I may have mentioned that I took a trip through New England and Northeast Canada late last year. The four paintings I’m posting today come from that trip. I’ve got several more underway but these are far enough along to talk about:

I posted “Peggy’s Cove” earlier, shortly after all initial washes had been completed. At this point I’m ready to soak this piece in the bath tub, restretch and fine tune to completion. The soaking process helps to settle areas of thick pigment and unify the painting. The foreground and some of the deep shadows need some work along these lines. I also need to work some of the reflections, particularly in the left middle ground and I find that the bath helps the liquid look of reflections. At this point I have set the painting aside for a few days to allow the pigments to dry and set a bit so that the bath doesn’t wash away things I want to retain. I also take this opportunity to formally critique the painting  in one of my moleskin notebooks, identifying areas that need to be addressed once the restretched painting has dried enough to get back into those areas I have identified. At a full sheet, this painting is larger than I work most of the time. Most of my work is half sheet like the others featured in this post. Occasionally, I work in quarter sheet but most of that work involves studies for future projects.

This painting, “48th & Broadway“, is also ready for the bath and restretch process but is probably more resolved than the one above.  As mentioned above, it’s a half sheet or 15″ X 22″. I’ve tried to distill these New York City projects to shape and color as the structure in NYC is overwhelming and, frankly, can become boring in a painting.

Case in point is “Water Towers“, Here, I was intrigued by the shapes and tonal shifts of the composition. I have done no brush work on this project, just a series of approximately six washes. A lot to be resolved from a value perspective. There will be only a splash of vivid color at the upper left where a neon sign will catch the eye.

Hopefully, the round shapes will pull the viewer into the composition towards the color. We’ll see. That’s the plan at any rate!

“Boathouse Retreat” rounds out the post. I captured this image in Concord, Mass. and wanted to capture the visual contrast, of a single figure, calmly reading, in what is a riot of color.   This painting is a little further along than “Water Towers”. I’ve begun to establish my darkest darks and clean up some lines and address some values in the boathouse.  As a matter of fact, just sitting here reviewing the image, I’m making a note to lift some darks in the reflection and add some color so that it reads better. A lot of work to be done, but that’s part of the fun. Although I work from photos a great deal, and try to initially set up the composition through the camera lens it is rare that the initial composition survives intact when executing a painting. Nature is chaotic and doesn’t care about composition or what I want to use as a focal point. Plus, I generally invent my own color. The foliage was not really turning in New England during my visit. The photo supporting this project features greens but that would not have communicated the chaos around the figure that I wanted to contrast against the calm of the figure sitting on the pier.

Any feedback?

visual experience built, essentially, on straight lines, rectangles and vertical thrust.

Contrast that with step two of Peggy’s Cove:

Here it’s more a traditional approach, where I rely on pushing color and composition to tell the story. This after the third wash, It will be interesting to see how the lessons learned from geometric exercises such as the NYC Series influence tendencies that drive the Peggy’s Cove approach.

I’ve also begun another project of this area, titled, surprise, “Peggy’s Cove” This is after a single wash.

And last but not least, the first of a series of geometrical studies from New York City. This one, NYC Geometry I was inspired by a breakfast at the Marriott Marquis as I looked up into the heights of the atrium and was struck by the geometric patterns. I am sifting through material looking for similar themes for a different approach to familiar topics. In addition, I still have several projects that have been sitting in the studio for a bit. Same old story, more material than time. On the show front, I delivered three small pieces to the Season’s Jewels show (see calendar at www.joeblanford.com ). Also, I’ve agreed to hold a one man show starting December 14 at Blues Day Studio in Lakeway and will be posting some information over the next few days.

I’ve also been busy working on some of the New England/Canada material from a recent trip and can post a completed painting, B & B For Sale as well as a sketch for the next

painting in a series of Nova Scotia based projects: Washed Up.

Peggy’s Cove is a very picturesque site in Nova Scotia and I hit it on a relatively rare bright and sunshine filled day. B & B For Sale reflects that feel but I found myself wishing that I could see the place in mist, snow, fog or rain! I’m going to experiment with some different moods and plan to start with the sketch, Washed Up where I think I’ll go for a more low key painting with something of an Andrew Wyeth feel. I don’t plan to paint every blade of grass around the boats but will dial the color back and seek something like Wyeth’s Distant Thunder where there’s a wide range of value but the color hues are subdued. The sense of being used-up and forgotten doesn’t call for a vivid palette!

       Flamingo Lights                       Sicilian Garden                 Pride of Barbados

I had originally intended to simply post all three of these paintings upon completion but thought it might be fun to contrast the approaches among the three and then contrast them at this point against the final paintings when done. My strategy with Flamingo Lights was a high key, warm painting in the yellow to red color family with the contrast being between high intensity, clean color and low intensity dirty color. Design elements include “S” curves to guide the eye into the picture plane, with dark verticals creating a rhythm breaking up the intense reds, oranges and yellows. The approach with Sicilian Gardens is a cool painting in the blue color family. The key contrast here is hot flowers against the cool background. In the case of Pride of Barbados, the strategy is for a high key painting in the yellow family and contrast against a green background. Of course the sinuous “S” curve pulls the eye through the composition. We’ll see how things develop.

In terms of inspiration, Flamingo Lights is the second of the Las Vegas Series based on material from a trip earlier this year. Sicilian Garden is a rework of an earlier project, In the Shadow of Mount Etna. When I changed the composition it became less about Mount Etna and more about the foreground contrasts and shapes. Pride of Barbados is simply the result of seeing a composition in a shrub in my front yard. I also have an Esperanza that is vying for attention if I can work out a compelling composition. There you go….. work in progress…..time to get to work!

Viva Las Paris has an interesting genesis. I had planned a visit to Paris and had been noodling how I would handle that iconic image, the Eiffel Tower. I had pretty much settled on a foreshortened vertical composition that cut the picture plane in a diagonal. I had used a similar approach on Sacristia Famillia and really liked the results. The trip to France had to be cancelled, however, a visit to Las Vegas enabled me to use the plans I had made. Here is the result. It’s interesting to see people react to the picture, instantly recognizing the tower but then wondering why there are palm trees involved!

In addition, I completed a painting from San Antonio, Riverwalk Mariachi, that is a composite of material collected on two different trips to the area. I had collected the fountain scene about a year

 ago. I liked the image but it just didn’t say anything standing alone. I collected a series of mariachi images this year when I delivered a painting to a gallery in San Antonio and married the two figures to the left with the fountain scene. I used a high key approach with amped color to communicate the fiesta feeling that is the Riverwalk. I have used color and a series of curves to create a circular movement to the composition.

Lastly, is a rework of an earlier painting. This project, Cavtat Harbor II, was done large on a full sheet of Arches Cold Press and focused on the reflections in the still waters along this section of the Dalmation Coast. I used an old, tried and true technique of splashes of red that move the eye around the picture plane.

Now that I’m back in my main studio I am able to get back in a rhythm and have several other watercolors in the works. Hopefully, I can get back into a rhythm on blogs as well! On the show front, I won a Winsor Newton Merchant award for Santorini II at the RCAS Regional Show and was jurored into the SWS Annual Member Show with Mykonos Porch. Check out the calendar on the web site , www.joeblanford.com .

I’m currently working on a full sheet watercolor of Cavtat Harbor, Croatia and once that project is wrapped up I plan to spend some time completing several oils I’ve been neglecting before traveling to Las Vegas and then Colorado to deliver some new material to Seven Arrows Gallery and drop off a painting for the International Watermedia Show in Colorado Springs. I expect to gather some material for new projects from this bit of traveling. You can also expect some urban landscape work from New York City, Boston, Quebec and Montreal later in the year! So much to paint and so little time! Also plan to hit the Met, Whitney and Frick while in the Big Apple.

I’ve also been cleaning out my studio and finding some old projects that warranted some tinkering. In two cases the earlier works were about six years old and each suffered from poor composition. In both cases, I severely cropped the old picture and then addressed some issues  and voila!. Here are the reworked Fowl Weather (originally Rockport Shrimper) and Taos Pueblo: