Sunday, December 20, 2009

Altostratus

Went out painting yesterday in winter conditions for the first time this season. As I drove to the designated meeting spot, I was almost mesmerized by the sky...it was an overcast (altostratus clouds for those familiar) with the sun weakly showing through, kind of the "frosted glass" effect. Really beautiful. I knew I wanted to try to capture that effect. It's tricky, like with a sunset, because the sun is the brightest thing but it's not white. It actually looked a little greenish, with a halo of faint red around it. I used those colors and was able to get the effect (not sure how well it translates here), but didn't capture the apparent brightness of the sun. I'll have to experiment in the studio.

It was about 20 deg with a light wind...not too bad but the paint does get thick at those temperatures. So it's hard to get much detail. I was in a bit of a hurry to get the sky, and didn't pay as much attention to the rest of the composition as I should have...see some things I'd change (probably the sun is too far up in the corner, for one thing). This may serve as a reference for a larger studio painting this winter. Oil on canvas, 8x10.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Updated My Website

No paintings today (will have some real soon, just have to make jpegs), but wanted to let people know that I've finally updated my website (homepage), after almost a year of letting it get stagnant. I changed things around a little, added a "recent paintings" page and condensed the older oil paintings onto one page. Have a look if you get a chance and let me know if you like the new format: http://home.roadrunner.com/~cohandley/ or if something doesn't look right.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Braddock Marsh, Autumn

This 8x10 oil was painted a few weeks ago, on a beautiful sunny fall day. I went to Braddock Bay park and set up at the end of a short walkway that extends out into the marsh. I've always had trouble painting marsh grass in the fall...never able to get the color right. I first tried painting a different view (to the left of this one), and actually painted it twice...quite unsuccessfully. I was getting tired, but when I looked to the north the dried marsh grasses glowing in the sun called to me. The colors were extremely intense this day - the water an incredible dark blue, the grasses glowing orange/yellow, all contrasted by the dull greens and yellows of the distant tree line.

I quickly put in the sky, water, and trees...then realized I still had 75% of the canvas left, and it was all marsh grass! Thinking about past failures, I decided to try two things differently - using a palette knife, and pushing the colors in the grass. I really like the result.


Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Fall Morning, Backlit

This 6x8 oil was painted in October, just as fall colors were coming to peak. The location is somewhere in Wyoming county. It was a mild morning, with enough moisture to create a nice haze in the distance. This haze was especially pronounced looking toward the southeast, into the morning light. The combination of the distant blue merging almost imperceptibly into the more colorful mid-range hills, and the back/rim lit nearby trees, was too much to resist.

There's a good chance I'm going to try to work this up to a larger painting, so any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome.


Sunday, November 1, 2009

Durfee Road Study, re-post

I managed to get a better image of the painting "Durfee Road Study", and am posting it here. It looks better on my laptop monitor - better captures the light and contrasts. However, there are some problems with the scan...in particular, in the painting there is a slight touch of yellow in the sky...but the scan over-emphasizes this a lot. Also, the painting has a warmer tone than the scan. I almost wonder if it's even worth trying to post images of paintings, it's so hard to get a faithful reproduction. This painting was sold at the recent Artist Row show, but I have it back temporarily for varnishing.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Cloud Patterns

We had another one of those summers with spectacular skies...many showery days when the cumulus clouds rapidly built up into thunderheads. Makes for tricky painting, but potentially great atmospheric effects if you're quick enough. I spent a lot of time this summer trying to do paintings featuring the sky. Most of them didn't turn out very well. Even though I've been studying clouds my whole life, they are still mystifying to paint.

However, sometimes things just work out. I did this little 8x10 study sometime in July, and I really like the way the sky turned out. I painted it fast and did no touch ups afterwards, so it's a pure plein air piece. It's a really simple composition, but I think it shows off the main feature (the clouds) nicely. I've been thinking about trying to work it up into a larger studio painting, but am not sure how well that would work - I feel it might need some additional elements at a larger size, perhaps more structures. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Wyoming County Revisited

I'm going to post 2 paintings done this summer on Durfee Road in Wyoming County. This area has some wonderful views of the Genesee Valley, along with great farms and barns. It is the same general area where I painted "Wyoming County Vista" a couple of years ago, as well as "Goldenrod Vista".

The first painting is an 8x10 oil study called, fittingly, "Durfee Road Study". The morning I painted it I thought I had done a great job - until I got it home! Then I realized the colors were too dull and the overall contrast too weak. So I worked on it at home, then went back to the same location a few days later. Unfortunately that day was much hazier than the first, so rather than work on the same painting I started the second one posted here - a 10x12 oil called "Durfee Road Summer". This one also required re-working at home. Unfortunately, the jpegs of both paintings aren't very good, and I almost didn't post them because of this. If I get a chance to take better pictures I will post them...but the first painting sold and the second is currently in the Legacy show.

I used to be very reluctant to work on plein air paintings at home, but lately I've realized that many of these studies could be greatly improved - oftentimes the painting has a good structure but is lacking color or contrast, mainly because the bright light outdoors fools me into thinking the colors are so bright on site. Maybe someday I'll be able to consistently account for this when painting outdoors, but I'm not there yet!


Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Papaya!

OK, this is the last of the little (5x7) still life studies, as I haven't done any in a while. It's oil on canvas board, half of a very ripe papaya. I had intended to paint this one more loosely, but wound up rendering individual seeds. Old habits...I do like the way it turned out, though there needs to be more variety in the orange tones.

I've got a bunch of plein air paintings from the past few months that I'll be posting soon, I've almost caught up with everything...


Wednesday, September 23, 2009

ARTIST ROW SUMMARY

I wanted to take the opportunity to thank everyone who stopped by my booth at Artist Row this past Sunday - it was a beautiful fall day, with a nice-sized crowd...a great way to spend a day! And a special thanks to those who bought paintings - I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed painting them.

My work was chosen for the "Outstanding Achievement in Painting" award. I consider this quite an honor, as there were many terrific painters at the show this year.

I'm looking forward to participating again next year, and I hope to see some of you then! In the meantime, check back for updates on upcoming shows...

Chris

Saturday, September 19, 2009

ARTIST ROW TOMORROW! (SEP 20)

Just wanted to let everyone know that I'll be participating in the 5th annual Artist Row show at the Rochester Public market tomorrow (Sunday, September 20). I'll be located in shed A, booth 75 which is just past the bend. I will have approximately 40 framed paintings on display (for sale), along with some unframed "bargain bin" works and notecards. The weather looks great, so stop by if you get the chance! The show runs from 10 am to 4 pm. The public market is located on North Union Street, just north of downtown.

This will be the 3rd year I've participated. It's a nice, small show with a mixture of fine arts and crafts. There is food (try the pierogies at "Cherry's European") and entertainment, and there is no admission charge.

Hope to see you there!

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Mango y Mango

Returning to the still-life theme...here is a painting of a couple of mangos, which are one of my favorite fruits - both to look at and to eat! They have amazing coloration, often with vivid reds and greens side by side and interspersed. Plus more subtle yellows and ochres. This is an oil painting, 5x7 oil on canvas. It is painted very thinly, more of a stain than a paint layer. In the future I'd like to paint these with thicker paint...well, not these because they've already been eaten (and were very good). I like the way the mangos turned out, but am not sure about my choice for the fabric and background colors...may have made those a bit too warm. Any thoughts about that?I also tried a painting of a cut mango with the slice next to it, but am not happy with the way that one turned out. I will be trying that again.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Studies of Green, Part 2

Some additional studies of green from earlier this year...these were all painted within a week or two of each other, I don't remember when...probably May or June. The first one is 6x8 oil on canvas panel, painted in the morning looking toward the east - so it is partially back-lit. When I brought this one indoors I found that it was a much darker, duller painting than I expected. I didn't get the relationship right between the tree masses and the foreground vegetation. The latter was very strongly illuminated by the sun, the edges glowed...that's an effect that I have not yet mastered.

This second one is 10x8, again oil on canvas board. Here I was looking toward the west around or a little after midday - so the sun is high and to the left. I got closer to the effect I wanted here, but by the time I got around to painting the tree trunks, the sun had moved enough so that they were all in shade

The final painting is a scene looking southwest late in the afternoon...so the sun is lower and to the right, with other trees casting shadows onto some of these trees. I really liked the one shadow across the lower half of the middle tree, and think that effect turned out OK. Not so happy with the foreground. 6x8 oil on canvas panel.

Planning to spend a lot more time doing these kinds of studies next spring and summer. In one of Kevin MacPhersons books, he talked about doing a painting every day of a pond on his property. Basically the same scene, so the problem becomes how to make each painting different and interesting. I don't have a pond on my property, but I've got plenty of trees!

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Studies of Green, Part 1

During some painting sessions this spring, I found myself having trouble with all the greens in the landscape. A couple of painting attempts turned out to be disasters...scenes that were not only all green, but very complicated - lots of trees, shrubs, grasses, etc. I realized that I needed to scale back and try something simpler. A clump of hosta in shade caught my eye...I liked the relatively simple composition of the dark foliage against the brighter sunlit grass behind. And it was all green...a chance to practice with a simpler scene. So I painted this little 5x7 oil on canvas board.










Thought it was looking pretty good outside, but when I brought it in I realized there was not enough contrast in the painting. This is something I often have trouble with, especially when I'm not painting a lot outdoors. It's easy to forget that even in shade outside (I was under a tree when painting the above), the overall light is much brighter than most indoor light. This causes one to paint too dark, and it only becomes evident when the painting is brought indoors.

So I tried again on another sunny day...trying to push the contrasts. I think the result more accurately conveys the high contrast of the scene. I had intended to do this scene again on a cloudy day, but never got around to it. Next year!

Sunday, August 23, 2009

A Pair of Pears

Spent some time trying to paint a couple of red pears. In the first painting I set up the pears so I was looking down at them, and arranged them at an angle. I had a very difficult time getting the pears to look dimensional. Colors were tougher than I thought also! Painting realistic looking fruit is turning out to be more difficult than you might expect. For the second painting, I decided to try a more classical still-life type of arrangement, with a very dark background. I set the pears up side-by-side so there was slight overlap, with one of the pears throwing a shadow onto the other. I also consciously played around with lost edges, allowing (or trying to allow) the darker areas of the pears to blend into the background. Not sure how well that comes across in the jpeg, but it worked pretty well and I do like the actual painting.

Both are 5x7 oil on canvas panel.










Friday, August 21, 2009

Cipollinis

I found these neat looking onions in the grocery store...they're shaped like little spinning tops. Apparently called cipollinis. In any case, they were a lot of fun to paint...lots of subtle coloration, reflections, etc. Both are painted on 4x6 Sourcetek linen panels that I am experimenting with. For the first painting, I placed the onion on a sheet of aluminum foil, which provides partial reflections. For the second painting, I placed the onions on a piece of glass with something dark underneath, to enhance the reflections.

















I've really found these little studies to be challenging but also surprisingly fun to do, and I plan on doing a lot more of them during the winter. I originally became inspired to do these small paintings after seeing the work of Duane Keiser, who is generally credited with starting the "painting-a-day" craze. More recently, a friend told me about Carol Marine who has been doing these kinds of paintings for about 3 years. Check out their work if you get the chance.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Early Spring, Burger Park

Catching up on some old paintings...the study here was done sometime in early spring - probably March (but maybe April) - at Burger Park in Greece. The trees were just starting to show their color - not green, but the subtle reds and yellows that appear as the buds swell. It is a beautiful time of year. I remember that I trudged out into the fields and set up a long way from the car...it was fairly warm for the time of year. However, about halfway through the painting the wind switched to the north and the cold air over Lake Ontario swept in. Fortunately I had an extra sweatshirt!

This is oil on canvas, 8x10. I like the way it turned out, but the sky needs a little refinement and the water looks too dark to me. What do you think?

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Some apples...and an update

Well, I'm finally getting around to updating the blog. This has been a hectic year to say the least. Since my last post, I spent about a month on Long Island, fixing up my parents' house for sale. We got really lucky, the house sold quickly and at a good price. But it did take a lot of time, several trips back and forth. All of that is done now, and I have been doing some painting - but there is so much other stuff that has piled up.

Anyway, these studies of apples were completed several months ago. All three paintings are of the same scene...I got very frustrated with the first one (the paint wasn't behaving), which is 5x7 oil on board. So I got out a smaller panel (4x5) and painted it again. Had better luck, so I gave it another try at 5x7...and I do like the way the third one finally turned out. I have quite a few more paintings that I will be posting in the near future, so check back often!




Friday, April 10, 2009

Beginnings and Endings

I've been thinking about this post for a while, trying to figure out exactly what I want to say. Anyone who's been following along knows that I recently left my job to pursue my artistic interests. I've been looking forward to doing this for a long time. However, it's been a rocky start, to say the least. As mentioned in previous posts, I hurt my back in September...nerve root compression in my neck that left that left me unable to do much of anything for almost 2 months. That in turn set back my work schedule and delayed my "retirement" by over a month. But I finally finished up at my old job at the end of January and began preparing to paint paint paint...cleaning and organizing my studio, ordering some supplies, and even doing some small studies to get back into things.

But then life threw another curveball. In mid February my father became very ill. He'd been battling myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) for about 5 years. MDS is a disorder of the bone marrow that causes problems in the blood. In his case, it mainly affected his red blood cells, causing anemia that made him extremely tired and weak. Over the past year he had been in and out of hospitals with various problems. Then in mid February he went in for what was supposed to be a blood transfusion...but he was also complaining about stomach pain. After several tests it was found he had an intestinal perforation which required emergency surgery. He made it through that (the surgeon used the term "miracle") and seemed OK for a few days, but then went into a rapid decline. He passed away on March 12.

The last 4 years have been rough. My grandfather (my mothers father) passed away in March 2005. A year later my mother was diagnosed with cancer, and she passed away 2 months later (May 2006). We're thinking about doing away with the month of March in our family. Anyway, since both of my parents are now gone, we have the estate to deal with. They lived in their house on Long Island for over 40 years, but never did much work on it. So we have some renovating to do in order to prepare to sell it. I'll be heading down there for about 3 weeks to see how much we can get done...clean up, paint, replace kitchen cabinets, etc. I'm hoping to be able to start spending some serious time painting (art, not walls) sometime in May.

We (myself and my brother and sister) used to joke that going home was like entering the dark ages, as my parents never got a computer or internet service. In fact, I don't know if either of them ever looked at a web page. Well, they may never have made it onto the information superhighway while they were alive, but they will now...the picture below shows them in 2002, at my house in Virginia...a few days after my 40th birthday. Happier times for certain.

William and Sandra O'Handley

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Just Some Garlic

Today's mini-study was this 5x7 oil painting of a clove of garlic resting on aluminum foil. The foil provided some reflection, but getting the color and value of the foil compared to the garlic was quite tricky. I can see that I need to paint some metallic/silver colored items.

The colors on a clove of garlic are very subtle, it's almost like painting an egg or egg shell. I'll be returning to this subject. This one was painted on gesso'd matboard, but with a touch of pumice added to the gesso. This provides a little texture and "grab", so the first paint layer sinks in and doesn't slide around so much. It's nicer to work on, but can be tough on brushes. The key is to add just enough pumice to get the benefits, but no more.


I also spent some time trying to re-work the plein air painting from the other day, but that didn't go to well. Need to do some thinking about what I'm doing wrong.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Just Call Me "Rusty"

Well, since I last posted I have left my job and am now devoting all my efforts to painting. Obviously I have a lot of work to do! It's been 4 months since I've even touched a brush...first because of my back injury (which is better but still doesn't feel right), then because of the backlog of work that accumulated. Took me a few days to get the art room and supplies organized, but now I'm pretty much done with that. Time to put them to use!

On Friday I broke out the gouache and did a couple of "car paintings". Very rusty (I won't show them). Later in the day I dragged out the oil paints and did a couple of very small studies...partly just to get the feel of painting again, partly to try out a new canvas. Those studies won't ever be seen either! However, in the interest of almost full disclosure, I'll post the two I did yesterday. The first is an 8x10 oil painting, painted on site. It was great just being out there on a sunny, mild (35 deg or so) February day, listening to the creek and the birds. As for the painting, well I kinda missed with this one. It looked pretty decent outside in the bright light, but indoors it's rather dull and lacks contrast. I had lots of trouble overlaying tree trunks and branches onto wet paint, ran out of paper towels...as I said, rusty! But I like the scene and think I'm going to re-do the painting in the studio, to figure out where I went wrong. I think that's going to be the biggest benefit to having more time for this - the opportunity to try new things, solve problems, and not always feel rushed.

The second one is a simple study of a radish. It's also oil, 5x7, and painted on gesso'd mat board. This surface is very slippery and now I remember why I stopped painting on it...the first layer of paint slips all over the place and is hard to paint over. I eventually managed to make it work reasonably well. I'm planning to do a lot of these small, simple studies to improve my skills.

I'm also planning to post more often - at least once a week for now; more often when I start doing decent paintings again. Hopefully that won't take too long! Stay tuned as the journey begins...











Sunday, January 4, 2009

4th Annual GVPAP Show

Just a quick post to update things...I had 5 paintings accepted into the GVPAP 4th annual show at the Pittsford Barnes and Noble. The show is up through January. The paintings on display have all been posted previously - "Pines Over Rocks", "Goldenrod Vista", "Cross-Country Trail at Salmon Creek CC", "Icy Marsh", and "Pittsford Roses". Pittsford Roses received a Merit Award, which surprised me because I like the other 4 paintings better. But what do I know?

One month left at my current job...counting the days until I can paint paint paint. It can't come fast enough!

Happy New Year to everyone...

Chris