In Summary...

As the month draws to a close, there are several items on my mind:

1. NaBloPoMo - I'm not sure whether it's the curse of the devil, or heaven sent. I've enjoyed blogging, and having to do it every day for thirty days has definitely worked toward making it a habit. However, it has taken a toll with my wife, who complains of the amount of time spent on the computer...

2. Pastels - My creative juices are beginning to flow, and soon you will see new products. I joined WetCanvas! yesterday (a place for artists to congregate on the Net), and I think it will be a great learning/sharing/teaching opportunity.

3. Jewelry - Yesterday, we went to a local Craft Fair to shop around. I had done that show in the past, but it's three days over a holiday weekend, and I just don't want to give up the family time anymore. I suppose if it were my sole income, I'd be there schlepping jewelry like a madman.

4. Etsy - Well, I've had an Etsy store for about 2.5 months now, and have sold three items. I realize that it's a great place for indie artists to showcase their work, but when the jewelry category is the largest, it's just REALLY hard to compete. I think I need to sell something more original in there. Perhaps notecards of my pastel paintings. I don't want to do prints of my works, but notecards would be OK, I think.

5. Christmas - Bring it on! I don't have anything on my list this year, except for a new website and a Blackberry Storm (as discussed here). I think the website is do-able, but the Storm's monthly access fee is completely out of my price range.

6. My Family - Still the best thing since sliced bread, and what I'm most thankful for this year.

7. Yahoo! Groups - Yep. I joined 2 of them this month. One with people from Montana who have stores on Etsy And the second is for pastel painters. I have corresponded with some wonderful people in both groups, and secondarily, have also put my name out there into the art world just a little tiny bit.

Thanks for reading and commenting!
Pastel Guy
www.matthewweld.com - pastel paintings
www.studio206.etsy.com - handmade jewelry for sale

Random Photo Day

Flathead Lake, Montana, USA

This picture was taken on our trip out west this last summer (sorry the horizon is not level. I guess that's what happens when your driving and photographing at the same time!). Now that it is wintery outside, I think I may make this the wallpaper on my computer.

The is the decent off the terminal moraine at the north end of the Mission Valley into the town of Polson, where I went to school. Flathead Lake is the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi. This photo just shows the bay at the southern end. Those are the Mission Mountains in the distance. My folks had a house on the lake up the west shore near Big Arm. It would take my sister and me 45 minutes to ride the bus to school - and we were one of the last ones to get on in the morning, and the first to get off in the afternoon.

One of my fellow Etsy montanateam members mentioned how fierce the winters were in the 1970s. If that is true, then the winters when we used to ice skate across the frozen Big Arm Bay to the islands were unusual by today's standards. Sound travels so much better over ice that the coyotes on Wild Horse Island would sound as if they were in your back yard, and when the ice melted and cracked the creepy eeeerrrroinnnng would wake you up at night.

The blue dot below shows about where our house was. You can see the couple of islands we would visit to the north and east.

So that's probably more than you wanted to know, but there y'have it.

Until tomorrow!

Pastel Guy

www.matthewweld.com - pastel paintings

www.studio206.etsy.com - handmade jewelry for sale

Oops, I Did It Again!

Yep, I did it again! I said, "YES!" to another project.

Like I needed more responsibilities. Seriously.

But this is a good one! A while ago, I joined a Yahoo! group of Montanans who have stores on Etsy. Since I am not currently living in the state of Montana, I was flattered to be invited. Apparently, they accept 'tumbleweeds' like me who leave the state, but whose roots are still in Montana.

And they have a blog.

And I like blogging.

And I said yes when they asked for some help.

Occasionally, I will be adding posts highlighting the Montana artists who also sell their wares online. We also plan to highlight other artists whom we think are outstanding. It should be a great place to learn about all sorts of people and all sorts of art. Unlike my blog, where it's just me and my art.

So, come visit us, pour a coffee, and stay awhile.

Peace,
Pastel (and whatever) Guy
www.matthewweld.com - pastels
www.studio206.etsy.com - jewelry store

My Roots are Showing!

If you've been a regular reader of my other blog, then you probably are aware that I have roots. Deep ones.

Once you feel you truly belong somewhere, once you achieve that sense of place, there's nothing that can cover those roots.

I'm from Montana. I consider myself a Montanan, even though I haven't been registered as a permanent resident for, oh, about 25 years. But the clean air and big skies run through my veins, and every summer when I return to visit family, it's like going home.

Since I don't live there anymore, I make Montana an inspiration for my art. In looking at the photo above, which has not been altered in any way, can you begin to see how the beauty is everywhere? I think that's what impresses me so about the Big Sky State. No matter where you turn, there's nature at its finest.

When I first started pastels, my wife mentioned that the skies in my paintings were the wrong color of blue. "No they're not!" I replied, whisking my painting back downstairs amid muttered mutterings. "What does she know? Has she ever really looked at the sky?"

It wasn't until our next trip out west that a random comment on the shores of Flathead Lake solved the mystery. "You know, the skies out here in Montana are so blue! I can see why it's called the Big Sky State!" That's it! That's why she thought my skies were the wrong color. Midwestern skies are wimpy by comparison. Pale. Sickly.

Not only the colors, but the shapes, too. If you look closely, nothing in nature is straight. I think that's why I incorporate so many curves into my jewelry. The lake's shoreline curves. So does the river. The clouds certainly aren't straight, and even the tallest Engelmann Spruce tree has some sort of crick in it.

I don't think I could ever paint anything but landscapes. I struggle with the symmetry and perfection of still lifes, and portraits? Forget it. When you grown up in the most beautiful landscape there is, how can you not paint it?

Maybe that's why there were more art galleries than grocery stores in the little town where I grew up.

And now I have kids. And while they visit Montana every summer, their roots will be different. Midwestern. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

PastelGuy

www.matthewweld.com - pastels

www.studio206.etsy.com - jewelry

What Good is Your Memory, Anyway?

Today, I received an email from my gallery to let me know that I had sold another painting! Although it's only an 8 x 10, I'm pleased, ...and so is my credit card company. *grin!*

This particular painting is titled "Bitterroot Aspens" and although it is not an actual place in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana, it could be. Every summer, my family and I fly up to Missoula to visit extended family there. Having grown up in the most beautiful part of the country I've ever seen, it's always like going home. This particular scene was painted back here in Illinois from memory of no particular place. During our vacation, we had taken a drive down the Bitterroot Valley, and had seen many hills like this covered with grass turned golden by the end of June. This is one of those paintings that really clicked for me, perhaps just because it was from memory. I think it was finished in about an hour on a day when I completed four paintings.


Over the weekend, I was reading in Edgar Payne's Composition of Outdoor Painting (first copyrighted in 1941!) about how he would have his students construct a field study one day, and then the next day, they would actually paint the piece from memory. His assertion was that painting a scene from memory brought to the painting what was emotionally important to the artist, rather than making the painting a recording of every detail seen outdoors. Taking Payne's opinion and reflecting on my own work, I can see how drawing/painting from memory would be allow you to simplify your composition, since we don't remember every single detail - and it's those little details that can really make painting en plein aire challenging.

In Bitterroot Aspens, the sky and the hills were a snap, as were the fields. I remember the trees being pretty easy, too, I think because I wasn't trying to copy a particular grove of aspens. Rather, I was painting for the composition, and that made all the difference in the world. The biggest decision was deciding which color I should sign it with! HA!

Tell us what you do - do you paint strictly from memory? Are you a strict plein aire artist? Are you a studio artist who uses photographs as reference material?

Keep painting!

Pastel Guy

www.matthewweld.com pastel website

www.studio206.etsy.com jewelry store