"Assorted Provisions"

This is another painting that is currently in the "Creative Convergence" show at the Addison Art Gallery in Orleans, MA.
This woman had all kinds of stuff loaded on her burro and was kind enough to let me snap a few pics as she passed by.
There are some flowers pulled from her cornfield, a few leaves from the cornstalks and some mesquite branches for doing her cooking on.


"Assorted Provisions", 18x24" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009
$2,500. Framed. Available at Addison Art Gallery


This painting is full of opposing diagonal lines. All of them help to give the feel of action and movement to the painting. Some were ready made for me and others I added or adjusted to suit my needs. The long shadows oppose the direction of the road, the woman's rope, and the base of the cornfield in the background. Her stick repeats the line of one of the burro's legs and even the tilt of his head and oppose the other leg, leaves of corn on the bundle, and even the right side of the mesquite tree behind the woman. There are more, but you get the idea.
If I was going for a quieter feel I would try and include lots of horizontal lines in my design and not so many strongly opposing diagonals.

"Rosario"

This is another painting that I will be including in the group show of Mexico paintings at the Addison Art Gallery On Cape Cod starting Jan. 7th. 2010.

Rosario is a quite a character. He is always smiling or laughing and loves to pose for a picture. Especially if he can show off his ranch or animals. He tied this burro up under a tree for Paul, Colin and me to paint. My painting from the day with Paul and Colin was not that successful and is still in that limbo stage of me wondering wether I can pull something out of it or if I will throw it in the stack of clunkers. I don't think that any of us liked our paintings of that donkey that day. It started to rain off and on and the light was real flat. Besides, I've told you how much burros like to move around while you paint them right? We did not have an apple or anything this time to keep him in line. Below this painting are two pictures from that session. Paul and Colin painting, and one of Colin painting. Check out his version of an umbrella. Paul and I both had EasyL umbrellas to keep us dry (ish) but Colin made due with what he had.

This painting is from a different day.


"Rosario", 14x18" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009
$1,430. Framed, Available at Addison Art Gallery





Paul and Colin




Colin and his ingenious umbrella system.

"Don Goyo and Canelo"

Well, you met Canelo in a recent plein air piece that I did.
Goyo is the man who owns him and was nice enough to let us paint in his back yard. He is adjusting the ropes on the wooden rack that is used for tying on loads to the burro.
The day was overcast. Cool light is something I don't have a chance to paint much so it was a fun piece.


"Don Goyo and Canelo", 14x18" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009

"Curious"

This is a little studio painting that I just finished up. I wanted to keep this one loose and let it be more about the color and design than the details.



"Curious", 8x10" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009
$720. Framed. Available at Galeria Gardner

A few from last week.

These are three of my paintings from when Scott was here. There are a few others that I am making some adjustments on.
We had a lot of fun painting together. We also did some horseback riding and camped out one night too.


"Open Gate", 6x8" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009
$500. Framed. Available at Windrush Gallery, Sedona, AZ

The open gate leads to a cattle corral. I'm going to use this one as reference for a larger painting.




"Canelo", 8x10" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009

Canelo means cinnamon in Spanish. He was tied up, but moved around constantly. We used bits of apple to lure him back into place every so often so we could paint him. The rest of the time we painted the background.




"Nopal and Tree", 8x10" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009
$720. Framed. Available at Windrush Gallery, Sedona, AZ

The light hitting the cactus spines really attracted me to paint "Nopal and Tree".

"Girl on Burro"

I've been a little slow about getting paintings posted here. Thanks for sticking with me. It will probably be a week or so before I get another blog post up.

I'm going to be doing some painting with Scott Tallman Powers. We'll be painting in some very small villages around San Miguel for the next week. I'm sure it will be a lot of fun.

Here is another painting from about a week ago.I used a two different photos of this girl on her burro for reference and changed things around a bit to get the design I wanted.
I'm real happy with the way it came out.



"Girl on Burro", 8x10" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009
Private Collection

"Little Burro"

I changed my palette a bit on this painting and used mostly French Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna and White. Just a touch of Cad. Red and Cad. Yellow to push the mixes here and there but not very much.


"Little Burro", 11 x 14" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009
Private Collection