Feature in The Artist's Magazine

It's a real honor to have my work featured in the April 2017 issue of the nationally-distributed Artist's Magazine. The article, written by John A. Parks, gives insights into the inspiration behind my work and artistic process - from creating works on site to developing larger works in the studio. Here's a quick preview...

The April 2017 issue can be purchased online at the North Light shop. 

Monotype Party for Oregon Society of Artists

I’m thrilled to be participating in this unique art event to support Oregon Society of Artists here in Portland. You are invited to attend the reception at OSA this Saturday evening, Dec. 3rd, from 6 – 8pm. I am one of over thirty Portland-area artists who will be making original prints during the day to be sold that evening to support this valued Arts Organization. 

A Unique Fund Raiser for Oregon Society of Artists
Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016

Since 1926 the Oregon Society of Artists has been promoting the in Oregon by providing exhibit opportunities, educational programing, and art related projects in our Portland community.  

Read more about OSA here. 

Our first annual OSA Monotype Party- Fund Raiser was conceived as a fund raiser that continues to build and strengthen the organization’s tradition as a center for Oregon’s artistic community.  Thirty Portland-area artists will be creating unique Monotypes at OSA throughout the day, culminating in an exhibition and fund-raiser that evening from 6 – 8pm.

What is a Monotype?

Scott Gellatly, Chasing Sunset, monotype on paper

Monotypes are a natural extension from painting to printmaking – it is the most painterly method among of printmaking and is often called “the painterly print.”

Saturday, Dec 3, Schedule of Events: 
7 am – 5pm: Watch artists create Monotypes in the OSA Studio. Open to the public. (No sales prior to 6pm).
6pm - 8pm: Reception and Fund Raiser. Purchased prints go home with buyers. Friends, family, collectors, everyone is welcome!

Oregon Society of Artists
2185 SW Park Place
Portland, Oregon 97205

The Painted Sky | 2016 Exhibition at Brian Marki Fine Art, Portland

Brian Marki Fine Art 

2236 NE Broadway, Portland Oregon, 97232 

Color + The Artist’s Palette

As artists, we are always working within the confines of our materials.

For 600 years, oil colors have been the preeminent medium of visual expression. And within this time, the world has become increasingly more colorful. We see this, not only in painting, but in the cars we drive and the clothes we wear. As painters living and working today, we have more color choices to us now compared to painters who came before us – a fact that is equally intimidating as it is inspiring. How can we express a unique color voice to make color our own?

This blog explores the evolution of painters’ most important tool: COLOR. What aspects of colors do painters consider when selecting a palette to express their artistic vision?

Artistic Intention

My own intentions as a landscape painter working in the Pacific Northwest revolves around creating paintings which are informed by the area's terrain, vegetation, water and sky. However, what I've always been drawn to, visually, is to capture sensations of light and atmosphere - those fleeting conditions in between downpours and sun, evening and twilight. In more recent work, my characteristic softness of edge and ethereal transitions have given way to a greater bravado of brushwork and more visible "hand" in the mark-making.

Northwest Waters, 2011

 Wetland in Spring, 2015

Evolving Color

One of the fascinating perspectives of looking at the history and development of oil painting over the centuries, is to look at it through the lens of how pigment technology evolved from classical era, through the Industrial Revolution and through the 20^th century. As artists, we are always working within the confines of our materials.

As artists have incorporated new pigments into their work, their access to color-mixing within Color Space has increased as well. This has drastically expanded color possibilities in painting. Both in pigment chemistry and in our use of color, we are no longer limited to the colorants and effects from nature – we can push beyond this to explore color mixtures of higher chroma for more expressive possibilities. 

Classical Palette

Earth colors make up the heart of painters’ palettes during the Classical Era of pigment history. This group of pigments, which has its origins in cave painting and antiquity, was central to the oil painter’s palette from the Renaissance through the Classical Era of oil painting. This limited range of muted earth colors exists close to the “neutral core” of Color Space. Limited to this range of the color spectrum, painters depicted form by drawing large contrasts between the darkest darks and the lightest lights, creating the chiaroscuro (literally, “light/dark”) effect so characteristic of classical paintings.

Impressionist Palette

The advancements of the Industrial Revolution of the mid-nineteenth century widened the spectrum of both color and possibilities for artists. A new range of pigments were made by fusing inorganic materials, such as cadmium, cobalt, and chromium, together at very high heat. Not only did these colors brighten the urban centers of the Iron Age, but they widened painters’ access to color compared to the palettes of the Classical Era. For the first time in history, painters of this period had the pigments available to capture all of the colors of the natural world, expressed in the Impressionists’ interest in pure color. The denser, tubed oil colors made from brighter and opaque pigments lent themselves to the direct painting techniques so characteristic of the Impressionists.

20^th Century Palette

The end of the 1800’s gave birth to the field of organic chemistry with applications in the pharmaceutical, dye, and printing industries. Modern organic pigments are characterized by their greater transparency and their capacity to produce intense tints and mixtures.

The biggest difference in the characteristics between mineral inorganic and modern organic colors–and arguably of most interest to painters–is how these two groups of pigments behave differently in color mixing. Below are two different reds, the mineral Cadmium Red Medium and modern Napthol Red, each mixed with Titanium Zinc White.

As shown above, the mineral Cadmium Red Medium “greys down” and loses its intensity as it is mixed with white, compared to the modern Napthol Red, which retains its intensity in its tint. Once again, pigment technology expanded painters’ access to Color Space and made it possible for artists of the 20^th Century to create paintings of high chroma.

Personalized Color Palette

Through my work at Gamblin I’ve gotten to know the unique characteristics of artists’ pigments. Over the years, I’ve used this insight to build a color palette that perfectly supports my color-mixing intentions – to create paintings with a naturalistic color scheme, but to have the capacity for bursts of more intense color. 

 Nickel Titanate Yellow, Indian Yellow, Cadmium Orange, Alizarin Permanent, Ultramarine Blue, Manganese Blue Hue.

My personalized color palette (shown here) is built off the concept of a split primary palette (warm and cool for each primary color). Instead of including a warm red, however, I use Cadmium Orange. This palette not only balances warm and cool pigments, but mineral and modern, opaque and transparent characteristics as well.

There a number of ways that we develop a personal, unique voice and painters – technique, chosen subject matter, and mark-making to name a few. Developing our own unique color voice with a palette that balances theory and our own aesthetics is a valuable way to make painting our own.

 Buena Vista, 2015

2016 Pacific Northwest Plein Air

The Pacific Northwest Plein Air Event runs this weekend, September 26 - 28! 

Gorge Voyage, 9pm, oil on panel, 12" x 18"

This is the 12^th annual Plein Air Event in the Columbia River Gorge and I’ve been fortunate to participate every year since its inception in 2005. Adding more excitement to this year’s event, the exhibition of paintings will be hosted for the first time at the Maryhill Museum of Art.

The opening reception is  Friday, August 26, from 5 - 7pm. 

  

       The public is invited to view the paintings artists created in plein air, meet the artists and enjoy wine and hors d'oeuvres. Artwork will be available for purchase.

Exhibition continues Saturday & Sunday (Aug 27 & 28) at Maryhill Museum of Art; hours are10 a.m. to 5 p.m. exhibit is free with paid museum admission. Paintings will also be for sale.

Plein Air on live TV! 

I was featured this week on KATU morning news, along with friends Aimee Erickson and Thomas Kitts, while we were painting the sunrise in Stevenson, WA. It was a wonderful way to give the public an insight on plein air painting and help promote the event. You can view my interview here. 

Hope to see you out at Maryhill! 

More information on the event is at www.maryhillmuseum.org.

Aussie Icons

Just returned from spending two weeks in beautiful Australia - on a tour giving lecture demonstrations for Gamblin. I did, however, manage to get a little painting done between demo's.

After the 13-hour flight from the states, I arrived in Sydney in the morning, settled into my hotel, then enjoyed a long walk down to the famous Sydney Harbor. After strolling through the Royal Botanical Gardens, painting gear in tow, I thought, why not paint the most iconic structure in Australia?

Sydney Harbor, oil on panel, 6" x 8"

OK...check that off the list...got it out of my system. Now I can get on with the rest of my trip. 

It would be a few days until I'd be able to paint again, but after a marathon, 3-hour Gamblin demo, I set up at a nearby park and painted another Australian icon - the gum tree.  

I was hooked...the wild movement of the branches, the white bark, the variety of greens...this would make a nice series from Australia. Best part, you can't shake a stick without hitting one...nothing like accessible subject matter. So, here they are...shown in the order they were painted: 

Aussie Gums #1 - 6, oil on panel, each 6" x 8" . 

Painting: from a verb to a noun

On a Saturday afternoon in late October, I drove five large oil paintings through a torrential Portland downpour to Brian Marki Fine Art gallery on the other side of town. As I've done in years past, I varnish the large paintings at the gallery, away from the sawdust that has overtaken my studio from the framing process.

This was a very satisfying errand for me...handing off what amounts to a year's worth of artistic output for the gallery to install and light properly - which they do an amazing job of.

The exhibition wouldn't officially open until the following Friday, and I would wait to see the show until then. I wanted to see the work fresh, along with everyone else.

These few days between delivering a show and seeing it is a special time. It the time between painting being a verb and before it becomes a noun. Like most painters, I revel in the process of painting - whether it is putting color onto a surface, varnishing, framing, or driving the work across town - it is all part of the process. Friends, family and collectors come to admire the work, which I'm grateful for. To me, the paintings are simply remnants of a process that has become an essential part of my life.

So, with that said, here are some installation pics of Native Shores and Distant Sands, on view at Brian Marki Fine Art through November 2015.