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.