Closing out 2011

The year is almost over, and although I haven't participated in many art festivals, it has been a very busy year with moving and setting up a new studio. But I'm in. I will be participating in St George's Susquicentennial in a couple of weeks on January 14, 15, and 16, as one of the open Studio sites. I am excited to open my studio to guests.
I also just submitted my application to St. George's Easter Art Festival. I have not yet determined what it takes to be chosen consistently every year.

What I've been doing:
I've almost completed a series of "rock" studies in watercolor. This involves a technique that prepares the watercolor paper with oil color thinned with turpentine. Here are some examples:



The turpentine wash creates a great background texture for rock images. This can be used for brick walls and stone fences as well as creek beds. More examples:

In these I began adding other images such as the fish and a leaf. more examples:



All of the above are on approximately 5x7 140 pound rough pressed paper. I then completed a 22x30 piece:

One would think I have exhausted this series, but have some additional ideas for more pieces.

I've also been doing a few cowboy scenes:

and just finished this one....another watercolor on gesso textured surface...



Christmas cards 2011

This is a typical Thanksgiving weekend---the Christmas cards task begins. Six years ago I started making our Christmas cards using block prints. This process involves carving an image onto a piece of wood and printing the image onto card stock with ink that has been rolled onto the wood block. My early cards were very simple with only black ink on white. 

Following is the block from my first card...

Following is a block also from a black on white printing.



Last year I used two colors. In this block, the background was orange and the second printing was with a rich blue.

 and this year I have saved white, but used orange, blue, and black. This required three wood blocks to complete and of course this means three separate printings on each of 120 Christmas cards. In this case I am including the final product, since there are three blocks used to make it...

 ...and they are all done...now to add the inscription, and mail them.

Ian Ramsay Workshop

I attended an Ian Ramsay watercolor workshop March 1 and 2. As a year ago, it was a great workshop. His style includes mostly dry brush techniques, which is what I enjoy the most.
The first day we did a rural scene...

On the second day it was a scene from the northwest...

Ian does beautiful work and is a great teacher. I would love to spend some time in the northwest, getting to understand water better. That is an issue with living in the desert, you have a hard time understanding what happens around water.



Carl Purcell workshop

I participated in a watercolor workshop with Carl Purcell this past week and had a blast. He is well-organized and enables you to complete projects so you have something to show for the time spent. I find it very difficult when there is no time to complete a painting. He is also very tactful in his critiques, but helpful as well.

Here are images of what I painted. The first is the Springville, Utah area...a winter scene...

Next is a barn I found on another workshop in Taos, New Mexico a few years ago...

We completed 3 other pieces which applied some of the techniques he was presenting to the class, such as value studies, negative painting, how to survive without misket, and general composition. A major theme was about leaving whites on the page. Carl offers many workshops and has a great website:
http://carlpurcell.com/cpart_index.php

Web Site - FINALLY

I'm trying to set up a web site. Finally. My excuses have been that I have no time, that I distrust the last host provider, I don't have a personal computer anymore, and you know the old adage, "the shoemakers children run barefoot"? Well, I work with computers all day and really enjoy walking away at 5pm.

A website needed to rise on the priority list, so my tasks the last couple of monhts were to purchase a new computer (happened in December), and move the domain I've owned for years, to a new host. The domain transfer completed yesterday. I resigned myself that I would "make the time", and go through the keyboard pounding required to figure out the routine to design the website.

So here I am. The last two items began today, but so far the web site looks pretty stark.

St. George Art Festival

I just applied to the 2011 St. George Art Festival. I am using a combination of watercolors and oils this time. That may be an issue, but we will see. I would like to be able to show a combination of both.

New Year

New approach: Galleries and web site. Beginning with blog, however.