I love BS!

Wanted to be sure to post about going to the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery (I love BS!) on the Miami trip - Meeting Bernice was a wonderful treat. (Flamingo slippers and all!)  Some of the best artwork I saw the entire trip was in this gallery, and it was great to meet some artists as well.

Miami Art Week

I had the good fortune of being invited to attend "Art Week" in Miami this past month with some artist friends that are involved in the Pipeline Project.  It was a tremendous experience so see so much art in one place, and a energizing and affirming five days.  Art Miami, Red Dot, Aqua and Art Basel were some of the venues we toured... I was dazzled by the amount of art all in one place!

Front Yard Bargerville

This is one of three little sculptures from a series I've been working on recently.  The sculptures are made of grass, soil and dog hair - the concept being using only materials I find in my front yard.  (the lawn and shrub bed are excluded - my thought centers around the things that were there before I began planting and watering things.)

Bronze medalians finished

Great surprise! Bronze medalions back from the foundry. I drew the imagery for these, then David Klaren carved them in wood, and had them cast in bronze at Eagle Foundry in Lander. They are for the new elementary school, to designate the three different wings. I think they turned out luscious - and I learned a ton about casting.
More to come as they are installed.

Recent small paintings

All Golden Open acrylics on 5"x7" clayboard

Afternoon at Lakeside

I don't believe I've painted a boat before. I think this one is Frank Roncalio's. (Is it your's, Frank?)
The BLT with avocado for lunch was delicious too.
14x11 oil on panel.

Very Cool Workshop

Attended a great workshop this week. Gregory Wood of Ft. Collins Co. offers several workshops in which participants learn about and make a piece of Anasazi style pottery, using only prehistoric techniques. We made "Mesa Verde mugs" which are an authentic Ancestral
Pueblo pottery style, used traditional surface decoration patterns and materials and learned an amazing amount about native pottery and prehistoric technology. Greg did a tremendous job with the workshop, and has an amazing wealth of knowledge that he shares with the passion of a zealot. I had a ball, and can't wait to try some of the things I learned at home. These photos are:


My Mom (who took the workshop with me) grinding clay with mano and metate


My begining, using a sandstone work surface and batt


The first lift in progress, where I used a large coil then applied gradual pinch techniques to thin the wall














The finished pot shape along with the gourd smoothing tool and flint flake cutting tool.













We looked at shards to stimulate our designing juices, and to understand design principals as they apply to this particular historic style.

Then we made our own brushes out of yucca leaves.


Planning my design. We painted the design on the burnished slip with a plant extract. My understanding is that this this black on white style is the only known example of an organic paint being used as coloring on a fired pottery.
My mug, ready to fire, with yucca brushes inside. The plant based paint reacts with this particular white clay to chemically create permanent black lines on the finished ware. Unfortunately, the steady rains over the few days leading up to the scheduled firing day filled the pit kiln with water, saturated the surrounding ground and rock lining. (Not to mention the firewood.) The group was offered the choice between going ahead with the firing, which would likely be unsuccessful, possibly destroying our work and the kiln lining, and leaving our pots with the instructor for future firing at a yet-to-be-scheduled date. Hard as it was, we decided to leave our babies in the capable hands of the master. So, I'm disappointed to return home with no tangible evidence of my hard three days work, and a little sad not to have participated in a pit firing with someone who actually knows what he or she is doing (my only previous experience was a dismal failure), but I did glean lots of good info about outdoor firing, and am eager to replicate a pit kiln and try some experimenting on my own.

In all, I had a wonderfully rich and educational few days, and I'm thankful for the chance to attend such a unique workshop. I encourage anyone interested to look into http://www.ancientarts.org/Workshops.htm

Weld County March

Another 11x15 pastel in the classroom from a photo reference (thanks, Dad!). This one really is much nicer in real life - there is a pink glow in the sky that didn't photograph at all, and the colors are much softer and hazier than they came out, even with all the tweaking I could do. I think this one is begging to be a big watercolor. I might try that.

Really, I'm not enjoying the pastels very much - they kind of drive me nuts trying to find just the right color, fighting the texture of the paper showing through, buggering up the surface of the paper trying to blend and re-work.....it's just that they work so well in the classroom setting. I can tape WIPs and finished stuff up to the wall when I'm done, they don't stink or dry up or get my hands or clothes too yucky... and they really lend themselves well to a 5 minute session here and 10 minutes there.... no cleanup. Maybe I should invest in some better paper. I find myself wrecking the surface of this cheap "bogus" paper I'm using, and filling the tooth way too quickly. I have a little Wallis paper at home, but I can't justify the price of that stuff for these quickies. The Canson that I've used has a texture that bugs me.... if you have suggestions, post them in the comments! If I'm going to do these, I probably should be doing them right. As it is I wouldn't feel right selling any of them because they're all on paper that won't last.
Well, I do appreciate my administrator's (Thanks, Greg) willingness to let me do a little work in the classroom. (Some aren't willing) Very theraputic way to spend my lunches, etc., and I feel so much better keeping my hand in it a little.

Weekend Still Life

Had buttermilk left over from a pie this week, so I made biscuits which ended up being the still life subject matter for a cold Saturday. (Made a buttermilk cake, too - it was great! email me for the recipe!)
I'd like to do more of these little still lifes this winter - for years I've been watching Duane Keiser and his brilliant evolution both as a painter and as a promoter of his work via the internet. He made a long series of little paintings, and began using his blog and Ebay to distribute his artwork to collectors. Regular people were (and still are, although his prices have justifiably risen) able to collect some world class artwork, Duane covers his expenses, and it's been really fun to watch. Don't know if I'll be able to maintain the focus and consistency that I'd like to, but watch for more of these little "Saturday Still Lifes". Another inspiration for food art has been Elizabeth Brandon... I drool over her paintings monthly on the cover of Cook's Illustrated. And to think some people buy that mag for the recipes!

Tom's Bridge II

I've been fussing with this one for a long time. Finally called it "sufficiently overworked" and stuck it in a frame. It's big, for me, 18x24, and the only reference was a small painting I made on location, but I changed it a bunch from the reference. I've made a painting from this little stretch of the New Fork every August now for three or four years - maybe longer. This one is something of a walk on the wild side for me, it's hard to see from the photo but I've used lots of reds and lavenders in the dark trees and bridge to try to simulate strong backlight - been studying the way Kevin Macpherson does that so well. Lots more gray tones than I usually use, too. I hope I'm becoming a little more sensitive in my use of color over time - not always "killing bugs with a sledge hammer" as some workshop instructor once told me I have a tendency to do.

Coyote WIP

Working over an old one that was in the do-over pile here. It's from a photo reference that my Dad took in AZ, and I really liked the coyote - the photo doesn't show it but he's really nice shades of blue, lavender and yellow. Then I proceeded to totally ruin it with a choppy harsh colored background, and I fussed over it until I couldn't stand the painting anymore. I dug it out this week, though, and decided to try to salvage. I've run a very neutral wash over all the background, and am debating how much detail to put back in. This will definitely be a "less is more" painting. Sometimes those are the hardest.

Beetle Kill on Fall Creek

One of my favorite places, changing fast. Lots of dead trees up there now. Left this painting pretty loose, but just couldn't make myself work it over at home.

Newfork November

Friday morning where the Paradise Road crosses the Newfork at Boulder. This is in the Mixed Media show in the library, currently.

A different kind of project

Here's what I've been working on lately.
This is a project to make the concrete barricades in front of the Elementary School look more interesting and attractive. I've collected actual child drawings of kids, and am enlarging them one at a time as accurately as I can, in groups of five per block on each side.

These are the outlines, waiting to be painted. I started with a concrete stain as a background color on the blocks, and now I'm using a grid to enlarge the kid drawings, and soapstone to draw the transfer.

Next, I use a sponge to lightly color the open spaces in the drawings. The concrete stains are water based, and soak in and dry quickly - much like watercolors on paper. I tried to keep the colors somewhat subtle, so that the barricades would remain part of the overall image of the front of the school, rather than obtrusively bright, or distractingly garish. I hope they seem cheerful, but somewhat understated. So often representations of child art become so intensely colored they don't fit with their surroundings in an "adult planned" setting, which is what I was hoping to avoid.

I outline in black last, using a big watercolor sable. (It's working really well, I love how it loads and flows, but my poor sable will never be the same!! It wasn't intended to paint miles of lines on cement, I'm guessing!)

It's really been fun, and each drawing is so different and full of personality, I could have never dreamed up so much variety. The first group of three blocks are painted with kindergarten drawings, and the second group has first grade, and so on, up to fifth grade on the last group of three.

The final picture is my view down the LONG line of blocks. It looks like I've got my work cut out for me for a while! Hope I make it before snowfall!. By the time I'm done, the back of my neck will be really tan, and my kneepads will be worn out. Hopefully it will be a piece of artwork that the school will enjoy and be proud of.

SAFV auction

I'm donating these two paintings for auction at the SAFV Task Force Art Auction this year.
They are a couple of my favorites, I'm a little reluctant to donate them, as you never know what they will bring at auction. I hope they sell well. The first is an 8x10 painting I made on a Willow Creek camping trip, trying to capture the first fall colors, the second is a little 6x8 of the back of the Sublette Center I made while it was raining one afternoon.

http://cristyanspach.blogspot.com/2006/10/thursday-drizzle_20.html

Here's a link to the origional post of this one - it looks good in it's black frame. I added some details after I framed it, too.

Back Again!

Untitled, as of yet
8 x 10
Took something of a break from posting (and painting, I'm afraid) for much of the spring - feels good to be back at the easel. This one is from a stolen evening at a conference at Jackson Lake Lodge... hard not to be inspired up there.
More to come.

Golden August

This is a plein air that I started in the field, decided to scrap, brought home and changed my mind about and totally overhauled it in the studio. It's another painting of that tree East of the storage units on Hwy 191 that I like so much, this one later in the fall... same month and tree as "Another August Evening", but once the leaves really turned. I like the glowing color here, and especially the simplistic suggestion of the distant mountain. This will be the first in a series of online auctions pieces... I'm sending postcards out this week to notify folks, and I'll start the auction around the 23rd and end it new years day. If you are subscribed to the blog, you'll get a notice once I've begun the auction, because I'll edit this post and include a link. Happy bidding!

Wet Hay Meadow

Wet Hay Meadow
10" x 12 oil on panel
$300.00 -sold-

This is one of my favorites - a loose, intuitive plein air made looking towards the Mesa from Hwy 191, just east of the Pole Creek bridge. I've always loved this pair of trees, but in early spring with the irrigation water reflecting that late afternoon sky, they seem almost regal. I had to paint fast, light like that never lasts, but I think the glow of that atmosphere is captured.

Lodge in the Cottonwoods

"Lodge in the Cottonwoods"
9" x 12" oil on panel
$300.00 -sold-
I snuck up to the Museum grounds and made this early morning Rendezvous plein air of Michael Terry's lodge. Just as I was finishing, that lovely paint horse of his wandered into the early light - heartstopping, but that will have to wait for another painting. I enjoy the value pattern of this piece, the distant peaks, and warm meadow grass contrasted with the cool sage. I can almost feel that July morning sun warming the east side of the lodge.

Before the Snow

"Before the Snow"
6x8 oil on panel
$250.00

The silver picked up on the lavender in this one.