Painting Accepted: Blue Moon Heron II

Blue Moon Heron II

23 x 18

Transparent Watercolor

This painting was accepted into the Watercolor Society of Oregon's Fall Show by juror, Linda Doll. It will hang among 80 other paintings in Bandon, Oregon at the Southern Coos Hospital October 4 through December. I am very happy that my painting was selected and will be hanging at the convention where I will hand over the gavel to a new president of the WSO. 

Viewers may recognize this piece as being very similar to a previous painting, Blue Moon Heron, which was not a transparent watercolor painting, therefore ineligible for exhibitions which require a picture painted only using transparent paints. For non-painters, this is confusing, I know. There is a certain quality to a strictly transparent watercolor painting, that is both challenging to the painter and lovely on a piece of watercolor paper. Where other paints cover up the paper, transparent watercolors soak into the paper, leaving a jewel-like characteristic to the colors.

I hope many of you will see this and other paintings in person in Bandon. The Oregon Coast is a wonderful destination for a fall vacation.

Minor Changes Can Improve a Painting

I painted Gone To Ruins this past summer. I entered it into a competition in the fall and it was rejected. 

It was, in ways, a hard piece to paint in my style, because it is a structure and there are no organic elements except for the sky. I liked many parts of the painting, but always felt it was too static. I also saw the small pieces going out of the painting as too busy.  

Because I still had faith in the painting, I decided to make some minor changes to correct the 2 things I saw as problems with the piece.

 

Gone To Ruins   (Before)

 

Gone To Ruins (After)

To add a bit of movement to the piece, I made a small stamp and used it in a number of places to add interest, a sense of play, and detail to tie the large blocks to the more intricate interior. I also reworked the lower portion to eliminate the smaller blocks that had pulled the eye out of the painting. 

I entered the revised version of the painting in the Emerald Art Center's National Show competition and the piece was accepted. 

Do you see the changes as improvements?

Another Visit to Volcano Art Center

The Volcano Art Center http://www.volcanoartcenter.org is in an old historic building in the Volcano National Park here on the Big Island. It is a charming unfinished wood structure with a stone fireplace, and on a cold blustery day at that higher elevation, one can almost feel like it's Christmas-time, even in Hawaii. That is the feel of the place last Friday when I went up with some new paintings.

All the art up there is volcano related: ohi'a and other native plants, flowing lava, native birds are some of the themes of the art pieces. I had framed 4 pieces I felt confident the director there would want, based on other paintings of mine she has hung. The two large pieces are representational as is one of the smaller ones. One of the smaller is abstract.

Soaring14 x 20
Riding the Thermals

14 x 20

Soaring

14 x 20

Seeing Red

10 x 14

Aftershock

10 x 14



Along with the framed pieces, I took several other paintings I thought might have the feel of the volcano, two of which were also abstract.

Orb Rising

14 x 20

Night Run
14 x20

Perhaps you've already guessed that I was wrong in trying to foresee which pictures would end up hanging at the Volcano Art Center. The director choose Night Run and Orb Rising because they are quite different than other art in the gallery. She also accepted the two small pieces.

So I ended my visit to the Volcano knowing I would return another day with two newly framed pieces. It's only an 1 1/2 hour round trip. All in a day's (or more) work as an artist seeking walls to hang ones art.

When is a Painting Done?

Riding the Thermals

14x20

This is a question I have a hard time answering. For the last couple of days I've been working on this painting that is a departure from my usual subject matter. I rarely paint animals, and if I do, it's usually as an addition to the landscape, rather than the subject matter.

I've become a bit obsessed with these tropicbirds. They are very common near the water, as they are marine birds that feed on fish and the like. So it's always surprising to find them flying around the volcanic caldera, yet there they are. I am not positive, but my reading leads me to believe that they may nest on the cliffs of the craters. They pair up and keep the same partners, so you often see two together.

In this painting, I painted the pair, then created 3 more birds patrolling in the distance to lead the eye back into the painting. If you read my blog, you know I'll prop this up and gaze at it for a few days before I call it done, but I'd love to get feedback on this. Do you think it looks complete?

After the Storm

After the Storm
11 x 22
transparent watercolor

This painting was started in August 2007, when I just wet the paper and put a wet into wet suggestion of the landscape at the top of the picture. We had a whole lot of rain just before I began the painting, which meant that Rainbow Falls was gushing. Granted the waters were pretty muddy at the time, but I felt there was a beautiful painting to come out of the gushing, misty, wet and dripping landscape.

**For those readers unfamiliar with Hilo's Rainbow Falls, it has a huge range of water from this bountiful amount to a tiny, almost invisible, dribble.

So last week I pulled the beginnings of this piece out of a pile and went to work building up the foliage in the foreground. This is a more pastel and gentle painting than I usually do, but I found it pleasing and evocative of the abundance of water. At some point it was just too ambiguous, but I found by implying a distinct horizon line up at the top of the falls, the painting felt substantial and more readable.

This painting is now framed and hanging at Chase and Hanes Fine Art Gallery in Hilo.