Good Bye PEI

I was recently encouraged to revive my blog, being highly suggestible here I go. It's been a year and a half since I posted. At the time I was back to working at a gallery in Minneapolis framing and doing restoration work, and painting very little. The past 6 months or so has been the opposite, I've been painting a great deal, traveling, participating in many events and shows, teaching a lot of classes and workshops.

I'd like to use this blog a little differently than I have in the past. I will continue to post work and share comments on them but I'll also write the things on my mind regarding art, painting, teaching, and the occasional non sequitur. I realize no one is going to read this post after 18 months of dormancy, but it's a start.

The painting above was the last of 14 works I did on Prince Edward Island during a stay at the end of July. I was just reunited with this painting last night, it was too wet to travel with. It's interesting to see your work with a fresh eye. I was a little burned out by the end of that week, and had done a pretty average painting that morning and thought about packing up, I decided to give it one more try and just try to capture the feel of the huge cumulus clouds that seem to be above me all week. Looking at it now it looks like a confection, bright clean colors in a simple pattern, and I'm OK with that, it makes me smile.

Along Highway 29

18x36 Oil

This is a studio painting I started a couple months ago thinking it would hang in one of 2 shows I had opening in December. I got to a certain point on it and I got stuck, which happens. It's not a matter of how to finish it, but the best way to finish it. So it leaned facing the wall of my studio for a few weeks. Then driving back from Michigan to St. Paul I hit a stretch along Highway 29 west of Wausau when the light and scenery was very similar to this painting. I didn't have a camera with me (I know!) so I just kept making mental notes on the color of everything and completed it in a few hours a couple of days ago. It's freeing to work from your memory and painting so much from life over the last 12 years has given me the foundation for it.

Menominee River

11x14 Oil

I did this painting a couple of days after Christmas while I was still visiting my family in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This is the Menominee River which is the border between Michigan (on the right) and Wisconsin (on the left). It was a relatively warm thirty degrees with very little wind so I was able to spend a lot of time on location tweaking all the various shapes locking into one another. A bald eagle was soaring over the river for a while, I did see some tracks that looked canine and a little too big to be coyote, a wolf?

Laguna Plein Air Event

Heisler Park at Sundown 9x12 Oil

Just returned from Laguna Beach, having participated in the 12th Laguna Beach Plein Air Invitational. It was amazing, great to paint with that kind of intensity for a week, and be surrounded by 49 other outstanding painters from around the country. Waiting to get the other paintings shipped back to me, I'll post them next week.

Grand Marais Plein Air

Coast Bones Oil 11x14

Daybreak North Shore Oil 9x12

Birches Oil 9x12

Well summer is seems to be in its final days and I spent a few days last week up in Grand Marais Minnesota, doing a little painting along the North Shore of Lake Superior. The weather was beautiful and the painting went well, I was very relaxed and things just seemed to flow, you can never take that for granted. "Daybreak" won first place, which is always a nice affirmation, and while I was happy with all three paintings, I think my personal favorite is Coast Bones, it was a very complex composition, and I really like the way the debris filled path turned out. Wish I could have painted more but that's life. Starting to teach my Fall classes next week, back to work.

Rust Alley

9x12 Oil

A recently displayed some work during the Tangletown Garden Tour, since I had to hang out and babysit my paintings I decided to set the easel and go to it. The fish on the right is a mosaic sculpture that really caught my eye, so I framed it up against the house to make it pop, it adds a sense of strangeness to an otherwise restful scene. one of my favorite little geeky things I liked about this painting is the sharp pattern of reflected glare on the yellow house on the left, it was only there briefly, but catching details like that are the little things that elevate a painting.

Bluff Cave

9x12 Oil

This is yet another painting mined out of Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary, it's right in St. Paul just a few blocks from my studio and is a subject I return to often. Instead of the temptation to paint the grassy field behind me I decided to try the challenge of rocky bluff wall at the edge of the park. The light effect was fleeting and I was constantly balancing the values on the rock, keeping it dark enough to read as shadow while having it illuminated by the reflected light.

Old Summit Alley

9x12 Oil

Getting a little tired of paintings that are 90% green, so as I enter the dog days of summer I'm doing more work in the city. This is a great alley off of Summit Ave. in St. Paul they have these old buckled red pavers, love the textures.

Summer Reflections

9x12 Oil

After a June filled with rain, I've had a few sunny days to paint, this is a little pond that's about 4 minutes from my loft in St. Paul, if you could pan to the left you would see the skyline of the city. I like this painting, it feels hazy and warm it also has a soft lush quality that isn't always there even when the color and drawing is correct. Happy 4th of July weekend.

Gray Sky Saturday

9x12 Oil

The weather in the Twin Cities has gray and wet for over a week now, it's a bit of a downer. We have such a small window of good warm weather and its been raining for half of June. I do however like the rich lush colors you get on a gray wet day. Fingers crossed for sun.

Cottonwood Shadow 10x14 Oil

Painted this a couple of weeks ago at Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary, I liked the intense greens in the foreground, nice morning spent.

In Plain Sight

24 x 48 Oil "A Farm in Spring" detail

This is a detail of a painting I created for the "In Plain Sight" show at the Bloomington Art Center, it features paintings myself, Scott Llyod Anderson, and Neil Sherman, and sculptures by Brian Young. The opening is tomorrow evening 6-8pm for more in info go to:
www.bloomingtonartcenter.com
The show is up until July 9th and there is an Artist Talk on June 17th.

I did this studio painting from a small plein air piece I had from 3 years ago, it just always seem that it would work bigger, and I think it does.

Limestone Steps

8x10 Oil

Painted this last Saturday after class, I loved the light on these steps and had to give it a try.

Old Twisited Tree

10x10 Oil

Yesterday was the perfect day to paint, sunny warm, no wind, so although I have a ton of studio work to finish up I had to get outside and paint something. I was really happy with the feel of the twisting and torquing of the trunks, it's one of those amazing old trees that is somehow still budding out new leaves.

This Friday the 23rd is the opening of the Spring Art Crawl for 2010. Please come visit me at my studio in the Northern Warehouse, Saint Paul Minnesota.

richard@richardabraham.com

Spring Grasses

8x10 Oil

This is small painting I did Easter Sunday, it was sunny in the morning but I didn't make it out until later in the day and completely overcast. So rather than the beautiful shadows I intended to paint I concentrated on the variety in the grass color, it really is great for a couple weeks until it all turns green.

Shore Thaw

9x12 Oil

Posts on consecutive days, I know, it's been a while. Did this last week at Lake Nakomis, beautiful day, not much to say the sun was shining the ice was melting, Spring.

Painting Backpack

8x8 Oil

While I've still been working out on location quite a bit, I've also produced a series of small still lifes of stuff from around the studio, they're fun to paint.

Lake Pepin Shore

11 x 14 Oil

Noticed that I was still getting traffic at my blog, who knew? So I thought I'd post some newer work. The irony is I've been in easily the most prolific span of painting in at least a year, I'm just terrible at keeping up with putting it out there.

Fireworks

6x8 Oil

A small painting I did this fall, I really liked the movement in this scene, the leaves seem to be exploding off of the birch tree.

Old Ford

11x14 Oil

I don't know why but these old trucks are a popular subject matter, for both painters and the public. It must have something to do with their cartoony shape and aged finish, each one seems to have a unique personality. I painted this in Door County Wisconsin last summer and finally photographed it this week.