Persistence

Because sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words:

Every time I log onto my Juried Art Services account to enter a show, I see this list of my entries and have a good laugh.

See all those red x's? Those represent years of rejection.

I know a lot of artists who take it personally when they don't get into a particular show, but here's the deal - behind EVERY artist you see posting excitedly about their latest show acceptance on Facebook, there is a long list of rejections. Rejections from shows, galleries, whatever. And every successful artist had to brush off those rejections and keep trying to get to where they are today.

So, even though it sucks when I don't get into a show, I try not to take it personally. That show up there that I got rejected from for five years in a row? I got into it the previous two years and won awards. Totally unpredictable.

You have to laugh when you fall, brush yourself off, and keep on trying. And also, just use it as motivation to make your paintings even better - sometimes getting better is the best revenge.

Interpretations - Group Show

"When the Day is Done"
Oil on Panel
18x24"
2008

Phew!! It's been a busy week. My sister got married last weekend (congrats Shannon!!! I'm working on your present!), and I've been getting everything ready for a group show that opens tonight. I know it's a bit late, but if anyone is in the area, feel free to stop by the opening tonight or check out the show throughout the month.


Here's the official spiel from the gallery:

"We are proud to bring together the work of Robert Spooner, Stacey Peterson, and Steven Hileman. While these three artists share many similarities—all left careers in other fields to take up full-time gallery painting, all paint in oil, all express themselves with boldness and exquisite control—their works clearly reveal three distinct personalities."

The show is at Roundhouse Gallery in Fort Collins, Colorado and the opening is from 6-9 pm tonight with the show running through the end of the month. Robert Spooner and Steven Hileman are both great painters, and I'm humbled to be in a show with them both. You can preview my paintings for the show on my website here.

Bug Bitten and Sunburnt

"Sunset Over Byers Peak"
Oil on Panel
12x16"
2008

This week is officially arts week in Winter Park, and the main event up here in Grand County is the Rocky Mountain Plein Air Painters paint out and show. The plein air event is an invite only type of thing, and I've been bugging the powers that be to get me on the list for a while. I made it onto the alternate list, and I lucked out Monday and got a spot when someone didn't show.

So, I'm pretty excited - I've wanted to do this show for a while. It's a good group of artists, I already know it's at a good gallery (they do a great job selling my work!), and when you have a toddler it's definitely more convenient to participate in an event like this if it's in your own backyard.

The only drawback? Getting into the show Monday meant finishing seven (good) paintings on location in just a few days. So, I've been in a plein air painting frenzy for the past two and a half days, and it'll continue with more painting tomorrow, the show opening on Friday, quickdraw on Saturday morning (eek - hate these!!), and a couple more events on Saturday afternoon.

All in all, it's been a busy few days, but it's been great to get back outside with my pochade box and paint with some other great painters. The painting above is the one I just turned in for the show preview - it's a little bit simple, as are all of my plein air paintings - guess that's my style! I've painted this scene a couple of times before, and I knew it would be a great sunset scene.

Anyhow, if you're in the area (or live in Denver and want to drive a bit to see some good art), the show opens Friday evening at Elk Horn Gallery in Winter Park. Visit the RMPAP website for more info on the official schedule.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to head out to my studio and sign, varnish, and frame some paintings. The work doesn't end!

Demo - Enlarging a Painting PART II

So, when I left off yesterday I had just finished a block-in of the major shapes and colors in acrylic paint. A lot of people ask me about the acrylic whenever I post these demos, and I know it's a bit unconventional. When I do smaller paintings, or paint on location, I usually do a block-in of the major masses with thinned oil paint, then build up texture and detail on top of that block-in. I think a lot of artists work this way - it's pretty normal. When I'm working on larger paintings in the studio, I often use acrylics instead for two reasons. First, the smell of oil paint thinned with mineral spirits gets to me if I'm working on a large scale, even though I use the best mineral spirits I've found to date (Gamsol). The acrylics don't smell, and I can work on top of them with oil paint without any problems. Second, I like the fact that the acrylics dry immediately. I can work over them right away without having to worry about mixing with the paint underneath, which allows me to change and refine how I want.

Anyhow, once the block-in was done, I started to rework the painting in oil. At this point, I was using oil paint straight from the tube for the most part, using OMS and res-n-gel to thin the paint as needed. The first step was to put down the dark shadows of the pine tree:


I often work from back to front when I'm doing a large painting, but when I'm doing a more organic subject like this, I sort of go from dark to light and skip around the canvas a bit. So, once the dark shadows of the tree were down, I started to bring in the mid-tone greens on the pine branches and the general masses of the red tree behind it. I was blocking in major masses at this point, and wasn't too concerned with allowing the sky to show through the tree quite yet:


Next, the "solidity" of the pine tree was distracting me, so I decided to go ahead and paint in the main tone of the sky, working the sky color back into the edges of the trees, and adding some sky holes throughout the mass of the pine tree:


Now that the top half of the painting was taking shape, I started to work downward into the foreground vegetation, starting with the willows at the top of the hill:


Then moving on to the foreground grasses:


Next, I painted in the rocky trail, and started to refine the foreground a bit by adding some of the red twigs/bushes:


At this point, I decided it was time to paint in the aspen trunks before refining the foreground any more. When I paint aspen trees, I often paint everything around them before tackling their trunks. I don't really know why I do this, but I do know that if the painting is working around the trunks, it will only look better once I complete them. I usually paint the knots on the tree trunks first (dark to light convention), but in this case I decided to paint the light mass of the tree bark first:


Then I added in the knots on the trees, which are what really give aspen trees their character:


At this point, all of the main masses in the painting were complete, and I set it up on the mantle above the fireplace for a couple of days so that I could spot the problems before finishing it up. The uniformity of color of the red bushes in the foregound was really bugging me, and the rocks on the trail at the bottom of the panel were too black. I brought the painting back into the studio and did some rework on the trail itself, added some color to the rocks at the bottom of the painting, and brought some varying colors/values into the foreground grasses and bushes to add dimension:


I took a final photo of the painting at that point, and decided there was too much sky showing through the pine tree on the left and that it was a bit distracting. A bit of work to make the pine a more solid mass, and the painting was done:


So, here's a picture of the OLD 16x20":


And here's the NEW 24x30":

I prefer the new one, just because I think it's painted better (a year makes a difference!), which is what I would hope for. I also think I achieved my goal of giving the composition more room to breathe, and painting the branches of the aspen trees so that they have a more lyrical quality and aren't so stilted. Nate says he still likes the old one better, but we don't actually have it around to compare, so who knows!!

The Show

My first opening was Friday night, and it turned out to be a great experience! A lot friends and family came out to support me, which made the whole experience less intimidating than I thought it would be. A bunch of my (ex)coworkers from my engineering job came as well, which shows what great, supportive people they are. There was a decent turnout of collectors, and we sold some paintings, which is always nice! Quite a few people showed up who already own paintings of mine, and it was great to meet them and talk to them about my work.


I think that just about everyone I talked to asked me the same three questions (or a variation of each):

1) Do you paint on location?
2) How long does it take you?
3) Do you use your engineering degree?


The show hangs through the end of this month, but my work is done for the time being. Now it's back into the studio to get some paintings done for other shows and opportunities!


Now that I'm not working towards a show, I'd like to try some new things in the next few months. First, I really want to try out pastels. Second, I want to start doing some smaller work in an attempt to paint everyday - I like to paint wet-into-wet, so when I'm working on larger paintings I often don't paint unless I know I'm going to have a devoted chunk of time. I think doing smaller 6x8" studies would give me a way to pick up the brushes even when I have less time.

Nervous

Ugh - why didn't anyone tell me I was going to be so nervous the day of my first show opening!?!?

Luckily, Nate was really sweet and booked me a massage at a nice spa, and arranged to have my mom watch Aspen so that I can go relax. Hopefully it will work, because I'm a nervous wreck right now! I just want the opening to go well, be fun, and hopefully sell some paintings while we're at it.

If you're in town, stop by!!

OPA National Show - 2007

We finally got home yesterday from our trip to Texas for the Oil Painters of America national show. We had a great time seeing friends and relatives in Houston and I had an even GREATER time at the OPA show in Fredericksburg. I was in the national show last year, but wasn't able to make it to Montana to see it, so I was pretty excited to go this year and it didn't disappoint.

Oil Painters of America is an organization dedicated to representational painting, and they put on a great weekend of events centering around the show. Now that I've attended, I'd recommend going in the future even without a painting in the show - it was just such a good experience.

On Friday morning the juror of awards, Quang Ho, did a demonstration that was worth every penny charged for admission. If you aren't familiar with Quang's work, you should check it out right now. Not only is he a fantastic artist, but he's a fantastic teacher, so watching his demonstration was just as valuable as taking a workshop.

That afternoon, a panel of high-end gallery owners answered questions for two hours, ranging from how they prefer artists to submit their work, to what they see as current trends in the art market.

Friday night was the opening and awards ceremony for the artists. The opening itself was packed with people, and the show looked great. Whistle Pik galleries did a great job hanging the show, and all 200 paintings were fantastic. I'm completely humbled to have my work hanging in this show - it is by far the highest caliber show I've ever been in.

Following the opening was the awards ceremony, where much to my surprise I got an award for my painting (yay!!). I got a smaller award last year, but after seeing the show this year I thought there were so many great paintings that I didn't have a chance. It was a humbling experience to stand on stage and have my picture taken with the others who got awards - I was standing on the same stage as masters David Leffel and C.W. Mundy and feeling totally unworthy!

On Saturday the owner of the Fredericksburg Artist School came and did a discussion/Q&A session about the business of art. We talked a lot about tax issues for artists, then moved on to the process of actually selling art. Again, totally valuable. I think it'll save me hundreds of dollars on my tax return next year!

After that were individual critiques offered by OPA masters. I got a thirty minute critique of my portfolio, and got some valuable advice on how to improve and move forward. I'm excited to get back to the studio and put the advice to work.

Saturday night was the collector's opening and barbecue. We actually skipped the opening because we had Aspen with us and the gallery was so packed we figured we didn't want to bother. But we went to the barbecue, which was a big fun event with artists and collectors. It was totally Texas - good BBQ and southern music.

Sunday was plein air painting, but we had to drive back to Houston since our flight was leaving on Monday. I still got enough out of the two days of events to keep me motivated for months!

Closing for the sale of our house and purchase of the new one is scheduled for this Friday, and movers come the day after tomorrow. With the big move, I was tempted not to go to Texas, but I'm so glad we went. From an art career standpoint it was immensely valuable, and it was also a nice little break in the middle of the stress of moving.

Now I just wish my entire studio wasn't packed so I could get back to painting!

New York, New York

Well, we're off to New York tomorrow to attend a show opening on Thursday - it'll probably be the only time I ever show my work in New York City, so I figured I'd better go!

Back in August I had the opportunity to spend nine days painting the Forbes ranch near Ft. Garland, Colorado with nineteen other extremely talented artists. It was such a good experience - I got to bump elbows with a lot of artists who are far more established in their careers than me, spend nine straight days painting, and soak up some valuable business advice from gallery owners.

Anyhow, we all had a few months to produce paintings inspired by our time on the ranch, and this show is the culmination the experience. Paintings will be on exhibit from each artist, and it should be fun to see how everyone interpreted their time on the ranch differently. I completed a bunch of small plein air studies while I was at the ranch, and did five larger studio paintings when I got back home (shown above). Three of the larger paintings are going to be in the show.

Many of the paintings that will be in the show were printed in the March 2007 issue of American Artist magazine, which is completely devoted to the residency. You can read the article here if you don't have a print copy. I just have to make a disclaimer (as usual) that in the print version of the magazine, my paintings reproduced more dark and dull than they actually are. I'm slowly learning that it's tough to get a magazine to do an accurate reproduction of your work - my last article in Southwest Art made my painting look too bright and saturated, and this article it's the exact opposite!

We're only going to be in the city for three nights, but that should be enough. We'll be flying with Aspen for the first time, so I'm praying that she does well on the plane, and that it's not too cold while we're there so that we can do a lot of walking around the city. Regardless, it should a fun, albeit short, trip!

Snail Mail

I checked the mailbox last night on my way home from Steamboat, and found inside the self-addressed stamped envelope that I sent in with my entry to the Oil Painters of America National Show. Talk about nerves - I haven't been so nervous to open something in a LONG time!

It reminded me of when I was a senior in high school and I would check the mail for responses from colleges. I always looked for a big, fat envelope from the colleges at the top of my list because that would mean that they had sent an acceptance letter along with a bunch of fun info about the school. A thin business-sized envelope signaled rejection in a few sentences - heartbreak.

Getting a response about an art show is kind of similar. When you enter an art show, you typically send slides of your painting(s) with your application, and enclose an SASE for the response. If you're declined, they send your slides back in the SASE. If you're accepted, they keep the slides on file and send you instructions for delivering your painting.

So, of course, the first thing I did when I checked the mail was feel the envelope for my slide. And it wasn't there!!! Sure enough, inside was my acceptance to the 15th Annual Exhibition of Traditional Oils - wahoo!!!

I'm totally psyched. This is one of a handful of big shows that were on my "goal" list for the next few years and I didn't even think I'd get accepted this year. But I did, and I'm totally excited because this means that my painting is going to hang in the same gallery with some of the most amazing painters alive today - how cool is that? And it gives me something of substance to put on my resume - finally!

The show runs May 5 to June 13 at the Dana Gallery in Missoula, Montana. I'm hoping to get up there for the opening, but it'll be tricky - Nate's graduation for his MBA is the day after the opening, and that's a definite no-miss event, so we'll see what we can swing.

Either way, I'm excited - I feel like a lot of my hard work last year is finally starting to pay off!!