Cyclamen

I love to paint Cyclamen, I don't often tackle them but I think I've enjoyed almost every painting I've ever completed of them. I guess it's partly the simple clean shapes of both leaves and petals, and the random twists of the flowers and petals that create just enough interest. Additionally the plant tends to be small and condensed, this allows the subject matter to be simply rendered and compact in composition.

In this one I pushed the colors to bring it into a range that I always enjoy, (well as long as I accomplish the right tones of greens). I suppose sometimes the green can get a little muddy for my liking, but here I kept them light, which allows them to sit nicely alongside the yellows and those ice blue/ aqua shades.

The table cloth patterning is a good test here, I wanted it cleanly painted but not too over powering. There's a risk that it can come off as poorly rendered, if the tones aren't strong enough but I think it works pretty well here.

Cyclamen on green with lemons

18X24  Acrylic on board

knowing when to stop....

I've probably posted about this before, but oh well.... The question an artist faces of 'knowing when to stop' is a common one.  As a young artist I always felt that in time it would become easier, and that as I matured as an artist I would always know the the right time to set a painting aside. But in truth, I have found it's a question and a problem that never goes away and always remains.

With this painting the urge to put in one more brush stroke, to add one more flower, or to remove/ rework a section of flower bed has been (it seems unending). Even now (though finished) the urge is strong, and I know in myself the painting had all the elements in place sometime ago, and yet I've continued to tweak and continued to play. It's been fun, but the actual improvement within each revision has been perhaps minimal.

detail

 I think however, the biggest difference in 'knowing when to stop', is that as you become more experienced, gradually over time you get better at hiding the 'extra fiddling'.  This painting (I hope) continues to look fresh and strong, and the reworked elements are hidden sufficiently to allow the painting to continue to look fresh and alive.  So here perhaps is a saving grace of a few more years under the belt.

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As an aside I really enjoyed tackling this subject, drawn by the beauty and complexity of the garden and the wonderful architecture the mission church provided. These buildings of age and beauty sometimes seem to far a field on the west coast of America, it was fun to put one too paint!

San Carlos Borromeo Mission garden

34 X46     Acrylic on wood

Rhododendrons

It's been a while since I painted Still lifes this small, and I'm having fun doing a few of them at this size. It allows for a reduction in complexity, of the subject -  a boiling down to what's important. This in turn encourages a more alla prima (in the moment) approach.

Rhododendrons are fantastically complex blooms, I think the trick is to try to paint them with a less is more approach and somehow it seems to work. These flower buds were fun to paint.

Rhododendron with fruit on red

18X24    Acrylic on board

New Masters Gallery - last week

When I was down in Carmel last week Plein Air painting, I popped into New Masters Gallery and took a couple of snaps of some of my paintings hanging there.  They're a great gallery, well worth a look if your ever in the Carmel area and of course they have great artists too!  ;-)

Across the bay (Monterey CA)

 My original inspiration within this subject was this great spiky plant in the foreground. I painted it almost to completion while slowly working in the other colors and the rest of the painting around it. I think the end result is effective; but I'm always smitten with this aspect ratio.

I'm not sure what the plant is called, but it's certainly a very curious thing and possibly makes for an unusually subject matter.

After finishing, I realized there was a lot of sympathy in palette to an artist friend of mine Henry Isaacs. Must have been unknowingly channeling his colors. Henry is an east coast artist and we hang together in a gallery in Virginia.

Across the bay (Monterey CA)

24X36    Acrylic on cradled panel

Adding interest with texture

I've probably posted about this before, but from time to time I like to paint on a 'textured ground'. This is a process of applying texture to the base paint. In this case I painted on wood a support, I then sand and prime the wood with 'a ground', which is the painterly term for the surface that will be painted on. I tend to prime my painting surfaces with an Acrylic gesso paint. When adding texture, I use very thick gesso paint and leave strong brush marks, I also add some light sand to this surface while it's still wet. Finally I paint an extra coat or two to make sure the sand and texture is locked in there. By the time the final layers of paint from the actual painting have gone on, nothings going anywhere for a long, long time!

As you paint the painting on this type of uneven surface, you have to work hard in places to give consistent color, and that change of process creates a different look and feel. Additionally in places it breaks up the layers of color, as the brush moves over the surface - again adding color variations along with the textural interest. The end result is very distinctive.

This painting is a house along the coast in Santa Cruz, CA. It's a lovely old house, but I tend to think it's dangerously near the edge of the cliff. The framing of the tree and the fence line in the foreground drew me to this subject. I created some unusual divisions in the work space, this gives the work a very modern feel and I had to pay careful attention to structure and tone to make those divisions work.

Right on the edge (Santa Cruz, CA)

38X30              Acrylic on wood

detail (showing the texture)

Irises splitting the warm & the cool

Here's a still life from a few weeks ago. I posted it on fb, but forgot to put it here too. I loved painting this great size of panel and a fantastic subject. I particularly like painting these type of irises I just love the rich saturated hues of blue and purple and then the flecks of warm yellow and white that appear within the bloom really key of those blues - fabulous!  The tablecloth is also a favorite of mine and always fun to paint.

Irises splitting the warm & the cool

48X30                Acrylic on wood

detail