Snowed In

This is another painting for the gallery in Logan.  I really enjoy "snowscapes".  I wanted to focus on the texture of the snow and it was fun trying to capture that.  This one is 20x24 oil on panel.

Autumn's End

This painting is one of the paintings I will hopefully be showing at the Logan Fine Art Gallery.  They asked to represent my work for me which was a surprise and asked me to get 20 framed and ready paintings together to take to them as soon as possible.  This is one of the paintings I will be taking to them.  It's 16x20 oil on panel.  This painting is a mostly made up landscape with the exception of the shape of the barn and the trees.  The rest I changed to make it a more early winter/late fall kind of scene.

"Grandpa"

This painting is 24x24 oil on canvas.  It's a painting of my grandpa who passed away about 2 weeks ago.  It was pretty unexpected and I've had  a hard time dealing with it.  My grandpa and I were very, very close.  He is the greatest man I've ever known aside from my own father, who is the man he is because of my grandpa.  I decided to do this painting for my family and for myself to have at the viewing and funeral.  My grandpa passed away on a Saturday and the viewing was Wednesday so I really only had Monday and Tuesday to finish the painting.  I don't know why but it helped me cope to be sitting in the studio painting.  I wanted to give this to my family and have it depict my grandpa as we all remember him.  My grandpa loved life and was an active and hard working man who loved to play.  I wanted to paint him with a smile on his face and capture the life that he lived in one painting.  I feel like I succeeded and the response I received from family and friends at the viewing who saw the painting was pretty awesome.  My grandma immediately claimed the painting and I think it will help us all to get through things each time we go to her house and see it on the wall.  I love and miss ya grandpa!

The Radiant Child

This is an under painting that I did this week.  It if my first attempt at a portrait in over a year and half almost, so with that being said, I am pretty stoked with how it is turning out.  I have obviously figured some things out over the last year and half as far as how to handle my brush, and I feel like I have pretty good grasp on value at this point.  This is the first of many paintings that I am doing more or less to serve as practice for portrait painting in the future.  I am going to paint portraits of all those whom I feel are "artists" in some way.  They are not all going to be fine artists but will include actors, singers, songwriters, directors, writers, musicians, etc.  Pretty much anyone whom I deem a true artist who has influenced me in some way will be included in this series.  I don't have any particular number in mind as far as the series goes.  Like I said, it's more for practice than anything else.

The person in the painting is Jean Michel Basquiat.  He was a prominent figure in the art scene in New York in the 70's made famous by his unique graffiti art and clever tagging that he signed under the name SAMO.  It's pretty amazing what he was able to accomplish for the art world and the way his work challenged what was accepted as "art" at the time.  He was befriended by Warhol and rose to fame at a lightning pace for someone so young.  I think he was an insanely gifted individual who was definitely in the right place at the right time to make a splash with his work.  He definitely counts under my description of an "artist" and add to the fact that he was extremely unique in appearance as well, I chose him to be first in my series.  More to come!

Old White Barn

I did this painting in Midway for the Plein Air Paradise competition.  I'm surprised with how much I enjoy this painting.  It was painted over the top of a failed painting from the day before and I only had about 2 hours to do the whole thing before I had to turn all my paintings for the competition in.  I did this one completely with a knife and it kind of ended up with a gritty and loose quality which I love.  Probably my favorite from that week for sure.

"Copycat"

This was my favorite painting for Summerfest.  I did some improvising with this painting that really brought it to life.  I put the storm clouds in mimicking the shape of the trees, hence the title "Copycat" and then added the cows and the fence and the mountains as well.  The real image I was looking at to paint it was just the trees and the trees in the background with a pitch black storm that randomly decided to change direction and attack me in the middle of the painting.  This is probably my favorite painting to date just because I figured certain little things out and was able to add them to really make it pop.  I will probably do a big painting using this smaller one as a study in my studio in the near future.  Unless this one sells this weekend!  All in all this was a good week.  Better I think than last week in the Ogden Arts festival(I will post those paintings on here next).  Next week I have Art on the Lawn in Logan and then the Midway Plein Air Competition is the following week so it's a pretty crazy month.  Hopefully something either sells or places in one of these competitions to make it worth all the gas money I'm forking out driving all over the state!

"Looks Like Rain"

This painting was the 1st one I did for the Summerfest competition this week.  This painting was one of those typical Utah June paintings where the weather was great when I started in to the underpainting and I was getting completely drenched by the time I started putting down the main painting.  I'm still pretty happy with how it turned out.  This is more the direction I've been trying to go as far as paint application goes.  It's mostly done with different shaped palette knives and a brush is used to smooth things out when needed and to put a few final strokes in the foreground.  The size on this one is 11x14 and it is on panel.  I didn't include this one in the show because we were only able to turn in 2 but if one of them sells in the "buy it now" option than I will be replacing it with this one.  Not gonna lie, the little cows were an awesome touch on this one!

The Locals Entrance

So this painting was one of 3 I did for Logan Summerfest this week.  I don't particularly love this painting but everyone else seems to.  My wife Danielle wanted me to submit this painting instead of one of the other ones I did and she had a valid point.  When I was turning this one in to be judged along with the other one(we could only turn in 2) one of the aids told me that her mom would "LOVE that painting" and then proceeded to tell me some fond memory of the bluebird and her grandmother.  I'm hoping that same sense of nostalgia will bring someone to buy this one.  The size on it is 11x14 which is a typical size for a plein air competition.  I like aspects of this painting more than others, most of which can't be seen from this photo.  I used a palette knife on almost the entire painting which gives it a thick quality in person, which is something I like about it.  I think in normal circumstances I would probably like this painting as well but I am a perfectionist and think the other 2 I did are much better so it makes it hard for me to really get excited about this one now.  I'll be really excited if it sells this weekend!

Center and Main

This was my final painting I did for my Senior BFA Exhibition this year.  It's 16x20 oil on panel.  A friend of mine has been waiting for me to do a painting of something in Logan for her son who has served half of his LDS mission in Cache Valley and I decided that this was about as "memorable" a scene as I could find.  I love the fact that Logan hangs on to it's history still and keeps Main St. looking in large part the way it has for 60 years now.

I had to paint it and the thing I love the most about this painting is that it is kind of timeless.  I tried to paint the cars in a simple way that doesn't allow the viewer to determine what era they are from.  The rest of the street lends itself to what makes it truly unique and timeless without me having to do anything special to preserve that feel and atmosphere.

I'm pretty happy with how this painting turned out.  I haven't painted too many "urbanscapes" before so this was a new challenge but I enjoyed it.  Once again I have to throw a shout out to Doug Braithwaite because without his expertise which he has imparted to me freely, I would not be able to pull a painting like this off after only having been painting for the 2 years I've been at it.  Doug, you're the man!

Cindy I hope you enjoy it and I hope Taggart does too!  You are officially my first commission and that is a pretty big deal to me so thank you!  I've had a few more over the last few months so things are starting to pick up, giving my brave wife Danielle some hope that she wasn't completely crazy to marry an artist!

On the Road Again

This is one of my favorite paintings I've done so far, it's fresh off the easel and the size is 20x24, oil on panel.  I did the majority of this painting with a knife as well, just like the last painting but this one is much more successful.  I have really been working on moving between soft and hard edges and describing objects in the most  basic way possible.  The mountains in the background are a good example of this.  Just a series of strokes with the knife and you have a mountain.  I love that!  I love seeing progression as well, this painting is a huge step up from the last painting I posted and they were painted a week apart.  That's a confidence booster for sure.

Winter Storm

So I've been slacking again on adding  recent work to this blog.  Forgive me!

This painting is oil on panel and is 16x20, which is a little larger than I usually

do, but  in  a lot of ways it  was easier than the smaller paintings I work on.  I 

painting almost the entire painting with a palette knife and added certain 

strokes where I felt they were needed with a brush.  I'm kind of liking the

gritty feel that the painting maintains when it is done with a knife as opposed 

to a brush.  I'm going to  continue to explore with both tools and see what  I'm

able to do.  I've titled this painting Winter Storm.  One thing you've got to love 

about  Cache Valley is the amount of barns sitting there just waiting to be

painted!