Recent listing on my Etsy Shop

Here's a recent listing on my Etsy Shop: Poppenga Art Studio.

This is a small oil painting titled "Rain On The Flat." It measures 4 inches high by 8 inches wide.
I simplified the land/sky-scape, distilling it to two competing sky areas - dark and light - and a narrow strip of tan to indicate the land. I enjoy this particular theme and have painted several variations of it in addition to this one.
As for how are things going via Etsy, well, there are no sales yet, but plenty of visitors. Google Analytics shows I've had visitors from 39 states plus the District of Columbia. And visitors from around the world, including cities in the Netherlands, Norway, Germany, Australia, India, Pakistan, Israel, Greece, Poland, France, Portugal, Brazil, Russia and Belgium, just to name a few. Wow. As of today, I have 36 works of art listed for sale at my Etsy Shop, Poppenga Art Studio.

Full Moon Setting over Prairie

The early morning drive to the school at Geraldine, Montana rewarded me with this fantastic westward view of the setting full moon. Wow!
The camera doesn't do this any justice. It may not look like it in this photo, but there is a deep barrow ditch immediately off the edge of the paved road so there was no place to pull over safely. I made a quick stop, hop out, snap the photo from the drive lane. Given more time (and a safer place to pull over) I would have tried some different settings on the camera. But I think this photo conveys the overall mood of the scene. The distant lights are the tiny community of Coffee Creek. The mountains (starting at the left) are the Highwood and to the far right is Square Butte.
What a nice way to start the day!

Etching Press - Session 2

This afternoon I created embossed designs on heavy watercolor paper with the press. The results were very good, but I'll have to figure out a way to photograph the work so it shows up. The scanner doesn't do very well when it's "seeing" just white paper with indentations in it.

The paper I used is some that I've had stored away for a long time. It is Arches watercolor paper and I'm guessing it is probably 300lb weight cold-press. This paper is heavy enough to take some real serious pressure under the press, but at the end of the session I wondered if a lighter weight and less textured paper might give even better results (and possibly with less pressure under the press.) The paper soaked in a tray of water for at least an hour before I used it.

I used scraps of mat-board (standard thickness) to make the raised areas of the designs. This works well enough but, as the printing process gradually compresses the mat-board pieces, there is a limit to the number of top quality embossings any one design can produce. In addition to the mat-board, I used some pennies.

There are plenty of other materials that can be used for the embossing - lots of other materials. And not only for embossing, but printing too. When I prepared dinner this evening, I noticed the styro-foam tray the pork steaks were packaged in has an interesting pattern on the bottom. Hmm. Maybe that tray can be inked and printed. I opened a jar of sauerkraut and thought, hmm, maybe the lid can be used for embossing. And on and on. So many potential objects - I will be counting them instead of sheep when I go to bed.

Etching Press - Session 1

This afternoon I dug out the Japanese rice paper I had squirreled away. Located the brayer, grabbed a tube of burnt umber oil paint, a generous pile of cotton swabs (Q-Tips), a bristle brush, and a clean cotton rag.
Then I taped a piece of acetate to a scrap of white matboard to serve as the "printing plate" for a session of experimenting with subtractive technique making several monotypes (or monoprints, which is what I believe they technically are called -- I'll delve more into that in another post later.)


This small print (Left) is the second one I pulled. The first one was too light. I decided it was not enough paint on the plate, so I really gobbed it on for this one. I think the thicker layer of paint is good up to a point. Too thick and it will "squish" under the press and all the linear marks and texture would be lost.
Print size is about 7 x 5 3/4 inches.


I used the cotton swabs in the dark passages. It didn't take much of a pass through the paint to completely filled a swab, so I used a lot more of them than I thought I would. In the detail photo (Below), you can see the cotton swab strokes cutting across the brushstrokes. I like the way that looks; it reminds me of some passages in the monotypes done by William Blake (1757-1827).

 I was trying to get a sense of a storm cloud bearing down on the land, maybe even crushing (Detail above). I got some surprises with the cotton swabs--those that were "frayed" left more interesting "starting" and "stopping" marks.


This next print (Above) scanned  as if it were brownish -- which it should be, as I used burnt umber. Print size is about 4 x 8 inches.

 This print (detail at Right) was the result of partially cleaning the plate with mineral spirits and then deciding I liked what remained after the first wipe of the rag. So I went from there and invented something of a prairie landscape with patches of snow in it, some sagebrush and distant mountains or hills. I used both ends of the brush (bristle and handle tip) along with cotton swabs. The texture of the paper is very evident in this print. I need to think about how to take advantage of the paper texture.

This print (Left) started with a REALLY thick, tacky layer of paint on the plate. I didn't think it would work very well, and the only reason it worked at all was because I was aggressive with the used of the rag. I think I wasted a bit of paint on this one.
I should mention here that the clean edges around the first two prints are the result of taping off the image area before rolling out the paint and creating the image. The tape has to be peeled off before running the plate under the press and it was sorta messy, so I decided not to continue taping the plate off for each print.

I like the random edge made by the brayer better than the clean edge left by the tape.
The detail (Right) shows the amount of detail I was able to achieve on such a small format using just the swabs and rag.
Print size is about 5 1/2 by 7 1/2 inches.

 This next print is even smaller than the others. It is about 3 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches. The ridge appearance was left not by a brush but by the rag. It must have been the way I held it, because I went through another several prints trying to duplicated that and it didn't quite repeat in this way. I think it has an appearance that is almost like wood grain. I used the handle of the brush to make some of the contour lines.



The detail (Right) shows areas where the paint itself is suggestive of form with no real "help" from me. I like that!


And what's a studio without a fruit still-life? So here's mine for the day -- an invented pear.

 I like this print. I like everything about it. I suppose when I  look at it again tomorrow, I'll find all kinds of things in it that  I don't like. But for now it's of interest. I especially like the irregular border edge of the image. It makes the taped-off "perfect" edge seem boring. I tried a little yellow ochre in this print. I wasn't happy with how that color printed; it's too dull compared to the result I'd envisioned. Next time I'll try a cadmium yellow or even a lemon yellow.
Print size is about 9 x 6 inches.

The detail (Above) shows what I achieved with the stem. I was really surprised by the printed image versus what I saw on the plate.

 This detail (Right) shows the upper left corner of the pear print. I was very excited to see how the layers of paint retained their own individual characteristics, texture and shape. I must have the press pressure about right for the amount of paint I was rolling onto the plate by the time I got to this particular print. Hmm. I see that the thinnest (most transparent) layer of paint is what the scanner saw as brownish and the progressively thicker (more opaque) layers it saw as somewhat blackish.

This (Below) is the last print of the session. I don't think it is necessarily the best of the session. Just the last. By this time I was becoming more comfortable with the speed at which I needed to be creating the images so that the paint would be fluid enough to transfer with the printing press.

 I applied a thicker layer of paint onto the plate for this image and then tried to realize the image as quickly as possible. The result was  more of a dark/light contrast rather than any real subtle shifts from dark to light or vice versa. I'm not sure I like the resulting print quality of this manner as well as the earlier ones. Print size is about 8 1/2 by 5 1/2 inches.

The detail (Right) shows strong decisive directional strokes or passes with brush and rag. I didn't use the cotton swabs on this print.

Another detail (Right.) I really tried to build form with just two or three values. Actually, only two values; the middle tones are the result of paint film left behind by the rag. If I wiped out too much, I simply added more paint with the brush.

All in all, the printing session was productive, not only in numbers of monotypes printed, but also in what I discovered in the process.

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!