My Computer Ate...

...the photos of the ovals going through the panel making process, but I thought I would post these instead.


Here I included my palette to appease all the people who thought I made mine up for the Palette & Palette show.


After the sky was dry, it was on to filling in the water, all four feet of it, as this painting measures 2x4'.


Gradually, and over several painting sessions, the small shapes give way to larger ones and the going gets easier.


Not bad for a first layer, so I am going to leave this one to finish in the gallery during my September show!


- jb boyd

Circles!

I'm excited about painting in a new format, and with water paintings, what works better than round, porthole sized (if you are on the Titanic), circles? Shown below, there are four. The top one is the print of the photograph. The second is the panel I paint on, with a warm burnt sienna undertone. Then there is the panel sized, black and white print out. The back is covered in charcoal, then I place the print out over the panel and trace the dominant shapes, here by value of lights and darks.


Finally, there is my computer, which I set up somewhere else, but keep in view because my printer likes to add in phantom colors and turn the greens black. (Note: I sometimes split the screen to sort of watch but mainly listen to TV, lately the wonderful webisodes of Dr. Horibble's Sing-A-Long Blog and The Guild on repeat. If you like awkward comedy and smarmy superheros, check them both out! PS. Thanks Charlie!)


Here is the panel, with the faint lines from the tracing just barely visible. The wavy lines are, well, the waves, while the vertical lines are hashing to separate the dark spaces from the lighter ones. A majority of the shapes are really created while painting, but once again using available technology, this is a quick way to hammer out the perspective inherent in the size of shapes to get the level of detail I seek.


Finally, here is the first layer completed over two long studio sessions. And thanks to my less than ideal old iPhone camera, it looks pretty good! But in reality it sucks hard, and will need another complete layer of paint followed by a glaze to smooth out the transitions and build in detail. But not a bad start...

- jb boyd

I Thought Half The Fun...

…of making paintings of water would be getting to go swim an count it as "work." Sadly, getting drilled in the face by oncoming waves gets old pretty quick.


But I must say it does beat the swarms of no-see-ums that lurk in the marsh, so this is not a complaint. And each new challenge necessitates new approaches. This time, a waterproof white balance card is my new favorite solution, pictured here floating behind me:


White balance cards rock because they tell your camera what the temperature of light is, resulting in fairly accurate colors, which is key, especially in the changing light of dawn and dusk. Try it at home by dragging out your camera's manual and looking up "custom white balance" in the index, then use a sheet of white paper for your card. You may be amazed at the results, especially in low or indoor lighting. But the real hero here is my now not so new waterproof, shockproof, freezeproof (aka JB-proof) camera.


Without using this available technology, I'd never be able to take on the level of detail that I try to maintain in my paintings. Or I could, but I would have to spend half a lifetime on one subject (google Venice water paintings or better yet, visit the Getty next time you are near LA), and what is the fun of that? Speaking of my other half of fun, back to painting!


- jb boyd

When Asked...

...what I would do when I finished the big painting of Aspen trees, I would deadpan, "Get drunk for a week" without skipping a beat. I did get drunk that night (thank you friends for the very memorable fourth), but was back in the studio the next morning, err, afternoon. With my solo show upcoming, I've been at it since, morning noon and night. The upside of having a jumbled schedule is usually catching both the sunset and sunrise. Most mornings I can be found out in ocean, photographing the water before the wind picks up.


The downside of such a schedule is that you lose all sense of time. And unfortunately, I also forgot to blog. But I will remedy that over the next few weeks. Here is the first of the larger paintings for the September show.


It is a first layer underpainting, so the hues are bumped in value. The next layer will be softer and more defined, but the colors below influence the subsequent layers.


- jb boyd

The End.

Yup, that says it all.


But before I go, Stuart and Val, you deserve a special thank you. Thank you for your continued patronage. Thank you for leaving two spots in your then yet to built home. Thank you for then commissioning four. Thank you for never asking when they would be done, even though your house was. Thank you for paying well before it was done, when I was tiring of ramen noodles and pb&js. But mostly, thank you for your faith in me and what I do. Without that, this would not be a painting today. It would not even be an idea for a painting. Instead, it is ul 98 (so real).

Woo hoo!

- jb boyd

And Then There Was One.

- jb boyd

Despite My Steadfast Refusal...

...to consider anything but the completion of the big tree painting, time marches on and my show in September looms over the horizon. So besides taking a ton of photography, I have slowly begun working on the show pieces in the gaps of working on trees. Here are the first studies to be completed, and as illustrated, my show in September will deal almost exclusively with the subject of water.


- jb boyd

The (Almost) Last of the Leaves...

...are in! I say almost because I missed at least two, and a few more might pop up, but oh well.


Filling in the details is always rewarding, especially here where the "wrap" of the leaves around the tree makes the spaces appear truly three dimensional.


Once these leaves are dry I will tackle the last of the trees.


Then, dare I may say it, I will be done!


- jb boyd

Two Trees...

...plus a couple of branches to go! And the best part? I get to paint in the last of the leaves today, wrapping the trees in their bright bits of color and suspending them in their respective spaces. More pics to follow...



- jb boyd

Five Trees...

...to go!


- jb boyd