"Bitterroot Magic"

"Bitterroot Magic" 8x10 oil

Fly fishing on the Bitterroot River in western Montana has it's benefits... both in quality fishing opportunities and painting inspiration!

"Bend on West Boulder"

"Bend on West Boulder" 9x12 oil

Putting the finishing touches on a few paintings for the NatureWorks show in Tulsa next week. I'm really happy with this one :)

"Granite Creek"

Granite Creek 8x10 oil on cradled panel

"Blacktail Creek"

"Blacktail Creek" 8x10 oil on cradled panel

"Sanctuary"

"Sanctuary" 6x6 oil on cradled panel

This little painting was completed on Christmas day. It was a quiet day in the studio with Otis the Wonder Dog and I got a lot done. Working on these mini landscape studies makes me happy, so it was a very good day!
This is also my first attempt at painting a stream setting (something I'm very comfortable with using acrylics) with oils. It took a little while to figure out how I was going to make the water read as "water" and still use this somewhat impressionistic style.

Otis says "Merry Christmas!"

 

"Emerald Reflection"

"Emerald Reflection" 8x6 acrylic

As I climb the trail of my career as an artist, I find it interesting to occasionally step back and assess my progress toward becoming a better painter. Of course the trail is not well marked and there are often wrong turns and dead ends, but every once in a while I stumble upon something that works.
My work is leaning a bit toward an impressionistic style while trying to maintain a certain level of believable realism. I certainly don't paint as "photographic" as I used to (check some of my blog posts from a few years ago) and I'm enjoying the additional freedom that comes along with smearing around larger blobs of paint. I'm not saying I'll be splashing paint on a 40x60 canvas with a 2" brush anytime soon, but I feel like this is real progress.
I've also noticed the paint on my finished work is much thicker than it used to be (this is quite evident when sanding down the high spots on a clunker that needs to be painted over!). This thicker paint is allowing my colors to be more juicy and vibrant. It also keeps me from using those tiny brushes I'm so used to!
I love painting small landscape studies like the one above. They allow me to try new things without having all the time and material of a large painting invested.
It's slow progress... but progress nonetheless.

"After the Storm"

It was with a fair amount of trepidation that I began work on this large (20x30) painting. My last attempt at a big one was a 6 week disaster that left me angry and frustrated. Still... I needed to push forward.
After drawing the composition (with white charcoal) on a neutral gray primed board, I started blocking in some of the darks with a thin mixture of warm browns and grays. Working quickly while the paint was still a little wet, I smacked in some of the lighter areas allowing the colors to overlap and blend. This isn't easy with acrylic, but it keeps me working very fast.

Going back over the blocked in areas after the paint was dry, I started to refine things and push the shapes closer to what they would be in the finished painting. This took a considerable amount of time and effort. I wasn't really sure how I wanted to handle the reflections of the trees on the water in the foreground and reworked this part of the painting several times.
After almost a month of steady work, the painting was nearing completion... but there were still a few things bothering me.

The reflection of the large group of trees wasn't doing anything for the painting and I needed to reconsider that entire area again. In fact, nearly all of the stream was going to need repainted. It was close, but not quite right.
That awful clump of snow in the lower right corner was going to need some attention as well. The shape was odd and I needed to think about making it flow into the painting a little better.
So... I put the painting away for almost 2 weeks and worked on another project. Once I got it back on the easel, the solutions became relatively clear and I was able to finish the piece in less than 2 days.

"After the Storm" 20x30 acrylic

Detail from "After the Storm"

"Heavy Snow"

"Heavy Snow" 12x9 acrylic

2014 is off to a good start!!!

"Quiet Water"

"Quiet Water" 9x6 acrylic

The last painting ready for the Waterfowl Festival!!! Time to start packing!

"Pocket Water"

"Pocket Water" 17.5x10 acrylic

My love of trout water has always drawn me to places like this. Being able to capture scenes like this with brush and paint is an added bonus spending time here with a fly rod. Only good things come from visiting places like this.

"Plunge Pool"

"Plunge Pool" 14x11 acrylic

As a painter, the things that excite me, both in the studio and in the field, don't register much significance to my non-artist friends. It's nothing new when, after talking with me, someone wanders away muttering, "I always knew Bortz was nuts." I can't really disagree, but I'm quite happy in my little bubble of insanity.
In this painting, "Plunge Pool", I've achieved a couple of things that, in the past, have largely eluded me. I've been doing some experiments trying to get the natural green tones in my work to be more lifelike. I hit on some mixtures that seem to work well in most situations. Surprisingly enough, there is not a drop of "out of the tube" green paint in this piece. It was all worked out with subtle shifts in mixtures of various yellows and blues.
More importantly, there is an impressionistic quality to this piece not really noticeable in my previous work. Not that I haven't tried. Up to this point, most of my efforts toward this effect have come up miserably short. I like painting with bigger brushes. I'm just not very good at it. Smearing and blending big blobs of paint to get a desired look without a bunch of tiny brush strokes intrigues me. I smile every time I pull it off.
There are usually parts of a painting that are my favorites. This piece had several! I like the way the mossy boulders emerge from the background at the top of composition. It's out of character for me not to render a painting right out to the edges of the board. But here, the lack of detail in that area seems to work, allowing the viewers eye to take in the tumbling water without being distracted by unnecessary detail.

Even in the foreground of the painting, I've managed to paint the stream gravel with more of a suggestive technique rather than detailing every tiny stone. This makes me happy.
Is this a new direction for my art? Perhaps. I think there is a balance between "loose and painterly" and "photographic detail" that I'm constantly searching for. I may have found it with this painting. Now the challenge will be to do it again, prooving to myself this was no accident.

"McCutchen Run"

"McCutchen Run" 22x16 acrylic

"Cool Spring Creek"

"Cool Spring Creek" 10x8 acrylic

Just off the easel, this little study gave me fits over the weekend. I had a hell of a time making it work. Finally, after editing out some of the trees I had originally painted it, the scene seems to fit together much better.

"Rocky Basin Study"

"Rocky Basin Study" 5x10 acrylic

I don't often do such involved studies, but I wanted to work through some problem areas on this idea in a smaller scale before deciding whether or not to move to a larger panel. I'd originally planned to paint this scene in a 20x40 format. That's quite large for me. I'm glad I did the smaller study, though I'm not quite sure if I'll got quite that big on the final painting.

"Summer Song"

"Summer Song" 14x11 acrylic

As you can see, the great blue heron in the original composition (see previous post) has given way to a pair of smaller birds (rose-breasted grosbeaks). I really wanted this painting to be about the sun-drenched rocks in the middleground... in particular, the warm reflected light on the shaded side of the biggest boulder. The heron seemed to be competing with that idea.
I also kicked around the idea of leaving out the large driftwood stump on the rocks to the right side of the painting. I love the warm hues reflected on the underside of the stump, but worried it wouldn't read well when painted. In the end, I think it worked out nicely and I'm happy I didn't edit it out.
Finally, I may add a unifying wash to the background to help pull that area together a bit, but I haven't made up my mind on that yet.

Visual Poetry

Since the last blog post struck a cord with so many readers, I've decided to continue in a related direction. I've included "in progress" photos to help explain the wandering path some paintings take on their way to completion.

In the previous post, I discussed someone at a show suggesting that my paintings were merely photos with paint smeared over them... an advanced version of "paint by numbers" if you will. The absurdity of that concept makes my head hurt. In the days following that rant, I've found that the practice is actually more common than one might think. Suddenly, I feel like my head is going to explode again!

White charcoal drawing over gray gesso

Yes, painting over a photo will certainly make someone's work "look like a photo," but if you lack the basics in drawing and visual problem solving, there will be no poetry in your work. If you possess these skills (see "Talent... or Skill?" Dec 8, 2011), there's no need to confine yourself to the shackles of strictly recreating a photo. That's not art. It's simply a monotonous exercise with no more challenge than a child's coloring book. Period!

Block-in stage

The actual process of making art is rarely straight forward. No matter how much planning I do (and I do a lot!), there are always unexpected problems that arise along the way. It's the unique solutions to these problems that breathe life into a painting. It's that part of the journey that makes me proud to be an artist and constantly keeps me on my toes.

Just for the sake of making a point, I've started off with a photo of my neutral gray gesso covered panel and the initial white charcoal drawing. The drawing is done with a modified grid transfer method.

Starting to refine shapes

The subsequent images show the painting in various stages of completion. I was pleased with the block-in of approximate tones and hues. It always helps when the early stages of a painting start to take on the intended feel. That keeps me excited and hungry to move forward.

As I start to refine the shapes, I also pay very close attention to contrast. The finished painting will have a relatively high level of contrast, though there will be almost nothing painted completely "black". I rarely use straight "out of the tube" black for anything. Most of the darks in my work are achieved by adjusting a base mixture of burnt umber, ultramarine blue, and a bit of crimson.

Time to rethink a few elements and continue to refine

The painting begins to come together using a method I call "focus squares" (see "The Process of Focus Squares" October 13, 2009). Again, I am happy with the progress, but I'm starting to find a few problem areas... the biggest being the blue heron. I originally planned to have the bird lit up with the warm morning sun against the darker hillside in the background. The more I thought about it, I began to feel the painting would be more interesting if the heron was pushed back into the shadows behind the sun-drenched boulders in the middleground. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.....

"Stone Wash"

"Stone Wash" 12x9 acrylic

As 2013 kicks off, I'm having a good start to the new year. The cold snowy weather is keeping inside and working for the most part. I'm usually pretty productive when it's so crappy outside!

"Timeless River"

"Timeless River" 12x9 acrylic

I really struggled for a couple of weeks, but it feels like I'm back in my groove. Working on this painting was a lot of fun and putting the belted kingfisher in the riverscape just seemed like the right thing to do.

"Timeless River" work in progress

"Timeless River" detail

Here's another update on the painting currently on my easel. The detail view is about 1/3 of the overall area of the painting. I'm having fun with this one, so if all goes well... it should be finished by the end of the week :)

"Conewago Rush"




"Conewago Rush" 16x8 acrylic

 Inspired by a recent fishing trip, I've attempted to capture the essence of the crystal clear water in the "narrows" section of Conewago Creek. The fish were wild and frisky. The scenery was breathtaking. It was a day spent in fly fishing paradise.