Hal's Garage

This morning a friend and I painted a picturesque old gas station that we had been wanting to paint for months. Hal's Garage is on the west side of Fayette, a small town 30 some miles west of Toledo.

12" x 12" oil on canvas

Still Life with Hot Sauce

9" x 12"

oil on gessoed panel

Less is more. That's a phrase we hear all the time in alla prima painting. How much detail needs to be spelled out and how much needs to be left to the imagination? It's entirely up to the artist and that's why fifty artists can paint the same thing and you'll have fifty versions of a scene, no matter what it is. Have fifty photographers take a picture of the scene and you might get some different results too, depending on the ability of the photographers, but they won't be as drastically different as the painters'.

What compels you to paint something? Obviously, it;s not always beauty, because looking at a bratwurst on a bun makes most folks hungry. For some reason, it inspired me; the burnt sienna tones juxtaposed against the blackened portions of the meat, contrasting with the pristine whiteness of the bun. I never know exactly what draws me to a subject. The pepper mustard was sitting on the counter next to the brat, so it was a natural choice. Would I throw hot sauce on it as well? Not in real life, but the shape and color of the bottle seemed like a nice foil for the other subjects.

My subjects were set up in less than five minutes, and I added a spotlight for drama and listened to an audio book as I spent a couple hours creating a painting.

Portrait of Robert Stone - Using Arches Oil Paper

Robert Stone died Saturday. He was a talented American writer who specialized in writing intelligent thrillers. He was 78. Stone was probably best known for his novel Dog Soldiers, which won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1975. Three years later it was made into a movie starring Nick Nolte (Who'll Stop the Rain?")

What I liked most about his books were the descriptive characters and settings. When you read one of his stories you feel like you know the people and you have actually visited the places. THAT'S good writing. He wasn't formally trained, but instead took writing workshops and learned by "doing". His books were authentic because he lived an adventurous and uncommon life. Although fortune wasn't always kind to him, he rose above that and became a self-made man, another quality I admire.

How many people today could get to where he did after being given up to an orphanage at the age of six by a schizophrenic mother and absent father? Kicked out of high school, he joined the Navy at 17 and traveled the world.

I am going to France in June and I want to take a light weight painting support so I decided to try out some oil paper made by Arches. This 300 It comes in a pad and is called I think Jerry's sent this to me in my last order as a freebie. I knew in advance that it would be absorbent, because I have used primed watercolor paper before as a support for oils. So I combined some walnut oil and Liquin and coated the paper with it, hoping this would give the paper a bit of "slip". It seemed to work pretty well. Next time I'll try just linseed oil if I can get the lid off my jar. Last time I checked it was pretty well glued tight.

I limited my palette to ivory black, yellow ochre, cadmium red light, alizarin crimson and titanium white. It's pretty close to the Zorn palette, meaning I omitted blue. I did add just a bit of the Alizarin crimson in some mixtures.

There weren't too many good pictures of Stone. In every photo his eyes seemed to be too open and aware. Maybe he was just one of those people who could not relax when their picture was being taken and their eyes bug out. I have been guilty of it myself. I tried to change that in my painting, by darkening the whites and lowering his lids slightly.

I'm including the underpainting I did in about ten minutes so you can see the way the paint adheres to this support. I tried to wipe out some paint for highlights and it doesn't work as well as wiping on canvas or linen. You can't get the white back again. Something to keep in mind for the future.

I can't complain about this product. I thought it performed well as a support for alla prima panting and I didn't feel like I was fighting to keep it wet. I think the absorbency will be a bonus when I travel with it as the paintings will dry faster and I can stack them for easy transport in my bag.

9"x 12"

Robert Stone

(August 21, 1937 – January 10, 2015)

Wildflowers in a Vase

I planted some wildflowers in May and they are starting to look a bit droopy so I picked some of the better ones this morning. After I arranged them in a small vase I took them outside and proceeded to paint. The lovely yellow daisies look awesome contrasted with the lovely violet specimens. The dark shadow behind them is our white shed, in deep cast shadow. I'll miss my flowers when they're gone but I have this little painting to remind me that spring will be here again in April.

SOLD

Ashley from our Painting Group

Everyone at the Hyter Group was in love with Ashley's long wavy hair. I give the girl a lot of credit - she showed up dressed as a cowgirl or something. Straw hat, cowboy boots and cute denim vest. I brought my pastels with me so I could be sure to get done in one two hour session.

Not sure of the likeness but I like the slightly pensive look that came out of this.

18" x 19.5"