This is a reception for one of my fellow artists:
The Curious Beauty of the Female 
Fellow artist April Surowiec-Story will be the featured artist at:
Wicked Big Café
19 Essex Street
Haverhill, MA
June 6th through June 30th
Monday-Friday 7am to 3pm
Saturday 7am to 11pm
Reception to meet and greet the artist will be held on Saturday June 18th from 10am to 12pm. Prints and greeting cards will be available to purchase. www.themermaidartist.com
I’ve added four new paintings to the Student Works page.
Every Painting Has a Story
A slide presentation of Fine Art created by Don Whittemore
I have been painting since 1976, starting with private lessons. I continued to study art history and visited museums while developing my painting skills. I provide free painting lessons at the Salem Senior Center, and semi-private workshops in small groups in my home studio for a fee.
Slide Show Presentation – 20 Paintings on Display
Painting Progress Photographs – Photograph Albums of All Paintings, Fine Scale Ship Models and Sculpture – Q & A Session
Kimball Library, 5 Academy Ave., Atkinson, NH
Tuesday, June 14th, 7:00 PM
Meeting Room
I started a new painting this week with an idea in my mind of a classic still life of a bowl of fruit set on a table. I began with a 24 X 20 canvas that was prepared by rolling on three coats of gesso, letting each coat dry overnight and lightly sanding each coat. I had imagined the layout for a few days. I started by lightly sketching in the main elements with Raw Sienna and lots of water, leaving areas of almost pure white where the strongest sunshine would fall. I was going to place an antique map in a frame in the upper right corner, so I sketched this in, too. The initial sketch was loosely painted and set up the contrasting areas of light and dark.
I followed this up with Burnt Sienna to strengthen the contrast of light and dark. I then went a little further with a wash of Naphthol Crimson (any deep red would do here,) where the deepest shadow would be. There were a couple of brush strokes that looked like a stack of plates to the left of the bowl of fruit. I strengthened that idea by indicating the stack of plates with a few quick strokes of paint.
I always let a painting like this “cook”. Later in the evening, I sat the painting beside the television and frequently stared at it. The loose brush strokes in the “map” began to resolve into a reflection of a couple of children standing around some object. You would be seeing the reflection of the group on the other side of the room, behind you. I wanted to add a chair at the end of the table so I am borrowing a chair with lion heads at the top of the side rails from a Vermeer painting as a tribute to one of my favorite artists. I also added a basket under the table to break up this void.
I have a working title of “Reflections” for this painting for now. It’s a lot of fun, and quite liberating to develop a painting without a source to work from. I’m thinking of dark and subdued colors with a green and gold striped Victorian wall paper; and silver bowl and gold-rimmed plates sitting on a deep mahogany table. Bright sunlight will fall on the wall, bowl of fruit and the tabletop.
Stay tuned for more photos.
I just updated the good work all of the artists in the class at Ingram’s Senior Services completed. They are producing a lot of excellent and varied work. Go to the Student Works page to see the rest of the eight works completed by the class.
Bob H. Cardinal. March, 2011.
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is on fire!.
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 8,100 times in 2010. That’s about 19 full 747s.
In 2010, there were 59 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 64 posts. There were 185 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 431mb. That’s about 4 pictures per week.
The busiest day of the year was November 7th with 94 views. The most popular post that day was Paintings Completed Prior to 2010.
The top referring sites in 2010 were
WordPress Dashboard,
handymancraftywoman.com,
search.aol.com,
en.wordpress.com
Some visitors came searching, mostly for don’s fine art, donsfineart.com, beets, paintings of keys, and indian corn.
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
Paintings Completed Prior to 2010 November 2009
Paintings, 2010 December 2009
4 comments
Surface Preparation, Masonite November 2009
3 comments
Sculptures January 2010
Student Works December 2009
4 comments
I just completed a fun little painting using palette knives and only six colors. I’m trying out some impasto painting on the canvas, drawing all elements directly, with thick applications of color using five different shaped palette knives.
I am going to follow-up with a description of the painting process soon.
Flowers, 2010
16 X 20
Acrylic on Canvas
$225
My second Native American Dancer is complete. I don’t have a title for this work yet, as I want to find out the dancer’s name and tribe affiliation. This was a challenging work because of the size (36″ X 48″), and the amount of detail involved. I took the original photo and removed the unwanted background clutter of people, tents, and sound systems on my Photoshop Elements program. I cloned the grass over these items so the focus would be on the dancer.
I worked from two 8 X 10 photos and enlargements of some details like the bead work, hands and moccasins to get it right. A lot of thought went into the layout, color selection and the order of attack to build the dancer from the background to the front. I layered all of the details one on top of another. I went with a typical New England forested background with a grassy field. I will be adding a series of progress photos on my “Painting Progress” page in a couple of weeks. I tracked the hours it took to do this work, and ended up with a total of 87 hours! A fun painting to do.
The Greater Salem Artist’s Association winter show was a success. I received a second place ribbon for Shadowbox and the Library Award ribbon for Taylor’s Sawmill. It was a very well-attended show and the quality of all the artist’s work in this group has grown significantly.
The painting is coming along well. I completed the shirt and one hand holding a coup stick. Also, the breach cloth, pants, some fringe and one knee sash is done. The background and grass is near complete. I just finished the moccasins and ankle bracelets.
There is lots of fringe to do, as well as his other hand holding a tomahawk. I’ll adjust the face and hand tones last. My next posting will show the completed painting.
Did you know…..?
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Fine Art by Don Whittemore 