September 26 - mini series paintings

"View of San Miguel" 5x7" oil on board. Frank Gardner © 2011
SOLD





"A Chicken and Goats" 6x6" oil on board. Frank Gardner © 2011
$475. Framed

"Adelita"

Just finished this painting of a horse out at Rancho del Sol Dorado. Most of the details are concentrated around the horse. The rest is painted pretty loosely, but with careful consideration to the relationships between the values.


"Adelita", 11x14" oil, Frank Gardner © 2010

"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.

"In for the Night"

This is the type of local subject matter here in Mexico that I love so much. People and their animals in the landscape. In this painting Felix and Francisco are bringing their cows back to the coral for the night. This painting is a composite of several photos and the small studies. It took me quite a while to get just the way I wanted it, but I'm happy with the results.

A few months ago I posted a small plein air piece titled "The Open Gate" and another small painting "Open Gate II" both of which I used as reference for this piece. I reposted both of those paintings below.



"In for the Night", 18x24" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009
$2,500. Framed. Available at M Gallery of Fine Art
Sarasota, FL




"Open Gate", 6x8" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009
$550. Framed. Available at Windrush Gallery, Sedona, AZ




"Open Gate II", 6x8" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009
Private Collection

"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

"Casa de Don Rosario"

This is one of the paintings that I started when Scott was here. I worked on it for about two hours on location. It's a complex scene, so that was only enough time to get the drawing and a rough block in of the color and value relationships. I added Don Rosario later from a photo I shot while we were painting. Rosario has been riding a horse most of his life and you can tell from his walk. I tried to catch that little detail about him in the painting. Back in the studio I had time to make little adjustments to refine the composition and color.



"Casa de Don Rosario", 14x18" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009
$1,300. Framed. Available at Windrush Gallery, Sedona, AZ

"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

Open Gate II

I painted this little 6x8 today to work out some ideas for a large painting. This one is based on the plein air piece "Open Gate" from my previous post. Sometimes I like to do a few little paintings like this to play with the design and work out how I want to translate my idea in paint before committing to a large canvas. I am using a few different photo references plus the painting done on location, and this helps get me one step away from the photos.



"Open Gate II", 6x8" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009

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

"Ben"

I spent the morning painting at Rancho del Sol Dorado the other day. I worked on two paintings. A landscape that I am doing some adjustment on in the studio and this painting of a horse that was tied up down at the stables. His name is Ben. Even though he was tied up I knew that he would be moving around on me and the background would stay the same. So as soon as I had my composition drawn in lightly I sketched in Ben while he was in the position that I wanted. He backed out into the sun and never went back to the original spot. Glad I sketched him in first. I had taken a photo that I later used to check my drawing of the horse. I only had to adjust the spacing between his front and back legs just a bit.



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

"Out and About"

Thought that I would lower my vantage point on this one. I really like how the hen's head breaks the horizon line in this one instead of looking down on her.



"Out and About", 14x18" oil on linen, 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

An adjusted plein air painting

This is a painting that I started when Jerome was down visiting last month. We were painting the church and field with some cows in it. The cows kept moving around really really fast. I tried to catch at least the gestures on the spot. I was not real successful with all three of the cows.
It looked rather busy and unfocused when I got it back to the studio, so I reworked it a bit. I decided to take out two of the cows and add the guy who was spreading out these dried corn stalks for the cows. It is a smart way to get the fertilizer where he wants it. He put piles of the stalks here and there in his field and the cows did all the work.


"Feed for the Cows", 11" x 14" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2009



As it came home from the field , © 2009



The scene

sheep by step

Here are the step by step photos of the sheep in the painting from the last post. I was hoping that a few of you would find this interesting, so I took a few pictures along the way.
I was going to just leave out the text explaining my steps, but I added a few words at the end. I think the steps speak for themselves. Besides, they say a picture is worth a thousand words.












Frank Gardner © 2009


I picked a few sheep from different photos and painted the dark shapes to place them. Next I added the blue to continue building up the form. Then I painted in the white highlights of the backlit sheep. That is what really sharpens them up. The next step was to cut back into the forms with the background colors to adjust the shapes just a bit. I'll often over paint a shape and then come back with another color to adjust it. You can see what I mean by this best on the head of the sheep to the far right. The last photo shows the painting after I decided to wipe two of the sheep out for a better overall composition. I knew I could always paint them back in if I decided I liked it better with all five.

class demo step by step

This is a demo painting that I did for a small class back in September.
Colors were first pre mixed into about 9 or 10 main piles on my palette. That way I could compare the colors to each other and make some adjustments.

Then I blocked in the main shapes in Step 1 to show my students how to quickly build up the masses first with no modeling.
The goal was to just paint a flat shape of each pre mixed color.
We were all painting from the same photo and compared as we went along.



"Rooster and Hens" Step 1, Frank Gardner © 2008


Step 2. Once the canvas was pretty well covered, I started to adjust the shapes to get a more accurate drawing.
The focal point is around the rooster, so I started adding smaller shapes there first to define that area.
The hen in the back is not in the focal area, so I left that one rather vague. The silhouette is what describes to the viewer what it is.



"Rooster and Hens" Step 2, Frank Gardner © 2008


Step 3. I wanted to maintain simple shapes throughout the painting without breaking them up too much. I tried to add just enough detail to the alfalfa on the ground so you can tell that there is something there.
I was working all over the painting at once trying to unify the design without overworking any one area.



"Rooster and Hens", 10" x 8" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2008
Finished Painting
Private Collection


One thing that I like to do often is have a few brush strokes of a light value break into a darker mass, and in the same area, put a few strokes of a darker color into a light mass. I think that helps in the transitions from one mass to another. You can see it well around the rooster's head with the green in light and shadow. Those strokes are similar in size to the blue and orange on the tail feathers. There are also two similar strokes of dark green by the rooster's front leg or behind the hen's tail. Similar sized strokes like that help move the eye from one spot to the other. adding vitality to the painting. For this painting I wanted to keep your eye popping around a bit, kind of like the action of the rooster and hens pecking around in the alfalfa.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all. I had a little time to kill between basting of the turkey so I thought I would put up a little painting that I did a few months ago.
The sun is shining strong, so we will probably have our feast outside today.
Just thought that I would mention that.
I am thinking of all of you, and am thankful to have you all as friends.
Cheers!


"Horse and Reflections", 6" x 8" oil on board, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection

Election Day - FINALLY

Today is election day In the US and I have been following for too long.
I am like a moth to a flame with the whole thing. I try and read or watch as much of it as I can.
More than is good for my blood pressure I'm sure.

I hate to mix politics and my blog, so I will spare you and not go into any of that.
We all need to live together after the results are tallied, so whatever the outcome, here's to a better future for ALL of us.

Today is a beautiful day here, sunny and warm, so I decided to head out to paint just to try and take my mind off the whole election thing for a few hours.

So I'm driving along looking for something to paint, and this guy caught my eye.
You know I love painting donkeys, but this one said something special to me.
I hustled my gear out of the car and he stayed still long enough for me to get this quick sketch.




"True Blue", 8" x 10" oil on board, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection


Glad I could relax and take my mind off the politics thing.
I needed that!
Now back to tracking the progress of the day.


Funny how these guys are getting around. Have a peek at Christine's blog to see more.
Jennifer also has a donkey posted.
and Paula has a donkey on her blog.
Elizabeth likes donkeys too.
Paula Villanova has added an independent donkey.

if you decide to join in and post your own donkey of a different color.
( or an elephant I suppose)
Drop me an email and i'll gladly add a link to your post.

One Year of My Paint Box

Today is the one year anniversary of My Paint Box.
I didn't know what to expect when I started this blog on Oct. 30th, 2007.
Now, one year later, blogging seems to come naturally to me.

I want to thank everyone who visits. Especially those who take the time to leave a comment. That way I know you are out there. Knowing that there are readers makes the whole blogging experience much more rewarding.

I'd like to share this new painting with you as a special thanks. I really like how it came out.
This one is hot off the easel. Well, actually, it is still on the easel.
I may change the title one I have time to think about it a bit.


"The Family Business", 18" x 24" oil on canvas, Frank Gardner © 2008
$2,300. Framed. Available at Galeria Gardner


One of the reasons that I started writing the blog was a line from the Kevin Macpherson book "Landscape Painting Inside and Out" where he suggested writing about your art as a way to take it one step further.
Blogging seemed like a good way to write about my art and share what I wrote instead of having it on scraps of paper strewn around my studio. It gives a sort of accountability for what I paint and write knowing that someone is looking and reading. The feedback and discussion can be real insightful sometimes.

I did not fathom the scope of the blogging community when I started My Paint Box.
My Paint Box has expanded beyond just writing about my art, and has become a group of friends.
I have "met" a lot of great artists and great people over the past year through my blog and by reading and commenting on other's blogs. People that I probably would never have met otherwise. Not just painters, but illustrators, writers, photographers, and just plain old bloggers and blog readers. My world has certainly expanded a bit because of all of you.
My virtual friends.
I joke sometimes that you all probably don't exist and your comments are just computer generated responses to my ramblings. Like a bizarre version of "The Truman Show" or something.

Luckily, I have met some of you, own some of your art, received signed and doodled copies of latest books from others, and have plans to meet a few others before long. Hmmm. didn't they insert characters into "The Truman Show" to keep him believing?

Well, either way it has been fun.
So...
"Good morning, and in case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!"
Jim Carey from "The Truman Show".