Every attempt is about learning and improving
This morning I got up and headed over to the river, this pretty river is just down the road from where I live. Every time out I'm trying to learn and get better. For this one, the goal was to simplify. I've been so inspired by several paintings I've seen other artists do recently, and I really want to learn to get better at creating simple masses, large shapes, working with large brushes and adding in spots of detail later on, at the end. It's a real challenge to capture evergreen trees, unless you leave it as simple shapes, and just indicate what's happening very loose.
Coastal Agates
Here's a new shot of something I just finished up. We went up to Deception Pass on Whidby Island and found some great agates on the shore there. So that's what inspired this painting. I had a lot of fun working on this one. About half-way through I decided that the composition needed something to make it more interesting, and I came up with the idea to include the group of light-gray rocks to break up the scene. I'm pretty happy with how it came together. I'll probably do more of these.
Progress shots - "No More Strangers"
Here's a progress shot of a painting I'm currently working on. Really loving this so far. It's the most ambitious painting I've done, involving 10 portraits! I'm planning to enter this into our church International art competition. The theme is "All are alike unto God". This subject is close to my heart, and this scene is what came to mind when I first learned about the theme.
Featured on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints video
About a year ago the church's video production team was out in our area looking for "interesting people" to shoot stories about faith and the Book of Mormon. Somehow they ended up at my house and filming in my art studio. I don't know why they thought I was interesting -- they obviously didn't ask my kids. But anyway, it was actually not great timing because I had just finished one painting and was getting ready to start another, but it was only in the drawing stage. They really wanted to get some action shots of me in the middle of painting..