Monday, July 28, 2008

Robert Burridge - Free Range


My vision of the great Southwest includes wide open spaces, big blocks of color and organic shapes that blur the edges of land and sky. I painted a series of impressionistic Free Range paintings after visiting the Grand Canyon for the first time. My memories had to percolate for a while before I could put paint to canvas.
Original 12x12, acrylic on canvas. $625 plus $50 shipping.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Adele Earnshaw - Suncatcher


Mouser, who belongs to an artist friend, has been the model for many of my paintings. I expect that soon she will demand modeling fees or royalties. This is a 9 x 12 oil on board.

This piece is available for purchase but I still haven't figured out how to put the PURCHASE info here....though it has been thoroughly explained to me! The price is $695 with custom framing.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Michael Chesley Johnson - Rocks & Rockweed

One of the most popular requests I get during my Campobello Island workshops is for a rock demonstration. Our 23-foot tides reveal fascinating rocks, skirted with rockweed, and their forms and color simply beg to be painted.

For this 5x7 pastel, I wanted to illustrate how I paint these rocks. Rocks are made up of planes, no matter how "round" the rockweed may make them seem. Bare rock, of course, shows this characteristic more readily. Cracks with deep darks further define the rocks. Finally, I stress that any round line must be indicated not with roundness but with a series of short, end-to-end, straight lines. I often use the edge of a hard pastel to create these lines.



"Rocks and Rockweed" - Michael Chesley Johnson, PSA, MPAC, PSNM
5x7, pastel, en plein air
$60+$5 shipping

Friday, July 25, 2008

Carol Marine - Codependent



Carol Marine 6"x6" Oil on canvas panel - bid
I found this little blue vase in a thriftstore recently and it spoke to me. The flower I've been growing in my garden. There is a whole bed of these and they're rather delicate little things. By the time I had finished the painting the flower was closed. The next day it was open again!

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Journey to England:1



Libby Caldwell, Oil on Panel, 9 x 12 NFS

Journal entry 1: July 2008.
On my way to England. The flight has been uneventful so far. I'm looking out of the window now and clouds appear to have formed what looks like a kingdom in the sky, and the sunlight seems to be beckoning us homeward or at least reassuring us as we pass by. There is a gap in the clouds, exposing a shocking contrast of dark, gloomy land.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Audience















Vince Fazio 9x12 Oil on canvas panal $135
There are a few places in the world where people gather to watch the sunset. At edge of the Grand Canyon the mix is particularly international. At any given sunset you could expect representation from all the continents and many different cultures and languages - for a moment unified in a singular experience.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Betsey Nelson - Blue Boat















Betsey Nelson - Blue Boat pastel on paper 9x12 $125
This piece was a warm up for an oil painting. It was also done to try out some new pastels. Unfortunatly when I arrived on site I had forgotton my other pastels so it became an exercise in a very limited palette. I liked the results and learned alot.


Sunday, July 20, 2008

Sands – Messing Around in the Studio













This painting started as a disaster of a drawing that I had to do for an illustration project. Seeing as I had nothing to lose I started playing with it – painted with watercolor, drew some more, added sawdust and layered paper onto it with polymer gel...  just experimenting.
This is what happened. 
These days this is what I do - have fun. 
You can visit my website to see more: www.peggysands.com
(FYI this is what my new class ‘Romper Room Meets Foundation Drawing’ is about.)

Burridge - Here It Comes


I live in California, on the central coast - four hours south of San Francisco and four hours north of Los Angeles. I have started a new series of inspired by the wildfires that have gripped the state. Even though the fire in Big Sur to the north and another in Goleta, south of us don't pose a threat to our area, we have smokey skies, vivid sunrises and blazing sunsets. It is a terrible beauty, to be sure - powerful, threatening and alive, all at the same time.

Original 10x10, acrylic on Fabriano Watercolor paper. Unframed. Matted and bagged. $275 plus $25 shipping.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Adele Earnshaw - "Aspen Shadows"


This little original is 7" square on gessoed board. This one comes with custom framing and is available for $450 including framing and shipping.

I broke my right wrist two years ago. The splint made it impossible to work in watercolor so I painted in oil for several months. By the time I had the flexibility back in my wrist, I was an oil convert! My goal in painting this small oil was to create a focal point by making everything else in the image less important.


Thursday, July 17, 2008

Michael Chesley Johnson - Liberty Point Wave

Rocks can be overwhelming - especially when there are many of them! Sometimes you'll find a group of rocks with a built-in composition that works perfectly. But more than likely, you'll have to search for a pleasing design. Quite often, the solution lies in finding a point of interest, zooming in so it fills the frame, and then zooming out just a bit to include a few other elements for a successful design. I try to use the fewest elements I can.

Where I live, along the bold coast of the Canadian Maritimes, we have many tumble-down cliffs, ragged points and nameless rock outcrops. The other day I went out with my pastels to paint Liberty Point, a massive rock just off the southeastern tip of Campobello Island. First, here's a photograph of Liberty Point so you can see the complexity:



But rather than try to capture the entire rock in all its glory and fail, I decided to take a small view and succeed. I chose a couple of rocks down near the water line with a wave breaking gently over the wrackweed. It's an intimate close-up.



"Liberty Point Wave" - Michael Chesley Johnson, PSA, MPAC, PSNM
5x7, pastel, en plein air