Gallery Changeout Day 9 '13

Today's your last chance to see my current artwork on exhibit at:

 the Charleston Artists Gallery,

 and the  the SAG Applewood Gallery in Litchfield, SC

Beach Series at The Seacoast Artists Gallery

and the Seacoast Artists Gallery in Myrtle Beach, SC.

Bird Series at the Seacoast Artists Gallery

It's Change-out time in all three galleries.   All of my artwork my existing  is being pulled from the Seacoast Artists Gallery in preparation for the SAG Fall Art Show and Sale which starts later this month.  My current exhibits  will come down and new artwork will   go up tomorrow in the Charleston Artists Gallery (tomorrow) and in the SAG Applewood Gallery later this week. ( more later).

Poinsett Bridge Revisited 9 '13

My reference photo of Poinsett Bridge taken in Oct '12

Some of you may remember that I painted a landscape of  Poinsett Bridge earlier this year.   ( see http://ccampbellsfineart.blogspot.com/2013/04/poinsett-bridge-4-13.html). The photo above is the way the site looked on the day we visited it.   It was a rainy day, and as you can see, while the local color was spectacular, it was definitely on the cool side of the palette.

My  first painting of Poinsett Bridge  complete in April of '13

 While I took some artistic license with arrangement of the vegetation, my original painting of Poinsett Bridge held true to the colors I had seen.   As nice as the painting was, I just didn't feel attracted to all the cool colors. So I decided to take a second stab at it.  

A  second painting of Poinsett Bridge completed  Sept '13

This one retains most of the original paintings composition, but uses a warmer palette.  I'm much happier with this version .  I guess it all comes down to personal taste.  Mine runs to the warm colors, so even when I paint a lovely cool colored painting, I am never thrilled with it.

Which do you prefer?

Santee River Delta 9'13

Highway 17 cuts across the wide Santee River Delta between Georgetown and Berkley Counties via two very long bridges. Between the two bridges is an island with a small parking  pull off for wildlife viewing.

Completed painting

In the morning, the Delta fills with fog.  I loved watching how the scene changes as the mists move around obscuring or highlighting the various elements in this lovely wilderness. The fog does however make it hard to plein air paint a scene that is constantly changing.  After several frustrating attempts,  I decided on this attempt I would take a different approach.

This painting was  started in the studio from a photo I had taken earlier  in the month .

Photo shows WIP onsite over the under painting  and the  main elements blocked in

I toned the canvas with a bright coat of cad red, then blocked in the main  nearby landscape features with ultramarine blue. After  the under-painting and main composition was laid in and dry, I competed the rest of the painting  on site. As usual, the fog continued to hide or reveal the distant elements of the scene, but the  values and colors of the closer landscape remained relatively constant enough for me to finish the piece to my satisfaction.

Little Red Barn 9 '13

Little Red Barn photo

It seems that when it comes to plein air painting I am a bit lazy.  Or maybe, it is that I just don't like having to hunt for something to paint. Why waste the golden hour scouting unfamiliar locals, when one can just drive down the road and find something interesting  to paint?  The majority of my plein air paintings has been painted  on or near Highway 17. And I have a huge stash of reference photos to remind me of promising subject matter that  I have spotted in my travels along  this major coastal thoroughfare. 

Little Red Barn painting

 Case in point: The Little Red Barn is located on Highway 17 in Pawleys Island (across from Hobcaw Barony) . It is less than five miles from my house.  Waking up early in the morning to a stormy sky, I knew there was a high probability the barn would soon be awash in really dramatic light. I managed to capture the lighting on the barn and foreground  foliage before a  passing shower sent me packing. 

Like many of my plein air paintings, it is not a perfect rendition of the actual scene. In my rush to capture the dramatic light on the main subject, I  hurried through the sky and the background. The trees on the right were not fully completed before I had to leave. They look more like oaks than pines.  I haven't decided yet whether I want to leave those tree tops as is, or reshape their tops in the studio.  Most likely, this  little 9" x 12" will become the study for a larger studio painting.

How to capture a butterfly without a net 9 "13

Once again..We're in the midst of the annual butterfly migration . Thousands of monarchs are headed south for the winter.  They're so beautiful to watch as the float by like little fairies.  This is a quick ( 1 hour) pastel study of a monarch resting on some goldenrod. It was done en plein air at the campsite we are staying in in North Carolina.  When I was a kid, the camp counselors taught us to catalog the smaller wildlife we saw by netting it and pinning it in a box. This little 7" x 5"  study seemed so much better an option for capturing the creature

Art in the Common Festival 9 '13

The first ever  Seacoast Artist Guild Art in Common Festival was a huge success today. 

A large group of Seacoast Artist Guild  set up their exhibit tents just before noon in the grassy area of Valor Park  across from the Guilds Gallery on Never's Street.

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 It didn't take long for the public to find us.  By 12:30 pm the festival was hopping with people looking for one-of-a-kind-arts and crafts.  They were not disappointed; 

Woody Bower

Photography,

Wilma and Bill Hosford

Sandi Blood

 Pottery, Jewelry, Painted works of Art, Woodcarving, Fused Glass, and a variety of miscellaneous arts & crafts were all available.

 Bill Maurer

Pottery, Jewelry, Painted works of Art, Woodcarving, Fused Glass, and a variety of miscellaneous arts & crafts were all available. Congratulations to all the Seacoast Artists Guild Exhibitors on a job well done.

Food for the soul 9 '13

I spent the morning filling out the registration forms  for art shows, and taking photos of the paintings I plan on exhibiting this fall ... you know -- doing  all that important but tedious stuff that is the business side of art.  Just when I felt my soul about to implode from boredom, my hubby arrived home with some photos he'd taken of  a spoonbill feeding in the Litchfield marsh. A quick painting one of them put the blues behind me.

It's going to the birds 9 ' 13

I have a great exhibit grid in the SAG Gallery at the Market Common this month.

I put 10 new paintings on display. They're right by the main window so everyone walking by can see my artwork .  All ten are oil paintings of low country bird scenes.