Happy Holidays!

 

Dancer at Rest (30x24) o/c

  Well, the end of another year has arrived, and they just seem to keep coming faster...  No matter -- I am still here and enjoying my life and family now more than ever.  I want to wish any and all who periodically check this blog the best of everything -- happiness, peace and good health in the coming year, and to those of you who paint & create, much success in your endeavors.  
Stay true to yourselves, love your neighbor and ditto on all the following salutations:


"Live long and prosper" -- Spock
"Be well and do good work" -- Garrison Keillor
"May all your wildest dreams come true" -- Pedro Sanchez
"Take care polar bear" -- Lily Bowman (age 6)


Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you!

Eric Bowman

Temple of the Pacific

"Temple of the Pacific" (24x36)

This piece was done from a couple of plein air sketches I did earlier this year, above a little cove on the north end of Boiler Bay (just north of Depot Bay, OR).  I've painted here under different conditions and times of day, always returning for it's classic Pacific Northwest character, but having an entirely different experience every time...

Living where I do (approximately one and a half hours from the beach) it's unpredictable what you're going to find there.  From here you have to traverse the coast range of mountains, and you never know what's going to greet you on the other side... Could be a clear, cloudless day from home to the horizon, but rounding that last curve of tall pines may reveal a thick fog bank obscuring the ocean altogether.  

Or, an overcast gray day at home could fool you from perfect conditions awaiting at the beach.  One thing I have become accustomed to though, is learning to accept what I find, no matter the weather (barring hard rain).   Of course back home in the controlled environment of the studio, I could take any time necessary to expand upon my outdoor sketches (which I did) -- and that's a good thing, as I believe every painting should be markedly different from any other -- even if it's a painting of a painting...inspired by a previous painting.

BLUE, period.

Burgundy Blue (24x30) o/c

This is a recent piece I had fun with -- the model for the singer had great attitude that made for a nice contrast to the more sober musicians, helping to covey a subliminal blurring of the lines between the genres of jazz and blues music...

While both forms produce sounds that have their associated moods, it's interesting what physiological effects a dominant colour palette can produce too.

 (detail)

Of course the colour blue has long been associated with melancholy, and the musical genre of the blues, yet it is far from restricted to that emotion alone.  While the musicians here appear serious and sullen, the singer's expression is on the verge of joy -- the paradox that blue music is...

On the one hand, it is an artistic moody expression that can yield a feeling of 'low down', while at the same time it can ease the pain of the suffering spirit... Strange, the effects art can have on the human condition -- be it audible or visual...

Back to the Figure

Now that summer is past, I started painting the figure again from a live model. It's a great workout and the best way to study how light falls on the form, while transforming that information onto a 2-dimensional surface...

Green Mantle (20x16)

Of course this is for study and exercise and not necessarily intended to be a "finished" work -- that's why I don't bother with unnecessary details like finessing the eyes and mouth, etc.  By sticking to the confines of a 3-hour time limit, you're forced to work quickly and spontaneously to capture only the basic information. This simple approach makes for a fresher, livelier image that retains more movement than a highly rendered one. 

Model at Rest (16x20)

For that, it would take another session or two, but this way lends itself to more potential for "happy accidents" (things you didn't necessarily intend, but sometimes occur when working quickly that benefit the overall picture)... Another benefit to painting studies, is the absence of investment -- I usually use cheap store-bought canvases or quick-coated masonite panels with a slight raw umber stain to kill the white (as you can see in the top example surrounding the image)... 

Mostly I enjoy doing these because it develops instinctual skills thru repetition that carry over to finished pieces, eventually training you to get those spontaneous strokes that make for a better picture.  Of course that said, I have a lot of studying to do!

Going Coastal

Netarts (8x10)

Here are a few sketches from a recent beach trip -- all during a 4 day period including several weather changes...as long as I could get under cover before it rained, I didn't mind -- over cast skies at the beach make for interesting grays.  This one above however was before the clouds rolled in -- a town called "Netarts" (don't ask, I have no idea).

Tide Pool Reflections (9x12)

 This one is my favorite because of the colour and reflection of the pools on the rocks....

  Cape Wall (9x12)

 This is the wall of sand stone at Cape Kiwanda in Pacific City, north of Neskowin...

Gorilla Rock (9x12)

A local surfer told me they call this Gorilla Rock because of the monolithic rock about a quarter mile out that looks like an apes head at certain angles...

Beach Path (9x12)

This one was a quickie of a beach path near Devil's Punch Bowl that led to a rising tide -- an artist friend, James (who had shorts on) braved the water up to his knees to get a sketch of the bluff from the beach -- I played it safe.  Still, as with all failures and successes, it contributes to the "mileage pile" on the way to better paintings...

Pressure Sensitive

"Pressure Sensitive" (16x20) o/p 

There are a number of ways to achieve a variety of textures in a painting, but the first thing to consider is what you're after and the surface it requires...  In the painting above, it's the 'appearance' of texture on a smooth gesso'd panel...more of an optical illusion in this case than actual physical surface relief. This painting was done mostly in one afternoon with some tweaking the next morning (and it's more about the attitude and action, not finessing an abundance of details).

The brushes used were all synthetic flat sables, in three sizes... The dry-brush highlight stroke in the middle of her forearm is a good example of the kind of broken colour effect you can achieve on a smooth surface without shoveling on a boat-load of paint. 

 

Of course, painting a woman's skin requires at least some passages of smooth blending, and the wet into wet technique with the sable brushes served well for this purpose.  I also wanted to exploit the surface texture a bit given the nature of the subject's action, so a little variety of additional dry brush helped to achieve that end.

In this case it was the panel's surface prep that dictated the approach I chose -- like your individual style; sometimes the one you end up with chooses you, instead of the other way around...

Over the Rainbow

"Backyard Apple Tree" (8x10)

At the end of the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy exclaims to Glinda the Good Witch;  "If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't go any further than my own backyard..."   Well,  I can't tell you how many times I have wasted driving around in search of that perfect landscape, only to fall into the trap of telling my self there's a better spot just around the next bend...  Of course it never materializes, and you end up chasing rainbow's until the sun goes down.  

This year summer arrived extremely late, and for a very short time.  It probably wouldn't have phased anyone had a tornado touched down in the middle of July with all the gray skies we had.  Still, I remained optimistic and kept my painting gear by the door.  One afternoon as the day began to wane and I was feeling that twinge of anxiety wondering if there was enough time and where would I go and was it worth it blah, blah, blah, something caught my eye -- it was our apple tree...

We've lived here for nine years now, but I've only painted here all of three times;  once it was a beautiful wisteria in full bloom (just before we yanked it to add on a bathroom).  Another time it was the plum tree, but never the apple tree.  I guess like most things we take for granted, unless we stop to really notice, we miss the wonder and awe of it's beauty (if I only had a brain).  This day, the apple tree was glowing and had already dropped a few early "greens" which seemed to only accentuate a nice compositional pattern of cast shadows on the ground.  I thought to myself, "no reason to pack the car -- just set up right here and make something work"...and I think it did.

A famous landscape painter once told me "Beauty is all around us -- you just have to look for it"...  So next time I get the big idea to hit the road in search of the perfect muse, I might just take a deep breath, click my heels and say...(well, you know the line...)

Plein Air Trespassing

 Forgotten Homestead (9x12)

Not far from our house the geography gets rural pretty quickly. In fact, I'd like to live in such surroundings instead of the area we're in now -- we're close to the country, but still surrounded by freeways and suburban grid...  Out where the above scene was painted, you could actually live on farmland without necessarily being a "farmer"...it just cost money.  But for now, it's still free to go paint there as long as you ask permission of land owners (where appropriate).  Most of the time, people are fine with it, although there are exceptions...

Somewhere on Sauvie Island...

Here is a good example of plein air-phobia aimed at passive artists such as yours truly.  Of course this could have been posted by a disgruntled painter who couldn't find an ideal place to set up, or it's an official one-off alteration penned by Ranger Rick for an ITP* (intent to paint) warning...

Sauvie Island Pastoral (12x16)

 Either way, I ignored such nonsense and forged ahead to sketch the piece above -- it was a beautiful summer day on the island and I enjoyed the company of a couple of artists friends taking in the scenery..... (now as soon as someone can bail us out of the county jail, I'm sure they'll forgive me for suggesting this location...)