Newly Completed Work:
One Dark, One Light
Oil on linen on panel
7" x 7"
November, 2005
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Fresh Paint: One Dark, One Light
Fresh Paint: Two On The Vine
Newly Completed Work:
Two On The Vine
Oil on linen on panel
7" x 7"
November, 2005
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
A grounded palette... literally
Recently, I was flipping through the mail order catalog of a national arts supply chain. Amongst all the other nice products available was a set of 5 oil paints labeled "Beginners Set" or something like it. It appeared to consist entirely of hue or mixture colors based on modern synthetics, like Hansa Yellow, Napthol Red, Pthalo Blue, etc. The striking thing about this particular selection was the absence of ANY of the earth colors. Granted, not all beginners will use such palette, but I think that novice painters tend towards brighter and stronger colors. Given such a palette, it's easy to see why so many beginners have disappointing results; acid green trees, jaundice yellow flesh tones, electric blue skies, and all the like.
Don't get me wrong; I LOVE many of these contemporary synthetics, and I strongly believe that a good painter should be able to use any paints whatsoever. But, at the end of the day, I would have to estimate that approximately 75% to 85% of the paint that ends up on my canvas is earth. These humble but essential pigments are exactly what they sound like; dirts and rusts. Specifically, ochres, siennas, umbers, oxides, and a few exotic semi-precious stones. They are available in a very wide range, and some manufactures (in particular Williamsburg) offer earths from very specific geographical locales for the true connoiseur.
The distinguishing feature of the earth tones is their low color saturation and fairly narrow band of actual color hues, in other words, they tend to be very gentle and muted colors. Because of this, they are absolutely ideal for reducing the chroma of more intense colors and providing a strongly unified color harmony. No matter which earth tones are used, in fact, given enough earth paint on a canvas, it would be difficult NOT to achieve some degree of unity. They also provide a more neutral ground on which to advance strong colors in a more dramatic fashion. Given that fact that it's basically dirt, it automatically takes on some of the color schemes found in Nature.
In my own palettes, I generally try to pair contemporary/synthetic colors with an earth analog. For instance, cadmium red with burnt sienna, cadmium yellow with yellow ochre, viridian green with terra verte, etc (blue is tricky - there is a blue ochre, but it's very rare and I've never had the chance to use it). In practice, this never works out that cleanly, but I've found it to be a pretty good rule of thumb.
So, beginners, ditch the glowing technicolors, and fill up your paintings with dirt. You'll be glad you did.
Sunday, November 20, 2005
New online store
Today I've opened a new online store to sell my works, hosted on eBay. I'm starting off with approximately 20 smaller pieces, but I will be adding larger works from my inventory, eventually making most if not all of my pieces available for online purchase.
I invite you to have a look here: http://stores.ebay.com/Jeff-Hayes-Fine-Arts, and please check back often as I add more works.
Fresh Paint: Vermont Sunrise Paintings
Newly Completed Work:
Vermont Sunrise No. 1
Oil on canvas on panel
5" x 4"
August, 2005
Newly Completed Work:
Vermont Sunrise No. 2
Oil on canvas on panel
3.5" x 5"
August, 2005
These paintings are a little older than the most of the other paintings I'm currently presenting, having been painted at the end of the summer during my vacation in Vermont. Sean and I were staying on the shore of Lake Champlain, and I took full advantage of the opportunities to paint the fantastic scenes in the area. With these 2, I captured the sunrise over the lake on the very first day we were there. These were painted en plein aire, right during the sunrise.
Fresh Paint: Sushi & Peppercorns
Newly Completed Work:
Sushi & Peppercorns
Oil on linen on panel
5" x 6"
November, 2005
Fresh Paint: Rocks, Gull, Fog
Newly Completed Work:
Rocks, Gull, Fog
Oil on linen on panel
5" x 5"
November, 2005
This painting is a little bit of a departure for me. The impetus came from a view I'd seen recently while driving early in the morning. Passing a fairly large pond, there were several rocks jutting out from the shore, and a gull was perched on one of them. A rather thick veil of fog enveloped the whole landsape, giving a very soft mysterious quality to it all. It really looked like something right out of an ancient chinese scroll painting.
I didn't have time to stop to paint, nor did I even have any of my equipment with me, so the scene just floated my me. A few days after, I was going write a post here lamenting the fact that to the artist, being out and about in the world is a series of frustrations: there is never time to create all the paintings we can see an imagine, and so many great scenes, like this one, must go unpainted.
Before I got to writing that post, however, I decided more or less on a whim to paint the scene from memory and imagination. I almost never do this, preferring to work with the subject directly in front of me. So, here it is. I can't say I'm overwhelmed by my effort, but in the end, it's better than complaining. Hope you enjoy it.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Monday, November 14, 2005
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Fresh Paint: Field's Edge
Newly Completed Work:
Field's Edge
Oil on Canvas on Panel
4" x 6"
November, 2005
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Small Paintings Display
I'm doing a few shows of mostly small works for the rest of the year, and I've been struggling with how to best display them. I could simply have hung them side by side as I do with the larger work, but that somehow lacks any real visual appeal. One nice feature of my studio is that there is a floating wall about 12 feet long by 8 feet high, set off about 6 feet from the outside wall. This makes a great natural display space. Until now, I've been displaying my larger pieces there, but I've decided to try something else.
I constructed a new hanging system by gold-painting several 1" x 2" x 6' strips of poplar and attaching a few nails at evenly spaced intervals. These are suspended from my regular hanging-rail, and the paintings placed directly on the strips. When I was thinking about this, I was frankly dubious, but in the end, I think it looks great, and I'll use this more often.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Quality = Quantity?
Wow - over a week since I've posted. At least my excuses are good: preparing for a show last friday, hosting an online show all month in November, and then winterizing my house. Maybe by the end of this week, things will slow down to a mere breakneck pace.
Chris Howard has some interesting things going on. He's participating in a program called the National Novel Writing Month, in which authors attempt to produce an entire 50,000 word novel in 30 days.
This is a really interesting concept -- I think there's a LOT to be said for being prolific and producting a large amount of work, even if it's just "practice" work. For instance, you can spend 30 days working on just one painting, agonizing over every detail. Or, you can produce 30 smaller, rougher paintings in the same period, and solve 30 complete sets of artistic problems, gaining a tremendous amount of experience along the way.
Obviously, it would be stupid to advocate working this way all the time. Shortcuts and shoddy working habits are clear and present dangers. And in the end, probably most masterpieces were the products of long and loving attention. However, there are times along the way when churning out a lot of work seems really important.
In some ways, producing quality comes from producing quantity.
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