Painting My Way Through Life

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

February 12, 2014

Almost an amazing day today... but still some cloud cover and as the day went on, some pretty stiff winds. I grabbed the pastels again today, but took out the last piece of Wallis 'Belgian Mist' that I had. It was definitely more workable and to my liking than the LaCarte. Now to find some...

Not much to chat about this evening, except that it sounds like tomorrow is going to be T-shirt weather! That's something to talk about!

Enjoy the paintings... I'm going to eat, crash and get up to make day 13 happen.

Thanks for looking in...

2-12-1 "55th St Rise" - pastel - 8x10

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

SOLD

2-12-2 "Oxford Rd Winds" - pastel - 8x10

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

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2-12-3 "Tree Stand" - pastel - 8x10

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

SOLD

2-12-4 "Prairie Homes" - pastel - 8x10

©Marc R. Hanson 2104

SOLD

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

February 11, 2014

Today is the birthday of the other best thing that ever happened to me. My youngest son was born 28 years ago on this day.

For a change of pace, I grabbed the pastels this morning. We're not having any precipitation now, and it seemed like it would be good to switch things up today. What you should never do, and I did, is try a new art material when you don't have time to monkey around with it if it's not working so well for you... for... Me. It's almost impossible to find my all time favorite paper of choice, Wallis 'Belgian Mist'. The supplies just aren't getting to the distributers that I've tried. It's a shame, it's a wonderful paper, but if it's always going to be so tough to but when you need it, then an alternative is going to be imperative. I've used UArt... it's ok. But I wanted something with a tone. My paper today was LaCarte light grey. Not really a grey, but a warm ocherish colored paper. I used it many years ago, before I had nice soft, buttery pastels like I do now. It didn't work out very well at all, using harder pastels in the past.

I have mixed feelings about it. Some aspects of how it takes pastel are wonderful. It holds plenty of pastel pigment, can be wiped down, and is a nice stiff card stock type paper. I was not happy that I couldn't get the kind if sharp little touches that I can with Wallis, and UArt. It has a great texture, just about the right coarseness. I'll keep plugging away with it, it worked in the end, but took me a lot to try to figure out how to work it. I discovered one thing, I still don't have enough soft, buttery pastels... a trip to the supplier is in order.

Thanks for looking in... Enjoy!

2-11-1 "Nimbus Rd" - pastel - 8x10

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

SOLD

2-11-2 "Swirl" - pastel - 8x10

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

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2-11-3 "Casting Shadows" - pastel - 8x10

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

SOLD

2-11-4 "Willows" - pastel - 8x10

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

SOLD

Monday, February 10, 2014

February 10, 2014

Another winter wonderland today! And finally, some sun began to make itself known. I didn't get a start until almost noon today because I had some errands to run. My painting time was pretty limited, about 5 hours. Today's conditions went from almost NO value difference, to good contrasting values. Since the days are lengthening, there was some really gorgeous light towards the end of the afternoon. Those are the kind of effects that, if you want to try to grab them, you had better paint fast. The last two paintings were painted without haste, not fast in the sense that I was slapping on paint willy nilly. But fast and precise, getting an idea and holding on to it while the scene in front of me changed every few minutes. I'm addicted to that kind of energy, the fast changing landscape.

Whenever I begin to feel like I'm getting too myopic, I look for something out there that will break that trend. I prefer to grab the moment, not the afternoon.

I see a lot of critters every day, here are a few shots of some of what is around here. I'm usually shooting with a point and shoot or my iPhone, so the quality isn't great.

The paintings... Thanks for looking in!

2-10-1 "White Land" - oil - 8x10

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

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2-10-2 "Coot Lake" - oil - 8x10

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

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2-10-3 "Finally, Sun!" - oil - 8x10

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

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2-10-4 "Breaking Sky" - oil - 8x10

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

SOLD

Sunday, February 9, 2014

February 9, 2014

Today's date is a special one. The first, of the two greatest things to happen in my life, happened 30 years ago today... my oldest son was born! I was thinking about that all day long with the weather here today. When he was born, it was also VERY cold, but I was not out painting then! :)

All day today the air was full of a fog that was freezing on everything it touched, but was even more pronounced the closer to the edge of the foothills that I was. It was a day for having to look very hard to see the subtle shifts in color temperature. The spacial division from value shifts was very slight, mostly just big, fog induced non-descript shapes, against the lightest value of the snow. Fun to paint, but nothing like yesterday's color world. But, I love painting this kind of day.

My palette was full, but about all I put a brush in besides white, was ultramarine blue, terra rosa, yellow ochre, some viridian and alizarin, and the greenish umber.

The moisture was chilly however, there were several coffee breaks (toe warming sessions) before it was all over.

Thanks for looking in... Enjoy!

2-9-1 "Freezing Fog #1" - oil - 8x10

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

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2-9-2 "Freezing Fog #2" - oil - 8x10

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

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2-9-3 "Freezing Fog #3" - oil - 8x10

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

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2-9-4 "Freezing Fog #4" - oil - 8x10

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

SOLD

Saturday, February 8, 2014

February 8, 2014

I'm liking this weather! I started out the day by painting another 'long view', the Smoke Shack. I realized that I was concentrating too much on what I love so much about this area, the patterned, textural quilt of the big landscape. I drive around with my jaw in my lap constantly... this area is such a beautiful layout of rolling hills, dotted with old and new farms, all backdropped by the Front Range. I am an addict.

However, as much as I love it, I also like the smaller, more intimate angles on the landscape. Seems I've been painting a lot of the wide angle views lately. So after the first one of the day, I was looking around (all of these were painted on one road in a stretch of about a mile) and saw that there were paintings everywhere that I hadn't been looking at. With the temps as mild as they were, I just planted myself and painted away. I like when I don't have to do a road trip to find the paintings I want to paint.

For the painters, one thing that is an issue when doing this all day for days in a row, is the toll the bright light takes on the eyes. I've recommended against it, then realized that there are times when wearing sun glasses to paint, like in extreme bright situations near water or on snow, might be the way to go. Using a very neutral colored lens, no pink shades please, I've found that the color and values are pretty accurate. In the end, it's all relative, so if you need to paint with them on, leave them on all the way through of course, but it's not the worst thing a painter could do.

But... I didn't wear them today. I hate wearing them to paint... :)

Not sure what tomorrow has in store, but if it's anything close to what today was like, I'm happy already.

Thanks for looking in... Enjoy. And thank you All for the comments. It's been hard to get to them all with a reply, I hope to eventually gather all of them together and write up a blog post answering as many as I can.

2-8-1 "Smoke Shack" - oil - 8x10

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

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2-8-2 "Roadside Darks" - oil - 8x10

SOLD

2-8-3 "Frozen" - oil - 8x10

SOLD

2-8-4 "Scraggly" - oil - 8x10

SOLD

Friday, February 7, 2014

February 7, 2014

Nice day, but I only came home with a couple of paintings in the creel. Since I set this goal for myself, I'll be making these up by painting more than my goal of 4 a day, during the next few days.

The day started a little late, I had a couple of errands to do ($7.99 haircuts at Great Clips). Already late for my normal start, and on the way to my first spot for the day, I ended up spending about an hour or so helping a guy with a BMW Z4 Roadster get out of a ditch, that he ended up in while driving it on an icy, snow packed country road where there's a drop off of about a foot or two on each side. Not a good place for a high powered rear wheel drive sports car. He was resting on an axle, but we managed to dig him out enough so that with his wife at the wheel, he, a lady jogger who came by, and I were able to finally push him free.

When that was over, I was at the time of day when I normally would have already had two paintings finished.

I was secretly thinking... "Good, it's only going to be warmer, later!". The things you'll do to try making a situation for yourself better, or seem better. I painted the first one, wiped the second one (which you can't see), painted the third one, and wiped the fourth one... which is also absent by default! That's how it goes some days... I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

More coyotes, in fact, it sounded like the entire country side was crawling with them at one point this afternoon. Howling all over the hills and valleys around me. Saw three of them patrolling a fence line on my way home.

Also, this project has now turned my Honda Odyssey into an official 'paint mobile'... unless I can clean the cadmium orange and red off of the upholstery on the driver's door. I know I can remove all of the hand prints off the door handles, and the brush marks off of the windows, no big deal. But this upholstery situation is troubling.

Enjoy... I'm going to get a good meal! :)

2-7-1 "A Warmer Morning" - oil - 8x10

SOLD

2-7-2 "Cooling Afternoon" - oil - 8x10

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Thursday, February 6, 2014

February 6, 2014

It was a warmer start today... -9ºF. The high today... a raging +4ºF!!!

After yesterday and spending the day in the van, I said... "Screw it... I may not get another chance this winter to paint in this frigid weather... I'm painting in the 'open air'!" I am getting acclimated to these temps now. But, I'm not an idiot, so I put on layers of extreme cold weather clothing. Being an outdoor guy from Minnesota, I could cover every square cm of my skin, head to toe, with at least 4" of insulated garb if I needed to. Today I wore my LaCrosse -120ºF boots, and was toasty warm. I did stick a hand warmer under my outer sock in each foot. I felt tropical all day long.

And an absolutely stunning day it was! There was so much color, from sun up to sun down, that I wish I could paint about a dozen studies a day to try to grab some of it.

When I paint in these kind of temperatures, the oil in the paint gets stiff of course, just like the motor oil in your car engine. There are a couple of things I do to make it possible to move the paint around at these temps. First, I make use of a non oil medium, like Liquin, or a thin oil medium, like Winsor & Newton's 'Drying Linseed Oil'. Both of these have a nice fluidity, even when it's this cold. Secondly, I make liberal use of smallish sized palette knives. I may apply most of the paint in the painting with a knife, scrape it back down, manipulate that with a brush... what ever works. With those two methods, and using OMS as needed to thin the paint, it's really not a big deal.

I was lucky today, NO WIND. If the wind were strong, my tune would be sounding different. Tomorrow... +38º!!! I can't wait, and am very glad I painted the special qualities of light and color, that the frigid atmosphere presents.

My coyote buddies were back around the hood again today. One coyote a quarter mile out in the middle of a flat, snow covered field, looking small and wandering around, looking for a mouse most likely, is a lonely sight. I also had a great experience today. Not far from where I live, there are about 250 elk who've made their way out of the higher altitudes to lay in the sun and lounge all day in safety. They're a little far off of the road, but it's an impressive sight.

Thanks for looking in...