Anyway, a week or so ago, I got an email from my gallery in Woodland Park (Seven Arrows). They sent me a prospectus to see if I would like to participate in a community public art project: painting a bench.  They are soliciting artists to paint benches that will go on display either throughout Woodland Park or throughout Teller county. Yeah, as usual, I didn’t get too caught up in the details of what would happen to the bench when I got done with it.

They are offering artists the incentive of a small stipend (should cover materials) and at some future time, a judging with cash prizes for the top 3 benches. Whatever. I again accepted the challenge, not for the monetary rewards, but because it sounded fun.

I put a design together by taking 2 images of the Adirondack bench and cropping a couple of my photos to fit, sort of, onto the bench. Now, I wouldn’t call that painting, but it sure was fun to try and imagine which photo would lend itself to a bench design, allowing for the spaces between the bench boards and all. So I have two ideas.

Next step is to create a couple of paintings of the benches with the images on them and see which design I like the best. Which one do you prefer?

Aspen Trees

Marshall and Deputy

I roared through January, starting a bunch of new paintings, working out almost daily, eating more healthy-style foods. You know. You’ve probably done the same. Hit the new year, full of resolve to make your life, your work and your whatever better than ever. Me too.

And then something or other comes up and threatens to derail you.

We set out  last Friday: drive to Manhattan, KS– 9 hours;  visit son and his lovely wife — 2 days; drive to Chicago – 10 hours, plus another hour of “lost” time trying to find the hotel;  pick up new dog and drive back home- 2 long draining days with an overnight in St. Joseph; recover- 1 more day. Totally wiped out. Oh, it would be so easy to go back to being a slug….

I am sure this has happened to me before. I start into something, then get derailed by events or a road trip or something not scheduled. hmmm. Much like my 100 Days of Painting thing. But this time, I seem to have developed something new. You might call it resolve. So I am resolved to get back to the easel, back on the sensible eating plan, back to the exercise program and come to think of it, moving forward with the book that Tom and I are writing. (oooo. Did that sound like making a public commitment to do something?) Kind of liking these new resolutions to actually get something done and then stick to it, even if I get derailed for a couple of days.

Just gonna keep taking those baby steps… until I make that journey of 1000 miles. And when I get there, well…. you know….

Plan another journey.

I was on track until it was time to leave for the Artist Ride in August. Up to that point, I had completed about 30 miniatures (4×6 and 5x7s) and had several more in the works. I DID paint a couple of portraits in South Dakota, but the main focus of that trip was to get photo reference. Painting was just a side line, something to do when my “shutter finger” started to cramp up from all those photos.

Upon returning from S. D., I immediately went on to Victor, this time for a painting competion. So, more days of painting, but at that point I had lost all track of how many days I had painted and how many paintings I had done. So- faggedaboudit… that’s what I decided. I’m an artist. Do I have to engage my “counting brain” in order to get something done? Nah, not really. Sometimes, though, it helps to get things started.

Work in Progress

100 Days of Painting was an ambitious idea and it did get me moving in the direction of the studio and back to making art. And that was actually the point. So, forgive me if I can’t count past 20 (and then only if I take my shoes off).  And I betcha, before this year is over, I will have completed 100 paintings and spent at least 100 days painting.

But who’s counting?

But for this painting, I went right to Photoshop and my Artist Ride photo references. I wanted something strong, eye catching and “in your face”. At another level, I wanted this painting to tell a story or to allow the viewer to make up a story.

Once I had the image figured out, I had to translate from the computer screen to the canvas. Using a thin, transparent mixture of paint and turpentine and a #12 round brush, I sketched in the general shapes, refining until it looked close. After hours of applying and wiping paint and a very stiff neck, I gave it up for the day. I thought I had a pretty good approximation of the photoshopped image and besides, I couldn’t turn my head anymore. (Artist Rule #43: when you can’t move a vital body part, you are done for the day.)

The next day, I stopped in at Saks Galleries in Denver to see Jill Soukup’s new show. Her large horse paintings were very powerful and most of them were sold (so much for the “bad economy” theory).  Her paint application was confident, thick and juicy. She managed to pull together big images with accuracy, emotion and expression. Impressive, to say the least.

A benefit of looking at really great art work is that it motivates me to shoot for a higher level of profiency. After seeing Jill’s work, I knew that I would have to rework most of my sketch to get it right. As Skip Whitcomb once said to me, “Good enough is just no good at all.”

One technique for accurate drawing is to turn the canvas upside-down. Another is to walk away from it for a few days.  You can look at it in a mirror. And as a last resort– draw a grid. Much as I hate them, for this painting, I opted for the grid.

It seems so mechanical… just what the engineer-Rita would do. But, the grid revealed to me, very quickly, every error in my draftsmanship. I reworked the whole composition. (Artist Rule #1: You can’t make a good painting with a bad drawing.) With a good drawing,  I will be free to enjoy the painting process, which starts tomorrow.

Here’s the painting, so far:

Big painting, phase 1 by Rita Cirillo. All rights reserved.

I recently returned from 5 days in South Dakota at a ranch outside of Wall. It was an enchanting trip – the drive through northern Colorado, eastern Wyoming and western South Dakota always a feast for the eyes and the spirit. And Wall, if you’ve never been, is a treat in itself with a grand drug store–really a tourist shop-stop near the gateway to the Badlands. You would have to see it to believe it.

The annual Artist Ride at the Shearer Ranch, north of Wall is coordinated by Jim Hatzell, artist and technical advisor for many films (including ‘Dances with Wolves’) . Originally, the ride was truly a ride made up of people in period costume (1800s, I believe) in the spirit of the old west. ( Here is a link to the website.)

These days the ride has morphed into a ‘not-ride’. The intent of the Artist Ride is to give artists an opportunity to gather historically accurate reference material. Fifty artists are invited to participate, along with cowboys, Indians, cavalry, pony express riders — essentially all manner of people willing to dress and re-enact moments from the frontier days. And many chances to photograph herds of horses, cattle and buffalo against some amazing South Dakota terrain. Even a couple of rattlesnakes made a short-lived appearance this year.

This was my second year attending and a very different experience than last year. One highlight was the presence of Ken Woody, chief of interpretation at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Mr. Woody is very knowledgeable about clothing and customs of many of the plains Indian tribes. I spent a good part of one afternoon hanging out at his hand-made buffalo hide teepee checking out the authentic gear and listening to stories.

The photo opportunities were stellar. There were day shoots and night shoots and the chance to create your own scenarios or to jump in (if invited) to other artist’s shoots. And once in awhile I’d walk into a spontaneous moment, where people were just being themselves and having some fun with the costumes and the scenery. It was often difficult to decide if I wanted to photograph the re-enactments or the behind-the-scenes action, which often was more interesting and spontaneous.

By the final day, I’d had enough of hiding behind the camera and invited a few of the models to sit for a portrait. This turned out to be a rewarding experience, getting some one-on-one with the models and hearing their stories.

I wrapped up the trip with a stop in Rapid City to spend the night at the home of a friend, one of the models I met last year.  I feel very lucky and grateful to have had this opportunity to attend the Artist Ride for the last 2 years, gathering reference material and more importantly, new friendships. I hope to be back again in the years to come.

This year, it was an interesting week and a half of painting under most challenging conditions. Every step of the way, I was pushing my boundaries, attempting to work my way through difficult subject matter and almost every day, it was raining — Or threatening rain or sprinkling rain. Well, you get the idea. The nice thing about lots of humidity is that the paint stays very fluid and moveable. The bad thing is that the paint gets so slippery that it becomes hard to control. And if you like to apply thick juicy paint strokes, you have come to the wrong place. That being said, I managed to make a couple of paintings that I was quite pleased with and a couple others that really challenged me, although results? not so much. It was a good trip for scraping paint off of canvas.

On the plus side, I won a second place on the first day out for my painting of “Lunch with the Red Hats” at Chandler Hill Winery outside of Defiance. Our marching orders for that day were to not worry about following the rules for plein air, we could leave the property or stay there. Just paint whatever excited us. For me, when the Red Hat ladies showed up,  I knew I had my subject.

The ladies had lunch inside, due to the weather, so I did my first plein air painting of the “paint out” indoors. Kind of a stretch to call it plein air, but at that point, I saw what I wanted to paint and I painted it. The painting also won the Artists Choice Award at the final show.

Another painting that I count among my successes was called (surprisingly) “Painting in the Rain”. This painting was completed at the Montelle Winery on yet another rainy day. Most of the artists chose to paint under the covered porch, but a few hardy souls set up on one of the open decks to paint under their umbrellas. The geometry of the deck, the colorful umbrellas and the varying greens of the tall, wet trees made an interesting composition. I really struggled to get this painting to come together and was pleased with the results. I won a 3rd place with this at the final event of the show.

Another really tricky painting was this bronze of 3 little girls sitting on a log. The trees created interesting shadows, yet to make this painting come together with the patina on the bronze and the play of light and shadow, I had to come back a second day. The other aspect that made this painting difficult was that the garden setting was a work in progress, so I had to fake the grass, some of the water and most of the foreground.

Ah, but what would painting be, if not for the challenge? I must say that the rest of my work that week deteriorated as the sky continued to leak. I spent an entire afternoon trying to paint two horses grazing in the field. Unfortunately, they had not much interest in holding any position for more than a few seconds. So I painted and repainted. Eventually, I had a feel for the horse anatomy and was able to fake my way through it. Still not a great painting, but it was a good exercise in painting animals from life. Something I must do more of.

And just for fun, I painted Josh Been in an historic moment at the Blumenhof Winery, as he was creating the day’s winning painting – an old car. I call it ” ‘Been’ Painting” because I can’t resist a bad pun.

On the lighter side, I did manage to squeeze in a visit to Halcyon, the local health spa for a reviving massage. My friends Barb Remley-Martin and Kelly Martin invited me to their home in Chesterfield for Easter dinner and some social time. And I was lucky enough to be invited to a wine tasting in the winecellar of Marge and Randall. Plus the usual socializing with other artists and the treat of the final art show, where I got to see a lot of the artwork that was created during the event.

Sunday, May 1, I jumped into my reliable little Toyota – which has served me faithfully for over 300,000 miles – and headed back to the Colorado sunshine. Of course, it just happened to be snowing when I got home. But it WAS good to be home for a day, before heading out to Taos.

In the meanwhile, let me bring you up to date on the final chapter of last year. August was an extremely busy month for me. I started with a competition in Cheyenne, WY. You know how much I love Wyoming, so I wandered up and painted in Cheyenne for a couple of days. It wasn’t as pleasant as I’d hoped, mostly because a guy – who I presume was homeless – adopted me for the day as his favorite person. To have someone yakking at you while trying to paint is not the most conducive to getting into the zone. I managed to crank out a couple of acceptable paintings, not to mention ALL the interesting stories that constituted the life of this non-stop talker.

The next day, I decided to try my luck further away from town and headed west for the Vedauwoo Rock formations. What a beautiful area. Had I known about this place, I would have been camping there. My attempts at rock painting were disappointing, but it did give me my 3 paintings, so I decided to head on up to Ryan Park and visit my friends, Stan and Suzie. I figured that if I saw something interesting, I could always do another painting. We had a great visit, although, as I recall, it was kind of cold and rainy, so there was no more painting. After dropping my paintings off in Cheyenne, I headed home to get ready for my next trip.

I had a few days to rest, but recalled that I had promised to bring some paintings to the Rice Gallery in Kansas City. Seemed like a great opportunity to stop and see my son in Manhattan, so I framed up some artwork, loaded up the car and headed out. The trip was uneventful, other than the excitement of getting my work into a new gallery. They seemed pleased, as was I. It was a quick stop in KC. Another quick stop in Manhattan and then back home to touch down for an instant before…

My next trip, which was to South Dakota, just outside of Wall, to attend the Artist Ride. This is an invitation only photo opportunity. The short version of this: cowboys, Indians, cavalry, horses, settlers and saloons – all characters in period costumes and willing to act out any scenario you can imagine. Artists with cameras going wild. Lots of action. Hotter than hell! I camped for 3 nights in a field, along with 50 other artists (although some of them were wise enough to stay at the motel in Wall), dozens of artist assistants and many of the models. It was an impressive feat to pull all those people together in one place. Looking forward to attending again, possibly even this summer.

I touched down at home long enough to wash clothes and get a decent night sleep. Then on to Estes Park for Plein Air Rockies- another plein air painting competition. I camped up there for several nights, at a camp ground on the edge of town. Spent my days trying to decide what to paint and my nights looking for a good full moon painting. In addition to the regular paintout, we were given the opportunity to paint a miniature and to participate in the quick draw.

 The painting “Orion Rising” was my successful full moon painting. I got up at 2 AM and drove all over Estes Park and into Rocky Mountain Park looking for something that inspired me. Finally, around 4AM, I gave up and headed back to my tent. As I pulled into my campspace, there was the constellation Orion coming up on the Eastern horizon. A perfect subject. This painting has been accepted into the PAAC’s (Plein Air Artists of Colorado) 2011 annual show which will be held at Sacs Galleries in Cherry Creek in late June-early July.

Finally, to end the summer, I participated in Victor Celebrates the Arts in my little hometown of Victor, CO. One strange thing was that none of the artists who normally camp in my yard actually turned up this year. On the bright side, since my hot water heater had broken down, this was probably a lucky thing for them. I managed to paint several nice paintings and spend some time hanging out with my friends who drive out from Missouri just to participate in the show. I won a prize for my painting “Come Upstairs if you Dare”, an honorable mention for “Old Paint”, and Second place for my Quick Draw painting of a horse. A also did a second quick draw piece which is shown below.

After 5 road trips in 4 weeks, I was extremely happy to see the end of August!
My final big adventure for 2010 was a painting trip to Moab for the Moab Plein Air. Ten days of painting and camping in and around Canyonlands and sometimes in Moab. Need I say more?

The S.T.E.M.S. art show in Kansas City turned out to be a good one for me. I won First Place in Oils for my painting “Tractor Races” and Merit Awards for my paintings “After Monet” and “Afternoon on the Pier”. “Tractor Races” and “Afternoon on the Pier” also sold.
On another happy note, I was invited to show my work at the Rice Gallery in Leawood, Kansas. Should you be in the area, stop in and see it at 11535 Ash Dr.

And finally, my painting “Day Break” was accepted into the Paint the Parks Top 100 show which will be on tour through fall 2011.

But I really had a fabulous time. The Overland Park Arboretum is a true gem of a place. I didn’t get through the entire area, but it seemed there were trails to be hiked for hours, through flowers, plants, water gardens and woodlands. I ended up painting in the Monet Garden area and then wandered a bit. More exploration to follow next year, unless I return sooner.

The next day, I painted at the Deanna Rose Homestead, which is essentially a huge farm-style playground/educational experience for little kids. There was much fun to be had and what a happy place– one that made me wish to be 5 years old for a little while, just so I could ride the tractors or jump on the slides. I pulled off two paintings there, in the hot sun, among the children who became more and more cranky as the day wore on. I lasted almost 11 hours there, before some of that crankiness began to rub off on me.

By 7:30, I headed back to my campsite near Lees Summit. Still in or very near Kansas City.. the suburbs, I presume. It was quiet and isolated and not very crowded – a place called Longview Lake Campground. The camp hosts laughed at me when I told them I wanted one of the campsites that had a view of the lake. The campground had no view of the lake nor even a long view of anything. Oh well. It was marvelous to go to sleep to the sound of crickets chirping and frogs singing. And I got lucky and missed the rain storms. Even luckier to get three paintings in a day and a half.

That about sums it up for the moment. I must say, after 5 years one month and 5 days of being an artist instead of a software engineer, I have no regrets about my decision to let go of the software world and dive into the art scene. Life is good.

And on a happy note, I got notification that my painting “Enchantment” was accepted into the PAAC (Plein Air Artists of Colorado) juried show which will be held at Saks Gallery in Denver June 25 – July 10.

Here is one more painting from this trip: