick's but since he is building an addition down in Moab, he is temporarily out of the picture.

Richard Boyer