Sold!

Pattee Canyon Aspens (20 x 16 pastel on panel)

The other day I opened the mailbox to find an envelope with the return address of my gallery in St. Louis. It had a little bump in the envelope, so I figured it was a Christmas card. Much to my surprise, out fell a check for the sale of this painting! (Yep, the monthly statement was included in a Christmas card. With a tassel.)

Slowly but surely, I'm paying off the debt I incurred while painting this last summer and preparing for my big show in August. What a relief. My wife and I are the type who do not use our credit cards unless necessary, so this debt is stressing me out!

Fortunately (so those of you that are here for my 2D art), I'm feeling the urge to paint again building inside of me. The jewelry thing has about run its course. I have a feeling it will end at about noon on Christmas Eve.

Unfortunately, there are several custom orders awaiting my attention this weekend. I have to work on a charm bracelet for a friend's wife, a bunch of stained glass angel ornaments for my bosses, a couple of earring and bracelet orders from my 'mini jewelry shows' this last week, and a final stock-up for my last mini show this next week. Oh, and there's one more special project that has to be completed, but that's hush-hush. If it turns out, though, it'll be a beaut worth blogging about!

Anyway. This Pattee Canyon painting was painted this last summer out in the field beside my grandparents' home in Missoula, MT. At the time, I was very dissatisfied with it, probably because it didn't turn out anything like I had intended. But now that I look at it again, I think it's pretty good. It's hard to do a painting of basically one color and basically one object (like green trees). There are no wildflowers to add a touch of color, not even any mountains, or a path, or clouds. I ended up having to rely on the shadows to give it that breadth of color that prevents it from being too mundane. Actually, I so did not like this one that I almost washed it off so that I wouldn't have to bring it all the way home on the airplane. But I needed it for my shows, so I kept it as backup.

Little did I know that my 'backup' would sell before any of my 'masterpieces'. What do I know?

Until next time,

PastelGuy

http://www.matthewweld.com/ - pastels

http://www.studio206.etsy.com/ - handmade jewelry for sale

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