30 Paintings Collage - Juneau

- all together now -

Congratulations to all the >1400 artists who took part in the challenge!

Be sure to look at the BLOG... all the collages look wonderful.

Thank you to Leslie Saeta for hosting! Her abstracts are great and sounds like she had fun too!

Thank you so much for sticking with me and cheering me on. I really appreciated all your input!

30th Painting in 30 Days! - January

Yahoo! Last day in-a-row!

Robert Henri tells me,

"Now, after all this, your sketch is very handsome, fine in color - showing your talent admirably. Why don't you take it as a subject to work out, to study, and to bring to a full completion. Suppose you take a larger sized canvas - say 26 by 32, or some such size, and go at this very subject - not a flighty, hurried way, but as a student - like a builder - to make something that will be wholly satisfying to you. Not a picture to be more "finished" in the common sense, but one to be finished in this other sense, which will please you.  ... It can't be done in an afternoon. It may take some time and many intervals for consideration. The time does not matter if by it you get your whole idea of art moved forward."

Even before I read that quote in The Art Spirit, it was an idea 

I was considering. 

Egads, what if I took all 30 and made big ones? 

... I think maybe just a select one or two ...

2:10 pm Juneau    8 x 6 inches    oil on Arches Huile paper

(I like b&w better than the color.)

Check out Leslie Saeta's 30 Paintings in 30 Days Blog, especially tomorrow when we all will have a collage of our 30 paintings.

29th Painting of 30 - January

Thinking about "the big picture" ...

"Make up your mind what you want to put down 

and don't let anything prevent you from putting down just that. 

The  big picture should be 

as charming and as free as the little sketch

 - but more concerted."

- Robert Henri

 

4:15 pm Juneau    6 x 8 inches    oil on Arches Huile paper

- also from Henri, in a different part of the book:

"Pretend you are dancing or singing a picture. 

A worker or painter should enjoy his work, 

else the observer will not enjoy it. 

It is not good to wear lace that was a drudgery to someone to make. 

The lace, as well as the picture, 

should be made in joy. .... All works of art look as though they were done in joy."

http://30paintingsin30days.weebly.com/blog

Thanks for hanging in there with me ... one - more - day!

28th Painting of 30 - January

Use the ability you already have, and use it, and use it, and make it develop itself.

- Robert Henri

 

12:40 pm Juneau     6 x 8 inches    oil on Arches Huile paper

Two more to go!

Leslie Saeta's Blog/30 Paintings 30 Days

27th Painting of 30 - January

In drawing a tree there is a dominant line of growth throughout. 

Sometimes your tree must be so specialized that an expert on trees would be fully satisfied. 

Other times it does not matter if it is even surely a tree.

- Robert Henri

 - cela ne veut pas un arbre -    (this is not a tree)  ;)

11:35 am Juneau     6 x 8 inches     oil on Arches Huile paper

http://30paintingsin30days.weebly.com/blog

26th Painting of 30 - January

I found myself, after taping the oil paper to its board downstairs in my studio, 

making a little painting from memory of the scene that I have been painting for the last 25 days!

I discovered a sentence about memory painting in The Art Spirit that I liked, 

but decided also to Google for more from Henri. 

The first quote is the one that might well BE in this book, 

but I haven't found it yet - the next one is on page 260 in my copy.

"The good thing about painting from memory is that so much is forgotten." (I love that! -t)

 and

"If you work from memory, you are most likely to put in your real feeling." (Yes! -t)

 

Memory - Juneau      6 x 8 inches     oil on Arches Huile paper

You may remember when I took my Marc Hanson workshop in June we worked on a memory painting and I absolutely hated disliked the exercise. Apparently for me, I need more like 25 days of looking at a subject - rather than 4 x 15 minutes! But in all fairness to Marc, it is a very valuable exercise and I plan to do it more often. As with so many things, the more you practice the easier it becomes (that is probably a quote by someone famous, like Socrates ...).

Here is the 30in30 blog linkup!

25th Painting of 30 - January

"... The artist teaches that the object of a man's life should be to play as a little child plays. 

Only it is the play of maturity

 - the play of one's mental faculties. 

Therefore, we have art and invention."

- Robert Henri

3:40 pm Juneau     6 x 8 inches     oil on Arches Huile paper

Of course we all remember that Picasso said a similar thing about painting like a child.

Keep at it - it is the only way to grow. (a mantra of mine)

30in30 Blog

update to - 24th Painting of 30 - January

HappyNote: Summer 2016 
... I am honored to report that this little painting has been chosen
 to be in Juneau Plein Rein 2017 calendar, 
and will represent the month of October. 

(Juneau peeps, I advise that you buy your calendar as soon as it is available, 
through one of the PleinRein Painters, or at the Juneau Arts and Humanites Council office.)

There are many ways of seeing things. 

When you saw the thing and it looked beautiful to you, you saw it beautifully. 

Paint it as it looked then. 

- Robert Henri

2 pm Juneau    6 x 8 inches     oil on Arches Huile paper

 Juneau-ites know - this is Mt Roberts.

30 Paintings 30 Days in January

23rd Painting of 30 - January

This quote is for my fellow artists and enthusiasts, 

be they students, accomplished professionals or cultivated amateurs.

"I think I am safe in saying, until you became an art student, 

you never saw an outline - you never took the outline into consideration. 

You saw forms and these forms had character and motion.

If you use lines now as a means of drawing, 

try to find the way to make them express what you see 

- forms of definite character and movement. 

Don't become a victim of line."

 

- Robert Henri

I think I may just now be able to begin to understand what he meant.

Do you?

3:50 pm Juneau       6 x 8 inches     oil on Arches Huile paper

Ha - the b&w really shows how close the light values in the sky and the mountains are.

Well, I knew that was the case ... because that is the way it looked as the afternoon light waned.

30 Paintings Blog

One more week! Thank you for checking in!

22nd Painting of 30 - January

"What is the relation of the artist to the community?

 What good does a man's art do? 

There are those in the community who regard the artist 

as a mere entertainer 

come with cap and bells to amuse and perform graces 

before a paying public. 

The true artist regards his work 

as a means of talking with men, 

of saying his say to himself and to others. 

It is not a question of pay. It is not a question of willing acceptance on the part of the public. 

If he is welcomed and paid it is very good, 

but whether or no he must say his say."

- Robert Henri

10:15 am Juneau     6 x 8 inches     oil on Arches Huile paper

In today's Henri quote I so wanted to change his

 "man" and "men" and "he" and "his" to gender equal terms ...

but remember, in the 1920's people thought, spoke and wrote quite differently than I, 

and of course one cannot change a quote.

Thanks for viewing and please be sure to check out -

Leslie Saeta's 30Paintings30Days Blog

21st painting of 30 - January

"Painting is the expression of ideas in their permanent form."

- Robert Henri

Taku Winds - Gastineau Channel

 

12:15 pm Juneau     6 x 8 inches     oil on Arches Huile paper

I have not been using photos for this series ... 

I just look out the window. 

But here is a photo of what the scene looked like (I cropped it like the painting) 

- really -

painting wind ... that's just crazy.

30paintingsin30daysblog

20th painting of 30 - January

"It is necessary to work very continuously 

and valiantly, and never apologetically. 

In fact, to be ever on the job 

so that we may find ourselves there, 

brush in hand, 

when the great moment does arrive."

- Robert Henri

Barely there ridgeline - lately there have been many blurry edges on that ridge.

1:45 pm Juneau     8 x 6 inches    oil on Arches Huile paper

Well, I am working "very continuously" (for 30 days anyway) ... ever-searching for that most satisfying feeling

 of a well-made painting - that "great moment". 

But are artists ever satisfied?

In my readings, and in my own mind ... I find, 

not too often.

http://30paintingsin30days.weebly.com/blog

19/30 Paintings in January

NOCTURNE

Art after all is but an extension of language

 to the expression of sensations

 too subtle for words.

- Robert Henri

4:30 pm Juneau   6 x 8 inches    oil on Arches Huile paper

Almost 2/3 of the month down. Thank you for checking in and

be sure to check out all the paintings at -

Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days

Happy Painting!

18/30 Paintings in January

Robert Henri continues from "A set palette ...

" ... may look quite impossible for its want of white in comparison with the subject before you. 

It certainly is, any paint is, if you expect to reproduce the thing in nature. 

But your work is not, and cannot be, a reproduction. 

Nature has its laws. Your pigments and your flat canvas have other laws. 

You must work within the laws of your material."

12:30 pm Juneau    6 x 8 inches      oil on Arches Huile paper

I couldn't help but find a poem for this painting today. 

Fog

A vagueness comes over everything,

as though proving color and contour

alike dispensable: the lighthouse

extinct, the islands' spruce-tips

drunk up like milk in the

universal emulsion; houses

reverting into the lost

and forgotten; granite

subsumed, a rumor

in a mumble of ocean.

Tactile

definition, however, has not been

totally banished: hanging

tassel by tassel, panicled

foxtail and needlegrass,

dropseed, furred hawkweed,

and last season's rose-hips

are vested in silenced

chimes of the finest,

clearest sea-crystal.

Opacity

opens up rooms, a showcase

for the hueless moonflower

corolla, as Georgia

O'Keefe might have seen it,

of foghorns; the nodding

campanula of bell buoys; 

the ticking, linear

filigree of bird voices. 

Amy Clampitt

30 in 30 Paintings in January 

17/30 Paintings in January

S-Q-U-I-N-T

or

take your glasses off (if you are far-sighted)

That is what happened here in this painting. 

Actually, for many of these paintings I have taken my glasses off 

&/or squinted to see shapes and values.

Today's quote from Henri is about something I have not *EVER* tried.

Have you?

"The tendency to put in more and more white 

is so usual that it would be well to restrict the white. 

Keep it off the palette. 

Allow only so much of it in the pigments 

which must have it, 

and allow them much less 

than you think they should have.

A set palette ... "

- Robert Henri

(to be continued ...)

... well that's maddening ... 

yes? no? yes!

10:45 am Juneau     6 x 8 inches     oil on Arches Huile paper

One wonders, and wonders ... how can you paint snow and not use white?
I will give it a try, but perhaps later ...

Excuse me now, I must go try to paint the wind ...

30 Paintings in 30 Days in January - blog

16/30 Paintings in January

My word(s) of the day, perhaps week, or month or YEAR!! 

Wabi-Sabi

i love the concept, and to me today's painting is a bit wabi-sabi.

Also, there are so many lines one can quote from Robert Henri;

I am not even very far into his book The Art Spirit.

The quote below illustrates why I am so passionate about learning 

and expressing myself via the arts

 (and not just painting, underlining by me):

"If you want to know how to do a thing 

you must first have a complete desire to do that thing. 

Then go to kindred spirits 

-- others who have wanted to do that thing -- 

and study their ways and means, 

learn from their successes and failures 

and add your quota ... 

And with this technical knowledge

you may go forward,

expressing through the play of forms the music that is in you 

and which is very personal to you."

- Robert Henri

10 am Juneau      6 x 8 inches     oil on Arches Huile paper

 

... therefore ... 

I am signed up for a painting workshop in April.

!

THANK YOU for viewing my art!

Click HERE for the 30 Paintings blog to check all the other 1300 artists works.

 

Day 15! - Halfway thru! 30 Paintings in 30 Days!

"It is all a matter of measures of silence, 

measures of noise, 

measures of color; 

some broad, expansive, 

and others quick and short, 

lines which move swiftly, 

fluently, 

softly, 

scratch, 

halt, 

jump

 -- all kinds of lines for all kinds of purposes."

- Robert Henri

8 am Juneau       6 x 8 inches oil on Arches Huile paper

30 Paintings in 30 Days Blog

Thanks so much for sticking with me this far.

Send me your happy painting thoughts so I can persevere through the next 15!

 

Day 14 - 30 Paintings in January

Almost a Nocturne

"Perhaps we delight in the evening because we have had the day. 

It is seldom that the appearance of night 

can be produced by a very black drawing. 

The beauty of night is not so much in what you cannot see 

as in what you can see. 

It is a fine thing, after the brilliant reds and blues and yellows of daylight, 

to see the close harmony of evening and night. 

Night can be painted so that it will be beautiful and true 

with a palette that does not drop into black 

but has instead a surprising richness of tone."

- Robert Henri

 

4pm Juneau    8 x 6 inches    oil on Arches Huile paper

And this was the view as I began ... 

the lights were already beginning to blink on downtown.

This painting is one where I am very glad to be using a limited palette. 

I hope to produce some of that "surprising richness in tone" ... it really is

quite different seeing it in real life.

http://30paintingsin30days.weebly.com/blog

Day 13 - 30 Paintings in January

This quote is a bit long and I didn't use everything he had on the page,

  but I loved the way Henri spoke of -

THE BRUSH STROKE

"The mere matter of putting on paint. 

The power of a brush stroke. 

The mere brush stroke itself must speak. 

It counts whether you will or not. 

It is meaningful or it is empty. It is on the canvas and it tells its tale. 

It is showy, shallow, mean, meagre, selfish, has the skimp of a miser; 

is rich, full, generous, alive and knows what is going on.

 

When the brush stroke is visible on the canvas it has a size, 

covers a certain area, has its own texture. 

Its tiny but very expressive ridges catch light in their own way. 

It has its speed and its direction. 

There is a lot it has of itself, 

and the strokes tell their tale in harmony 

with or in opposition to the motive of the picture."

- Robert Henri

2:20 pm Juneau         6 x 8 inches     oil on Arches Huile paper

Go here to view the blog: 30 Paintings in 30 Days - January 2016

Day 12 - 30 Paintings in January

LOST EDGES

"If it is possible that there are 'mysterious' colors in a picture

 it is also possible that there are 'mysterious' lines and forms."

- Robert Henri

12:45 pm Juneau        6 x 8 inches    Oil on Arches Huile paper

http://30paintingsin30days.weebly.com/blog

Day 11 - 30 Paintings in January

CHANGE

(as in, the weather is changing)

Here is another quote from the man who wrote The Art Spirit 

... keeping in mind he was writing in the early 1920's:

 

"It seems to me that the present day man, 

with all his reverence for the old master, 

is interested in seizing other qualities, 

far more fleeting. 

 He must be cool and he must calculate, 

but his work must be quick."

- Robert Henri

11:20 am Juneau         3 x 8 inches       oil on Arches Huile paper

So, I wanted to show you this. 

It is the view from our window and where the set-up is 

and you can see the weather is changing 

(and is today back to our regular temperate rain forest SE Alaska weather).

- and you might be slightly interested in the way these last two were painted.

I just divided up the Arches paper horizontally.

http://30paintingsin30days.weebly.com/blog

Thanks for hanging in with me!

Happy painting all you 30 in 30 peeps.

Day 10 - 30 Paintings in January

"Employ such colors as produce immensity in a small space. 

Do not be interested in light for light's sake or in color for color's sake, 

but in each as a medium of expression."

- Robert Henri

2:45 pm Juneau    8 x 3 inches  oil on Arches Huile Paper

... and speaking of colors, I am continuing to use my limited palette of

Pthalo Blue, Quinacridone Red, and Cad Yellow Light

 + White

 

 Please check out the 30 Paintings website.

Thank you so much for following, commenting, thinking, making art or whatever ... 

:)

Day 9 - 30 Paintings in January

How many of you have painted from memory? 

The first time I tried, I was in a Marc Hanson Workshop, June 2015.

I hated disliked it (intensely).

BUT - 

I think it is good to do and I shall do it more. Maybe even on this challenge - yikes. 

"The development of the power of seeing 
and the power to retain in the memory that which is essential 
and to make record and thus test out 
how true the seeing and the memory have been 
is the way to happiness." 
- Robert Henri

9:45 am Juneau    8 x 6 inches    oil on Arches Huile Paper

Love that Henri quote. Strive for that happiness guys ... and happy painting!

http://30paintingsin30days.weebly.com/blog