Salon International 2010

I attended the Salon International 2010 Exhibition at the Green House Gallery in San Antonio, TX, this last weekend ... a wonderful event and met a number of great people and thoroughly enjoyed the show. Here's my painting included in the show of my daughter lighting a lantern.

This was one of the first paintings I created after attending a workshop with Dan Gerhartz. It was inspired by Maxfield Parrish and John Singer Sargent. A couple of summers ago, my daughters and my niece were delighted to light Chinese lanterns in our yard. I tried to capture the moment with a camera, but the images just didn't turn out very well even with a fast lens. So, after Dan's workshop, I decided to try this again working from life this last fall. My daughters and I went to Lyons Park here in Cheyenne, it has great scenery that I enjoy painting. We lit a Chinese lantern with a candle, and placed a second candle lantern behind her head to create a back lit situation. It was exciting and challenging to paint. My daughter was a real trooper to hold still while I worked to establish the information I needed to complete this painting. A group of teenagers while wandering through the park, commented on how cool it was to see us set up painting at night in the park. I use a couple of color balanced book lights to paint by at night that clip onto my easel, so I'm sure that our set up was an interesting sight with the lights and arrangement. Now that spring is coming, I'm looking forward to exploring more nocturne figure paintings from life.