"January Morning", Plein air and photo

A few posts back there was a photo of this red church across a field.
In the comments, Jennifer Thermes mentioned that she liked to compare my paintings to the photos, so here is a plein air painting that I did the day I took the picture, and the photo of the scene again.



"January Morning", 8" x 16" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection



View while painting "January Morning", Frank Gardner © 2008

"Patience"

"Patience", 8" x 10" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection

Painting Trip

I am going on a painting trip to Maine with a group of friends.
Starting Thursday, I'll be away from the blog for about two weeks.
This is a painting that I did on my last trip to Port Clyde in Oct. 2006 with Peter, Paul, and Jerome.


"Fishing Pier, Port Clyde", 11" x 14" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2006
Private Collection


There are a few blog posts cued up to appear while I am gone, as I will be without an internet connection for most of the trip.
I'll be sure to respond to any comments when I can.

This ought to be fun. It is a great group of painters.

Check out these links to some of their work.
Peter Kalill
Paul Schulenburg
Jerome Greene
Colin Page
Jeremy Lipking
Ernesto Nemesio
Glenn Dean
Logan Hagege
Casey Baugh
Eric Merrell
and Jeffrey Bonasia

"Heading Home"

After a long day of plowing his fields, this guy and his team of horses is heading home.
He puts the plow up on an old tire and it drags along behind the team. I thought that was pretty clever.



"Heading Home", 8" x 10" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2008
$720. Framed. Available at Galeria Gardner

I always have my camera with me when I go out painting but on this day I was caught without it. My daughter was in a school play that day and my wife had the camera. I was teaching a class and luckily Jane had her camera and took a few shots for me. I don't often paint from someone else's photos but I loved this shot and she was nice enough to let me borrow it for a painting.
Thanks Jane!

Plein Air oil Painting Workshop in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

I am now ready to register participants in my March '09 Workshop.
March 9th through 13th, will be the dates for the five day plein air landscape painting workshop in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.


Photo Frank Gardner © 2008


There will probably be one other 5 day workshop scheduled for Feb or March, but I am not ready to set dates for that just yet.
I want to go ahead and start registering participants for this first class, since I know that a lot of you like to plan a trip of this sort well in advance, and there are already some people that are ready to sign up. I will announce dates for a possible second week toward the beginning of October.


Photo Frank Gardner © 2008


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

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.
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.
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 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.
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.


Photo Frank Gardner © 2008


The cost of the 2009 workshop will be $530.USD.
Included in cost:
PAINTING INSTRUCTION.
DAILY TRANSPORTATION to and from the painting sites.
LUNCHES for ALL FIVE DAYS.
Any FEES needed for entrance to locations.

Each day we will be treated to a delicious meal prepared just for us by the owners of the beautiful properties where we will be painting. Past participants have always been very satisfied with what our hosts prepare for us.
The painting locations are on private property and there are always bathroom facilities available.

The painting day generally works out like this:
Pick up is around 9:30 A.M. for transportation to that days painting location.
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 45 minutes to 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.


Photo Frank Gardner © 2008


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.
The class size is limited to 9 or 10 participants for lots of personal attention.
For info on San Miguel and lodging visit portalsanmiguel.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.
A $200. USD deposit is required to hold your spot in the class. I will give you information on how to send a check to me once availability for your participation is confirmed. The deposit is fully refundable up to one month before the start of the workshop.



Photo Frank Gardner © 2008

Contrast of Seasons

We have been getting a lot of rain this summer, so I wanted to share a few photos of how this place looks in the summer.
Just in case anyone thinks that it is always dry here.
This top one is the same location as the recent painting "Quiet Passing".
The tree in the painting is the tree you see on the left.
Same road.
Now look at the trees behind the corn and scroll down to the next image of the same view in January.


Photo: Frank Gardner © 2008


Those trees are the trees to the left of the church.



Photo: Frank Gardner © 2008


Now, this is the church from the other side.
In Feb.
Different angle, but this field is where the man and burro are walking in "Day's End".
Below is that field this afternoon.



Photo: Frank Gardner © 2008


Erin has found a horse shoe track in the mud that she wants me to see.



Photo: Frank Gardner © 2008

"Day's End"

I tried to get the same relaxed peacefulness of the last painting.
Different colors this time, but I think the mood is similar.



"Day's End", 11" x 14" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection

"Quiet Passing"

This family with their animals passed by so quietly that I barely knew they were there.
The area is one of my favorite places to go paint. It is very quiet and peaceful, but there is always ambient noise going on in the background. Mexican countryside noise like mooing cows, barking dogs, a radio off in the distance or a passing train. It gets me in the mood to paint.



"Quiet Passing", 11" x 14" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection


As a side note. This is my 100th blog post on "My Paint Box".
Thanks for being part of it with me.
Your comments count so much and make me keep going.
I have seen a saying on a few blogs that I have visited that says
" Your Comments Feed My Blog".
It is very true.

"Mother Hen" and my palette

It has been a very rainy week here. I am working on several paintings in the studio. Here is one of them.
I was challenged by the subject being all in shadow. There was not a strong pattern of light and shadow to work with.



"Mother Hen", 11" x 14" oil on board, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection


I enjoy seeing other artists palettes and the way they set them up.
I have shown my Open Box M setup on this blog before, but I dont think that I have shown this larger palette. The mixing surface is about 15" x 15". I use it on a table top in my studio or I can sit it on the drawer of my french easel.

Below is a photo of one of my home made palettes and how I have my paint arranged. I like to line up the colors along the left hand side. Since I am right handed, it is the easiest layout for me to grab paint with my palette knife. I always line my colors up from darkest to lightest. My little pile of phthalo blue is off to the upper right, out of the way, so it does not contaminate any of my other colors. There was not any on my palette when I shot this photo, but you can see the stain where it goes.
When I use liquin, I make a little pile of it at the bottom right.

The two sides are hinged and fold in to cover my extra paint for transport, and to keep it from drying out as fast. I keep my brushes on the tray on the right hand side and paint rags on the left hand side.

I sealed the whole thing with a few coats of tung oil to protect it, and it has a nice patina of oil paint building up on it. It is nice to have all the wood well sealed incase I get caught out in the rain.

Summer is Over

When I was growing up, summer vacation was always something that I would look forward to.
Long days that seemed endless, and playing late in our neighborhood.
Cramming into the car and driving to Cape Cod for a few weeks each July.
Now that Erin has been in school for a year, it is something that I can look forward to again. Every kid looks forward to that break from classes. A reason to slow down for a while and try to relax, although with a 5 year old, who's relaxing?

I guess that the summer '08 is officially over for us.
Today was the first day of the school year and Erin is back in classes.
She says it was the best day of school ever, so I suppose that's good news.

Now it is time to get back to work. I have several new projects that I'll be working on this fall and a painting trip in a few weeks that I am really looking forward to.

I'll be posting dates for two 5 day plein air painting workshops in March '09 very soon.
Oh, what the heck.
March 9-13th and 16-20.
I'll post costs and info soon and start saving spots.

Now back to the bit about our summer vacation.
This summer has been about trying to spend as much time not thinking about work as we could get away with, and still take care of business and obligations, like bills.
I usually travel with my paints and finish at least a few pieces every week. This year I refrained from whipping them out for three whole weeks. Julissa had to work a bit on vacation, but she had deadlines to worry about.
If you are a regular reader you know that we went to the States for three weeks in July. We visited my family and had all sorts of fun.

As a tribute to our summer vacation, I will bore you with a few snap shots of what we did this summer. Fun stuff, from a kids point of view, and mine.
Sorry, no art in this post.



Erin on the Dragon Raft on Lake Winnepesaukee, N.H.
I bought this guy 19 years ago and he is still holding up strong.
Erin is checking out a loon out there in the lake. See it?
Winnepesaukee is much bigger than what you see here. We are up at the end of a harbor. The main lake, or "The Broads" is about 23 miles long.




Erin running on the beach at low tide on the Cape Cod Bay. This sand bar is under water at high tide.
We visited our good friends Peter and Kathleen for just a day on our way back to New York. Erin really loves them.


But we had to keep going...


We had a plane to catch...


To visit Erin's favorite friends...




Chip and Dale.
She did not know about this part of the trip until a day before.
Five very fun, very humid, very fun days.
My sister joined us with her two kids which was very special for us.




Erin has also been taking riding lessons since May. Once a week or so, just when she wants to. She is really into it.
Isabella is a champion jumping horse. She is a beauty, and very friendly with Erin.
Last week Erin got to ride her out in the country instead of around the ring where she had been practicing.




Here is the little one taking her horse back to the stable after the ride.

"Taking it Slow"

Trying to stay simple here with a focus on the guy on the donkey and a few of the cows nearest to him. I think that if a few details are given, the eye fills in the blanks on the rest.


"Taking it Slow", 8" x 16" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection

"Sitting on Top"

Just couldn't resist trying a few more along these lines. "Violin" was so much fun.
The color in this one is a little more subdued.



"Sitting on Top", 18" x 14" oil on board, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection

"Violin"

Feeling a little influence of my older paintings that I posted earlier in the week.

I posted this one a little larger, so when you click on it you can see detail better.


"Violin", 18" x 14" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection

Awards

It has taken me a while to get around to acknowledging some blog friends who have graciously passed awards on to me and my blog.
I am supposed to chose other blogs to pass these on to, but there are so many that I truly love, it would be unfair, and hard, for me to just pick a few.
So,
I will be a party pooper, and just say that all of you do great work and deserve praise for your blogs.
Being part of the blogging community and sharing with all of you is a great honor.
For those of you who don't have blogs, you are great too!
I thank everyone for your visits to "My Paint Box" and for all of your kind and thoughtful comments.

I'd like to thank Paz for giving me this You Make My Day award.



Susan Carlin awarded me with the Arte y Pico Award.
Thanks Susan!
I translate Arte Y Pico to mean art and a little more.



The third award, Brillante Weblog, was given to me by Jennifer Thermes. Thank you Jennifer.

A couple of oldies

We got back from our summer vacation this weekend. Lots of traveling around and playing.

My family has a pretty large collection of my older paintings.
That's what happens when you don't sell many of them.
It is always nice to see all of those older paintings when I visit.
Here are two that I am particularly fond of.
The sizes are approximate. I guess I should have measured them.



"Fish", 30" x 24" ? , Frank Gardner © 1989
Private Collection



"W", 24" x 24" ? , Frank Gardner ©1989
Private Collection

Thanks for all of your well wishes for our trip. I'll get to posting a bit about that later.
It was just a family trip with no painting or blogging.
There is a lot of work to catch up on.

"San Miguel from Above"

Things have been real busy around here. We are trying to wrap up a lot of projects and take care of business before we leave on our summer vacation on Thursday. Things on the blog will slow down for about three weeks. I'll try and post a few times, but it is family vacation, and we are going to try and just spend some time together and leave work behind as much as we can.

Here is my latest painting. It is a street scene looking down over San Miguel, one of my favorite views of town. It's painted from a photo I took in March, so there are a few of the purple jacarandas in there.



"San Miguel from Above", 14" x 11" oil on board, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection


This time our travels will take us to Lake Winnepesaukee in New Hampshire to spend time with my family. We've planned a few surprises for Erin too. I'll talk about later ;o)

It has been raining SO much here this past month. Summer is our rainy season and things are really green and overgrown.
I need a little sun.
I'm not complaining mind you, we can use all of the water that we can get around here.

More Commissions

These five make a set with "Nicho" from the previous post.

My clients are moving and wanted a set of four little paintings that would remind them of their house.
I tried to paint scenes that were meaningful to them, but I also wanted them to be good paintings in themselves.

With commissions, I often like to offer a choice to my clients. I am a little more comfortable if they get to choose what they like. I realize that I don't always hit them out of the park, so it gives them an option to get what they want, instead of just accepting what I paint first. So I painted six.

They liked them all.


"Arrival", 8" x 10" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection



"White Roses", 8" x 10" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection



"Interior Courtyard", 8" x 10" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection



"Kitchen Window", 8" x 10" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection



"The Bench", 8" x 10" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection

"Nicho" quick demo

My idea called for a special color to tone my canvas.
I took some leftover paint from one painting, added to it a bit to adjust it, and toned a linen panel with it.
It dried for a day, then I marked out my drawing lightly with vine charcoal.
Started painting with the lights this time.
Had my mid tone already.
Then added details only in the center of interest.


"Nicho" start, 10" x 8", Frank Gardner © 2008



"Nicho", 10" x 8" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection

I kind of like how it looks in the top photo as a finished painting itself, but it did not fit well in the series like that.

"Saint Paul's"

Commissions can be hard because you are dealing with trying to paint someone else's idea. Even if the clients are as easy going as mine were on these paintings, you worry if they will like what you come up with. You worry if they have an idea of what they want and you may not even come close. Do you have things that you ask or ways that you go about balancing the clients idea with your artistic integrity?

The request was to paint the local Episcopal Church, Saint Paul's. I must admit, it is not the most interesting church facade in town to paint. It is kind of an odd pink and the client did not really like pink. Aside from that, they left it to me as to size and composition.

To work out my ideas I started with several pencil studies. Just simple value plans trying to work up an interesting design.
From there, I took the one that I thought showed the most promise and did a small oil study to work out color and alter the composition just a bit. I was combining two photos to get the design I wanted. Sometimes combining two photos can be harder than just using one.


"Saint Paul's Study", 6" x 8" oil on board, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection

Looking at the small study, I felt that the facade was too pink. The pink that the client did not care for, and that the whole thing needed to be warmed up a bit. My idea was to stick to cooler colors for a calming mood. so to warm it up I switched to a burnt sienna toned canvas.
By letting some of that show through, I could use the same cooler, calming colors, and achieve a warmer, more inviting result.

Thinking that some of you might be interested in how I went about this one I snapped a photo after I blocked in most of the shadow colors. There is only one light family color, the light green to the left through the branches. I tried to link most of these shadow colors into one big design with a center of interest around the doorway. There is a general mid value shadow color and a few darker accents.


"Saint Paul's" in progress, 14" x 18", Frank Gardner © 2008

Next, I cut the silhouette of the church, doorway, architectural details of the door frame, sunlit grass, sky holes in the tree, with the light family colors. I spent some time adjusting back and forth between shadow and light colors after that, but the main job was done. The tweaking was to soften edges, adjust colors, cover the tone of the canvas where it was distracting. With a canvas toned with such a strong color you have to be aware that those orange bits are going to draw attention. If they are too many left in the wrong places it can really mess you up. If you get too picky and cover too much, you've lost what you were trying to achieve by using it in the first place.


"Saint Paul's" , 14" x 18" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private collection

Here is the finished painting.
I am happy with how this one looks along side "Good Company". They may or may not hang near each other, but they are the same size and the large trees and the way they are painted tie them together nicely.

Meet Camino

Recently I was asked to paint a commission.
The first thing that I usually say when someone asks if I paint commissions is, "hmmmm, well... sometimes... It depends on what it is."
The second thing I say is, "It might take a while."
After exchanging a few emails and speaking with the clients at my gallery, we decided to meet at their place so we could further discuss what they were interested in having me paint.

I have been working on several paintings since our meeting and full time since I returned from my painting trip. I wanted to wait before posting any of them here until I had met with my clients to view the progress.
One painting was to be of their horse, Camino. He is a beautiful horse. I got to know him and we had a long photo shoot. Deciding how to portray him in one painting was hard. I decided to start with a few small paintings to get the hang of painting him.
I went for a simple design on these two with three main values. Light, mid tone and dark.


"Camino", 6" x 8" oil on board, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection


"Camino and Thomas", 6" x 8" oil on board, Frank Gardner © 2008
Not For Sale


Today was the first time they had seen what I had been painting. I need to have everything finished and signed before I leave for vacation next week, so I shared the paintings with them today to see if I was on the right track and to get their feedback. They really liked what I had done.

My client spoke of how much she enjoys her rides on Camino. One of the workers where she boards her horse and the ranch dogs always join her. I wanted to capture that companionship in a painting.
It is not so much a portrait of Camino like the top two. It's more of the overall feeling of the ride, the company, and the location.



"Good Company", 14" x 18" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2008
Private Collection

These three were among the paintings I brought out to show them today. They kept "Camino" and "Good Company".
"Camino and Thomas" has made its way into my daughter's growing art collection.

I have more to share with you. I'll try and get another post up tomorrow. Thanks for looking.