August Efforts

During the month of August, I traveled back and forth - on my paper and canvas - between the southwest U.S. and the southwest coast of Florida. I'll be traveling for real to the southwest in about a week - back to Santa Fe, NM, where we lived for five years. While I'm there, I will be more interested in gathering inspiration than in actually painting. I love going through the galleries there and letting the work of other artists inspire me. And, of course the scenery and architecture inspire as well.

Here are some of my favorite paintings from the month of August.

What I Was Up to in June and July

This year our traveling will take place in September, so we've stayed put here in Florida this summer and I've continued to be busy painting. I tend to alternate between spurts of painting southwest scenes and then switching over to ocean scenes.

I've also been repurposing a lot of paintings - by that I mean that, periodically I go through my paintings and decide which ones to keep, which ones to toss, and which ones I can paint over. Paint and paper aren't cheap, you know, so it helps to reuse the paper if I can. It's an interesting process to go through my work every few months; sometimes I look at a painting that I thought was great when I did it a few months ago, and decide I don't like it that much now! A lot of times, it's the experiment that I enjoy; the adventure of trying new techniques and seeing how they come out.

Anyway, here are the paintings that represent my artistic exploration for June and July 2019. Enjoy!

Here's What I've Been Up To Lately

I haven't posted in quite a long time, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy painting. Over the past year, I've been exploring the techniques of different artists - not to copy or mimic them - but to experiment with their techniques in order to create a certain style and effect. Prominently among them are the late great Louisa McElwain, Australian painter Richard Musgroves-Evans, Utah-based painter Brad Teare, and Tuscon, AZ-based Jose Trujillo.

We've been fortunate to travel for extended periods back to my beloved southwest over the past few years - we spent two months in Sedona and have made several trips to Santa Fe, NM, where my wife takes yoga training with her teacher, and I get to be on vacation.

Back here in Florida, I paint pretty much every day, and of course do some paintings of the local beauty. Here is a sampling of my 2019 works through June. You are welcome to contact me via the email link on my blog for information and pricing on any of these works. Enjoy!

O'Keefe Country

This past week, I worked on two landscape scenes of Georgia O'Keefe country - the area of northern New Mexico near Abiquiu.

The rocks of this region take on different depths and tones of color, depending on the mineral content of the rock formation, the time of day, quality and direction of the light, and atmospheric conditions. While at times the rocks take on vermillion hues similar to the red rocks of Sedona, at other times, and particularly when the sun is hitting them directly, they take on a more golden hue.

In these two pieces, I have tried to capture these different effects. Regardless, the landscape of this region is breathtaking.

Georgia O'Keefe Country - Abiquiu, NM
18" x  24" in acrylic with palette knife

Abiquiu, NM
18" x 24" in acrylic with palette knife

Canyon with Angels

I have been continuing to explore painting in the style and technique of the late, great Louisa McElwain. This is my latest effort in that vein.

This painting is 18" by 24", done with palette knife in a loose, expressionistic style, with gusto and emotion in each stroke of the knife. I may have wanteded down a trail of semi-abstract in the painting process. 😉

Louisa McElwain was an artist extraordinare, who lived in the Santa Fe, NM area. I've viewed videos of many of her painting sessions in an effort to understand the process and techniques she used. My work is not a copy of hers, rather my own exploration of using her techniques to create different effects.

Her canvases were huge - 4 feet by 6 feet and larger! She painted plein air, using the tailgate of her pick-up truck as her studio. She used mason trowels as palette knives, and had to duck-tape large paintbrushes to long tree branches in order to reach the tops of her paintings!

My painting is much smaller, of course.  I would love to paint on canvases that large, though, and I would really love to have a pick-up truck.

Canyon with Angels, 18" by 24" in acrylic with palette knife.

Exploring the Style of Louisa McElwain

I recently discovered the work of the late artist, Louisa McElwain, and have been exploring painting large pieces in palette knife in a semi-abstract expressionist style. Here are several of the works I've created from her inspiration.

Magenta Sunrise

Two Shores

 

New Day on the Gulf

Sunset on Deep Water

On a Clear Day

Cornville Arizona 22 x 30

Cornville AZ is just off I-17 and some of the scenery is very beautiful.  Montezuma's Well is quite close and is one of the many visited places in the area.  I start with a loose charcoal sketch of the necessary pieces of the painting.  I never sketch in the ground cover as I feel this needs to be felt from the heart and painted in without a preconceived notion of what you are going to paint.
It needs IMO to be a spontaneous action with very little if any preconceived shapes or color and in this case it needs to augment the distant mountains.

I start with a loose charcoal sketch of the necessary items in the scene.

This is done on 22 x 30 watercolor paper (full sheet) in a loose impressionistic style using a big brush and professional Chroma Interactive acrylics.

Hope you enjoyed the journey.

JR Secor