Because I Wanted To Try Painting Stars...

...I started with the night series at high tide first.


The image transfer just left a jumble of charcoal lines, and although I usually only use one layer for studies, here I made an exception and threw in burnt sienna and umber for anything not sky or water.


Then the sky went in, and to my surprise it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be paint a star, then color in the sky around it, leaving it to look like it is shining through the sky.


I did the same for the reflected stars in the water.


Finally, after waiting a couple of weeks for the moon to return, I spent a couple of nights taking notes on the the color of grass under the moonlight, and completed the marsh grass in two sittings.


-jb.

Usually When I Fall Off A Ladder...

...some variant of "Man, that was stupid!" runs through my head. But this time it was "Hmmm, that is kind of a pretty view!" And in need of a subject for a series of studies to work out the different qualities of light in a day, I was sold on the subject.


The next day (because at this point I was covered head to toe in mud, shivering, and my shooting time was therefore over) I went out to catch the sunset.


Dirty work, shooting from a low angle perspective (also known as "worm's eye view") but the view is unique.


It is also a bit stressful, as the high tide shots required the camera to be just inches above several inches of camera killing water.


But I did what I do whenever I am in this type of situation, and reminded myself that my camera is worth about the same as my car, that I am therefore holding my car in my hands, so do not choose this moment to be a klutz. Even though being a klutz got me here, by falling off a ladder!

-jb.

Speaking of My 100th Landscape...

...maybe I should explain how I got to that number, or, how I title my paintings.


This was my first painting on canvas, in acrylics, completed when I was about 15. It was probably titled something silly like, "Valley in Vermont" or some other sad trope. But in college, my school was directly across from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and I spent an inordinate amount of time within it's halls. One thing I noticed is that as soon as someone was drawn to a painting, the first thing they would do is read the label giving the title, artist name, and other details. While I did not know what went through the viewer's mind, sometimes this info would cause them to completely abandon a painting they were otherwise drawn to. Most landscapes were either named after the place, or the place was included in the information. I wondered if a person's preformed idea of a place would alter their relationship with a painting of that place.


So I wanted nothing at all to do with titles that would influence my viewers relationship with my paintings. Being a giant fan of 70's minimalism, I went with "untitled landscape #_" for my titles. But having to start somewhere with a number sequence, I retroactively gave the above painting the honor of "untitled landscape #1" as it was the my first truly successful (for reasons perhaps only known to me) landscape painting in oil.


But gallery owners HATE untitled series #_ and want real, pretty titles. To be dead honest, I kind of agree with them and acquiesced for the simple reason that keeping straight the difference between painting #37 and #38 on numbers alone, two months, let alone two years down the line, is a giant chore. But keeping the system already in place, I shortened "untitled landscape #" to simply "ul#" and added on a title in parenthesis. So the above image is "ul 25 (a tribute to Georgia O'Keefe)."


Most of the the time, the titles are not so specific, as once again, I care not to influence a viewer's idea of a painting with something as benign as a title. But it was the view from her front porch in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, so in this case I made an exception. Besides, I've had a poster of one her paintings since I was like seven. It is the least I could do to repay the favor of her works' influence on me. Mostly painting titles come from songs I had running through my head at the time, like the one above "ul 50 (samson)."


Or, when they are a series or body of work, track names from the album I had playing in my studio at the time. Vainly, I hope one day to have a retrospective at a big museum. Then, instead of the audio tour with some narrator waxing philosophic about the lengths I went to create, the influences on my work, my intentions, etc. (for which you have this blog, my dear reader, minus the annoying voice over), you can take the other option, simply a soundtrack of each painting's song when you stand in front of it. For the one above, "ul 75 (the bagman's gambit)," you would be listening to The Decembrists in my pipe dream retrospective.


Which brings me to my latest painting, "ul 100 (carriers of the light)." The song is by Brendan James, and explains why he continues to sing. I thought it fitting, for not only having an infectious tune, it also could explain why I continue to paint. And hopefully this extremely long blog post also explains how much I think about you as the viewer, and thank you for viewing, and caring for and about, my paintings. Thanks, and on to 101!

-jb.

There's A Reason...

...that my 100th landscape painting is better than my first, and it might not be as simple as the fact that I painted 98 in between the two. It is the systems of creating the paintings that I am constantly developing and then refining that make each painting better (with some exceptions) than the last. My newest system is using a color grid of all the colors I use in each layer of each painting.



The colors on the right of this panel I'm holding up in front of my painting are from the first layer of paint. On the second layer (to the left), I not only get to tighten the detail, but by using comparison, get to refine the color to create atmosphere.



You might think the marsh is all one tone, but in reality the oranges and browns go from dark and deep in the foreground to light and faded in the distance. On the right of the color grid (first layer) the colors are broken into background, middleground, and foreground. In the second layer (left side), these three steps were split into five, to make the transition even more subtle. This use of shifting tones creates a natural perspective and adds atmosphere. Oh, and by the way, the top green colors were for the fading of the horizon line, while the bottom three colors were for the grass reflections in the water, and I only used the darkest of these in the foreground reflections.

-jb.