Inspiration with some help from a library

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Salt Lake County has a great library system as does the Salt Lake City Library system. I checked out a few books to read and look at. Since I don’t have an opportunity to see much art in person that I am interested in this will have to be the next best thing as well as what is available online.

All these books in the picture below are inspiring in various areas. The one titled Hand-In-Hand is particularly inspiring in that a married couple who were faithful and devoted to each other were able to work together successfully and stay married. And they produced fabulous products.

The older books about Robert Motherwell, Frank Stella, and Sonia Delaunay are from the Salt Lake City main library. The one titled Hand-in-Hand is from the Salt Lake County Library system and is one I requested be purchased.

Sidewalkscape or Landscape of a Sidewalk Progression

I came upon a bunch of papers strewn on a section of sidewalk on my way to post a letter in the post box. It occurred to me that it might make an interesting piece or at least a departure from the seascapes and landscapes I have been mostly working on as of late.

I have a few things to do before calling it a day on this one.

I put some more details in the grass and sidewalk and added a black bird just for fun. I will come back to it in a few days and see if thee is anything that needs fixing or call it finished.

A mini hallway gallery

I have a lot of paintings hanging in my studio where mostly I see them. So I decided to make part of the entryway to our condo into a mini art gallery. Now people walking up and down the hallway can see them. I plan on rotating them. I also need some wall space to hang more projects while I work on them.

Not the best lighting but it will have to do.

Hanging right along with some kitsch.

Why I like real painting medium

In yesterday’s post I shared why I like digital painting. In one of those likes I mentioned that there is no mess. In this post I share why I like real paint even though it can be messy. It’s about the physical 3D quality.

I don’t use traditional painting medium that many artists use. I use Behr paints from the DIY store. They come in lots of colors, they are less expensive than artist acrylics and I can get them in small sample batches. I tend to go through white paint faster because I use it to prime my panels so I purchase it by the quart. I can also mix colors together to achieve another color or shade of a color. I usually work with flat paints but sometimes will get a paint sample with a satin finish. These paints can be sanded smooth or given a scratched texture. Sanding with a well used block can act as a buffer giving the flat paint a slight sheen.

I started using this type of paint when I did my first temporary Flying Objects sculpture. I used interior/exterior paint and after the sculpture sat outside in the sun, rain, and snow for over a year the paint still looked like it did when the sculpture was first installed outside.

The range of colors is so large that is is hard to choose sometimes between colors and shades. This is a small portion of my collection of 80 containers of colors.

Fresh paint is quite liquid and can get slightly thicker as time goes by. I use wooden craft sticks to stir the paint. I like to use paint that has become thicker to add texture to a painting.

The colors of the flat paints are solid and opaque. Sometimes I use brushes to apply paint but I tend to use old plastic cards to spread and smooth paint more than a brush. I will use brushes when I want to achieve visual texture and will also smooth the paint after it has been applied with a brush. If I’m now using a brush I will apply the paint to a surface with a paint stir stick as you can see in this picture where I have dribbled some paint on a card.

A Bakersfield Hills painting progress 4

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I made a few color changes to this painting yesterday morning as you can see in the before and after pictures. I rather like both versions which presents a slight dilemma. Which one to keep? Or is it finished?

Before changing a few of the colors in the pyramid hill, deep shadow at the bottom of the hill and some of the oranges in hill and above to the right.

After making the color changes.

Posters

I have been using a local print shop called Printology located in American Fork to print my postcards. I decided to try out their large format printer capabilities with a couple of A1 size posters.

Why the A1 size when we typically don’t use international paper sizes in the US? Having lived in Germany for a couple of years I got accustomed to these sizes and I like the slightly narrow and longer shape. I did them mostly to see how they would turn out.

New greeting card source: local

I'm looking into having my greeting cards produced locally and save myself a bit of dough. I had Printology (formarly Copy That) in American Fork print a sample for me. Printology has everything I need including envelopes.

The pictures on all of my greeting cards and postcards so far have had a page border of about 1/4 inch around them. I wanted to try having them go to the sides and top edge of the card to see how they look.

Subtle changes

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I recently received some kind words of critique from a fellow Infinite Painter user of a painting I posted on the community forum. After following his advice I made some changes to it and decided to do the same with this one by toning down the greens of the hills to add some depth.

The painting before reworking the hills.

After: I faded the hills and some of the trees in the background by making the colors not so vivid to help make them recede and give the picture a bit more depth. I also changed the greens in the foreground. I need to do a bit more work on it before I call it a day.

Tools: Galaxy Tab S7

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When it comes to digital work I use a Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 tablet with S-Pen. I use Infinite Painter for Android by Infinite Studio. I also have a vector app called Infinite Designer also by Infinite Studio but I don’t use it much these days except for the occasional quick idea drawing.

Galaxy Tab S7 with S-Pen. I have the Infinite Painter launch screen open that allows me to choose current and recent projects I have been working on. From here I can also see past projects and create a new project.

A Bakersfield Hills Painting Progress 3

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In this post I’m showing how I change colors slightly after adding some texture with the Old Oil brush I made a slight modification to. Infinite Painter gives one lots of options to make changes to brushes or create a completely new brush.

Detail of the top right corner of the painting showing texture created by brushing over areas with the same color. The Old Oil brush leaves streaks of light and dark versions of the color as you can see in the blue purple color.

I typically use the fill tool with a tolerance between 1 & 3. This time I set the tolerance to 1 so it would fill only the closest matching color that I choose to click on. This brings out a bit more of the brushed textures. Overall the color changes may appear to be rather subtle but compare the darker blue areas.

The Cayucos Tiles Panels

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During 2021 I created a few Cayucos Tile pieces. Here are two images of the same Cayucos Tiles No. 2 panel. The first image shows how I divided the panel into sections using green lines to illustrate.

I made an outline drawing in Inkscape that I used for measuring the various tiles for the panel. The green lines show the shapes of the individual tiles. I cut each shape from tissue paper then painted each piece of paper with multiple layers of paint using paper stencils and plastic cards to mask and spread the paint. After the painted tiles were dry I brushed thinned wood glue on the back of each tile and adhered each one to the panel starting at the top left corner working across and down to lower right corner. I used a rubber brayer to smooth and press each tile in place. After the glued tiles were set I removed any over hanging edges with a sanding block and stamped my signature mark in the lower right corner with metal letter punches. To finish the panel I brushed a couple of coats of UV varnish to help protect the surface.

An unobstructed view of the 12 x 12 inch panel. I also added my signature with the title, location and date on the back of the panel with a pencil, sometimes with a pen.

A closeup showing the texture of the paint and wrinkles of the paper.

A Bakersfield Hills Painting Progress 1

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Here is a real sneak peek at a new Bakersfield Hill painting I started last recently. The outlines have been drawn and I will fill the shapes with solid colors after which I will add textures using various brushes.

I start out with a basic drawing then add solid colors using the fill tool in Infinite Painter before using various brushes to add textures.

Infinite Designer: Cabbages

When I got my first Samsung tablet I wanted to find some graphic and art apps to use especially a vector app to replace Adobe Ideas when I got rid of my tiny iPad. It wasn’t long before Adobe decided to discontinue Ideas. I discovered Infinite Designer a mobile vector drawing app along with Infinite Painter a digital painting app. Here is one of the most ambitious projects I created in Designer.

Cabbages | From a series I started of produce and other items one would find in a grocery store. This one involved a lot of elements and layers. I would work on it so long that I would have to recharge the battery in the tablet a couple of times while working on it.

Bakersfield Hills No. 10

I began working on this one back in April and finally started working on it again after a several month slump. I'm trying to keep it more abstract than I have been lately. Sometimes I start out with abstract in mind but end up going more realistic. This one seems to be going more like I intended it to be. And I think I’m getting close to declaring it finished.

I tried something a little different with the top part of the sky. I copied the drawing and removed the landscape in the bottom third then added some texture to parts of the sky and reduced the opacity to 17%. I’m still playing around with it.

Bakersfield Hills No. 10 | The reference photo I used for this one was taken in April of 2022 on the drive west heading to Bakersfield along Hwy 58. Springtime before the hills turn brown.