A couple more Oil Pastels

I'm still working with Oil Pastels. The first painting 11 by 14 inches of one of the fountains in Prescott Park, Portsmouth, NH. The second painting is of a sojourn in Bancock, Thailand, also 11 by 14 inches Oil Pastel.

Aviation Photos

I've been putting some of my old aviation slides into my computer and I thought I would share a few.

The T34, the first aircraft I ever flew.

T33 my last training aircraft

T33 close formation

Flying the KC135, jet tanker with a F102 on my wing between refuelings.

The Red Apple

I've been working more with oil pastels. The results are like an oil painting but in stick form. I'm coming to like them the more I use them.

I love pastels but I've been trying to avoid the dust that necessairly gets spread around the studio.

This painting is on archival canvas panel, with black gesso infused with marble dust. Marble dust provides a good tooth for the pastels and is a little easier on the fingers when blending than pumice in the gesso.

Still Life Anvil

It's been awhile since I've been active. Health issues of the aging.

I'm continuing to work with oil pastels and completed this still life for the Guys out there.

Let's give a cheer for the blacksmiths and metal workers.

The original painting is an 11 by 14 inches, canvas moutned on hardboard.

Due to health issues, I've had to miss my last two art fairs.

No Notice Art Fair

Last weekend, I was in a (almost) no notice art fair. The art fair was in the Lafayette Shopping Mall in Portsmouth, NH. I had applied for the fair last May but never received a response. Two days before the fair, I received an email reminding me of the show with a printout of the artists and I was on the list. A few emails later I started getting ready for the show.

Something went awry and I and a couple of friends didn't receive notice of acceptance. One friend only found out when someone had seen a poster announcing the show and told him his name was on it.

Anyway it was a good show, the hosts were quite helpful and nice. It was their first show and I hope they'll have it again next year.

I sold my last Mustang giclee print, I will have to get more made. This print has been a best seller for me on Zazzle.com and Cafepress.com. So far everyone who has purchased the image has had it put on black tee shirts, black caps, and black jackets and black sweats.

Weather Problems

Major weather problems made for a bad day at the Londonderry Art Fair. I was hoping that the fair would be rain delayed but the fair officials said the weather was supposed to break and the fair would go on. It was misting as I errected my tent and placed my paintings inside. I left the front off the tent because I didn't want my display to be too obscured. However before long the rains came heavy and winds blew rain into the tent and I had to put up the fourth side of the tent. Some on my paintings got wet and I was soaked. There was a bit of a break in the afternoon and a few people came by the Art Fair.

The only good thing about the day was my painting of the " Nubble Light" a lighthouse in Maine took a third place ribbon.



I had to spend the next couple of days drying out my displays, tent and had to reframe some of the glazed artwork. I wish we had gone for the rain day.

Londonderry Art Fair

I will be setting up my tent on the Londonderry commons, Londonderry, NH on Saturday, Sep 12 along with about 30 other artists for a day long art show. I would love to have someone stop by who actually saw my blog. Above are a couple of the twenty original paintings I will be displaying along with numberous giclee prints of my current and past art work.

This will probably be my last outdoor show for this year.

Just a Little Whimsy

Just a little whimsy. It was proposed that several artists do a painting that included a chicken. this is my painting (oil pastels) I titled: "A Giant Leap for Chickenkind."

Disappointing Art Fair

The art fair was a bit disappointing not many people showed to view the fair. Perhaps the weather was too good. It was a very rare wonderful weather day and perhaps everyone was out enjoying the beach and just didn't want to waste the day by going to an art fair. This has been the rainiest summer I can remember in New England. A couple examples of the art that did sell for me.

I did manage to sell some of my aviation art so the show wasn't a total bust.

Stratham, NH Park Art & Crafts Fair

this Saturday I will be at the Stratham Park and Fairgrounds with my booth and about 20 paintings and a goodly number of giclee prints. Rockingham Craftsmen are sponsoring the event and I'm the token impressionist painter.

A Little Whimsey

I was in a whimsical mood and decided to play around with my oil pastels. The fungi on the tree trunk is from a friend's reference photo. The pixies were just for fun.

New Oil Pastel

Still experimenting with oil pastels.

I just completed this one today.

Prescott Park, Plein Air

Went plein air painting to the fountains in Prescott Park in Portsmouth, NH a couple of weekends ago. I was painting happily for about 40 minutes when a birthday party took over the area around the fountains. They weren't entitled to the exclusive use of the area but there were about a hundred people in the party, at least there seemed to be a hundred people.

I struggled on for a few minutes before the choas just drove me away. I had tried to rough in the scene before leaving. Now a few weeks later, I finished up the painting relying on my fragile memory. The painting is an 8 by 10 inch acrylic, on stretched canvas.

Nubble Light, limited palette

The first photo shows my Yarka, French style easel. It has aluminium legs and is lighter than the typical French easel. It's great for plein air painting. I put oven glass in the easel as a mixing surface. Even dried acrylics are easily removed by wetting the glass. The folded paper towel, at the forward edge of the palette, is wetted, excess water squeezed out, and the acrylic paint globs stay fresher longer on the wet paper.

I had a request to do a painting of the Nubble Lighthouse in Maine for my next art show. It was an opportunity to experiment with a limited palette. I used permanent red, yellow ochre, prussian blue and titanium white. It is fun to see what I can do with a limited palette. My normal palette is only five colors: cad yellow, cad red, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and rarely permanent green (to gray things down). One of these days I'll try the Zorn Palette of black, yellow ochre and red. White is always understood, officially it's not a color. I have seen some amazing art even with this surprising palette.

This painting is also in the art auction at the Fuller Gardens.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

The Art, Garden Party at the Fuller Gardens has been postponed to Thursday evening, July 9th, in the hopes of catching a break from this incessant rain. It is an out door art auction and garden party. I have three paintings up for auction and will be showing a couple more during my demo.

One of the paintings is an expressionistic depiction of the Nouveau Well in the Fuller, rose garden:

Fuller Gardens

Wednesday, July 8th I will be doing a demo painting and showing some of my art work at the historic Fuller Gardens, North Hampton, New Hampshire. There also will be an art auction from 5 PM to 8PM that day.

Oil Pastel of the art nouveau well in the center of the rose garden at the Fuller Gardens.

The painting is 11 by 14 inches.

Plein Air on the Piscattaqua

Gus, my Golden Retriever, and I went plein air painting along the Piscattaqua River in New Castle, NH. The only shade available was in a yard by the road. The owner of the property was walking down his driveway carrying a bucket. He said that he would be delighted for Gus and me to use his yard. He walked on down to the river and came back in about a half an hour with a bucket full of mussels.

I had about 80 percent of the painting finished in about three hours and finished it at home. I left the bottom unfinished as a vinette. It is an acrylic, 11 by 14 inches, on stretched canvas.

Oil Pastel

Since I've kind of given up on soft pastels due to the dust in the studio (mine is a bit small). A friend suggested oil pastels.

I've began to experiment with them and they handle more like oil paint than pastels. Instead of rubbing the dust around on the paper, you smear the oil pastel and can even use solvents to move it around like oil paint.

I chose a reference photo from the www.wetcanvas.com website's reference library. The reference photo didn't have the monks in it but I felt the painting demanded the monks.

The pastels were Gray Pas and Erengi and the support was a gessoed masonite panel on which I placed an extra layer of gesso and pumice. I realized that the pumice was not necessary and actually interfered with the blending. The painting is 11 by 14 inches.

Latest Plein Air Painting

I went plein air painting to the causeway that seperates New Castle and Portsmouth, NH and found an interesting subject in the back channels and islands in the area. The small boat is on the far side of the small island in one of the channels and had an isolated feel that appealled to me.

It is an acrylic painting, 11 by 14 inches on a gessoed masonite panel.

George Cherepov

I'm sorry to have been away for such a long time. Alas when one gets old, these things happen.

There is a movie coming out called "Local Color" dealing with a young artist wanting to learn traditional painting but he is unable to get it in college art schools. He badgers an established artist to give him the training he wants. Supposedly movie is based on the producers true story. I've been told that the artist was George Cherepov. I've been experimenting with limited palettes (3 colors and white) and another artist told me that Cherepov's limited palette was: Prussian Blue, Indian Red, yellow ochre and white. This painting I did with that palette as an experiment. With the three dull, dark primaries, I was surprised how vibrant the colors were that I was able to mix.

I've ordered George Cherepov's book on oil painting from the used book market. I'm very impressed by the few paintings I've seen of his.

New Images in my Zazzle

I added three new images to my Zazzle: http://www.zazzle.com/halsart . The one showing here is the surf on the coast of Rye, New Hampshire, just after a Noreaster passed by.

I've been experimenting with Chigiri-e (literally: tear art) but I haven't achieved a piece I'm willing to share as yet. I'm having difficulty achieving a blend of colors. Just what translucent paper to layer over another colored paper to achieve a graduated color shift. It's more demanding than I thought it would be. I have twenty sheets of different translucent color but I wish I had forty different colors to achieve more subtle color shifts. I may break down and make my own. In fact I'm pretty sure I'll have to resort to making my own using white rice paper. In my previous posting, I included a link to an artist who knows what he's doing in this art form. I wish I could have him as a mentor. I much admire this art form.

buy unique gifts at Zazzle

Chigiri-e

I highly recommend the http://www.wetcanvas.com/ free artists' web site. There's over a hundred thousand members representing every art discipline that I am aware of and some of which I'm aware of only because I discovered them there.

I recently remembered a television series , shown many years ago, on Japanese artists who were considered national treasures. I loved the series and one artist expecially. He used torn bits of washi paper (colored Japanese paper) and applied them to plain wooden dolls achieving amazing transluent qualities. Paintings are also made using this technique. I wanted to know more but didn't have the faintest idea as to where to start a search. I posted the question on the wetcanvas web site and within a hour I had the answer with links to examples of the art and links to instructions. What a site!!

The art form is called Chigiri-e: literally meaning torn art. I'm attaching a link to a web site showing examples of the art: http://keisol.com/tomomiwashi/default.htm . I haven't received permission to show any artist's work and I don't know of any in the public domain so I'm just offering the web site. Hopefully someday I can produce some work worthy of showing.

Some may consider this to be collage but it's really not.

Incident in Exeter

I hung The Exeter Library Show a few days ago. Fifteen paintings were hung around the facitlity. The ranged from landscapes, aviation art, marine art and a still life. The only problem was my having to get up on a ladder to hang some of the paintings. I'm 70 and some of my meds disturb my balance a little bit. After hanging two with the ladder and almost falling off I decided to just hand the fifteen rather than twenty.

B58, Hustler

I'm a retired Air Force Pilot, and an online friend who is a pen, ink and colored pencil artist, who also admired the B 58 Hustler (Trenton Hill) created this version of the B 58. He has created a good number art works featuring vintage aircraft and machinery. He will be sending me print of his creation. In exchange, I sending him a print of one of my works. I am getting the better of the deal. Trenton's web site is http://www.wingartproductions.com/ Take a look you'll enjoy his site.

I've had to delay hanging my show at the Exeter Library due to the heavy snow today. We received a good ten inches and there is more coming this afternoon. I hope to get it hung tomorrow.

One Man Show

I will be having a one man show in the Exeter, NH Library for the months of March and April of '09. I should be able to put in 15 to 20 paintings in the Library.

Two Paintings at Exeter Chamber of Commerce

I placed two paintings in the offices of the Exeter, NH Chamber of Commerce.

The first painting is an acrylic, 11 by 14 inches, of Peggy's Cove, Nova '.

The second painting is a pastel, image size 12 by 16 inches, depicting my haiku "Adrift." " Adrift on a dark, dark sea, I dream of what never was and never will be." It has been in my inventory for several years now. It's kind of a strange case: It has won several awards in at least 3 art shows, including a first with high praise from the judge but I've been unable to sell it. I've reduced the price hoping it will find a good home.

New Gus Photo

I've been off line for a while. A friend, Sharon Malkin, drew a portrait of my Golden Retriever, Gus, and I'll post it below and a couple new photos of Gus. Gus loves snow and we could be getting close to a foot of new snow tomorrow. Gus will be in snow dog heaven tomorrow. I had to take the photo of the drawing on an angle to avoid glare from the flash.