Delinquent Post

Unfortunately, my hard drive crashed and I have been busy getting it back up to date. But in that process I found a few photos that were meant for posting, but got ignored.


This is a detail from the bottom-center-right of the painting.


This is the same section, after a solid day's work.


Once again, the same section after three days in the studio. The pace is grueling, but at least the leaves are finally almost filled in.


And here they are filled in. Now I am off to paint branches!

- jb boyd

Once Again...

...I go back to painting leaves. The last of the background trees was finished tonight (pictured below in the center above a green piece of tape on the frame), and I have one more big push of leaves, excepting the fun final last few hundred.


- jb boyd

Print Sale...

There are three reasons I am going Crazy Eddie for the month of April! First, an update to my website www.jbboyd.net has made navigating my prints wicked easy. Thank you, Ian Jones! Second, doing taxes forced me to go over the books and I realized that I am really close to the threshold I set for raising my print pricing. Finally, I have to pay the tax man! So, an extra large will be the price of a large print ($600), a large will be price of medium ($400), a medium will be the price of a small ($200), or you can purchase two small prints for the price of one ($200). 

And because money can be a drag and not all of us get refunds, you can pick your payment plan! Divide the total up into as many monthly payments as you can comfortably afford and once you have paid off half, your prints will go into production. The turn around time is two months from the date of order to delivery. But you have to order in this month, after that my prices will go up, and yes, with prices this low, I must be... INSANE!

The Fun of Blogging...

...comes in when you get to compress a bit of work into one post.


Here the painting is still a jumble of unfinished lines, but each tree dropped in makes another become more defined.


After looking at an insurmountable mess for so long, I only have five more trees to fill in this round, then one last big round of leaves.


The puzzle is coming together!

- jb boyd

Delinquent Blogging...

...I have been suffering from of late. Apologies to my few faithful readers; I have no defense except to say that it is hard to come up with interesting things to say about leaves. Now that I've had a month plus to think about it, I still got nothing.


But plodding forth undaunted, the above image is from my last post, just to get back up to speed. Typically I paint one size of leaves in a section, but here there are little ones in the background and larger (and mostly red-ish because they are in shadow) leaves of a more foreground level. By building like this the tree gets wrapped, and everything begins to look a bit more three dimensional.


Stay tuned for more riveting news on leaves...


- jb boyd

There's A Light...

...at the end of the tunnel. But I am not on a bullet train or even the Model A in "A River Runs Through It." Most often, it feels like I am manically pumping one of those hand carts in an old silent film ahead of a steaming locomotive and getting nowhere fast.


But there is a light as the background trees start to fill in. The detail below is roughly 15 x 20" and located in the right center of the painting. The bright white dots (again in the right center) are leaves that I missed on the first pass of yellow.


So now I get to paint, you guessed it, more leaves!

- j.b. boyd

In case you were wondering...

...this is what my next show will look like:


Of course, these are only the foundation for my September show, but seven months will go by faster than I would like, and it will take a couple of weeks at least to fully prepare these panels (drying time on oil grounds is a test of even my patience). But in the meantime I get to look at the shapes and start to imagine what will fill them. The boxes in the upper left will be studies for the three large pieces in the bottom of the frame. And because I will be painting them in the mountains of Wyoming, it would be a safe bet to expect a healthy amount of snow, rock, and trees. Speaking of, it is time to paint some:


-jb.

The Forest For The...

...trees! I get to paint trees! It is just a start, and sooner than sooner I will be back painting leaves, but today it is trees!


This is the first to go in, and I will paint in four more that are partially hidden in the back, then reflect on how I can make them better while painting, you guessed it, more leaves.


-jb.

Two Hours In The Studio

Continuing the the cliche of likening painting large to running a marathon, I decided to set up my camera to show some detail in this important milepost, the third corner.


First, I use a straight edge razor to cut the Aspen branches and trunks into semi-channels.


Next, I paint the lightest leaves to use as markers for the general space and shapes.


Then, I switch to the darkest colors of each corresponding section.


To finish off the section, I paint in the mid-tones of color, then go over the dominant individual leaves to soften their edges.


Finally, I go back to the razor to clean out the channels for the branches.


Rinse, repeat...

-jb.

Living In A Tent Sucks.

Living in a tent city sucks even worse. Living in a tent, in a tent city, with a fever, when you are four? Well, you get the idea. But one of my dearest friends is doing something about it, by bringing a traveling art endeavor to the streets of Haiti. The project is fully funded, their bags are being packed, and in these last three days of fundraising, they are using the extra money to buy children's medicine that is in dire short supply. Jenni is one person who can make me wide eyed at what a mix of art and charity can accomplish in the lives of children, when I can pry a story of what she accomplishes stateside out of her. Because she is not at her best when it comes to her own PR, I will say that dollar for dollar, this will be the best aid you can ever provide, and bring color and relief to a place that desperately needs it. So please, become a part of this mission today:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mimicake/hope-art-haiti-operation-peace-endeavor

-jb.