Adjusting for Changes

Things change. And art is no different. There have been huge changes in just mediums available. And platforms. When I was majoring in Fine Art at the University of New Mexico watercolors were always done on paper. Canvas was for oil. And we stretched our own as well as learned to prepare the surface with rabbit skin glue and gesso. Acrylics were very new toward the end of my studies.

Little did I imagine I would one day be using intensely colored watercolors on canvas platforms prepared specifically for the medium. I can get the colors once only available in acrylics. And I can float those colors across the canvas. It was an amazing change for me from the pale colors of watercolor carefully applied on hot or cold press paper. And it was a change for the art buyer.

As I educated myself I found myself also having to educate my public. This is especially true on social media like my Facebook page, Binford-Bell Studio.  And as galleries began to fail and fairs no longer attract buyers like they once did, social media became more of the market place for artists and clients to interface. Art buyers want to know the artist. And so I began posting progress photos which ultimately became Creative Process blogs here.

But then things changed again. I blame the iPhone. And the tablet. So quick and easy but if I take a progress photo with my tablet and you see it on your iPhone it is not a true representation of the work. And viewers began to see cats and dragons in the skies. It belittles the work. And it puzzles me because I will look at the painting and not see it. Something fails in the translation. So no more progress photos taken with my tablet. I do after all have a great DSLR camera.

And I will post less progress photos. I will still take them to put into a Creative Process blog, and to judge the status of my own work for me. Some aspects of this new mixed media I work in is very fast because it is poured. But progress slows down as I edit that; refine the accident as it were. And lately I have added another medium to the equation; oil sticks. I joke at exhibits that I will use whatever it takes to achieve what I want.

I just don't want to confuse the viewer with what may be just a transitory dragon created by and iphone and a ipad.

Creative Process - Rain on the Mesa

Rain on the Mesa
20 x 28 Mixed Media on Artists Canvas
$1350

Been a while since I have painted a canyon scene. My first love was canyons. I returned from a trip to Utah and found all my photographs, while good, just missing something. Photography had until recently been a tool to provide inspiration on paintings. Plein Aire was always too much of a slug.

Lately I have been into painting scenes closer to home: snow capped mountains, Aspens in the fall, antelope on the fat grass, etc. I have missed my more colorful palette.

Sky poured on canvas

 I always begin with the sky. Since I generally pour them to avoid all indications of a brush being involved it is easier to mask off the main part of the painting and pour the sky. The colors and mood which results sets the tone for the rest of the painting.

Then I lay in the colors of the foreground

Tackling the middle

Canvas covered/major color blocks laid out

There is a moment after the canvas is all covered when I am not entirely sure what to tackle next. I had begun this painting with an image of the foreground where I was going to use oil stick to provide texture.

Is it done stage

At last happy with the foreground I become critical of the sky again. In this case I did not like the sky around the sun all that much. And having committed to calling it Rain on the Mesa the rain needed to be punched up a bit.  Watercolor is fast and quickly drying. Oil stick takes longer to dry and I end up with more time to fuss with the painting before applying UV varnish. With painting I used qtips to lift some color around the sun and especially the dark at the point of the mesa. As well as detail work with watercolor pens and pencils.