High Prairie in Winter

Thursday's sunrise was spectacular. I was driving west to the town of Geyser and the Surprise Creek Hutterite Colony, but when I caught a glimpse of the light show in the eastern sky I decided it was worth pulling over and taking a decent photo (instead of one of my "point the camera and shoot" without looking in the viewfinder to see what I've got.) This photo was taken just a mile or less west of Lewistown. The pinks in the clouds spilled across the sky and could be seen even if you were looking southwest.
Below is another photo taken on the same drive, in the vicinity of Windham (a tiny town just off the main road.) The view in the photo is to the south, southwest and is about 35 miles west of Lewistown. By this point the morning pinks are either gone or fading fast, but the lighting is still very interesting. The mountains are part of the Little Belt Mountains, one of many isolated mountain ranges on the high prairie of this part of Montana.

 By the time I arrived at the Surprise Creek Colony for the morning's art session, the storm clouds that had been bunching up on the western horizon over the Rocky Mountain Front were beginning to spill across the prairie and snag on the isolated mountain ranges. This next photo shows the Colony as I approach, driving south from the main road. I'll have to post another photo sometime that shows this view in nicer weather, as it is a very picturesque setting. The mountains are foothills of the Belts.

The drive home to Lewistown that day provided some beautiful sky views too. Here (below) is a hint of what views were seen on the 75 mile trip back to Lewistown at the end of the day. The view is southwest of the main road as I was heading east.

Printing Press Arrived!

It's here! The Blick 999 Model II Etching Press from Dick Blick Art Supplies! I'm familiar with a variety of printmaking processes and have long wanted to return to using a press.

So here it is.
It arrived safely in a very sturdy wood crate that is suppose to be kept for return shipping should I ever need any warranty work done on the press.
I'll find a spot in the studio's back storage room for the crate, along with the eight wood screws that held it together during shipment.
The truck driver who delivered it wheeled it into the studio on a handcart. Drivers are not suppose to deliver shipments beyond a place of business' front door or loading dock, so I feel very fortunate that he did bring it into the studio, even though just barely inside the door. I managed to shove the crate onto one of the small area rugs you see in the photo and then drag it to the other end of the studio where I wanted to set the press up.

So, here it is all set up and ready to "test drive"!
As you can see, it has three handles to turn the rollers with. I checked it out and found I can turn the press rollers with just the touch of a finger!
This press can take prints up to 17 inches by 35 inches. Plenty big for what I want to do.
There was a metal tubular stand available for purchase for this press, but for the cost of it, I figure I can use this old (and very sturdy) desk. The desk is big enough that I have plenty of room for inking wood/linoleum blocks or plates.

High Prairie in Winter

Looking at the snow photo I posted on January 8th, I thought it might be interesting to contrast that with what my drive back from Winifred was like on January 3rd, just five days earlier. This photo was taken as I was heading south back to Lewistown after a day teaching art to about 60 students at the public school in Winifred. The road was a lot better on the drive back from than it was on the way to Winifred in the morning just ahead of the sunrise. I couldn't take any photos in the morning, as I needed both hands on the steering wheel. During the day, a warm chinook wind blew and cleared some of the roadway. In the morning, I was dodging snow drifts. So this was the perfect ending to the day----or at least as perfect as a high prairie winter day can end!

The mountains visible on the horizon to the left are the Judith and the ones to the right are the North Moccasin. The mountains that appear blue and very low on the horizon just to the right of the Judith Mountains are the Big Snowy. The highest point in the Big Snowy is 8,681 feet (it's named GreatHouse Peak.) They look so unassuming in this photo. Lewistown is just north of the Big Snowy, so you can see that I have a bit of a drive ahead of me yet when I took this photo.

Last snow fall was pretty

Relatively warm temperatures lingered here the past few days. Okay, so it only seemed warm because of the sunshine and blue skies, but the psychological effect was real..  Part of the "warmth" of the last snow fall was in it's moisture content and the fact that it arrived without the usual wind which added up to snow that was able to cling to every branch and twig it landed on. Here is a photo of Spring Creek at one of the access locations along it's journey through Lewistown.. This is near Garfield Elementary School and is a favorite location for youths in summer as it is deep enough here to jump in from the short concrete wall that parallels the street where stream and street cross paths.

Etsy Shop update

I've got 32 artworks listed now at PoppenaArtStudio, my online store at Etsy. My primary goal is, of course, to sell art. But my first objective is to get my shop listings up to at least 60 and probably settle at around 75. That will put my monthly cost for listings at a manageable amount if it were to turn out that I make no sales.
Since being on Etsy, I've had fun with the free Google Analytics that comes with the shop. Google Analytics shows, via a map and text reports, where my shop visitors are coming from  -- country and city! That's pretty cool. So far I've had visitors from 32 states in the USA and from 20 different nations around the world. And what's really cool is that a percentage of my visitors are categorized as returning visitors.
Here's my most recent listed item as of today, January 8th. It's a 4 by 4 inch oil painting titled, "Road to Square Butte":

Long Holidays . . . and time to think

Well, another year passes. Another year begins. Something about windows and one is never closed but that another is then opened. So it is with the calendar. And here it is already the THIRD day of January! I'll be writing my art goals and some objectives over the next couple days and share some or all of them here.

One goal is to do a better job marketing my studio work. I seem to be able to land at least one sizeable public art commission every year or two and that certainly helps the annual income bottom line. But the studio work is important to me as an artist, so I produce quite a number of such works each year. Translation: Lots of dollars tied up in mats, glass and frames. I need to market this work more aggressively so one goal is to make art sales online. Even before the new year began, I accomplished the first objective towards that goal: I opened an Etsy online store at: PoppengaArtStudio.etsy.com   I've already got enough art my Etsy at this point to spill over into a page two of listings. There are more objectives to achieve in order to realize the sales goal, but getting the store online was a significant start.

With Etsy there's also a free tracking service called Google Analytics. It lets me see that my Etsy store visitors are coming from all around the world. Google Analytics also generates various reports that can help me analyze the data collected. A filter on one of the reports shows which page a visitor entered on (Google calls it a "landing page") and how many pages each visitor visited (at Etsy "pages" are each listed painting.) If a visitor lands and then leaves without checking out another painting, that translates into a 100% bounce rate. In the marketing world, you want a low bounce rate. Right now, I'd be thrilled with an overall bounce rate of 50% (half the visitors land/leave and half of them stay to look at more paintings.

An interesting trend I've noticed already with the help of Google Analytics is that in the USA the two states sending the most visitors are New York and California. New York is ahead with twice as many visitors and a significant difference beyond just numbers: New York visitors linger and look at more paintings (pages). California visitors land and leave. Don't know yet what that could mean, but it is curious.
As for other goals and objectives, I'll sprinkle a few more thoughts at this blog as I find time to.

Painting accepted in CCAHC Works on Paper Exhibition

Today's post mail brought some good news. One of my stormy cloud works is accepted for the Custer County Arts & Heritage Center's 32nd Annual SouthEastern Montana Juried Exhibit. The 2011 exhibit, set for January 23rd through March 6th, is titled "Works On Paper." The CCAC is located in Miles City, Montana.
Below is a photo of my work, titled "Thunderhead Over Hobson, Montana."
This work is an oil painting on gesso on acid-free paper. The image measures 18 by 24 inches. The exhibition is not an auction, so this work is still available for purchase.  I'm pricing this painting to encourage a sale.
The thunderhead in this work is one I watched as it grew bigger and taller just east of the Hobson grain elevators (one elevator is no longer standing at this location.) When I finally left (after I was certain I could capture its essence back at the studio) this storm cloud was being pushed fast enough by an up high wind that it tailed me all the way to Lewistown.

Below are two close up detail photos so you can see the layered, sketchy brush strokes that make up this work. I was especially pleased with the results achieved on the more distant grain elevator.

Two paintings in 43rd Annual Yellowstone Art Museum Art Auction

Good news arrived in today's snail mail! Two of my oil paintings have been selected for inclusion in the Yellowstone Art Musuem's 43rd Annual Art Auction. The auction takes place in March 2011 at the museum in Billings, Montana. I've posted the two paintings below:

 This painting titled "Prairie King" is a stylized building thunderhead in the late afternoon sky. It's a visualization of any and all of the super clouds that I've witnessed over years of observation. I used birch panel for the support instead of canvas. Sometimes I prefer this kind of surface over stretched canvas because it "fights back" when you attack it with brush and palette knife. "Prairie King" is 20 inches by 20 inches.

This painting is titled "Powerful Storm" and is not as recent a work as "Prairie King" (which was completed this past spring.) "Powerful Storm" is one of my favorite works out of what I've done over the past four or five years. It depicts a tremendous storm I witnessed over the eastern edge of the Belt Mountains about 80 miles west of Lewistown. The far left solitary mountain is an extinct volcano cinder cone. To create this work, I thinned the oil paint and then applied it in several layers so that layers remained visible through successive layers. The whole effect is very drawing-like and textural. "Powerful Storm" is 18 inches by 24 inches.
A further note about this painting: I've recently opened an online art sales shop on Etsy.com and included this painting as one of the few that I initially posted. The notification deadline for the art auction was long past and since I'd not received any word regarding my entries, I figured it meant I wasn't selected. So imagine my surprise when I got today's mail! (which, by the way, was postmarked over a week ago---and it's normally "next day" delivery to Lewistown from Billings.) So, I got to see how Etsy's delete and archive functions work!

Serigraph (silkscreen) Commission in progress

I pulled Colors 12 and 13 today. I'm thinking one more color on the far side of the river, possibly two more. Then the Bighorn Sheep will be started (probably five or six colors on each one.) It's been cold outside; Minus 8 degrees when I left the studio at midnight. It did stop snowing (finally) but the night sky was clear, so with no cloud cover the temperature will drop even more before daybreak. I keep the studio at about 50 or 55 degrees - perfect for working and the screen inks flow just right.

 (Above) Color 12 is a slightly peachy tone that covers the far side of the river and the distant landforms. My lighting was slightly different when I photographed tonight so the colors as they appear in the photo are a bit closer to the actual colors than most all of the previous progression photos posted.
(Below) Color 13 starts to show some definition in the far side of the river and the distant landforms.

Serigraph (silkscreen) Commission in progress

Here are updates for colors number 10 and number 11. I'm happy with the way the rocks are coming out. One more color to represent the surfaces of rock that are sunlit and then the distant landscape and the mountain sheep will be tackled next. This has been a little slower-going than I'd hoped as I'm having to fit this project into a full schedule with other projects in progress as well.

 

(Above) The serigraph at the 10 Color stage.

(Below) The serigraph at the 11 Color stage.  Just one more color for the foreground and middle ground rocks and then on to the background landscape! Nice to finally see the foreground ram starting to take shape, even if it is only because the color field around him is what is being printed.

(Above) The serigraph at the 10 Color stage.

Serigraph (silkscreen) Commission in progress

Here's today's update! Only got one color done today but am pleased as now the shapes are starting to become apparent. If I think of it tomorrow, I'll photograph my line drawing that is the basis for this serigraph.
Two things I forgot to mention in my previous post: The image area is 30 inch by 19 inch and the commission is for the Friends Of Missouri Breaks Monument (the Missouri Breaks Monument is a wild/scenic area along the Missouri River north and east of Lewistown, Montana.)
Also, this serigraph is being done in solvent-based inks (Naz-Dar 5500 Series) and a mucilage block-out.

Serigraph (silkscreen) Commission in progress

Before I write/say anything, I should note that the colors as seen in these progress photos are not completely true to the actual colors on the serigraphs. I'm photographing these on the layout table and so lighting is not the best and there is also some distortion as I can't get the camera quite far enough away.
In the photo at the right, you are seeing the upper third of the image area -- at this stage the rest of the image area is still just the white paper. In this photo there are two colors: The purplish sky (pulled first) and the lighter bluish tone beneath where the thunderhead will be. Where these first two colors overlap it has the effect of creating a third color. I masked out the remainder of the image area, including the far ram (seen here as white.)


Photo at the above is at the five color stage. The thunderhead is starting to take on a nice decorative shape.

 Photo above is at the six color stage. At this point I decided to stop working on the sky portion of the image and tackle the main body of the serigraph, and especially the lettering that would appear at the bottom of the image.

 Photo above shows the 7th color now added at the bottom of the image. Again, I should note that colors are not entirely true in these photos (for example, the blank area is actually pure white of the paper still.)--and also there is some distortion due to having to photograph at too close a distance. The brown area (actually a salmon-ish brown color) was pulled for the sake of the lettering as seen once the next color is pulled.

 Photo above shows the nine color stage. Again, some distortion due to the camera---the actual serigraphs are nice and straight/squared as are the straight lines of the shape that contains the lettering. Prior to pulling the peachy color over the brown, I hand-brushed the mucilage block-out over each letter (which I'd free-hand drawn onto the screen.)

If you have any questions about my process up to this point, please feel free to email me or, if you've accessed this posting via my Facebook page, then please leave comments/questions there. I will try to reply in a timely manner.

Photo Above shows the eight color stage on the table in the foreground. Beyond that is the screen, which is swung open and fully back so I can brush on the mucilage block-out on the back side (the ink is squeegeed across the reverse side.) You can see that I am also attaching some tracing paper areas to serve as a block-out for those areas that I don't want to print in the next color, but also do not want to cover with mucilage only to have to remove it after the next color run.

The best money spent in the studio this year was the $375 for a used but fully functional Saturn Print Drying Rack (new ones approach $2,000 or more). There are 50 trays, each measuring 40" x 52". Trays are spring-loaded; when not drying prints, the trays are in the upright position---and just a touch of the hand lowers or raises each tray.
I use to have to run (literally) all around the studio to hang my wet prints on make-shift cloths lines and trying to hang prints back-to-back was nuts! And hurrying because the inks would be drying in the screen and could mess up the next several prints! So yes!  This was money well spent!! (even though I had to leave off the top ten trays because my 8-ft high studio ceiling wasn't high enough to allow those trays to be in the fully up position.
But even with just 40 of the trays installed, I LOVE my print drying rack!