Art for the People Gallery in Austin Tx, is a showcase for 100 local artists.
Art for the People Gallery in Austin has included 3 of my compositions in their Summer group show “ABUNDANCE”, which runs July 2nd through August 26th, 2022. I’m thrilled to be a part of this talented group of artists! If you’re interested in original artwork by Austin artists, check out AFTPG either in person in Austin or browse their online store.
The following paintings are part of the show (links lead to previous blog posts about these compositions):
Barton Creek Tree 30°16’11.0″N 97°49’42.5″W | 6 x 8” | Oil on Canvas Board
This is another morning plein air session along Barton Creek just down from the base of the Hill of Life. This was the first session at this particular spot, which I originally chose for the water chute between the rocks, but the lighting wasn’t very good for the water, so I opted to focus on a cool tree on the other side of the creek.
I brought along my trusty plein air sidekick, Zip, to help keep the squirrels in check while painted. The heat was pretty bad today, so we had a hard stop at 11am so Zip wouldn’t get overheated on the way back up the trail. She made sure her temperature wouldn’t be an issue by instantly jumping in the water once I let go of the leash to setup my easel.
I somehow made this piece more difficult than expected. I think the problem was a lack of structure in values and simplification of the greenery from the get go. I used to hate painting trees, but over the past year I’ve managed to get the hang of it and they’re not as frustrating as years past. That said, this composition was tricky because the focal point is a tree within a sea of trees. But I was outside with my dog painting, so I didn’t really care.
The progression gallery below illustrates the various artistic detours I drove along before finding the finish line. The biggest singular challenge was the lack of foliage on the “real” tree, as you can see from the reference photo, so I improvised some leafy bits in amongst the long, spindly trunks. Initially I balked on the vines, thinking they wouldn’t translate to the viewer, looking more like spaghetti, but after a few failed attempts I managed to weave them in convincingly.
The last design decision was using a palette knife for finishing the trunk. I didn’t like the blended look using a brush and invariably a palette knife can add texture, which is ideal for rendering bark on a tree. If you’re curious about the specific location of this plein air site, I’ve been dropping POI pins on a Google map so I can find my favorite spots in the future. This particular one is located at 30°16’11.0″N 97°49’42.5″W.
PLEASE NOTE this part of the Barton Creek Trail is severely overrun and trashed, especially during the Spring and Summer months. I found tons of trash, especially beer cans, throughout the area. The stretch of the waterway from Hill of Life Dam Falls (northwest) down to Sculpture Falls (southeast) will continue to suffer environmental degradation at an accelerated rate if the City Council and the various environmental groups in Austin (@SaveOurSprings @sosalliance @austinparksfdn @austintexasgov) don’t institute some level of admission controls. Police enforcement and citations for infractions are helpful, but they don’t address the primary issue which is too many people on this sensitive waterway. And last, but not least, the City of Austin needs to honor their legal commitment with the neighborhood to close the Hill of Life trailhead, which they legally agreed to do when a temporary easement was granted by the neighborhood in 1999.
Painting is truly a never ending learning process, which is what makes it so intriguing and rewarding, no matter one’s skill level. However, there are times when you pivot to a new thing – subject matter, tools, medium, etc – and realize the education could be a seamless experience, while there are other times when it’s more of a slap down. This portrait of one of my beloved pups, Wolfy, was indeed of the latter variety.
I’m pretty sure I had a couple things working against me on this one, but let me know what you think in the comments. First, it’s exponentially more difficult to paint (or draw for that matter) a dog that you know really well; getting the expression just right is nearly impossible. Secondly, the reference photo I used was, well, not the best. Wolfy does not like the paparazzi and therefore a workable pose from the furry prince was hard to come by. The third and final challenge was the recognition that Wolfy’s hair and color patterns were new to me and frankly very difficult to figure out.
You’ll notice the reference photo has a grid overlay, which helped tremendously and led to a few adjustments that were very helpful in terms of portrait accuracy. However, despite the grid and many hours of work on this piece, I feel like the final result leans cartoonish and for the life of me I can’t figure out why. I think it might be the length and width of the snout is simply off, but it might also be the plane of the forehead… or it’s his eyes. I don’t know. Thoughts?
Despite the challenges, I had a lot of fun with this composition. And although it was a slap down learning experience, I did educate myself alot about what works and what doesn’t. Some of the “what works” highlights that will carry over into future pieces are the brushwork for long fur, the use of reds in brown haired dogs (it’s there, it’s just hard to see), and the realistic texture of a palette knife for the tongue and nose.
I might have chosen the wrong year to ramp up my en plein air experience, case in point the month of May in Austin is already registering 100 degree days. Ugh! Regardless, the mornings are bearable and I had to break in a new pochade box called u.go. by New Wave Art… more on that later.
This session was at Bull Creek Park with a few other painters from Plein Air Austin. For those of you familiar with Austin, this is the northern stretch of Bull Creek near the Spicewood and 360 intersection. For the uninitiated, it’s ideal for painting outside because there’s usually some good water options along the creek and lots of shade.
The focal point of this composition was the rocks in both the foreground where the shade and light merge, and secondarily the larger rock bathed in sunlight. I was very happy with how this turned out even before I got back into the studio for refinements. I went into this plein air session committed to focusing on values, starting by driving the darks into darkness-of-a-bat-loving-cave kinda dark, then finding high contrast opportunities for the lightest lights. I took some artistic license in this area, fabricating some water movement that wasn’t there, but it made for a more compelling viewing experience in my opinion.
Additionally I muted the trees on the banks, especially the left side, so as to ensure they didn’t distract from the main focal points in the water. I had initially used much lighter, saturated yellow/greens on the trees, but that muted all the lighter values in the composition, which absolutely killed the scene. I’m pretty sure this is what I’ve done in past plein air sessions that has confounded me. I’ll keep my fingers crossed this will carry over into the next outing.
The use of olive green variations on the shadow parts of the distant water were also a change in approach. One of my fellow painters made this suggestion and it proved to work really well. Painting outside is fantastic! This particular outing was of note because I got to share ideas and chat with the other painters. We even treated it like a workshop and did a mini critique of our works at the end of the morning. This was particularly interesting because of the 4 painters, there were 3 different mediums represented – oil, water color, and gouache.
Lastly, my new u.go proved to be a great upgrade to my plein air armaments. Thank you to my awesome wife for giving me the perfect artist gift! The best part about the u.go is the portability. The length and width dimensions are almost identical to my EasyL pochade box, but it’s very thin, so it fits much easier in my pack. Very sturdy and compact design make it a must have piece of equipment for me.
I’ve been working on this piece off and on for the past few weeks. Sometimes I can get my head locked onto an idea that is not necessarily a bad concept, but I overlook the execution challenges, which are either a) well above my skill level, or b) something I forgot I hate doing. In this case it was the latter, specifically my reticence for painting anything with lettering. It’s so tedious, difficult, and frankly it blows my mind up a little every time I try.
The reference photo for Darwin was essential because it provided the actual Pfizer vaccine label details, and this particular photo was handy because it had that laboratory look and feel. I was drawn to the blue hues and the metallic lid, so I tried to emphasize those elements. Let’s be honest, a vial of vaccine is, well, not the most compelling still life.
From a technical perspective, there were a few challenges with Darwin. The most obvious was the lettering, which I did free hand in the hopes that it would have a painterly feel to it, as opposed to using a stencil with perfect lines and symmetry. However, even with a stencil, the biggest challenge would have been the contour of the round vial and the very subtle changes the letters make based on their positioning. Lastly, the sea of blues was very tricky because the source of the blue color is unknown and yet it permeates the table and the vaccine liquid itself.
It was also very important to point out that the “Darwin” name was replacing the vaccine manufacturer’s name, in this case Pfizer. I haven’t done a lot of compositions with alternative messaging, but this idea jumped in my head one day and it seemed to convey a number of thoughts and opinions, which could be open for interpretation depending on your own perspectives and beliefs.
For me, I’ve always said that Darwin was wrong, and the COVID pandemic is the poster child of this sentiment. Survival of the fittest doesn’t apply to humanity – it hasn’t since the Bronze Age. The “strong” are frequently challenged to counterbalance the obstinance, stupidity, incompetence, and most of all, the narcissism of the “weak” within our species. Would Darwin advocate for a vaccine? I think not – pretty sure he was a herd immunity kinda guy. But was he an anti-vaxxer? Or is Darwin actually right when it comes to COVID, namely that once the vaccines were rolled out, 99% (or something close to that figure) of deaths were the unvaccinated. Hmmmm… something to think about.
You gotta love the non-committal nature of messaging through art!
Sniffer | 16 x 20″ | Oil on Canvas Board
Dog Tired | 16 x 12″ | Oil on Canvas Board
Shaken | 8 x 10″ | Oil on Board
