"Summer Rose" and a new gallery

Back from a two week painting trip. First I was painting in Sarasota, FL with Marc Hanson for a few days and visiting with the great folks from M Gallery where I'll be having a show in Nov. followed by a 5 day painting workshop. I came back with some a bunch of small paintings. Some of them will be for my show or used as starting points for larger pieces. More on FL later.

Then, after visiting my Dad and family for a few days I headed over to Cape Cod to paint with a group of friends. The usual suspects, Peter Kalill, Paul Schulenburg, Jerome Greene, Logan Hagege, Dan Corey, Jeff Bonasia and Marc Hanson again.

I had a blast, painted a lot and am proud to announce that I am now represented by the Addison Art Gallery, in Orleans, MA. A lot of those guys I paint with show there, so I am glad to be pert of that team. I've been part of a few group shows there before.

Below is one of the pieces I painted in Provincetown. This house had some of the best looking roses in town.
I'll post a few more paintings soon.
Until then.



"Summer Rose" 10 x 8" oil, Frank Gardner © 2010
$780. Framed, Available at Addison Art Gallery

"The Old Mesquite" Step by Step pictures

Yesterday I went out to Sol Dorado to paint an old mesquite tree that my friend Mario had pointed out to me. He thinks it is about 300 years old and it looks every bit of that with all the twists, turns, burls, cracks and stubs where branches have broken or been cut off. Every inch of this old tree has a story to tell about its life.
This painting is 18x24" done mostly on the spot. I stopped after about 2 hrs because the light had changed so much on the branches. Then, back in the studio I worked on it for another couple of hours making a few adjustments and giving it a bit more "finish".
I took some step by step shots along the way. Here I will show them without commentary so you can just scroll down and see the process with one image next to the other for comparison. I'll work up some ideas on my thoughts as I was painting this and then re post the whole thing separately later on.
My apologies for the few sun spots that are in the first couple of pictures. I just snapped away quickly as I painted. My mind was on the painting aspect, not making professional looking photos.
There are 8 painting steps shown. The sixth is how it looked when I packed up. The eighth is how it looks now. I still may go back into it and make a few adjustments. For now I am just letting it sit while I think about it.
Below is the scene, and then then the step by step for "The Old Mesquite" 18x24 oil, Frank Gardner © 2010

Plein Air landscape Workshop, San Miguel de Allende. March 8-12, 2010

Dates are set for my 2010 plein air landscape painting workshop in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
March 8-12 from 9:30-5:00 PM
The cost of the 5 day class is $550.USD and includes Painting Instruction, full gourmet lunches each day and transportation to and from the painting locations. A deposit of $200.USD is needed to hold your spot. Email me to see if there are available spots and I'll give you the mailing address to send the deposit.

In the workshop my emphasis is on helping everyone advance to their next level.







This year we will be spending our painting time at Rancho del Sol Dorado, a beautiful horse ranch 15 minutes from San Miguel. Holly and Mario Ortiz are great hosts and each day they will treat us to delicious meals in a friendly and relaxing atmosphere.










Some of the topics we will concentrate on are:

Values: A strong and simple value pattern is key to a successful painting, we will work on getting values correct from the start and keeping them clear throughout the painting process.

Color: We will work on seeing color and value then mixing color using a limited palette.
Premixing colors on your palette, and choosing the best design for your composition are a few of the things that we will focus on in this workshop.

Strong Starts/ Block In: An emphasis will be on getting a strong start to your painting so you don't need to waste time reworking the design later. Accurate color mixing is key to capturing the mood of a location. I feel that a strong start is the key a successful plein air painting and we will focus a lot on "starts" as well as how to bring a good start to the desired finish.

Finish: I will have you chose your strongest block in and use that as a start for a larger, more finished painting done on location.

Demos: I will do several demos, but the majority of the time will be for painting and individual guidance. There will be some quick painting exercises as well as time for longer painting sessions.





The painting day generally works out like this:
Meet for pick up around 9:30 A.M. for transportation to Rancho del Sol Dorado.
There is either a quick demonstration or talk about the days goals and then everyone gets painting while I give one on one attention.
Break for lunch is usually around 1:30 or 2:00 P.M. depending on our painting progress.
The break for lunch lasts about 1 hour.
Then everyone gets back to painting for the rest of the afternoon until around 5:00 P.M. when we will be transported back to town.



This workshop focuses on landscape painting. However there are lots of painting opportunities in town as well, and you might want to consider spending a few extra days in San Miguel to explore what the town has to offer.
San Miguel has many lodging possibilities. There are many fine hotels, B&B's, apartments or houses to rent. Everyone will be responsible for their own lodging and transportation to and from San Miguel de Allende. The closest airport is in Leon, (airport code BJX), about and hour and a half ride from town. I can recommend a transportation service to shuttle you to and from the airport. Mexico City is about four hours from San Miguel by bus.

This workshop is for oil painters only. All levels are welcome, but you SHOULD HAVE SOME EXPERIENCE PAINTING ON LOCATION.
If you are interested, email me at frank@frankgardner.com with any questions or to receive the materials list.

For info on San Miguel and lodging visit portalsanmiguel.com
Or TripAdvisor.com

If you would like other lodging options or have any questions, email me at frank@frankgardner.com.

Please do not finalize any travel plans or lodging until you have confirmed with me that there is space available in the class.
The deposit is fully refundable up to one month before the start of the workshop.

New Paintings and painting with friends.

It's been quite a while since I last posted something. Sorry about that.
Last month I had 14 friends down visiting and painting in San Miguel. We had a blast, and I can't even begin to write about how much fun I had with them here. I took them all horseback riding one day and I think they all really enjoyed themselves. Here is a lineup of 13 of us about to race across a dry lake bed.



left to right: Felix (his ranch), Ignat Ignatov, Ernesto Nemesio, Peter Kalill, Scott Burdick, Frank Gardner, Logan Hagege, Jerome Greene, Jeremy Lipking, Kevin McNamara, Paul Schulenburg, Jeff Bonasia, Marc Hanson, Colin Page, and a few more guys from the ranch.
Not in this photo are Dan Corey and Alexey Steele.

Below are three of the pieces that I painted around town with my buddies. They will be part of the group shows that we are doing in Jan and Feb, 2010.
I'll post a few more paintings and some info about our upcoming shows. There will also be an article in American Art Collector. I'll let you know when that comes out.



"Looking Over San Miguel", 14x11" Oil, Frank Gardner © 2009
$1,050. Framed, Available at Addison Art Gallery




"San Miguel Morning", 14x11" Oil, Frank Gardner © 2009
$1,050. Framed, Available at Addison Art Gallery




"Resting by the Church", 11x14" Oil, Frank Gardner © 2009
$1,050. Framed, Available at Addison Art Gallery

Painting on location over several sessions

Larger works painted on location often require multiple trips to the same spot, over a period of days, to achieve an adequate level of completion. I've always thought that was not my style. Because, surely, my mood would be different on the following session and mess everything up. Stifling my true art spirit.

Well, I decided to give it a try. Last week I spent the day starting two 18x24" paintings. Put in about three or three and a half hours on this first one and about two on the second, which is not posted here yet. I went back another morning about two days later when the weather was similar. Same start time, eleven a.m.
There was a bad little head cold that beat my butt for a few days. Then yesterday I worked for two hours on this one in the studio. Today I took it back out to the same spot where I had left rocks to mark the positions of my easel legs and had another three hours painting session with it.



The above photo is how things looked this morning at eleven when I had things set up and was ready to go.
I really love these pink-red-white-light yellow grasses this time of year that catch the light just right and have different colors depending how you look at them. They can really light up a hillside or field at the right time of day.



This picture is how it looked this afternoon when I got it back home. I can see a few things that I still want to tweak, but I won't need the actual scene in front of me to work it out.

Hey, what do you know. I like taking the same painting back for several sessions. I feel like Sam I am after finally eating some Green Eggs and Ham.

It won't work for certain fleeting light effects or other similar situations where "capturing the unique moment, raw feeling, light affect thing" is what I'm after. There is some sort of freshness that I love about alla prima paintings done all in one go. But, I'll be exploring working larger outdoors for sure. 30x40 here I come.




This is a picture I snapped while painting this morning. It is the same two trees that are in the left side of the painting. Shows how tall those grasses are. That has been one of the toughest parts in this and I'm not sure it's quite there just yet. They would be a great device for letting you know just how tall that grass really is. Glad they did not pass by while I was blocking this one in or I would have tried to paint them in. Too late now because it would change everything. Maybe in another painting.

Marc Hanson has been doing some great large paintings over several sessions lately. If you have not seen them you should check out his blog. There is a link in my blogroll to the side if you're not familiar with his blog.

Two Landscapes

These two landscapes are from earlier in the summer. Both were done mostly on location and then fine tuned back in my studio after I had a chance to live with them for a while. They are framed up now and at my gallery.

The first one captures the beauty of a gray morning after a night of rain. There was a break in the clouds that kept appearing as I painted this one.



"Break in the Clouds", 11x14" Oil, Frank Gardner © 2009
$950. Framed. Available at Galeria Gardner


The second painting is a morning view looking toward the sun. Everything is bursting to life with fresh green at this time of year. The grasses and flowers are still low to the ground.



"Summer Morning", 11x14" Oil, Frank Gardner © 2009
$950. Framed. Available at Galeria Gardner

"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

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".

"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

It's been a while

Have not finished any new paintings since my last post. I am doing a little renovation at Galeria Gardner, so I have been down there most mornings plus some afternoons. My painting space at the gallery is occupied by a big pile of sand and gravel and some bags of cement.
Here is a painting I did in March during one of the workshops. Some of the painters were having trouble with their paintings and asked about how to tackle such a complex scene in a short period of time.
My feeling is that you need to remain focused on what attracted you to paint the scene. Simplify, and avoid trying to paint every single detail that is not important to your reason for painting that particular piece. In a different painting of the same scene you may find that a different set of details are needed.



"The Corral", 11 x 14" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009
$950. Framed. Available at Galeria Gardner


I was drawn to the groupings of tall straight cactus and their relationship to the more organic shapes of the tree, the yellow bundle of rope hanging from the tree, and the hose. The upper branches of the tree and the stable were not my focus of this piece, so I painted those with a looser approach.
You can really get into trouble if you lose track of what your focal point is when painting a scene where there is so much going on and so many little pieces of light and shadow. I worked the whole painting at once, but I kept coming back to the area roughly between the hose and the yellow rope. I wanted to make sure I got those relationships accurate. Little details here and there in other areas of the painting keep the eye moving around and add secondary interest.
There were too many cactus for me to try and paint each one exactly as it was on a painting this size, so I tried to simplify the design into a pleasing pattern of light and shadow. I moved things around slightly to get the design to work on my canvas.
This painting required a session of about 2 hours on location and then I cleaned it up a bit later in the studio.

Paintings from the Beach

We took a quick trip down to the beach last week. Schools were closed in Mexico because of the flu scare and we wanted to get out of town for a while. The drive down to Playa Buena Vista, in the state of Guerrero, is about 6 hrs. Some friends of ours have a small house there that they let us borrow. I took my paint box and was able to sneak in a little painting time when I was not swimming, relaxing, or keeping an eye on the kids while we were on the beach, ( we took Erin's two cousins with us too ). The beach is isolated and we the only ones there most of the time. Needless to say, we had a great time.
Here is a photo of the beach and below are three paintings. The forth was pretty unworthy of posting. The light changed on me too quickly and I abandoned it.



Playa Buena Vista



"Hammock, Playa Buena Vista", 8" x 10" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009

All of the moisture in the air inspired this view looking down the beach. The hammock under the palapa gives that nice lazy day feel. This one might get turned into a larger painting too. I'd like to have more room to play around with that color. You can only squeeze so much into a small painting.



"Morning Palms", 6" x 8" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009

This is the view looking toward the beach from Anthony and Laura's house. The sun was coming up behind me and it cast a nice light on the palms. I tried to simplify the foliage but at the same time wanted it all to line up in the right spot. A tough one for a 6"x8" panel.



"Evening Mist", 6" x 8" oil, Frank Gardner © 2009

There was a lot of moisture rolling off the beach and I loved the variety of cool colors looking back into the jungle in shadow.
This could make a nice larger painting. I can imagine how it would look if it were bigger and I moved a few things just a bit.

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

Little Demo

This is a little 8" x 10" that I painted the other day. I took some pictures along the way again, so I've posted them below.
Step Four is how it looked when I stopped working on the spot. The light had changed a lot and lunch was ready. The next day in the studio I worked a bit on the large tree on the right. There were just a few other minor changes. I think I made a few more strokes after this last photo was taken, but I don't have the painting here right now to compare. There is a little pump house hidden beneath the tree on the left.


"Sol Dorado Looking East", 8" x 10" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2009


Scene and Step One, Frank Gardner © 2009


Step One, Frank Gardner © 2009


Step Two, Frank Gardner © 2009


Step Three, Frank Gardner © 2009


Step Four, Frank Gardner © 2009


"Sol Dorado Looking East", 8" x 10" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2009

Finished "View of Rancho del Sol Dorado"

This is the finished painting that I started one morning of my painting workshop. You might remember that I posted a photo of the setup in a post called on the spot. I made a few adjustments to some values and added a dab or two of paint here and there when the lines were just in an awkward placement. Other than that I pretty much left things alone. I really like the look of this painting.



"View of Rancho del Sol Dorado", 18" x 24" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2009
Private Collection



The set up, Frank Gardner © 2009


There are some photos of me working on this one in this blog post by Marian Fortunati. She was nice enough to post quite a bit about my workshop on her blog.