From yellow-orange to Alizarin Crimson. Plus neutral grays and Holbien warm grey with a slight greenish cast. A beautiful day to apply paint to a 9x12" panel in a hopefully interesting way. Second session at these ponds. Not far from the house and very pleasant.

Morning at the Pond
9" x 12"
Oil on canvas unframed
$650 plus $4.95 shipping and handling in the US
E-mail me for International shipping rates or other inquiries.

I switched back to my old umbrella. The other one clamps on the tripod. A gust of wind can be a disaster. Or the wind unscrews the umbrella from the clamp and it flops over to the side. This one just push it into the ground.

Dalas hard at work.

Dalas found this. Maybe and inch long.

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Backyard apple tree in the sun this morning. Why do black and white sketches? It's a way to improve your ability to handle values. If you can't make it read right with just values, how do you expect to do it with color? That's not to say you must always have a full range of values from white to black like this one. It is possible to make a painting almost all one value, relying on color changes. That kind of painting would not work very well in black and white. Here's one, high key, with a very narrow value range:

Painted by Edmund Greacen in 1920, The Lady in the Boat, 18x18". In the gray version it's easy to see the value scheme is between white and light gray with just a few accents of middle gray.

Here I've narrowed my values from white to middle gray on the computer. Changes the feel a lot.

By the way, to photograph art with a lot of white or very light areas try outdoors in open shade. Then adjust the brightness/contrast using the levels feature of your photo editing program.

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Internal Committee
International Biennial of Contemporary Art
http://www.florencebiennale.org/

We are pleased to invite you to participate in the Seventh edition of the exhibition, December 2009, in the historical Fortezza da Basso in Florence, Italy. The United Nations recognizes the Biennial as an official partner in their program 'Dialogue Between Civilizations'. (Excerpt)

We got up there just after a shower passed. Soon another came through. Poured buckets and then hailed. We were fine in the gazebo. This time my palette was yellow to red with black and white. Analogous color scheme. The mountains look blue gray only because of all the warm colors. Just a gray from white and black.

Gazebo in the Rain
11x14"
Oil on canvas

Gazebo in the Rain
11" x 14"
Oil on canvas unframed
$900 plus $4.95 shipping and handling in the US
E-mail me for International shipping rates or other inquiries.

Dalas Klein, Artist
Same view, completely different concept.

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Deep Creek Farm
9x12"
Oil on canvas

Used only one side of the color wheel today. From a cool red, Alizarin Crimson, to blue, Pthalo Blue. No yellow or colors that have yellow in them. The areas that look like green are actually a blue gray. Below is what the scene looked like. I started by smearing a few light grays over the canvas. Then painted into that wet paint.

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Morning Sun
9x12"
Oil on canvas

Gazebo View
14x11"
Oil on Canvas

Dalas and I spent the better part of the morning at the north end of the Wildlife Refuge from 8 til 11. A little cool at first, but it warmed up.

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Blackbird Pond
9x12"
Oil on canvas

Second outing with the new paint setup. I installed piano hinges yesterday and they work just fine. I worked on this for an hour and it was really bad. With nothing to loose I did some major smearing, scrapping and adjusting with the painting knife. I resumed applying paint with the knife. At the end brush strokes were added to the paint already there.

Blackbird Pond
9" x 12"
Oil on canvas unframed
$650 plus $4.95 shipping and handling in the US
E-mail me for International shipping rates or other inquiries.

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Full Bloom
9x12"
Oil on canvas

Full Bloom
9" x 12"
Oil on canvas unframed
$650 plus $4.95 shipping and handling in the US
E-mail me for International shipping rates or other inquiries.

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Wildlife Refuge
12x16"
Acrylic on canvas
$1100

A visitor to the area stopped by the studio today. Every two years he and his wife take a vacation without the kids. And they like to go home with a painting of something they have seen on the trip rather than just photos. Yesterday they were at the Wildlife Refuge and it just happens that I paint out there a lot so I had a lot to choose from. I've signed it and applied an isolation coat to make it easier to remove the varnish in the future if necessary. I'll ship it to them soon.

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A great new website where designers from all over the world are invited to submit for a variety of projects. And if yours is selected you get an award. It's called crowdSPRING.com.

Here's my first entries:

Socialcash.com Logo

Masonic Autism Program Logo

End of Day
30x40"
Oil on canvas

End of Day
30" x 40"
Oil on canvas unframed
$4800 plus $64.95 shipping and handling in the US
E-mail me for International shipping rates or other inquiries.

Every year I try to improve my plein air setup. This is the latest attempt. That's a heavy duty camera tripod. The fold out palette is very light weight, but sturdy and strong. The duct tape hinges work well. It's very fast to open and attach. The two hooks and gravity pressing the bottom edge into the legs are enough to make it very secure. The more paint and tools it holds the harder it presses through the principle of leverage. It's 12x16" unfolding to 32x16".

This is the Testrite table easel designed to clamp on the front edge of a table. It's ok for now. The wing nuts should be on the front. I'm thinking a homemade of wood pretty soon.

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Worked on the headland and its reflection some more. Mainly needed to a add variety and interest. May yet add a touch of sun to the top edge.

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A sketch of the back of the shed. On cover stock this time, ~8x10". Much smoother surface, easier to work on. All the pine and fir! Very complicated. Simplify and eliminate. Tip: connect your darks.

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At the Wildlife Refuge

Dalas Klein and I arrived out there about 3:30. Nice day, about eighty degrees. The wind was a problem with the umbrella clamped to the tripod. Had to catch a wet painting twice before taking it off, the umbrella. I was trying the water miscible oils again. I had the Artisan fast dry medium and thinner which are supposed to improve the handling. Didn't seem to help. Still too sticky. I don't recommend them. Below is how it looked when I gave up. Worked on it a lot at home so it probably doesn't qualify as true plein air any more. Maybe it should on second thought. I didn't work from a photo, in fact, I didn't take any photos at all out there. So, this all from memory.

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Hot Tub Deck
Charcoal, 4B Pencil, Felt Tip Marker and White Pastel
~8x12" on rough paper

Among beginning painters it's common to find a lack of understanding of values. For a painting to read well the values have to be right. If the value is right it can be almost any color. How do you gain an understanding of values? With paint all that color makes seeing the values much harder. The solution is sketches using only black, white and grays. If you can't make a picture read without color you won't be able to with color.

As an exercise try a black and white sketch to test your skill with values. Don't use a rough textured paper as I did. I was fighting it the whole time...hard to get subtle gradations. Use a nice smooth paper. A kneaded eraser will be handy. Can you make it read? What does 'read' mean? One thing it means is that values get lighter as they recede.

Looking at only the vertical planes the darkest is the side of the hot tub in the foreground. Next darkest is the fence and then the tree line. This is one way the viewer becomes aware of aerial perspective in your picture. If I had made them all solid black then it wouldn't read properly. The mountain is a slanted plane typically lighter than vertical planes, but darker than horizontal planes. Lightest of all is the sky plane. The hot tub is covered by a tarp with an aluminum coating and is very bright.

If you can control and orchestrate your value scheme then you are ready to move on to color. Some painters do a monochromatic underpainting to establish the values. Then all they have to do is mix the proper color matching the value that's already there.

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Step 8

Nearly finished and looking pretty good. I glazed the skin areas, hair and the upper 3/5 of the background with semi-opaque tints of yellow-orange, yellow-red and yellow-green. The idea was to lighten the values, unify and make the air look like it's filled with sun light. Don't try backlighting for your first portrait. The value and color changes must be very subtle. The secret for portraits to to keep working on it till it looks alive!

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Getting a fair likeness. The value relationships are close, but everything is too dark. Tomorrow I'll glaze the entire thing with a semi-transparent light yellowish orange color.

See the new 3D Models page.

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Closer all the time. Could be a good one.

See the new 3D Models page.

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It's starting to work. Not a good likeness yet, but the values and colors are working more or less. I'm beginning to think it might be ok.

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Making progress. Much better likeness. My drawing was way off partly because it is a little larger than life. Look at the previous step just below. I've overlaid the correct outline. It becomes obvious where the problems are and how to fix them.

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Seems like every painting goes thru the ugly before it gets to the beautiful, if it ever does. That's where this one is at the moment. Could be several days until it shapes up.

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Head study, pencil.

A charcoal sketch, 15x10", study for an oil portrait I'm about to start. It is actually on blue paper since that was readily available...vine charcoal and white pastel. By doing this I become familiar with the subject, the pose, the values. It allows me a preview of the finished piece. Unlike most traditional portraits this one will be strongly backlit. I've made the features too prominent in this.

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Meandering Stream
9" x 12"
Oil on canvas unframed
$650 plus $4.95 shipping and handling in the US
E-mail me for International shipping rates or other inquiries.

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Nav Chart Print #2

Comments welcome.

Posted by Robert Bissett at 12:37 PM

The sky was dry enough this afternoon to do the top of the mast. This is all I want to say. So, I guess I'll quit working on it.

End of Day
30" x 40"
Oil on canvas unframed
$4800 plus $64.95 shipping and handling in the US
E-mail me for International shipping rates or other inquiries.

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Completely redid everything. This is going to be an inexpensive poster for the tourist crowd in Sandpoint, Idaho.

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Getting very close with this one. Soon as the clouds dry I'll put in the mast and that should be it.

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A request by a local merchant, Terrapen Maps, has resulted in the poster. What do you think? Not too late to make changes. That is an official navigational chart for Lake Pend Oreille with my painting superimposed by digital means.

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The horizon just didn't look right so I took it out. Also added some detail to the headland.

Could be done. I'll let it dry for a few days and think about it.