Stewart Jones Art

I just completed this painting to send to a patron in Houston. He wanted this painting done to accompany a Produce Market painting I posted on this blog on June 24. Both subjects came from the Seattle area. Having Never been there I was working from a photograph that was given to me as a reference. I used my artistic license to change certain items, making boxes and barrels look wooden instead of plastic. The seafood counter was full of Dungeness Crab that was iced down to keep it cool. And of course there was salmon on ice too. A couple of people were added to the painting to give life to the composition. I wasn't sure I would be able to paint a whole bunch of abstract shapes and get them to look like crabs but I think I accomplished it. Everyone else that looks at the painting thinks so too. How about you?  SOLD

One place I always wanted to visit was Yosemite National Park. I guess my bucket list just keeps getting fuller. I didn't think I would ever have a chance to paint this park or any of its magnificent views. Then one of my students sent me some images he wanted for us to paint in class. One of these images was of Yosemite. The bright yellow of the aspen trees in fall created quite a contrast with the purple granite mountain in the background. This was a very good choice for a painting lesson. The negative shape of the dark rocks behind the light trees really made these objects contrast. Not to mention the complement of purple is yellow. A few quick brush strokes indicated the grassland and a mix of all the colors together made the stream look refreshing. Now I really want to go to Yosemite National Park.

Last weekend I delivered some paintings to a gallery in St. Augustine. While I wast there I did a quick tour of this nice old town and photographed some of the buildings. The history of St Augustine goes back hundreds of years and so do the buildings. I choose to do a painting of one of these old historic buildings. I was interested in the way the plaster looked and I wanted to achieve this texture on paper. I was working with arches 140# Rough and the paper texture was probably as rough as the plaster was. The sky was grey and boring in my photograph so I choose to make the sky brighter and changed it to an orange color. There was some orange in the old plaster and I also put orange into the window to reflect the sky color. It makes for a much livelier composition.