Wednesday, August 28, 2024

A Pier Walking on Old Orchard Beach

A Pier Walking
on 
Old Orchard Beach

Third Place Professional at Open Air Artistry, the second of two paintings for this $200 award, painted during the Open Air Artistry event at Old Orchard Beach, Maine, from under the Pier, plein air, Aug 24, 2024, 12" x 9" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and wax resist on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

I'd painted people on the beach from the shade under the pier. Then I turned my setup 90 degrees to the left and painted the view underneath The Pier. Third Place Professional for my two paintings, Roller Coaster Oh Oh Beach on the left and A Pier Walking on Old Orchard Beach on the right.

I'm holding the flowers that went with the $200, while standing with the judge, whose leg angle and pier's column angle, and even the tripod leg match, cool serendipity.






Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Roller Coaster Oh Oh Beach

Roller Coaster Oh Oh Beach

painted during the Open Air Artistry event at Old Orchard Beach, Maine, from under the Pier, plein air, Aug 24, 2024, 14" x 11" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed, $500

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Third Place Professional
at Open Air Artistry Old Orchard Beach, Maine
Plein Air Event, Saturday, August 24, 2024,
$200 Prize

My plein air setup under The Pier in cool shade

My palette and work-in-progress

Third Place Professional for my paintings, the one on the left including a roller coaster in the art.

Ironically, Cindy, who placed Third Place Amateur also included a roller coaster in the art.

It was great to see my painter friend Russell Whitten and chat a bit as he painted his...

First Place Professional, $600, Stopping for French Fries.

Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Aquinnah Cliffs Study 2

Aquinnah Cliffs Study 2

On the west end of the island Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts painted plein air Nov 2, 2023, updated in the studio Aug 8, 2024, 12" x 9" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and ink, on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper.
$700

Sunday, August 18, 2024

Reydarfjordur Guano and Buttercups


 Reydarfjordur 
Guano and Buttercups

Reydarfjordur guano on an island and buttercups on land with a view of the island Skrúður in the east island fjord Reydarfjordur on July 14, 2024, painted July 21-22, 2024, 14" x 11" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.

$500

Wednesday, August 7, 2024

Question - Grazing Studies

Question - Grazing Study 2 / 

Spurning - Beit - Skissa 2

Two horses along the fjord Reydarfjordur in East Iceland on July 15, 2024, painted July 30, 2024, 12" x 9" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed, $400

Question - Grazing Study 3 / 

Spurning - Beit - Skissa 3

Two horses along the fjord Reydarfjordur in East Iceland on July 15, 2024, painted July 30, 2024, 12" x 9" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed, $300

Question Marks the Art - Essay

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Question Marks the Art

Seven Paintings

1

Curved Red on Blue

Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015), American

Oil on canvas, 84" x 105" (w x h), 1963

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas

"The curve is a form that exists in nature but can also be manipulated to be abstract. I was fascinated by the different effects you could achieve with a simple curve." -Ellsworth Kelly

Source: Balcom, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 2015, edited

Throughout his fifty-year career, Ellsworth Kelly's art reflects his fascination with form as it presents itself to him on a daily basis, whether it be the shape of a shadow, an architectural detail, the curve of a hill, or the edge of a leaf. During the early 1960s, Kelly was particularly intrigued by the character of curved forms, leading him to explore the transformational qualities of various curves, using both color and edge to divide the ground of the canvas. Curved Red on Blue consists of an enigmatic red curve dividing a blue canvas. The canvas barely contains the red form, which pushes against all four canvas edges. Kelly acknowledged Curved Red on Blue is a seminal work that opened a career-long investigation of the curve and its transformational possibilities.

2

Where the Autumn Has Passed It All Became Dust

Vasile Dobrian (1912-1999), Romanian

Screen print, 1996

Source: Various

Vasile Dobrian, a Romanian artist and writer, was co-founder of the groups Grupul Grafic and MCMXLII. He was one of Romania's first and most important 20th century engravers. Known for his connections with the Romanian avant-garde, he was also a poet, although his volumes of poetry lacked critical acclaim. After his early art works from the 1930s often using social themes and influences from movements such as cubism, he moved on towards a gradually refined lyrical hard-edged style with figurative allusions. His geometric constructions often using the alphabet as a starting point.

3

U.F.O. Otaznik / U.F.O. Question Mark

Julius Koller (1939-2007), Slovakian

Mixed media on paper, 20" x 28" (w x h)

$650 USD

Source: Various

Trained as an academic painter, Julius Koller (1939-2007) took a critical stance as a student. He used conceptual techniques and dry wit to question the Western art world and comment on Communist Czechoslovakia where cultural production was divided into official and so-called free art. In 1970, two years after the Prague Spring had been put down by tanks of the Warsaw Treaty, Koller introduced the acronym U.F.O. into his work: Universal-Cultural Futurological Operations. Over the next three decades he created his major group of works under the same name, while he became the subject of a series of annual portraits known as U.F.O.-naut J.K.

Since the rediscovery of Slovak's Julius Koller's work (1939-2007) in the early 1990s by Slovak artists and intellectuals, his work has been shown throughout Eastern Europe. Only recently has Koller's conceptual work received wider recognition from the Western art world, exhibited regularly in Slovakia, Koller has also exhibited internationally including in Brazil, New York, New Zealand, Paris. Poland and Tokyo.

4

Nude

Nakao Yoshitaka (1911-1994), Japanese

Color woodblock print, edition of 210, 22" x 35" (w x h), 1960

$850 USD

Source: Ronin Gallery, NY plus various

Yoshitaka Nakao (1911-1994) was a woodblock print artist of the Sosaku Hanga (creative print) movement. Nakao was largely self-taught, though he studied woodblock printmaking for a time. Following awards in 1949 and 1956, he gained recognition among his fellow print artists. Until 1955, he favored the cement print, where he poured wet concrete into a wooden frame, carved into the surface as it dried, then relief printed from the dry concrete. In the following years, he shifted to oil-based inks and more traditional woodblock print techniques, still integrating the use of concrete paste to create rich texture in his woodblock prints. His work often features abstracted figures depicted in bold, textured blocks of color. In 1960, the Graphic Art Society of New York published his prints on three separate occasions. His woodblock prints are in collections such as the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

5

The Singer

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Russian

Woodcut on paper, 6" x 8" (w x h), 1903

Source: Wiki, edited

Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in Odessa, where he graduated from Odessa Art School. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics. Successful in his profession, he was offered a professorship at the University in Estonia. Kandinsky began painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) when he was 30-years-old. In the summer of 1902, 35-year-old Kandinsky taught summer painting classes just south of Munich in the Alps. Art school, usually considered difficult, was easy for Kandinsky. It was during this time that he began to emerge as an art theorist as well as a painter.

6

Question Mark

Andrew Barrow (1945- ) British

Collage, 20" x 22" (w x h), 2012

Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, London, UK

Source: Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, London, 2020, edited

Winner of the Hawthornden Prize and the McKitterick Prize (best first novel by an author aged over 40) for his comic masterpiece novel, The Tap Dancer (1992), writer of nonfiction and novels, and UK collage artist Andrew Barrow creates collages which are like books rich with stories and connections.

Saturday, July 20, 2024

Icelandic Horses Summer Busy

Icelandic Horses
Summer Busy

along Fáskrúðsfjörður Bay on July 15, 2024, painted on July 19, 2024, 5" x 7" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$150

Tuesday, July 16, 2024

Stóri Dímon in the Markarfljót

Stóri Dímon in the Markarfljót

flowing river basin on the south coast of Iceland painted July 11, 2024, 14" x 11" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$500.

Stóri Dímon from another angle in the misty rain July 13, 2024

Monday, July 8, 2024

Stóri Dímon Grounded at Ground Level

Stóri Dímon
Grounded at Ground Level

on the south coast of Iceland seen from Syðsta Mörk painted plein air on July 6, 2024, 10" x 8" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Prismacolor waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$300

The Iconic Stóri Dímon, a small isolated mountain, also has a delicious Icelandic soft blue cheese named after it and the wooden container features an outline of Stóri Dímon.

Photo of Bruce by Ólafur "Óli" Ólafsson  photographing at 11:30 pm July 6, 2024 on the south coast of Iceland at Syðsta Mörk with iconic Stóri Dímon on the left, and where the painting above was painted plein air earlier in the day.

Sunday, June 30, 2024

Down to the Opera House

Down to the Opera House

seen as rising sunlight shined at 23 School Street in Stonington, Maine, painted plein air on June 20, 2024, 12" x 9" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$500
 
My Plein Air Setup

Down School Street No School

Down School Street No School

seen as rising sunlight shined at 23 School Street in Stonington, Maine, painted plein air on June 20, 2024, 7" x 5" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$150
 
My Plein Air Setup

Opera House Green Fits

Opera House Green Fits

seen from Greenhead in Stonington, Maine, painted plein air on June 19, 2024, 9" x 12" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

My Plein Air Setup

Lobsterboats Moored Below Violet's House

Lobsterb
oats Moored
Below Violet's House

seen from Greenhead in Stonington, Maine, painted plein air on June 20, 2024, 14" x 11" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$600

Lobsterboats Ready to Rest

Lobsterboats Ready to Rest

seen as sunlight faded to night from Greenhead in Stonington, Maine, painted plein air on June 18, 2024, 12" x 9" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400
 
My Plein Air Setup

Lobsterboat See from Home Scene

Lobsterboat See from Home Scene

seen from Greenhead in Stonington, Maine, painted plein air on June 19, 2024, 5" x 7" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$150

Before Sand Beach

Before Sand Beach

seen from the turnout view point before Sand Beach in Stonington, Maine, where John Marin painted about a hundred years ago, and as sign notes this, painted plein air on June 20, 2024, 14" x 11" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$500

Knotwood Dancing by Marks Light

Knotwood Dancing by Marks Light

seen from the turnout view point before Sand Beach in Stonington, Maine, where John Marin painted about a hundred years ago, and as sign notes this, painted plein air on June 20, 2024, 12" x 9" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$400

John Marin Sign at the Turnout - Mark Island in the Background

"John Marin, 1870-1953, one of the nation's preeminent artists, painted some of his finest works in Stonington. Abstract as they are, one can clearly see in the painting that the artist spent profitable hours at the Sand Beach roadside turnout, looking at the very special scenery including Mark Island. His painting of Mark's Island is one of the treasures of the Portland Museum of Art.

Marin rented at Sand Beach and in Stonington before he moved on downeast to Addison.

At the entrance to the waterway known as the Thoroughfare, stands Mark Island Light. First lit on New Year's Day of 1858, this is the welcoming beacon at Deer Isle's front door. In 1998 Island Heritage Trust took title to Mark Island as a wildlife preserve and the U.S. Coast Guard agreed to maintain the light itself."

Deer Isle Series: Mark Island Lighthouse
John Marin (1870–1953) American
Watercolor on paper, 22" x 17" (w x h), 1928
Portland (Maine) Museum of Art
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John Marin, Jr.

Our art group repeatedly rented the house where John Marin stayed at Sand Beach for two weeks in the fall and painted there.

 

Mark the Island off Sand Beach

Mark the Island off Sand Beach

seen from Sand Beach's Woods in Stonington, Maine, painted plein air on June 20, 2024, 14" x 11" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and graphite on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$800

My Plein Air Setup

Sand Bar off Sand Beach

Sand Bar off Sand Beach

seen from Sand Beach's Woods in Stonington, Maine, painted plein air on June 20, 2024, 10" x 8" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$300

My Plein Air Setup

Lobstertraps Yellow Buoyed by Blue

Lobstertraps Yellow Buoyed by Blue

seen from the Bookstore dock facing Greenhead in Stonington, Maine, painted plein air on June 21, 2024, 10" x 8" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$300

My Plein Air Setup

Lobstertraps Docked No Buoys

Lobstertraps Docked No Buoys

seen from the Bookstore dock facing Greenhead in Stonington, Maine, painted plein air on June 21, 2024, 10" x 8" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$300

Above Stonington

Above Stonington

at the public dock in Stonington, Maine, painted plein air on June 21, 2024, 7" x 5" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$150

Harbor Tide Streams Out

Harbor Tide Streams Out

at the public dock in Stonington, Maine, painted plein air on June 21, 2024, 7" x 5" (w x h), Daniel Smith, Schmincke Horadam, and Winsor & Newton watercolors, selected for light fastness and permanence, and Uniball waterproof fade proof ink on 140 lbs. Fabriano Artistico cold press rough 100% cotton extra white watercolor paper, framed.
$150

My Plein Air Setup