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Aug
20
Black Morgan, Part 4
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Today was sort of a “two steps backward and one step forward” day for this piece.
It was the third Wednesday of the month, which meant it was the regular day for the Colored Pencil Circle at the Carriage Factory Gallery.
That meant it was time to pull out this black Morgan mare and put in another hour. As a reminder, this is a colored pencil on black Rising Stonehenge paper.
To begin with, I used a Prismacolor Clear blender to blend the greens because I thought they were competing a little bit too much with the horse. That smoothed and blurred some of the sharper edges and was supposed to create a smoother color layer. That part didn’t work and I discovered the blender was so old it was starting to dry out.
After I was finished with the blender, I used Limepeel applied in close horizontal strokes to further smooth out the color fields in both the trees and the grass. That was followed with Yellow Chartreuse applied in vertical strokes over all of the greens.
I did use a little bit of Dark Umber and Dark Green, as well, but the greens are too dark, so I want to continue to focus on lightening those areas more.
The little bit of work I did on the horse revolved around the head and the tail, both of which I lightened with Cloud Blue in the cool areas and Yellow Ochre in the warm areas.
I will probably need to bring the painting home and work on it from the reference photo on my computer so that I can enlarge it enough to see details. Hopefully that will happen before the next Colored Pencil circle, but with my schedule looking the way it currently looks, that may be more than I can manage.
It is somewhat frustrating to work on the same piece month after month and for only an hour at a time. It does seem to be a process that works, though. Each time I take out the painting for the next work session, it looks better than I expected it to.
I fully expect to take it out one of these months and realize it’s done!
©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.
Aug
18
Character Gallery: A Call for Entries
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I am considering a new painting project. A series of “up close and personal head studies” featuring equine characters.
Thirty years of doing horse portraits of all types have engendered a fascination with the equine face.
The fascination has gradually led to a desire to paint some of those horses that their owners might not otherwise consider as portrait material.
I am not looking for bright and beautiful, unless the equine character in your barn is also bright and beautiful.
This portrait of a working cow pony at rest is a sample of what I am looking for in possible subjects.
Possible subjects could also be the old codger that patiently gives kids rides when he would rather be snoozing in the shade after a lifetime of service.
That horse or pony with a face that only a mother (and the loving owner) could love.
That special expression that bespeaks mischief or slyness.
The portraits will be primarily small format paintings (no smaller than 4×6 and no larger than 14×14), but there will also be ACEO portraits and larger portraits as well.
If you have or know of a horse you think would be perfect for this project, please contact me. I cannot guarantee that every horse will be painted, but I I would love to correspond with you or take a look at your photographs.
©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.
Aug
14
Landscape Study #19 2008
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Landscape Study #19 2008, completed August 13, 2008.
This painting is all about space.
The space between the large tree in the foreground and the tree in the middle ground; the space between the middle ground tree and the trees in the background; and, finally the space between those trees and the sky.
That final space is less obvious than the others. It is, for the most part, assumed in most landscape art. The sky is always understood to be a long way off.
The idea of painting distance (or space) is not a new one among artists. It’s not even new to me. Most of my Flint Hills landscapes, large and small, are more about capturing the sense of space that is so prevalent among those hills through the use of value, color, overlap and other composition tools.
Landscape Study #19 2008 uses overlap primarily, but also value and color. I am especially happy with the trees along the horizon. They were painted in after the other two trees were painted. Generally, I work from the background forward, but with this one, I put in the major elements, then added the background.
Landscape Study #19 2008
3-1/2 x 2-1/2
Original Oil on gessoed archival mat board
$25 unframed plus shipping
I also finished the 4×6 small format painting I’ve been working on. I even signed it so it’s officially finished. I had hoped to photograph it today, but was awakened by thunder and the sound of rain, so unless the skies clear before the end of the day, the photography will have to wait.
One new small format painting (5×7) and one new ACEO landscape were started yesterday. I also worked on an ACEO landscape that is about half done (one of the eight in progress). My goal for the year is 52 ACEO landscapes. That works out to one per week.
That’s not a bad goal, even if I have fallen way behind! Here’s to challenge!
©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.
Aug
13
Four New ACEO Landscapes in the Works
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Yesterday, I worked on a total of six paintings throughout the day. One small format, which is very close to completion, and five ACEO landscapes.
The small format painting is the end-of-day scene I’ve been tinkering with off and on for a couple of weeks. I think it’s time to make an executive decision and just finish it!
One of the ACEO landscapes is one I started last Saturday at the gallery. I added a few more greens and a little bit of detailing, but the paint on that batch of ACEOs was still wet, so I didn’t do much with them.
The other four are new starts and they are featured above.
I used the same color combination for all of them. Cerulean Blue and Titanium White, but one of them has just a touch of Azo Yellow in it. All the colors are from my older, linseed oil based stock. Lefranc & Bourgeois, Winsor & Newton, Van Gogh and a Daniel Smith or two.
At the start, I was thinking only about painting skies. But it has been some time since I’ve used an under painting on anything, so I decided to design the full composition for each ACEO landscape.
They are all from imagination so are subject to metamorphosis as I work.
The net result of all of this activity is that I now have two batches of four ACEO paintings in progress. That should allow me to always have something to work on at the gallery.
I can’t remember the last time that happened.
A secondary affect is that I’ve now committed almost all existing ACEO stock to paintings. Time to start looking for more material!
©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.
Aug
12
Landscape Study #18 2008
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This is Landscape Study #18 2008: Silence.
An order for three new colors of M. Graham Oils arrived yesterday and I had to try them out.
The colors are Azo Yellow, Manganese Blue Hue and Viridian. All three appear in this painting, along with Titanium White and, toward the bottom, Burnt Sienna.
This original ACEO painting was completed yesterday. It was painted on a medium brown under tone and is on gessoed, archival mat board.
My original intention was to finish it after the paint had a chance to dry.
But now I’m not so sure. I like the stark minimalist look of the horizon so far in the distance coupled with the foreground and very little in between.
When I happened to think of the title Silence, that emphasized the vast distances and the silence that comes with it. So now, I’m thinking this one might just be finished.
Landscape Study #18 2008
3-1/2 x 2-1/2
Original Oil on gessoed archival mat board
$25 unframed plus shipping
©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.
Aug
11
Landscape Study #17 2008
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Landscape Study #17 2008 is my landscape painting for the week of August 4, 2008.
It is an original ACEO landscape painting, so it doesn’t qualify as a small format work, but it is a landscape and that was the primary goal for this particular challenge.
It was painted over a toned multiple-gessoed archival mat board card using primarily five colors: Cerulean Blue, Sap Green, Yellow Ochre, Azo Yellow and Titanium White.
In some areas, the toned surface was allowed to show through and in others, the pattern of brush strokes and the use of transparent colors only thinly veils the color beneath.
This original ACEO painting was completed Saturday, August 9 after two days of work.
I also worked on three others during those two days, but they were not ready to call ‘finished’.
During those two days, I did work on the 4×6 small format, end-of-day painting originally intended to be the Landscape painting challenge for the week, but I ended up wiping off most of the paint I put on it and that meant some additional drying time was necessary. Hopefully, this week….
Landscape Study #17 2008
3-1/2 x 2-1/2
Original Oil on gessoed archival mat board
$25 unframed plus shipping
©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.
Aug
9
I Love a Rainy Day….
Filed Under Carrie Lewis | Leave a Comment
….Seems to me like there was a popular Country/Western song by that name many years ago. I can hear the chorus in my ear this morning, but don’t quite remember the artist. Eddie Rabbitt, maybe? (Have I given away my age, yet?)
I also hear rain in my ear. The alarm this morning was an impressive peal of thunder rolling across the heavens and 7:30. Very motivating!
The light is gorgeous, but then I always have been deeply appreciative of the effects of rain and overcast on light. There is something deeply satisfying about the way distance looks when viewed through a veil of rain.
Colors seem more saturated, too. Have you ever noticed that? The greens are deeper and richer. The reds and yellows are sharper.
Maybe it has to do with the relative gray of the atmosphere, but it’s always a delight to see the way God’s green earth responds to rain both physically and visually.
I am left wondering how close winter is. This year has been the coolest year I’ve experienced since moving to Kansas in 2002 and the recorded average global temperatures bear out that observation. Several “coldest month on record” months have already been noted this year.
Winter flirted with spring for what seemed like months here in Newton. In fact, I have jokingly told several people that it’s almost been like living in Michigan, right down to the rain patterns. Rain in August in Kansas? Yeah, right!
But it’s August 9 and it’s raining. A delightful, gentle, cooling rain. With the exception of five or six hours spanning late afternoon and early evening, it rained all day and into the darkness.
Granted, we did have some 100 degree plus weather at the end of July. Five or six days of it, if I remember correctly. But the first year I was in Kansas, we had five or six weeks of days in the low 100s and nights all the way down to 80 or 90!
So, being the snow lover I am, I can’t help but wonder if summer is over here and if the next thing we see over the next few weeks will be the steady, gradual decline in temperatures that leads to Fall and, finally, to snow!
Only time will tell.
In the meantime, I have enjoyed the look and feel of a rainy day.
You know, now that I think about it, I think the line in the song was, “I love a rainy night”.
©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.
Aug
8
Landscape A Week - Week 6
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This is my Landscape A Week painting for the week of August 4.
I was reminded by the comments of a visitor at last week’s exhibit with the Delano Chamber Players that end of day scenes are bright and colorful and fun to paint.
So when I sat down to paint on Monday, a sunset was what I decided to paint.
This one is a 4×6 oil on Artfix unstretched Belgian linen canvas.
This canvas, which is a very nice weave and is oil primed, was a rather interesting thing to get used to painting on. It is not at all like painting on commercially prepared cotton duck canvas, even if that type of canvas is gessoed two or three more times, which was my practice.
Artfix is silky smooth, very sturdy and the oil priming is a joy — and a challenge! — to paint on. But, all challenges aside, I don’t think I would ever go back to cotton duck and I’m not so I would buy pre-stretched canvas any more. It’s a lot easier to stretch canvas the first time than it is to re-stretch a factory stretched canvas.
Other than two or three very small pieces, this is my last piece of Artfix.
Time to start scraping pennies together for another piece!
©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.
Aug
6
Telling Stories
Filed Under Carrie Lewis | 1 Comment
On July 11, I attended my first in a series of workshops on writing hosted by Perfect Peace West in Wichita. While there, I purchased a couple of books on writing. Upon reading one of them, I got quite a shock.
The story I recently finished and which was pitched to a self-publishing company, accepted by them, then withdrawn by me, does not fit into any of the categories of Christian fiction for which I intended it.
I was immediately faced with three options:
- Fix it, which would involve a complete rewrite
- Scrap it and work on something new
- Scrap it and finish one of the other two rough drafts, both of which fit
I spent a couple of days agonizing over the decision then decided I liked the characters well enough to do a complete rewrite.
So I spent another day or two pondering plotting options, wrote summary paragraphs for six of them, wrote test pages for the two favorites, and made a decision.
On July 15, I started rewriting.
Starting new things is always a lot more fun than finishing old things (ask my husband, who has to deal with the “this painting is ugly, I want to start over” and “this story is awful, I need to start over” moments in every project) and all of my artist friends, many of whom deal with the same thing.
By July 19, I had a lot written and was very pleased.
Then the logical side of my brain got involved, I did some calculating and realized, “Hey! If I can average 2,778 words a day, six days a week, I can put together a 100,000 word rough draft in 36 writing days.
Before you hurt yourself laughing, let me add that I did make a note that every single word would have be the right word in the right place at the right time and the chances of that happening were about the same as the chances of finishing a painting with every color choice, brush stroke and technique being exactly the right thing at exactly the right time.
But I have had a few paintings come together like that over the last thirty years.
Why not a manuscript?
So I set myself the personal goal of writing 2,778 words every day Monday through Saturday and having a 100,000 word (at least) rough draft completed by August 25, which would be Day 36.
It has been a struggle!
But it has also been manageable. On a couple of days, I had to force myself to sit at the computer and type until quite late at night, but my word count average per day for the first 19 days of the challenge is just under 3,000 in spite of writing under 500 the first day of the project and just over 1,100 the second day (pre-goal setting).
What’s more, in spite of a lot of material that won’t make the final draft, I have eleven complete chapters and another four or five that are roughly mapped out. There is clear beginning, a rather murky middle and a sketchy ending.
All of this is in addition to maintaining painting goals and work at the Carriage Factory Gallery.
Granted it would be a lot more difficult with new characters and a completely new story line, but it’s no cake walk as it is.
And the notion of setting high goals and hitting them regularly is a grand motivator, especially on those days when making time to get the job done is the most difficult.
©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.
Aug
5
Landscape A Week - Week 5, Finished
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This is my Landscape A Week painting for last week. Yet to be titled, this painting was finished on Wednesday or Thursday of last week…
Until I sat down to paint yesterday.
I knew I should have cut it off the back board it’s mounted to along with two other 4×6 pieces of canvas, but I didn’t. Consequently, I couldn’t resist putting just a little bit more paint on this one during the day.
Sigh.
It is so very difficult to finish a painting and leave it alone, sometimes.
So I have to move the official finish date on this one to Monday, August 4 and, therefore, do not technically have a finished painting for last week.
The good news is that I also worked on the other small format painting I started last week and started a new one for this week. So the objective is to finish one of those this week and maintain my average of one a week.
Weekly SMA Landscape #5 2008
6 x 4
Original Oil on unstretched Artfix Belgian linen canvas
$100 unframed plus shipping
I am also preparing to finish October Skies with some corrections on the horse. That will hopefully begin today (Tuesday). I won’t have much time later in the week due to scheduling conflicts Thursday and Friday evenings and an all day class at the gallery that will eat up my morning on Saturday. With God directing my brush strokes, I hope to have the portrait completed by next Monday but I can see, the way the schedule is shaping up, that it might actually take until the end of next week.
Writing continues apace, as well, though I didn’t do anything beyond blog and journal updates until early evening yesterday in order to finish a book by Kansas author, Deborah Raney, and to begin reading a book on starting a business by co-authors Cameron and Donna Partow titled Work With The One You Love. Both are great reads and well worth the ‘day off’ from other work.
©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.
Aug
4
Exhibit & Concert, August 3 Report
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On Sunday, August 3, from about 2:30 to 5 p.m., I participated a combination chamber concert and art exhibit at West Side Baptist Church, 304 Seneca in Wichita.
The exhibit portion of the afternoon’s event was an exhibit of my original paintings, featuring landscape paintings in traditional, small format and miniature sizes. But I also had portrait samples available for viewing in both oils and colored pencil.
My work was set up in the lobby and was the first visitors saw. It was a cozy setting that invited people to browse or to sit down and enjoy a more leisurely examination of framed artwork and a collection of over 100 ACEO landscape paintings.
The concert presented the combined talents of the Delano Chamber Players and The Horn Society, both of Wichita.
The groups performed a one-hour concert of classical music for brass and orchestra that was very well received.
Between 70 and 80 visitors came to enjoy the concert, the art exhibit and refreshments, as well as a chance to meet and greet.
Personally, I had a great time meeting people and extolling the virtues of the Flint Hills as landscape material and as a place of beauty and inspiration. In spite of car trouble on the way to the concert/exhibit and temperatures soaring into the high 90s (summer is finally here, a few weeks late!), it was a great afternoon.
I am very much looking forward to the next event, currently scheduled for 3 p.m., September 28 at West Side Baptist Church.
©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.
Aug
2
Exhibit & Concert, August 3
Filed Under Carrie Lewis | Leave a Comment
The afternoon of August 3, I will be exhibiting work at West Side Baptist Church in Wichita. The art exhibit will be co-featured with a live performance by a local orchestra. The concert is at 3 p.m. and will be followed by a reception.
The art exhibit will be available for viewing before and after the concert (and during the concert as well for those who prefer to shop and listen at the same time).
The exhibit will include a variety of work from my ACEO Landscape Painting album to framed and unframed miniature paintings, small format paintings and larger landscapes and horse paintings.
West Side Baptist Church is located at 304 West Seneca in the Delano District of Wichita.
©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.
Aug
1
I am very happy to announce the opening of a new, one-month exhibit at the Carriage Factory Gallery.
An exhibit of works by the Wichita Women Artists opens today, August 1, and runs through August 30.
The exhibit includes original paintings in alkyd, oil, watercolor, pastel and colored pencil. Subjects range from portraiture to still life and landscape with a wide variety in technique and style.
Fourteen women have presented a collection of stunning work for this one-time exhibit. Many of them are award winning artists.
Many of the works have been in other exhibits, as well, including a recent exhibit at a Topeka, Kansas gallery.
The exhibit opening will be Saturday evening from 7 to 9 p.m., August 2. I invite you to stop by the Carriage Factory Gallery to see this exhibit and visit with the artists.
If you cannot make it to the gallery for the reception, the exhibit will be open for your review Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. There is no charge for admission, though we do accept donations.
For those of you from out of state (or for our international visitors!), the exhibit is now online and can be viewed at the Carriage Factory Art Gallery-Wichita Women Artists page. You are welcome to browse to your heart’s content.
And if you see something you cannot live without, contact Carrie at the gallery. She can be reached by email at cfgnfaa@sbcglobal.net or by telephone at 316/284-2749.
©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.
Jul
31
A Gray Day in Concord, Part 4
Filed Under Carrie Lewis | Leave a Comment
With the glut of things going on at home, church and work and some potentially interesting developments in other places, as well, progress on A Gray Day in Concord has not been quite as ambitious as I had hoped when I put it on the easel last week.
But there has been progress and, for the most part, I am pleased with it. The painting continues to develop one small step at a time.
Last night, for example, I blocked in the water with a mixture of Cerulean Blue, Quinacridone Magenta and Titanium White, with just a hint of French Ultramarine Blue in the lower corner.
Along the shore, I added some greens for the reflections of trees and grass.
I thought when I put the paint on the canvas that the colors were wrong, but when I looked at it again this morning, the error didn’t seem quite so great.
With so much of the composition now blocked in, I will also be able to make the kinds of general color corrections necessary to prepare the painting for the final phase
I know the grassy hillside is not the right color and I need to add more fall color into the trees. There are also some hints of crimson along the shore. Those adjustments can now be made after the paint dries.
I have also been preparing for the final work on October Skies, which is scheduled to begin next week.
©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.
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