Downtown Medford, Oregon

Well I have been very busy painting and working, I’m still finishing up the Smithfields series, I promise there will be some sort of splash involved.  I will invite you all to the opening, and then once the pieces are “unveiled” I will show them here.  In the mean time, I’ve just scanned some images of pieces I painted last summer.   As you know, lately I prefer to paint depressing semi-urban scenes, and because the traffic and pedestrians move too quickly, they can’t be included, so the pieces have this nice isolation with all the buildings and the sun, making it look like suddenly there are no people in the world.

Downtown Medford, Oregon

This painting available is for sale here.

The weather is now nice enough to head out doors, I’m looking forward to traveling to Klamath Falls, Oregon, a town a couple of hours drive over the mountains.  It’s high desert, lots of distance between trees, which I think makes for better paintings.  I just have to plan it.

I’ve been taking photography classes from Ezra Marcos as well.  I’m not trying to become a photographer, but I would like to have better photos for my Etsy shop and this blog.  Check out Ezra’s work, it’s fantastic, very fun.

Just a Nice Piece That I Like

Rachel - a Value Study

 

From the PAPO Paint Out

I’ve been active in the Plein Air Painters of Oregon for a couple of years and they decided to do a Southern Oregon Trip, and being one of the only members living in Southern Oregon I was nominated to organize  the event.   Anyway, I set up painting in Hanley Farm, Central Point, downtown Jacksonville – a pretty corny old west themed little place with a pioneer cemetery, and then winery and finally paint out in and around Ashland, including Lithia Park and North Mountain Nature Park.

Anyway, the members are very lovely folks and I like meeting people who paint, but in the course of organizing this event, I have grown more and more aware of how I don’t like these kinds of events.  Mainly it’s because I hate painting at farms, wineries, wilderness areas.  They’re already beautiful – what do I have to add? I’m afraid this post is turning negative, but what is really important to me is that I’m actually finding a consistent theme that I like to paint – and am finding what about it turns me on.

You might think it would come naturally to an artist to know what they want to paint, but when you’re a student with an open mind you wind up absorbing a lot of stuff that helps, along with stuff that hinders.  When you’re a student in a classical tradition you don’t always get to choose your subject, you’re working a lot on technical issues and you can lose your way.  Eventually the creative liver has to send the good stuff to the blood stream the bad stuff to the colon.  So I’m at a point where I’m separating what I want from what I don’t want right now.

Anyway, let me show you what I painted during the PAPO paintout:

Hanley Farm's Garden

What I like about this piece is the pattern and the feeling of light.  I like that you lose the specific items too.  However, I don’t like the crop.  I may saw this strategically.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I will. Or maybe not.

Roxy Ann from Hanley Farm

Okay – I like how easily this one fell into place.  It was painting number two of the day and I usually find that the second painting of the day is easier, that I’m more in the flow, that colors are mixed on the palette and so it’s almost effortless.  I like painting things in the distance – when they’re in the distance they can be read better.

Jacksonville Pioneer Cemetary

For the afternoon we moved to Jacksonville Cemetary and it was brutally hot, dry and I was tired. There was so much to see, everywhere you turned were shadow and light, blocks of graves and dappled bits from the madrone trees.  I did this very quickly, getting pretty lazy by then and not really inspired by the setting.

Sign and Street

The next morning we painted in a winery, and I did a painting that is so awful I won’t show it, and by that time I was TRULY over all the places we were painting, so instead of heading to Lithia Park for the scheduled afternoon paint out I went to Phoenix, my beautiful town of suburban decay and started work in a spot that’s been calling my name – and lo an behold – I’m happy with the painting.

So, live and learn.

Nocturnal Plein Air Painting

I’ve been wanting to try this for ages and the planets aligned for Steven LaRose and I to go out landscape painting as night fell a couple of weeks ago.

Motel at Night, by Sarah F Burns

We started out in a median as night fell.  By the end I could only vaguely see value differences on my pallet and was almost flying blind, relying on my memory of where I had placed each color to choose what I wanted.  The car lights coming from both directions got very annoying so we looked for a new location.

Nocturne, by Sarah F Burns

We were drawn downtown, and finally wound up in the lit alcove of the Art Center, looking across the street to this deliciously lonely scene.  Life as usual is jam packed with mile-long to-do lists, so I’m not sure when I’ll have a chance to have this kind of adventure again, but believe me, I am counting the days.

Workshop Piece

I took another workshop with Michael Grimaldi at BACAA this month.  As usual, the experience was extremely enlightening in pretty much every artistic way.   Structure, perspective, anatomy, light – natural light situations.   Here is the drawing I created during the session.

I had such a great experience that I am signing up to go back and take Dan Thompson’s workshop at BACAA in October.

Portrait of Adara

I have wanted to paint another portrait of Adara for years – ever since painting this first version when she was about 10 years old.

You may notice a serious expression on her face.  This is due to her EXTREME displeasure at having to sit still for 20 minutes at a time.  After this first painting several years ago, she has artfully avoided the experience – until now.  A well placed bribe along with a couple of threats have coerced her back into the studio.

She tried a few positions and finally settled on this one you see in the photo below. I told her she could sit anyway she wanted (except lying down asleep in bed, which was her first choice) and she settled on the pose you see in the photo below.

I tried a couple of sketches.

I like this one below very well.

I still need to work out a composition, but I”m looking forward to our next session.  And before you think I’m a terrible mother, after the initial irritation and resistance, Adara seemed actually to enjoy herself – a little.

(By the way – I apologize to those who get this post in their inbox – I inadvertently published it before it was ready.  I have a new smartphone and I can barely work it.)

Location, Location, Location Paint Out

I participated in my first Plein Air Painting Competition last weekend in Roseburg, Oregon for the Umpqua Valley Arts Association’s Location, Location, Location Paint Out.  I was surprised to find myself very, very nervous while painting.  I did not bring my camera – ?  – what’s wrong with me? – so I have no photos to show.  All three paintings I made for the competition are hanging in the show – two were given awards of distinction, which just meant they went into the good gallery where the prize winners were chosen from.  It was a cool experience, great to connect with painters from all over Oregon, they had a really nice dinner on the beautiful lawn of the Art Center with a great live band. The overwhelming feeling among the 72 artists involved was:  “Well Done Umpqua Valley Arts Association.”   The day after the competition there were three artist demos in a lovely park where the North and South Umpqua Rivers converge.  We watched the demos, painted and I had a great swim.  Here is my piece from the fun day paint out:

Oaks by the Umpqua by Sarah F Burns

Amina

Amina by Sarah F Burns

Rachel

Not much to say about this piece – I really hated it when I was painting, but with a little time and distance, it’s grown on me.

Rachel by Sarah F Burns

Sign Painting Project

Today I continue to work on this sign painting commission project.  It’s pretty fun.  It will ultimately be installed on a restaurant fence to cheerfully greet people as they come in for their mountain man breakfasts.  I’m using unfamiliar materials  – an outdoor piece requires some extra care – and in this case the extra care involves very stinky sign paint.  I brought our hepa filter in from home to balance out the effect of toxins.  It’s a fun project though, I like the idea of making art that is large and very visible.  I would love to make more of these.  I’ll post more pics as it develops…  Morning Glory and Dahlia – the miniature kind, dahliettas, they are called.