Starting 2010 with a Bang

2010 started with a bang in our neighborhood. Then many more. A pall of smoke hangs in the street lights of downtown Orlando and distant partying can be heard on the edge of Lake Cherokee where some real big boy fireworks are being shot at the low clouds.

Midnight found Susan and I sitting on the patio watching the blue moon through those passing clouds and quietly toasting in the new year/decade. The weather was perfect for an evening outside. That is one of my resolutions for 2010. Stay outside longer, and paint more outdoors.

what's new: Coming Storm 40" x 40", oil on canvas

Looking Back

We are all coming to the end of another year. And the end of a tumultuous decade. 2009 has been a challenging time for a lot of the people in my life. Certainly it has been for me.

Lately I think more about the privilege I have in being able to practice my painting passion daily. As with many of the artists I know, the economic climate of the past couple of years has threatened my ability to continue. Here's hoping for better times for us all in 2010.

what's new: Looking Back 5"x7" oil

Chained to the Easel

This week has been spent in the studio painting pictures. I'm trying to get my head around some small paintings as ideas for larger ones and finish a few small ones to ship off for a gallery show. There is always anxiety about whether the new ones are good or measure up to the previous best. Frankly, I can't tell how good they are until they set around in the studio long enough to see through the new and into the character or heart of the piece.

The ones I love at the end of the day I create them are often looking terrible when I come into work the next morning. What changes?

What's new:

Storm Clouds 18x24

Low Country Evening 12x9

Untitled 12x12

A Busy but Fun Weekend

Today is recovery day from a busy weekend of events. Friday, my wife Susan and I drove to Dunedin FL to set up her booth of ceramics for the Dunedin Fall Harvest Festival. She remained for the weekend with friends and I returned to Orlando.

Saturday, I was at the studio early to prepare for an exhibit of auto art at a gala connected to the Winter Park Concours http://www.winterparkconcours.com/ I drove to Orlando Sanford International Airport and a tricked out airplane hangar where the party was being hosted. This was a great spot for a party if you are a guy or a fast-machine type of gal. The hanger was outfitted with a beautiful ceramic tile floor, chandeliers, murals, and antique airplane propellers. Parked inside was a seaplane, an aerobatic plane, a couple of light aircraft and fast classic European cars. There was a huge bar, a den with flat screen... The ultimate man cave. Outside several business jets and high performance aircraft were parked. Cessna had flown a Citation V from Wichita with corporate pilots to represent the company.

It turned out I was missing a couple of critical items to hang my show of paintings so I called my lovely daughter Michelle who bailed me out by driving to the studio and then the 20 miles to Sanford.

She braved the aircraft on the taxi ways to deliver my tools and then we drove back to Orlando to clean up for the evening. Michelle was my companion and drew lots of attention in her "little black dress". We wined, dined, and mixed, then I sweated the auction of my poster painting. Watching a handful of people set the value of your career in two and a half minutes is not fun to witness. I was relieved to see it fetched more than I charged the clients to paint it but I like to be far away when these things go on the block.

Michelle and I hung out till everyone was going home and I resumed my normal scruffy persona to load the cargo van full of art, lights and display panels. Arrival home was close to midnight.

Sunday morning I unloaded the van from the night before, then on to the Concours on Park Avenue where I met up with a few good friends. Later, it was back on the road for the 120 miles to Dunedin.

Show sales for Susan were decent by the standards of 2009, and we felt grateful. The wind was a concern most of the weekend for the exhibitors there since Hurricane Ida is threatening us but we escaped unscathed by around 6:30. We grabbed dinner before leaving town, and fortified by a lot of un-sweet tea, it was back on the road.

Today another van-load of art show is awaiting my attention, so I guess the weekend is not finished.

Mountain Home - Day 5

This is Day 5 on the mountain painting. It seems time to befinished. I have spent the day adding more intensity to the sky and obsessing on little things; the shapes of the horses, the shadow lines and colors and values of atmosphere in the hillside background. This is the hardest part of the process for me. How to know when you're done.

If I have a common thread to my good paintings, it is painting atmosphere. Nothing seems to subsitute for the layering to get that effect. I tell students when I have taught workshops, there is no substitute for the extra work -at least for me. But I guess this is the part where you state there are no real rules. You have to do it the way you think it works best for you.

Tomorrow I will send an image to the gallery handling the commission and see what comes back.

Finish in Sight

Yesterday was spent in the studio, mainly working on the commission painting I have posted the last few days. The first day or so of painting on a piece like this seems very productive as great areas of canvas are blocked in and colors are established. As the painting winds down the pace slows. Details and fine tuning consume more time and thought. Right now the painting stands 85 to 90% finished.

Towards the end of the day, I took the painting out of the studio into direct sunlight and then to shade to see what it looked like. Colors that look right in the studio sometimes jump off the canvas outside, so it is good to check them in different light.

Measuring Intangibles

This morning I dropped in on an Orange County Board of Commissioners meeting which was addressing funding for the arts in the county. In light of the commission recently revoking an awarded art project at the new Orange County medical examiners building, I was interested in hearing the board's opinion of general arts funding for the next fiscal year.

Our county designates a percentage of a tourist bed tax for arts organizations. In the midst of the recession the tax is returning 20% less than two years ago. The recommended dispersal of the funds was already worked out by an advisory committee, and the budget was approved by a commission voice vote. The commissioner who led the charge for deleting art from the medical examiners building questioned the general funding by asking, "how can we measure the return on investment in the cultural arts?"

Good question. Though studies are done on cultural tourism and the economic effect from it,

I also wonder how we measure the effect in quality of life for the citizenry. Not everything a government does should directly return money. While Orange County doesn't donate money to build churches, they also don't get any return on property taxes for the land a church occupies. Can we admit there are intangibles that can't be measured in dollars and cents?

What's new: Here is an updated image on my current painting commission.