September 9, 2010

What a beautiful day it was today. I know that because I spent most of it driving an hour from my house into the Twin Cities to return a light at National Camera... and then home... and then back to National Camera... and then home again! I saw the beauty out the window, all afternoon. This is what happens when you start using a new wallet that looks just like your old wallet, which you grab in a rush as you're heading out the door to the Twin Cities. Opening that wallet at the 'Customer Service' counter, I was surprised to see that there wasn't a driver's license, credit card, dollar bill or anything in it that would facilitate returning the light I drove all that way to return.

The store clerk said "Is there someone at home who you could call and they could read off the credit card numbers that you used?"... me... "No, the cat can't talk."... him... "Hmmmm..."... me... "But I'll work on that one."

Tonight I drove to Balsam Lake, WI about twenty minutes from here. It's a nice, clear typical Wisconsin lake with little bays full of pontoon boats, lily pads and homes spread around the banks. I had a plan to paint light from the houses and boat docks reflecting onto the water's surface.

A side note... If you think that painting lights on houses at night is easy, have you ever thought that those same lights are controlled by the people inside who might be going to bed long before you are? The things I'm learning by doing this nocturne painting event are numerous. Just as in the day time, light changes, but at night it's not due to the earth's rotation, it's due to businesses closing or house residents calling it a day.

Back on Balsam Lake... the other thing that I didn't think about is that on Wednesday night, in September, many of the people who turn on the lights of the cabins lining the lakeshore are not there! They're in Minneapolis or St. Paul and probably won't be there until the weekend!!! I learn something new every day that I had not thought of the day before.


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9/9-1 'Returning Fisherman'
Maybe not a nocturne of the 'dark' variety, but painted 30 minutes past actual sunset, civil twilight, and very dark though the sky was still light. I blocked in the land mass, reflections and lily pad masses and was waiting for a little bit for things to darken. The sky just stayed light for a long time, so I painted it in. Just as I was about to wonder where the focal point was going to be, there were some warm lights on the distant shoreline that could have been used for that, a little Lund fishing boat came around the corner of the point (similar to the Taylors Falls Queen last week) and became the perfect focal point with it's warm light on the stern and the green light on the bow. The guys in it pulled up and out of the water and walked over to me and said "If you don't mind me asking, why are you painting at night?" I didn't know what to say at first and mumbled something incoherent that they'd probably expect and artist to sound like. Then I said "Well I paint a lot in the day time too..." I don't know, I just can't explain everything!



9/9-2 'Balsam Lake-You Are Here'
The second painting was to be my legitimate nocturne for the day...er... night. I waited for "real" dark, and just as I was getting excited about the lake scene in front of me, the nuclear powered street light ignites and the entire lake environment vanishes behind a veil of airborne particles, bugs and moisture lit by the mercury vapor beast on the pole behind me. The idea to paint the reflections on the water are over at this point, I can't see them. So I turned left and see my +270,000 mile Ford Explorer Sport Trac parked next to the topographical map for Balsam Lake and I decide to paint that... because it's all I can see.

September 8, 2010

It's a late start today because I bought a diffuser photo light yesterday at the photo store, to see if I could eliminate the glare issue on the photos of these wet paintings. NOT! So after messing with it, it went back in the box and I took pics the old fashioned way. All the messing around has delayed my post for today. So in brief, here they are...


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9/8-1 'Firepit at Sunset'
It's a little 'fall like', the skies were clear and it seemed like a nice night for a fire in the pit. But I'd have to be here to do that, so why not do that and then paint it? These were a fun exercise in movement and using 'hot' color. I started the first one right at sunset because I didn't know if I'd even be able to get the wood to burn, it's been sitting in the pit through the rain of the last few days. Well it went up like a torch!!! Problem was that there wasn't that much wood, so I had to paint fast before it was gone. I wanted flames, not burning embers.


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9/8-2 'Firepit at 9pm'
For the second painting of the night I thought it would be fun to back off a little bit from where I painted the first one, and paint the fire pit in total darkness. Only problem was, as I mentioned above, the wood supply was gone. So I jumped into my truck and ran down to the gas station and had to 'buy' a stack of oak to burn for the second painting. It was worth it, I was toasty and had a blast painting the flames.

September 7, 2010

If one more grey fox walks up behind me while I'm painting in my own yard and snorts or barks or chortles or whatever it is you call the weird noise that they make, I'm going to get a large stuffed coyote to stand next to me! They should know that if the coyotes show up, they're goners. My anxiety aside, I love having the little guys running all over my yard at night and stopping a few feet from my easel to look at me like I don't belong. I stayed in the yard tonight to paint to avoid the wind and to avoid driving around too much.

That's all I'm saying...

I decided I had more to say!

Observation is key in painting, I don't think that could be argued, not in representational painting anyway. In the dark...

You can't paint from what you know, you have to paint what you see!

Previous knowledge is almost useless because everything that you thought you knew about a tree, for instance, changes in the dark. So you have to be an even more careful and keen observer at night than you may be in the day time. I know I'm guilty of, and have to constantly remind myself, 'not' to paint things, but to paint relationships... value, color and edges... at ALL times. It's easy to let your previous knowledge slip into a painting, but at night that knowledge isn't there in all cases, so you have to rely on observation.

Now that's all...


9/7-1 'Porch Pot' ( Sorry for the glare. I could not find a way to shoot this and not have some?)
I planted this shrub rose last August. If it lives until next August I'll consider myself lucky. I liked it's profile against the lighter colored siding of the house.


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9/7-2 'Norway Spruce'
I have these two gorgeous old Norway Spruce adorning my front yard. And of course the obligatory orange street light. I'm beginning to hate whoever came up with these lights that are all orange. It's a strange color to paint in any situation other than Halloween.

September 6, 2010

I've made an impact! I'm now known as the 'eBay guy', locally anyway. Tonight as I was painting, in the rain, a very nice lady walked across the street from Romayne's Bar and Grill, my subject in the first painting. She initially wanted to know what a guy with lights was doing hanging out on the sidewalk in the dark on a stormy night when all of the summer traffic was gone... NO ONE was in town any longer. When she walked up she said "Are you the guy who's on eBay, painting a couple paintings a day?" Well blow me down with a wisp of air! That took me by surprise to say the least. Evidently she searches for Taylors Falls items on eBay and when she did a search the other day, I came up and she saved my painting to follow along. I gave her a card with my blog address on it so that she could follow the whole kit and kaboodle. I was very proud that in my own town there are people who I don't even know who might be paying attention to what I'm doing in this marathon. I want to thank her here for making the trip across the street tonight to tell me that.

A little side rambling... I can amuse myself with very little, and I'm doing it again. As humans we are so conditioned to act and feel based on similar events in our past. How many of us have eaten something when we were very young, gotten sick on it because we had the flu, mumps, or some reason for it to make us sick other than the food, and to this day we can't stand to eat that food!!!??? For me it's carmel apples (I know, it makes me sick that I can't eat them) and the mumps... haven't eaten one since I was about 8 or 9 years old when because of having the mumps a carmel apple made me very sick.

Conditioning... During my April Painting 'Marathon' 2009, every single day I walked out the door it was nasty, some less than others, but still not all that pleasant and I wasn't all that anxious always to face it. It left an impression.

So here I am in another 'Marathon' and I'm cracking up because every night when I head out I put on long johns, three shirts and a fleece! By the time I get a few blocks away to paint, I'm hot and taking those extra items off. The only reason I can think of that I do this is because I'm 'pre-conditioned' from the 2009 Marathon and I'm doing another Marathon now... So...

To my pleasant surprise each night out, it's actually pretty warm! Once I'm on location I get kind of excited to be painting a Marathon that doesn't require gloves and a ski hat!!!

Like I said... a little side ramble!


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9/6-1 'Golden Light'
This is a painting of the courtyard of a local eating and drinking establishment called Romayne's here in Taylors Falls. I found the dark of the foreground tables sans the umbrellas for the night, played against the lit wall and the 'Golden Light' sign a good subject.

I was pretty excited to just camp on the, now quiet, streets of Taylors Falls tonight and paint. My plan was to stay in one spot and get my work done. Well as usual, Mother Nature had different plans. It was raining when I left the house tonight so I placed myself under an awning so that I could paint in the rain. What I didn't do was take my anti- lightening strike pills. As I was working on this one the skies became evil incarnate! With one strike, I saw at least 6 or 7 veins of lightening careening over the top of the hills in front of me, and my ears were about blown out, it was so loud and near by. That did it... I finished up and came home out of harms way. I don't mind rain, even tolerate wind... but lightening is a force that I just don't mess with.


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9/6-2 'Oscar the Grouch'
I have two pets, Sargent who I painted last night, and my fish Oscar. Oscar started life as a 1-1/2" Walmart resident. I rescued him and he's now about 7" or 8" inches long, the size of a large, really large bluegill. He has that grouchy look that has earned him the nickname 'Oscar the Grouch'. Getting chased inside tonight I thought it would be fun to paint Oscar in his 40 gallon aquarium. He's a beautiful specimen... but he doesn't hold still any longer than his companion Sargent. Animals that aren't on film or a memory card are hard to paint! I'm hoping for good weather so that I can stick to the buildings, trees and other subjects that don't move... ever.

Link to the nocturnes on my website.

Click here to go to the 2010 September Nocturnes from Life collection on my website. If you prefer visuals without the writing and commentary this should do it. Thanks.

September 5, 2010

One things for sure, every day it gets dark. I lived in Norway when I was young and there were a couple of days that broke that rule, it never gets dark on the Midnight Summer's Eve and Night. The other thing that you can count on is never being able to please everyone. I had an email from someone who was complimentary about my work, but who feels that I'm talking too much on these posts... "Here I go again!" I can appreciate someone's opinion that they'd rather just see the art, not hear the artist ramble on. I almost want to apologize for treating this blog and project as a daily journal... but I'm not going to! (I don't really want to apologize, just feel that it would be polite to.) This is my blog, my work and my thought. I hope you like what I'm doing, but it's not a requirement. Thank you.

Okay, rambling along... Tonight was my night back from not being able to paint last night because I wanted to have fun at the wedding. I did...


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9/5-1 Sunset Rain
I set up a little early because I saw on weather radar and reports, that we were expecting some rain. The first painting was begun before dark, but right at sunset. We had a low overcast which held a lot of light for some time tonight. One of the things that I am discovering as I paint outside more and more, is that I'm as interested in what the atmospheric conditions cause to happen as I am in the subject. As it turned out the rain proved to be a very nice factor that influenced this painting.



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9/5-2 Sargent Watching Bugs
Then my CAT... Sargent ... Back up at my house inbetween rain showers I decided to paint Sargent, my cat, because he ALWAYS sits on the window ledge of the screened back porch. Unless you are set on painting him there!!! With some trickery, some treats and a lot of clicks, whistles, squeeking and calling to him I managed about 1 minute of getting him to "model". Still, I feel I caught his attitude and am happy with the results.

Back on track for tonight...

Okay... wedding successful and a surprise morning balloon ride is over so now back to business! I mentioned that I had come up with a way to get the book light above my line of vision, greatly improving my ability to see the subject and the lit painting without loosing too much night vision. Here's a picture of the set up. I'm using a piece of screen door moulding but would suggest a piece of 1/4"x1" flat pine trim moulding (or something like that). The photo was taken with the iPhone at night, kind of grainy.



Have to share some photos of the balloon trip this morning. :-)
Spectacular, amazing, pillowy soft, magical...FUN!

MVFR... Marginal Visual Flight Rules... Meaning that it's legal to fly, but use caution and judgement before doing so. The weather around the area was checked at a number of airports and it was decided by the pilot in command that this was a patchy ground fog and it would be breaking up and not be a hazard to our flight... so we went! :)




The St Croix River Valley at about 7AM, looking north of Stillwater, MN.




Our pilot, Scott Aamodt, brought us down to the surface of the lake...


We actually skimmed the surface of the water, just kissed it enough to wet the underside of the basket...


And then he set it down in less than a football sized parking lot!