Rainbow Clouds

Rainbow Clouds

11x14 inches acrylic paints on gallery wrapped canvas

This time around I'm talking a bit about a small but hopeful landscape called Rainbow Clouds. Frank had taken a lovely photo in our pasture showing billowy clouds over a green field with trees in the fence row and if that wasn't enough there was a rainbow to boot! 

I took a printout of Frank's photo, and using my handy dandy homemade viewfinder (the two sides of an old orange mat) blocked off a portion of the image that fit the ratio of the 11 x 14 inch canvas I wanted to use. To lay in the groundwork for the painting, I used some  inexpensive matte paints in the appropriate colours and began ghosting in the grass, clouds and trees.

I switched my table top from horizontal to vertical to make it more enjoyable to do looser brushwork and blending on the painting. Here I have gotten in the basic shapes for the underpainting, and have switched over to some slow drying acrylic artist tube colours that have a bit more intensity of colours. 

You can see in this progress photo, I have almost finished up the modeling of the sky and billowing clouds. I have “punched holes” in the outlines of the tree foliage and given a higher intensity of the greens right at the shadow line of the grass meeting the trees.

Once everything was dry, I got out my acrylic glazing medium, and glazed on the colours of the rainbow. I used a glaze to show the transparency of the rainbow colours. 

Kentucky Winter Wheat at the State Capitol

Kentucky Winter Wheat hanging in the Governor’s Derby Exhibit in the Capitol Rotunda

This is truly a itty bitty blog post.....about a pretty big deal for me. A recent painting of mine, Kentucky Winter Wheat was included in an art show called the Governor’s Derby Exhibit that was on display in the Kentucky Capitol Rotunda from May 1 – June 1, 2019.

I really want to give a big shout out to the folks at the Kentucky Arts Council for including Winter Wheat, and all the hard work involved in putting on such a great show! Here is a link to the Kentucky Art Council's slide show of all of the lovely artwork included in the exhibit. 

http://artscouncil.ky.gov/KAC/Showcasing/DerbyExhibit2019.htm

And here is a full pic of Kentucky Winter Wheat.  For a bit about how this painting came about check out my blog post:

http://lyneartblog.blogspot.com/2018/06/winter-wheat-sunlight-or-portrait-of.html

Josephine Henry, Kentucky Suffragist

Josephine Kirby Williamson Henry, Kentucky suffragist

This bitty blog post is showing my recent portrait of Josephine Kirby Williamson Henry, Kentucky suffragist. I'm highlighting her portrait today because there is going to be a dedication ceremony on August 25^th2019 in Versailles Kentucky, for a historic marker at her family home. Here's a tiny bit about this amazing woman.

Josephine Henry, 1843-1928 was a Kentucky writer, speaker, political advocate for women's rights. Born in Newport KY and later moved to Versailles, KY. She married Capt. Wm. Henry in 1868. Both were involved in local/state community affairs. 

Josephine Henry was instrumental in getting passage of Kentucky's Married Women Property Act or the Husband and Wife Act in 1894. This bill allowed women the right to own property in Kentucky, overturning old laws preventing women from owning property, receiving wages, making a will or even to be guardians of their own children. Passage of this bill, was a crucial step in women winning the right to vote in Kentucky.

Like many women activists of the time, Josephine Henry came from a well to do family. She had the time, books and support to learn about political issues and developed the will to actually make change happen. She authored pamphlets on women's equality. She lectured throughout the state, and wrote hundreds of articles and editorials for newspapers.She co-founded the Kentucky Equal Rights Association. She died in Versailles after a stroke at the age of 85.

I've also done another historical painting of Josephine Henry, show cased on my historical portraits page: http://www.lyneart.com/HISTORY.HTM

Reach by Frank Lyne

This week's blog post is by guest blogger Frank Lyne. He's going to tell a bit about his most recent sculpture, Reach. Here's Frank - 

On June 9 of this year, Alison and I delivered some art work she had done for a Nashville pathologist who has bought many things from each of us over the years. He had, some years ago, bought a cherry figurative study from me named Reining In.

It depicts a female holding onto a cloth covered form that seems to be trying to pull away from her by some unknown force. On our visit, my original buyer's wife asked me to explain what was going on in my carving. Her appreciation for it had increased over time because it depicts a female physically controlling a situation and she wanted to know if that was my intent. It was. She also wanted to know what the hidden object was that was being reined in. I told her its definition was up to the viewer and could be anything from a little flight capable sprite to some aspect of her own character. The lingering good feelings from that visit made me want to make something new depicting a female in control of a situation. Reach became almost fully developed in my head within a day of that visit and before I even selected a billet for making it. 

By June 26, I had the main elements of my concept roughed into a cherry billet – a female barely succeeding in reaching for a difficult to attain ring shaped object. I knew I was on track with my concept when my disinterested nephew recognized it. He had seen TV shows that involved retrieving some object as a part of an athletic competition.

In my haste to begin my principle concept, I ignored the fact that the billet was too narrow to have room for the figure's right arm.

It took a little doings, but one can add to wood as well as take away. The figure now has 2 arms.

A little later on, I uncovered a knot right in the pit of my figure's stomach. By then, her torso was still thick enough to shape a strap looped over her shoulder.

That strap ostensibly supports a satchel she needs for carrying her retrieved object. The satchel hides the hole in her lungs and liver.

In addition to problems with the wood, there was one other consideration to address. An upcoming juried show I want to enter has a 40 pound weight limitation. My nearly shaped carving weighed 66 pounds on July 4. With a rigorous diet plus a hollowing out of the snag she's climbing on, I got her down to 39 pounds upon completion on August 8.

My gut says the completed carving is a success. 

Clarksville Customs House Museum Exhibit Roundup

Last winter, November 28, 2018 thru February 27, 2019, to be precise, Frank and I had a joint art exhibit at the Clarksville Customs House Museum in Clarksville, Tennessee. 

The kind folks at the Museum set us up in the Kimbrough Gallery of the Museum, and we so appreciated their hard work when we first walked in and saw the show. They had titled the show: The Nature of Things.

I did a walk around taking pics of the various sections of the show: 

Many of Frank's small to mid size pieces were grouped together in a glass case:

Both of us had been working on works celebrating the centennial of the passage of the19^thAmendment , so we had one wall with a themed grouping.

and showcased Frank's major sculpture: Prelude to the Affirmation of a Right

Thanks again to the Museum for having our art on display in such a lovely show!

All of these artworks are shown individually on our website http://www.lyneart.com

Blue On Blue......Did I Mention It's Blue?

Blue on Blue

12 x 12 inch gallery wrapped canvas

Acrylic paints

From my own photo

This is a bitty blog about a bitty blue painting called “Blue On Blue”. 

It might be I have a certain fondness....uhmmm..... maybe a teensy obsession....... with “midnight blue” or cobalt blue or Phthalo blue. The other day I found an old photo of some bluebells I'd photographed in a mini photo shoot, dramatically lit with cloth drapery. I pulled out a small 12 x 12 inch canvas and began to paint

I decided on a analogous (colors close together on the color wheel) color scheme, with ultramarine blue, phthalo blue, and a deep magenta violet with a compliment of a warm deep brown. A few light grace notes were included for the pastels of the budding pink bluebells.

I saw immediately saw I would have to drastically simplify the background in order to focus on the delicate flowers. As you can see from my photo reference I cut out all the extraneous background items and kept it a deep dark value. You can see my little post it reminder to check: Light vs Dark, Sharp edges vs Soft ones, Linear lines of the glass vase vs the masses of the cloth and bright intensity of colors like the green backlit leaf vs the greyed drapery behind.

The painting quickly came together, and I got my “blue” fix for a little while.

Creek Time

Creek Tyme

36” x 36” gallery wrapped canvas

Acrylic paints

My photo references

This week's painting is an homage to the “good 'ole summer tyme”, here in the waining days of summer. Frank has taken so many lovely photos of our local creek, I really wanted to incorporate one in a painting. I picked one beautiful photo showing a bend in the creek with overhanging trees and a shaft of sunlight streaming in the breaks in the leafy canopy. I paired that with heavily changed bits and pieces of photos of folks from different events we've attended in the past. I wanted to give the feel of families going for a late summer day picnic at a local watering hole....of the scenic and swimming type.

I composed my painting to fit the somewhat unusual square shape canvas I had on hand. I began the painting with a flat colour lay in of basic shapes.

The painting went pretty quickly as I had already done my prep work. Here you can see I have taped on the canvas for quick reference, a bitty color thumbnail sketch showing the figures' changes in light and shadows, my original pencil sketch of the figures and small pencil sketch on tracing paper taped onto the photograph of the creek to find just the right placement.

I had intentionally made the composition fit into the square space by using the pointing finger of the left hand mom as a starting point for a swirl of sunlit points that led up to the far bend in the creek and swept up into the leafy sky.

I enjoyed picking out the details of the two busy mom's “mom buns” and cell phones in back pockets, along with the second mom's backpac with extra diapers and sippy cups. I luved that the two moms just took time to pull on plain white t shirts and jeans and pulled their hair back in scrunches and buns. But you can tell one mom took the time to dress her toddler in a fancy new jean jumper and a bow for curly hair. And the other mom gave in and let her little girl wear the frothy dance skirt she's been living in, while doing her hair up in a ballerina bun to match her mom's. Painting in these kind of details plus capturing gestures of closeness was extra fun to paint in contrast to the magnificent nature view.