September 18, 2008

Good morning!

Another beautiful day in the neighborhood! My good friend Jennifer Hogg invited me out to sketch with her on this sunny morning. We went to Swasey Parkway. A link to her blog is on the left of this page so check out what she created while we were out.

It was low tide so a number of bird species were about. I decided to use my pen today and work on blind contours. What first caught my attention were three great blue herons. In between watching and drawing them, there were plenty of gulls and a group of ducks to draw. I actually really like this page! It was quite fun, very relaxing and the contours are charming, I think.

Two business decision I made recently that I would like to share with you: My main focus from now on will be the Home & Garden Portraits. For a full description of how I think of this traditional form of painting can be found on my website, www.birchtreestudioart.com. The other piece of focus will be Nature Note Cards. As my field sketches get better and better through practice, I am going to develope a line of Nature Note Cards. These will feature field sketches, done entirely in the field, along with observational notes. The inside will be blank.
I will continue to be available for all of the other services I offer but I will not be marketing them. If they come to me via verbal references, that's swell. But my business efforts will go towards the Home & Garden Portraits and, eventually, Nature Note Cards.

I have plenty of references for the Home & Garden Portraits and a healthy body of work to show potential clients. If you are considering such an item for yourself or as a gift for someone, let's talk!

Well, on to my work for the day...the second in a series of three home portraits for one client! Enjoy this wonderful weather we're having...cold and rain is sure to come all too soon!
Sandy

September 11, 2008

Hello all. I'm already behind on posting my sketches. But I've been very busy with other exciting things like making some business decisions. On with the art, though!

I did this little painting last Thursday, 9/11/08. It was a busy day. It would have been easy to find an excuse not to go out and sketch. But what a gorgeous day it was! So I made myself just go somewhere and see what I could see. I went to Swasey Parkway, which is a little walkway and auto road along the Squamscott River in the downtown area of Exeter. Both sides of the river have a section to walk along leading out of downtown. On various occasions I have seen all kinds of birds, turtles, fish and even a river otter. It also offers terrific views of the backside of downtown Exeter.

On this day I chose a tree. Not surprising. Trees have always been one of my favorite subjects to draw. This one is some kind of maple. It has very dark reddish-brown leaves that glow with an orangey light when the sun goes through them. My objective was to get to the color with my paints. Although I did not achieve quite the darkness that the shadowed side had, I like the end result that I cam up with. It was quite a tricky thing, trying to match the colors that I saw. My first attempt fell way short. I was mixing the wrong kind of greens and reds to make the dark reds. And the glowing orange color completely escaped me. It was a dull yet brilliant orange from sunlight passing through the leaves. I think I was using too much red.

I began by trying to identify what the base color is...red. Then I had to figure out from there which of my reds to use...the warm or the cool red? I went with the warm red. Of course, mixing it with green will go to a brown, depending on the percent of each pigment. What I wanted was to darken my red with it's opposite but not loose a sense of "red" in the color. It's amazing, when implementing this theory, how far you can push a color before loosing it completely. After lots of mixing and testing and not coming up with a reasonable match, I realized that I was probably using the wrong red. So I switched to the cool red and viola! I came up with a very happy color almost immediately. The orange color for the illuminated leaves was far trickier. After about an hour-and-a-half of working on this piece, I decided to be happy with what I had done.

So, in the end, I have a lively tree with real nice coloring but no illumination. What do you think?

By the way, I learned yesterday that I did not receive the grant I applied for. Nonetheless, I am carrying on with some of the elements from my grant application. Life is good.

Spetember 4, 2008

12:30pm.
Hot and humid today. Late summer heat and bugs.

I'm real happy to report that I used my first day pretty wisely, I think. After getting a bunch of chores done, I did some correspondence to set up the first meeting with a very good friend, one who is to become my business mentor. In addition, I signed up for a business and networking workshop for artists and registered for a week-long painting workshop. Both events take place in October.

People have said to me in the past that I should avoid all chores on days when I'm working at home. Ignore the dirty dishes and the unmade beds. Instead, focus on the work at hand, the making of art. I used to believe that and practice it. But today I realized that getting a couple chores done this morning actually helped to unclutter my brain, thus, allowing me to focus on the work at hand. It felt good seeing that the dishes were done and the beds were made. I got it done pretty quickly, too. By 9am, I was ready to work.

After the chores and the correspondence, I made a point of going out to sketch. I chose a fitting location, a site that I used to pass on my way to "work". I would always note what a great spot it would be for sketching but never went there just to sketch. I went to a horse farm! It was hot and not much of a breeze was blowin'. My knowledge of horse anatomy is obviously lacking. Nonetheless, it was good practice. I spent about an hour in one spot, moved to the other end of the farm where I stayed for about a half-hour, and then drove to a second farm. The second farm has alpacas. Unfortunately, they were not visible from the road.

At both farms, I was parked alongside one edge of the property and sketched from this vantage point. Neither road was very busy and vehicles were very respectful of my position. Perhaps I'll muster up the courage to ask the property owners if I may come onto their property to sketch their farm animals one day.

I chose to work with just the pencil today. I think it's part of a warm-up, transitional thing, but I didn't want to get involved with paints or pens today. This is very new to me, spending the time to just sketch when I feel like it. My mind wanders onto things I'm feeling I should be doing, instead of just sketching. It might take me a little time to fully relax into this new phase.

Lastly, I created this blog today.