Doug Hoppes Studio Notes

Boston Christmas Festival

2011-11-07T16:47:00.000-08:00

This last weekend, I had a booth setup for the Boston Christmas Festival in Boston, Massachusetts. Although hopeful in the beginning, I soon realized that the show was not for me. Although I sold one large painting and made a number of print sales, the crowds did not seem to have any interest in viewing my paintings. The crowds were definitely present, but they were primarily buying jewelry, food, or small/inexpensive items. Most of the people were just walking by my booth and didn't even come in or look at any items in the print bin. After talking with several other 2D artists, this trend seemed to be pretty consistent among them.

For those who did stop within the booth, the standard comments of "This is Gorgeous!", etc were given out. Usual questions about commissions or purchasing over the website were also answered. It'll be interesting to see how many contact me after the show.

Some interesting things did happen at the show, though. First of all, I met an old friend of mine from college. I went to Boston University in the mid-80's for a couple of years (until I couldn't afford it any more). A friend from freshman year, Sam, showed up in my booth. He immediately recognized me and I had an inkling of who he was when we first met. Since it was quiet in my booth, we had a chance to catch up a little bit. That was a great surprise.

Quite a number of the artists mentioned that I should be doing the Paradise City Art Fairs or art fairs in general (rather than just craft shows). The clientele who goes to those shows are more inclined to purchase my paintings. I totally agree. The traditional craft show seems to be filling up more and more with buy-sell vendors and people who don't do their own products (just resellers).

Got a nice compliment from an artist who mentioned that he thought that I had one of the top 15 booths at the show (considering that there were around 400 booths), that made me feel pretty good. Even the show producer stopped by my booth one morning and complimented me on how gorgeous my paintings were and how well my booth looked. She loved the style of my paintings and the presentation.

Another vendor mentioned that I really should be focusing on galleries because my work would sell well and fast. She took my card and is planning on presenting it to some gallery owners that she knows.

My process for art fairs/craft shows

2011-10-31T09:36:00.000-07:00

When doing a craft fair/art show, I break the event into four basic areas: pre-show setup, show setup, the show, and post-show.

Now, I’ve gotten better at this (believe me… my wife knows how disorganized I was). For the pre-show setup, I like to make sure that all of my prints are done, all labels are created, all prices are attached, and I’ve made a decision about what artwork to bring. My prints are separated into two bins (which is in my booth). The top bin contains multiple copies of my most popular prints (in alphabetical order). The bottom bin contains multiple copies of my other prints (in alphabetical order). I also begin wrapping my paintings in bubble-wrap and place them in boxes for transport. Other things that I make sure that I bring to a show: scissors, clear tape (for wrapping up paintings in bubble-wrap), extra bubble wrap, my credit card machine, extra roll of credit card paper, price labels, receipt book, extra pens, address form for new contacts (also, small clipboards), business cards, table cloth to cover my bins, water, extra lightbulbs, granola bars, and … most important… altoids (nothing like having your customers avoid you because of bad breath!). Now that I’m more organized, I do this several days to weeks ahead of schedule. I used to do this the morning before and it led to some incredibly hectic mornings!

Now, I like to setup for a show the night before. That way, if I forget something, I can bring it the next morning. So, when setting up a show, I keep a couple of things in mind. First of all, I make sure that I have plenty of room in my booth that people can come in. My chair and flip bins are against the outside corners. I like having people inside of the booth so that they look around without people running into them or walking in front of them in the aisle. I also position my lights so that they are taller than a 6’ person and not shining in people’s eyes. The setup is pretty simple. Using my graphic display panels, I have black coverings that show of my work pretty nicely. I place the $75 paintings over the prints because people who are mostly interested in prints may consider a lower price original. I also place my brightest and best paintings in the center of my booth. That way they are seen from a distance and have that “Wow!” effect when people walk by. The point is to get them to stop walking and come into the booth. For extra prints, etc, I keep the bins in back of my booth so that I can access the extra bubble-wrap and other materials easily.

Now, I mentioned that my top bin has my most popular prints. The top bin also contains shopping bags for my customers and some bubble-wrap/scissors/tape for paintings. The point is that you need to get to the materials to make the sale, replace the item and get the customer out of your booth as quickly as you can. It’s like a restaurant: the more people that you can get in/out with product, the more products that you can sell.

When working a show, I have a prepared script that I always follow. I would suggest that everybody has one. Something not truly annoying because you will say this a thousand times. First of all, you NEED to talk to the customer. Don’t sit in your chair in the back. You won’t get customers or sales. Don’t ignore them. You pay money to do this! The point is to come home with more money than you spent to be in the show. So, when a customer comes into my booth, I show them a paper that has a drawing on it and explain that I create drawings out of my head. Once the drawings are done, I mix the drawing with plein-air work to create my original pieces. The paintings are gallery-wrapped, so that there is no need to purchase a frame. From there, I let them look and interact with them, if they are a talkative type of person. Don’t continuously talk to them. They need time to look at everything. If they stand in front of a painting for a while (about 10 seconds), go over and talk to them about the painting. Ask them what they like about it, etc. Start a conversation. The most important thing that you can do is to say “Hi” to a lot of people and smile. This will get a lot of them to stop and enter your booth. Never judge about who can or cannot buy your art. You never know.

One of the things that I do, which some people say don’t, is that I sit in a chair. I have bad knees and can’t really stand in the same spot the entire day. So, I use a director’s chair. This helps me be at eye-level for most people. For people significantly shorter than me, I talk to them from the chair. It makes me less imposing. For most people , when they enter the booth, I get up to talk to them.

Also, never pack up early. You see a lot of vendors start to do this. I’ve sold works at the end of the show when people are starting to pack up

Once a show is done, I always write up a report. This details what I like about a show, what worked, what didn’t, what pieces the people bought, what they ignored, how much money I made, show costs, etc. That way, the next time the show rolls around, I can determine if it’s worth it for me to sign up again.

Weekend at the Mall

2011-10-23T18:18:00.001-07:00

Well, this weekend, I tried my first kiosk at a local mall. Here's what my kiosk looked like.

Overall, it wasn't bad. I did better than I thought. I was able to cover my fee for the weekend and, if things go well, may have sold several paintings in addition. Still, I need to try it about five more times before I can tell if it's worth doing.

The traffic on Saturday afternoon was the busiest. This is where a lot of families were shopping with their kids. Those families were the ones that consistently stopped and bought prints. After 6:00 p.m., the viewing of the art slowed down considerably due to the mall mainly being filled with adolescents and high school kids.

Sunday, the walking traffic was not all that great. Several people mentioned that the mall was pretty slow and empty. Not sure why. May be, since it had finally stopped raining here, people were taking advantage of the nice day.

So, the next time that I am planning to try this will be in January. The sales warranted me to give it another try. November and December are already booked up due to the holiday season.

Latest Painting: Transformation

2011-10-20T11:32:00.001-07:00

"Transformation" is an original 9" x 12" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.

CVU High School Fair: 2011

2011-10-16T07:42:00.000-07:00

For a one day show for me, this wasn't really that great. Don't know if it was the patrons or the product prices. However, only sold three prints, with the potential to sell more paintings later on (doubt it, though). The crowds were okay. At times, it was pretty busy and it was steady all day. However, watching the crowds, there weren't a lot of people carrying large items or any items at all. For those who had purchased stuff, it looked like the items were fairly small and inexpensive ($5 - $10 items). Seemed a lot of people were there for just looking around. Some of the other vendors that I talked to had a great show. However, they had a lot of smaller priced item.

Most people liked my paintings but felt that they couldn't afford them. More people, though, went directly to the print bin, after reviewing the paintings. I started collecting names for my contact list to send out coupons and notices to the various people who filled out the sign-up form. That worked out well.

According to Melissa, my sales pitch seems to be fine (need to not put my hand in front of my mouth when talking to some people). Also, a lot of people really liked the discussion of the drawing with the print. May have to work that into my display. Also, the display needs to have a visible sign with my name on it. Most people asked for my name. Need to change that up.

The setup went extremely well. Melissa helped with setting up and breaking down of the display. Reduced the time of setup from 2-1/2 hours to 1-1/2 hour and breakdown time went from 1-1/2 hours to under an hour. Plus, the new boxes for transporting the paintings worked out very well. The two boxes were able to fit all of the paintings that are to be on display easily in the truck.As usual, the load-in/break-down was very helpful. Some high school students helped bringing in the supplies and taking out the supplies. It was also helpful that one of the high school students went around to the vendors and took orders to bring them food.

Some of the things that I will need to do for the next show:

1) Create a banner sign with my name on it. Something fairly visible with my website.

2) Create a matted pen/ink drawing for each of my paintings. For a purchase of the painting, you get the pen/ink concept drawing.

3) Possibly work up a little booklet that shows how I go from a pen/ink drawing to a finished painting. Something that people can take with them. Something inexpensive. Need to figure that one out.

Overall, it's a good show for a more "crafty" type vendor, but not for 2D artists.

Latest Painting: Transition

2011-10-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

"Transition" is an original 9" x 12" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.

Figure Drawing Session: 9/26/2011

2011-09-26T19:37:00.001-07:00

More studies. Worked on foreshortening and back studies, tonight.

Latest Painting: Cliffs

2011-09-26T09:33:00.001-07:00

"Cliffs" is an original 9" x 12" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.

Nude Study: 15

2011-09-25T19:39:00.001-07:00

Starting to practice from memory. The initial drawing was done several weeks ago at my figure drawing session. I'm trying to see how well my values worked and if I can translate them to deeper pen/ink strokes without having to resort to a photo or any other reference.

Latest Painting: Everywhere at Once

2011-09-25T14:48:00.000-07:00

"Everywhere at Once" is an original 14" x 18" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.

Nude Study: 14

2011-09-23T19:29:00.000-07:00

Wanted to play with a bit of foreshortening tonight. For foreshortening, it is imperative that, in addition to getting the shape correct, the values of the shadows layers need to be correct. If the shadow areas are off, then the perception of the body part coming towards you/away from you is incorrect.

Nude Study: 10

2011-09-18T19:39:00.001-07:00

Another Nude Study.

Nude Study: 9

2011-09-16T19:32:00.000-07:00

Another study of the female form. I love the female form and drawing with pen/ink. With pen/ink, there's such a nice range of values that can be achieved.

Figure Drawing Session: 9/12/2011

2011-09-12T18:19:00.001-07:00

Tonight was the first night for the current figure drawing session. During the summer time (mainly August), the figure drawing session at the Burlington City Arts is discontinued until more people are around. So, tonight was the first night.

Now that I'm more into drawing people, it's also time for me to get back to live figure drawing. These are my attempts for the night. For the most part, they are all 20 minute poses.

Art Hop

2011-09-10T12:15:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the 19th year for the SEABA Art Hop. The Art Hop is a large festival where a lot of local artist show their work along Pine Street in South Burlington, Vermont. Friday night is usually the big night with a lot of music, artists, etc. The crowds are generally pretty good.

So, last night, I had my paintings hanging in the hallway of the Maltex building (on the second floor). I made sure that I was there between 5:00 - 8:00 (pm).. later, if there were going to be a lot of people to talk to. I also brought some mailing address cards to see if I could start to collect contact information for mailings.

Now, for the most part, the Art Hop is more about exposure than sales. There are rarely any sales at this festival. It's a great way to get new artists to show their work and to make contacts. So, I wasn't expecting any sales for this weekend.

However, around 8:00, I was noticing that there wasn't a lot of people that were showing up on my floor. Matter of fact, I probably talked to about 40 or 50 people for the entire time that I was there. Some of the people mentioned that the first floor was jam-packed with people. So, naturally, I thought, they'll be coming upstairs. They didn't. When I decided to leave around 8:30, the outside street was JAMMED with people. Lots of places you could barely walk. The building that I was in was almost devoid of people. The buildings across the street had a ton of people.

So, that means that, if I'm going to do this again, next year, I need to get my work into one of the business buildings rather than the Maltex. 'Course, I need to think about this over the next year. Exposure doesn't equate sales. It only equate sales in places where people are planning to spend money.

Nude Study: 8

2011-09-06T18:52:00.000-07:00

Decided to start adding more cloth to the drawings. I think that they tend to lend more interest.

Latest Painting: Parallels

2011-09-06T08:33:00.000-07:00

"Parallels" is an original 9" x 12" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.

Male Study: 1

2011-09-04T18:17:00.001-07:00

Starting to incorporate male figures in the study. Need to check out the muscle structure.

Customers Remember the day of their purchase

2011-09-04T13:19:00.000-07:00

As I'm trying to figure out ways to market my work and increase my sales, I came across a set of books written by Jack White. He has a number of books about the "Magic of Selling Art", etc. In reality, there's is no magic, but he has a lot of good common sense suggestions about various ways to market your artwork, present it, close sales, etc.

So, reading one of the books, he started talking about the "Day of Remembrance" for people purchasing your artwork. I was thinking in my head... "yeah... right... it's just a product". However, more I read and the more I thought about it. He's right. I may be selling a painting, but whomever purchases it, will remember the day that they purchase it. I remember the days that I purchased each one of the paintings in my house. Couldn't tell you about the day that I bought groceries or my tv, etc. But, I do remember the day for each one of my painting purchases.

I remember one special instance around Christmas time. This was when I first started mixing landscapes with abstract shapes and doing everything in oil. I remember that, at a local Christmas art fair, one of the vendors' wife came by and saw my work early on. As with everybody I meet at shows, I make sure that I talk to them (Need to do a better job of listening, but working on that part) and be my friendly, charming self. Later that day, her husband came by and said that his wife saw my paintings and that he should take a look. We talked for a bit and he picks out two paintings. His wife comes back later and then, sighs, when she has realized that he picked out my two most expensive paintings. However, it was his Christmas gift and I thanked them as I wrapped them up. So far, typical sales story.

The Day of Rememberance bit comes later. She saw me at this same show the following year. Asked me how I was doing and had to mention that her husband still loves the paintings. Whenever anybody new comes to the house, he talks about how he met the artist, how the artist works from his pen/ink sketches to come up with the concept, and then takes plein-air paintings or photos to compose the painting. He talks about how I showed him my sketchbook to see how it all started, etc.

I realized, that for me, it's my typical way of doing work, but it's incredibly fascinating to people who don't think my way. I also realized that my talking about how I do things is kind of like a "show" for them and they get to relate that story to anybody who questions them about the painting.

For me, it was when I first started mixing landscapes with abstract shapes and doing everything in oil. I remember that, at a local Christmas art fair, one of the vendors' wife came by and saw my work early one. As with everybody I meet at shows, I make sure that I talk to them (Need to do a better job of listening, but working on that part) and be my friendly, charming self. Later that day, her husband came by and said that his wife saw my paintings and that he should take a look. We talk for a bit and he picks out two paintings. His wife comes back later and then, sighs, when she has realized that he picked out my two most expensive paintings. However, it was his Christmas gift and I thanked them as I wrapped them up. So far, typical sales story.

The Day of Rememberance bit comes later. She saw me at this same show the following year. Asked me how I was doing and had to mention that her husband still loves the paintings. Whenever anybody new comes to the house, he talks about how he met the artist, how the artist works from his pen/ink sketches to come up with the concept, and then takes plein-air paintings or photos to compose the painting. He talks about how I showed him my sketchbook to see how it all started, etc.

I realized, that for me, it's my typical way of doing work, but it's incredibly fascinating to people who don't think my way. I also realized that my talking about how I do things is kind of like a "show" for them and they get to relate that story to anybody who questions them about the painting.

Now that I know this, I can see of ways of working it into my sales procedure to make sure that the customer remembers when they purchase the painting. This may, then, lead to repeat sales and another addition to my customer base.

Nude Study: 1

2011-09-03T13:48:00.000-07:00

Another nude study. While I'm waiting for my print supplies to come in the mail, might as well get some more drawing/painting work done.

Nude Study

2011-08-29T17:11:00.000-07:00

Hey! Guess what I drew again tonight! Yeppers! Another nude study. These are getting to be quite fun!

I'm also working on not texturing the body so much. See if I can go for more subtle shading for the women. Gives them a softer touch.

Woman with sword

2011-08-28T17:35:00.001-07:00

Well, lately I've been busy making new prints for shows coming up this fall and reading about ideas for self-promotion (Courtesy of a book by Jack White called "Mastery of Self-Promotion"). However, since I ran out of printing ink (have more coming in the mail), time to get back into some drawing/painting practice and hold off on some of the business tasks (at least for a couple of days).

So, back to drawing women again in pen/ink. Here's tonight's incarnation. As before, had to do this a second time. After taking a bit of a break for dinner, I went back and looked at the first drawing... the proportions were wrong, etc. So, had to take another crack at it. Like this one much better.

Latest Painting: Cycles

2011-08-24T09:15:00.000-07:00

"Cycles" is an original 16" x 20" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.

Amazon

2011-08-23T19:40:00.000-07:00

Busy day today. Dropped off some paintings for the Essex Junction Fairgrounds, dropped off some paintings for the South East Burlington Art Association's Art Hop, finished the current painting that I was working on... and, finally, finished the nude drawing that I started working on last night.

Don't settle if there are issues

2011-08-21T19:48:00.000-07:00

Working with another nude drawing, I decided that I needed to do this drawing twice.

The first time that I did this drawing, I wasn't near as careful with the proportions as I should have been. In the end, the head was too small, the torso too long and the legs were awkward. Now, I could have left it the way that it is and I'm sure that some people would have said that it looked nice. However, after I reviewed the drawing (after taking a break to work on my latest paining), I realized that I couldn't just leave it that way. Therefore, I did the second drawing paying a lot more attention to the angles, lengths, etc. That one turned out much better.

For me, although I love the art that I produce at the end, I gain the most enjoyment from the process itself. When drawing, if the drawing is not right, I just have to continue to work to get it right.

Nude Study

2011-08-20T19:40:00.000-07:00

Another nude study. In the photograph, I like the way that the hair falls across the face and the way that the shadows permeate throughout the body.

The profile is such a simple one, but the shoulders and head position tell a lot about the mood of the female.

Figure Drawing

2011-08-18T18:37:00.000-07:00

Had some more time tonight and decided to work on more figure drawing study. The pictures that I'm working from are from a photographer named mjranum. Besides photographing beautiful women, the light levels of the photographs make it pretty easy to see the muscle definition.

These practices help me understand the different muscles on the body and help with my hand/eye coordination. Since figure drawing is one of my weaker areas, I need to work harder to improve in that area.

Latest Painting: Triad

2011-08-16T08:57:00.000-07:00

"Triad" is an original 14" x 18" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.

Nude Study

2011-08-15T17:02:00.000-07:00

Another Nude Study. These are actually becoming quite fun! After a dozen or so more of these studies, I'm going to need to figure out how to paint them.

Bug Lady

2011-08-13T19:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, this started out as a normal nude sketch. Really.... it did... After I had drawn the basic body, I was thinking of adding some standard wings. Nothing special....

Then something in my mind clicked. I didn't like the way that the head was shaped. So, I wondered what she would look like with a bug head. For the head, I started out with a standard dragonfly head... then, played around with it a little bit to make it more scalar.

This is what I came up with.... it's weird.

Nude

2011-08-12T19:32:00.001-07:00

One of the areas that I'm extremely lacking in is the figure study. This was quite apparent at this year's IMC. However, since most illustrations for book covers, magazines, etc involve the human figure, decided that I really should practice more at it.

So, here's my first effort.

Another Bug

2011-08-09T18:16:00.001-07:00

More practicing with bugs. I'm liking how the wings are looking and the torso. I'm thinking that it would be interesting to see how the legs, wings and abdomen do on other creatures.

For right now, still need to do a lot more bugs to get the right feel of the creatures. This'll help when I start mixing them with other creatures.

Not Quite the Standard Wasp

2011-08-06T18:16:00.003-07:00

So, now that I'm trying to draw more and indulge into my "weirder" side, I've decided that I really really like drawing bugs. Don't know why. For some reason, they rank up there with eyes. Next thing you know, I'll probably be drawing large eyes with bug legs.

Well, I also need to make sure that I maintain my drawing skills. I know that a number of people do not consider drawing skills to be important for painters, but, in my opinion, I think that they are wrong. This is even true for abstract painters. Without a solid foundation of drawing skills, you can't accurately represent anything realistically. No matter how much paint you put on the canvas or try to explain away the image has being interpretive, a poor drawing is a poor drawing. It takes away from the final painting. I think that many artist try to come up with the hokey explanation "I wanted it to be that way" to hide their poor drawing skills.

So, practice at drawing is another avenue that I have to make sure that I work at.

In this drawing, I was mixing the forearms of a person with the regular shape of a wasp. I like the sleek lines of a wasp and the coloration.

Latest Painting: Reflection

2011-08-05T09:29:00.000-07:00

"Reflection" is an original 22" x 16" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.

Next painting idea

2011-08-04T11:52:00.001-07:00

While I'm finishing up the painting of my last drawing (should have it done tonight and will post it tomorrow), decided to post the drawing for my next painting.

In this idea, I'll take a smaller plein-air painting that I did last summer and mix it with a sword guard. The landscape that you see is Webster Lake, New Hampshire. It was a grey morning with some great darkish fog just sitting on the water.

I also was rummaging through some old photographs and came across this sword guard. So, I drew three-quarters of it to accentuate the landscape.

For the painting, the sphere near the center will be the center of interest. It'll be a blue ball on fire. The sword guard will be clear blue glass and you will be able to see the square background and the landscape behind it. Also, the blue fire will highlight the edge of the glass guard.

Not sure how it'll turn out, but, as Greg Manchess mentioned at IMC... need to "Embrace your failures!"... which I do a lot!

Latest drawing for newest painting

2011-08-02T05:11:00.000-07:00

Now that my shows are done for the summer, time to get back to painting. Here's the latest drawing that I came up with for my landscape/shape paintings.

I really like the design of this image. I have some photos and some plein air paintings of trees that would match this situation. My initial thought is that the tree will contain some orange/yellow (fall colors) and have a darkish background. For the background, I think that I'm going to try some of the classic Master's colors of umbers, dark siennas. I think that it would make the yellows of the tree pop out.

Taste of Stowe:Day 3 (Overall Review)

2011-07-31T17:58:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I attended the Taste of Stowe show in Stowe, Vermont. The show lasted three days and, for the most part, the weather was good. Nice and sunny, without being too hot or humid on all of the days. There were brief showers on Friday (the first day) that started at the end of the day. However, since I was under a large tent, my stuff didn't seem to have any problems getting rained on.

The crowds, for the most part, were not that large. Friday, to be expected, the day was slow and, although a steady stream, not a large number of people. This is to be expected since it was a work day and most of the crowd would have been retired people or tourists. I was hoping for a much larger crowd on Saturday and Sunday, but that didn't seem to happen. On both days, there were definitely more people, but they were, what I like to call, "tire kickers". A lot of them would come into the booth, look around, and then leave. This seem to happen to a number of the other 2D artists also. Now, in certain cases, they definitely seem to be buying prints, but not a lot of larger items. Several of the other artists around me had good luck and secure some decent sales (enough to make booth fee and some extra). I only know of one instance in which a person made a really nice sale on an extremely large painting. Other than that, the sense that I got from a lot of the other artists was that they didn't do well (like me) or just did okay.... nothing special.

As usual, a number of people commented on my booth and the vivid colors of my paintings. I showed them my pen/ink work in my sketchbook and the process that I go through to create a painting. A lot of them loved the sketch book and wondered why I didn't also sell the drawings. For the most part, people would come into my booth, look around, gush over how gorgeous and unique my paintings were, and then leave. Some promised to come back, but, as many other vendors know, this rarely happens.

In essence, the people who were attending the show were not my target audience (25 - 40 year old couples). The artists who did sell a lot of work produced nice paintings of traditional landscape/recognizable buildings of the surrounding Stowe area. Most people seem to gravitate towards the traditional landscape or definite Vermont-style photographs/paintings.

Setup and break-down went pretty fast and presented no issues. I did run into an issue with one of my painting titles (Rainbow Bridge). This upset several people and they couldn't bring themselves to purchase the print or the original. Therefore, I had to rename it "Back to Nature" to help with the selling of the print/painting (although, neither one sold after those incidents).

Taste of Stowe: Day 2 (Should have listened to my wife)

2011-07-30T16:10:00.000-07:00

Today was the second day of the Taste of Stowe. There were more people today, than yesterday, but, only sold a handful of prints. Standard routine: "I love your paintings...", then stare at them for a while and then walk away. As usual, the main people that loved my work were kids and younger adults.

Unfortunately, I lost some sales due to my stupidity. I also made a couple of people tear up and say "I love this painting, but I can't buy it (or the print)". What magic thing caused me to lose several sales? Simple. Naming this painting "Rainbow Bridge". Note: My wife told me several times not to name it that!

Now for those who don't know, the Rainbow bridge is the bridge that dogs cross over when they pass away. A lot of times, people will say that other dogs are waiting on the other side for your dog. It's a place where the dogs run around, play, and have fun with other dogs (Doggie Heaven). Not a good decision to have a constant reminder on the wall that your dog passed away. Not good for sales. My wife told me this, but I wanted to stay true to my artistic design. So, I have two options: 1) keep the painting for me and name it "Rainbow Bridge" or 2) rename it and sell it. I have lots of paintings and drawings that remind me of my dogs. In my mind, this will always be about them. For others, it will be titled "Back to Nature".

Hoping tomorrow will be a better day. I'd like to, at least, make booth fee!

Taste of Stowe: Day 1

2011-07-29T17:04:00.001-07:00

Today was the first day of the Taste of Stowe Art Festival (Stowe, Vermont). The weather was predicted to be rainy all day with brief periods of thunderstorms. Fortunately, this held off until about the last hour of the show. Therefore, there were quite a number of people visiting the booths today (more than expected). Tomorrow is the really busy day, so, hoping that sales will be good and that people are in the mood for spending money.

Overall, today wasn't bad. Had a number of customers stop by and take some long looks at some of my paintings. No sales, but some potentials (We'll see if they really come through). Was able to sell some prints, though.

As usual, my work was most loved by kids (for the bright colors) and by adults who weren't interested in the traditional oil painting landscape. There were lots of comments about the paintings being bright, fun and happy.

With the weather tomorrow being a gorgeous 80 degrees with bright sunshine, there should be a LOT of people there.

Playing with Clayboard

2011-07-28T09:50:00.000-07:00

Playing with the clayboard and starting to add watercolor washes to my pen/ink piece.

One of the things that I realized about clayboard is that, with watercolor, the paint dries really really fast. If you use too much water, it just sits on the board. If you use too little water, it dries fast on the board.

So, the next step is to lay down the basic wash for the clouds.

One of the weird things that I forgot about watercolor is that you can't move paint around like you do with oils. However, I'm liking the look of the watercolor and pen/ink on the clayboard. More practice will produce better results.

New Surface

2011-07-26T19:43:00.001-07:00

During the Illustration Master's Class (2011), I was just doodling a pen/ink creature in my sketch book when Iain McCaig (of Star Wars Fame) came over and said that he really liked my drawing. He suggested that the drawing would look awesome with a mixture of my pen/ink style and watercolor washes. Once I had the painting done, definitely send him the image. He was very interested in seeing it.

Well, it's been a month since the end of IMC and I'm finally getting around to actually doing the work. In the past, I've done the watercolor washes with my pen/ink work on very very smooth watercolor paper. However, this time I wanted to try something different. I wanted a sturdier surface.

I could try Donato's method for transferring the image or I could try something even more newer (to me). Using Clayboard. Once I started working with the clayboard, I immediately fell in love with the surface. It's amazingly smooth and the pen just glides over it. It'll be interesting to see how the watercolor washes work on it.

Latest Painting: Natural Construction

2011-07-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

"Natural Construction" is an original 16" x 22" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

When adding new man-made features to a landscape, we tend to try to make something that contains the natural colors and seems to fit. However, more times than not, the linear shapes give it away. Also, the colors tend to be more saturated and pure. These are not the colors that you see in nature. Yet, as always, it's still done to serve a purpose and make some aspect of our lives more comfortable.

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.

Through the Looking Glass

2011-07-24T17:24:00.000-07:00

Today, started to think about the next painting that I'm going to work on. In this case, there's a competition that is based on glass. Thought that it would be interesting to do a landscape painting with a glass structure that is semi-obscuring it. The centroid area could be some sort of glowing sphere.

2011-07-24T16:50:00.001-07:00

During vacation, had some time to work on some traditional plein-air landscape studies. In this case, rather than do a full scene, I just wanted to work on some aspects of the landscape that needs practice. Besides, it was just fun to be out there drawing and painting.

Portrait Work

2011-07-24T16:45:00.000-07:00

Over my vacation, I realized that one of my weakest areas is figurative work. For the most part, I really don't have an interest in figurative work, but more and more, as I start thinking about odd creations/creatures, I realize how important it is.

So, time to start practicing it.

As I started doing this drawing, I still seem to have some odd interest in eyeballs. Not sure why. However, it just seemed to fit that she should have an eyeball for a mouth. Not sure what that means, but, for me, there's something appealing about it.

2011-07-24T16:17:00.000-07:00

Just before my vacation, came across an absolutely fantastic artist named "Daarken" (http://daarken.com/ ). Besides the amazing creativity of his work, I really like the detail of his characters and the contrasts of his paintings. So, to help me come up with more elaborate creature designs and character practice (for next year's Illustration Master Class), what better way than to study his paintings and then draw from them.

The first step is to just work on the basic reproduction of his paintings. See where he emphasizes the character study, the facial descriptions and the clothing. Once I have a good feel for that part, I'll move onto seeing how he paints his creations.

An important factor in simulating his paintings will be to try to reproduce his fine art portrait work. I still have a lot of studying to do before I can get to the painting phase.

2011-07-24T04:24:00.001-07:00

More Studies. Well, just got back from vacation and was able to get a lot of painting time and drawing time in. One of the things that I recently learned was that I needed to start studying other works from other artists that I like. One of my favorite artists is Paul Bachem. I love the way that he does the greens in his paintings and the variety of strokes that he uses. I also like the simplicity of the painting. For me, the painting have a definite feel of peacefulness.

So, started doing some more 4 x 5 studies of the painting. In each case, I didn't do an exact replica of the painting, but tried to create more of the peaceful mood of the work. Also, I zoomed in (using my iPad) to see how he changes the strokes in various directions.

Comparing yourself to other artists

2011-07-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

So, lately, I've increased my number of facebook "friends" to a lot of people that I met at the Illustration Master Class. It's been a great eye-opener to see their artwork and their processes. In addition, most of them are "friends" with other professional illustrators. So, I "friended" them also to check out their work.

The trap that I start finding myself drawn into is the comparison of my artwork with theirs. In many cases, all of their artwork seems superior and mine seems inferior. This is a trap that you can't fall into. When looking at the works, I can definitely see things that I really like (the detail of the paintings, the backgrounds, the way that they do lighting, the compositions, etc). Those are things that I can always improve on.

However, this doesn't mean that my artwork is bad. This just means that my artwork is different and is aimed for a different audience. My clients like the simple colorful shapes that accompany a traditional landscape. They would not be happy to see demons or dragons or fireballs, etc within those shapes.

So, what does this mean? This means that I can look at other artists' works, see how they do some effect that I particular like and determine how to put that effect into my simpler-designed paintings. In addition, it gives me areas to see where my work is deficient and, after studying the other artists' paintings, how to improve my own.

So, looking at other's works are definitely helpful. (Note: This comparison idea hit me when I started looking at the works of Daarken. An absolutely amazing artist whose work can be seen at: http://daarken.com/ )

Latest Painting: Fishing Expedition

2011-07-11T09:23:00.001-07:00

"Fishing Expedition" is an original 9" x 12" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

There are times when I just let my imagination go and see where it leads me. In this story, we have a traditional lure being used the "Eye" thing. What type of creature is he trying to catch, I don't know. However, as with most lures, the lure is bright and significantly different from everything in it's surrounding.

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.

Surprisingly good day

2011-07-04T16:07:00.000-07:00

Well, the day turned out better than I'd hoped. As several years ago, today, I'd participated in a very very tiny art show at the Williston Central School. Today, there were only three artists attending (me and two other). In the past, there's been as many as ten artist participating. However, the show had no entry fee and it lasted several hours. So, the only thing that I would lose would be my time for the afternoon.

First thing, when I showed up this morning... there was no electricity. The entire school was dark. The town blew a transformer and there was no estimate when the electricity would be on. So, that pretty much will kill any potential sales.

Secondly, after about an hour (still setting up), the fire alarm goes off. Due to the fact that there was no electricity, the water pressure for the indoor sprinkler system was getting lower, and, eventually, triggered the fire alarm. We all had to evacuate the building. So, things seem to be getting worse. Now, it's about 45 minutes before the start of the art show, we have no lights, no electricity and we can't even get back into the building. The day was going to be a wash.

Finally, about 20 minutes before the art show was officially supposed to start, we were back into the building, the lights came on and we were raring to go. The crowds were light, but I did sell the painting above and I also sold about 8 prints. So, a profit was made for the day.

The day definitely turned out better than when it started.

Plein Air (Shelburne Museum)

2011-07-02T12:44:00.001-07:00

It's a beautiful day in Vermont with the sun shining brightly and the temps actually hitting the mid-80's. So, figured that this would be a perfect morning to head on out to Shelburne Museum and get some plein air painting work done.

This little scene is a pretty quiet area near the back of the museum and there isn't a lot of foot traffic. Nice part was that I remembered to bring my business cards with me. Handed out quite a number to various visitors to the museum.

Another Weird Drawing

2011-06-30T18:28:00.000-07:00

Yep... some more weird drawings. In this case, I was thinking about some basic abstract shapes for my next painting and came across a picture of a neuron. Coupled that with some eyes and change out the body a bit, and we have this little boy.

The idea was some sort of storm creature that floated around the clouds and absorbed energy from the electricity. Since he has a large mouth, a more efficient way to hunt is to have his eye(s) on tentacles in his mouth. He darts straight for the prey, captures it in the mouth (like a whale) and then it passes under the eye and into the gullet. The stick-like appendages around the mouth are used to collect energy so that he can survive, if there is not enough food to eat. The "hands" contain soft filia to help filter out small particulate bugs in the air. Naturally, the "tail" helps him maneuver around the wind currents.

Latest Painting: Focal Point

2011-06-30T09:22:00.000-07:00

"Focal Point" is an original 14" x 18" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

When working on a landscape painting, there is always some area of interest that I want to paint. This is the main focal point. The areas outside of that focal area are the supporting actors in the scene. For each person, that focus point is different and is based on their particular tastes or desires. In this case, for some reason, I really liked the trees farther out in the distance.

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.

Starting work on newest painting

2011-06-27T09:14:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm recharged from the IMC, started work on my latest painting. The story concept that I'm going with is that when we look at a landscape scene, there is always something that interests us. For each person, it's different. In this case, from the photo reference, I really liked the landscape in the distance.

So, the first step was to create the thumbnail for the image. As learned from IMC, I need to create multiple thumbnails and not just go with the first one that I like. Also, for the abstract shapes, I searched various images on the internet until I came across an image that seem to match what I wanted.

The thumbnail shows the basic shapes that were used to give the painting some dimensionality. It also borders the focal area to create additional interest to view that area. Now that the thumbnail is the way that I wanted it, other techniques to focus the eye on the focal area will be to use color. For the area around the focal point, a simple grey-scale painting will be done. At this point, I think that the bands will be red, but not sure.

Things to remember are to: 1) apply different strokes in different directions to create interest. 2) Don't rely on symbols for the water or trees. Mass them the way that they are, 3) Remember to establish a foreground, middle ground, and background. In this case, the water in front is the foreground, the trees and area of focus are the middle ground, and the water/trees in the area of focus are the background. Need to establish the values appropriately.

Weirder and Weirder

2011-06-24T10:23:00.001-07:00

So, last night I was playing around with drawing more eyes and came up with this boy. It started out as a simple snake with an eye for a head. Then, I figured that that was pretty boring, so, started adding more eyes.

Next thing you know, I ended up with a mouth, a fuller body and a bunch of eye stalks.

Now, it looks kind of like a mad carrot with a snake body and a bunch of different eye stalks. After that, I realized that it was time for me to go to bed.

Why Do It?

2011-06-24T05:08:00.001-07:00

You know... after the IMC, I started thinking a lot about my artwork, the illustration field, selling of my products, studying, etc. Then, I start thinking about all of the things in my life: my wife and doggers, my friends, my work, my activities and hobbies. I realized that, when I'm starting something, I'm a pretty focused individual. I work really really hard to be good at it.

When I started rock-climbing, I trained, read books, took lessons such that I could start climbing 5.10b's. When I started programming, I read everything that there was about programming, programmed in my spare time, took workshops, and eventually became a really good programmer. Same with hiking. It wasn't enough to just hike here and there, my friend and I had to hike at different parts of the world (Kilimanjaro, Machu Pichu, Iceland, etc). In every case, to make sure that I did well, I trained. It's not always fun. Most of the time, it's a lot of hard work. However, there's something in me that requires me to excel at it. Not to be the best, but to be pretty good.

This comes with a price. It means that I focus on it to the exclusion of other things. When I was training for Kilimanjaro, I hiked a lot with my friends, but, on my own time, I worked out, I only read hiking/training books, I only ate properly, etc.

Same is true with my artwork. For the last 3 years, I've only read art books, I spent a lot of time drawing and painting, taking lessons, working on the business model to sell my work, etc. My artwork sells at art/craft fairs. Generally enough to pay my booth fees, supply costs, etc. So, the "hobby" is paying for itself. Plus, I usually have money left over to buy my wife jewelry and gifts and the occasional toy for myself (i.e. an iPad and a laptop).

However, for the last 6 months, I've not been having fun. Why? I don't need the money to eat. I don't need the money for retirement. I have a very good job, that I love, with great co-workers and an extremely good salary. I don't need to have people tell me how great I am to feed my ego. I also don't have that obsessive drive that people have for certain activities (You HAVE to draw every day or every other day or you feel bad, etc.... I enjoy drawing/painting, but it's not a requirement for me to be happy).

So, why do I do it? Because drawing and painting make me happy. Would I still be happy even if I wasn't selling my work? Absolutely. It's the way that I am. I'm a nice, goofy, happy guy. This is due to my nature and who I am. Not what I do. Time to remember that. Time to remember why my friends hang out with me. Time to reconnect with the life that I use to have.

I remember in Greg Manchess' talk at IMC, he mentioned that artwork is not fun. He meant that, I'm assuming, that, if you are working for someone, it's a job. It's not always fun. It's a lot of hard work. Since I don't have this as a job, I CAN have it always to be fun. For me, when I get to periods that it's not fun, it's time to stop. Maybe resume it later. Maybe not. For me, life is about having fun and enhancing the life of my friends/family around me.

Self-confidence and Self-doubt

2011-06-22T06:19:00.000-07:00

Well, now that I'm back from my workshop and starting to get back to work on my paintings, I realize that I'm stuck. For the last couple of days, I'm trying to figure out how to do a basic painting. Most of it is related to self-confidence and self-doubt.

Now, as many of my friends know, when it comes to my work, I'm a pretty confident guy. I've been a physicist studying atmospheric effects on laser weapon systems (For Hughes Aircraft), been an engineer designing missile trackers (using Kalman Filtering techniques) and air defense networks, been lead architect/designer building Medicare enrollment systems, Toll Plaza ticketing systems, financial stock systems, and I'm currently writing software for a neuroscience company. I've had a pretty successful career and have been happy with all of my accomplishments. I've worked hard at it and studied a lot.

So, my next phase is to be a successful artist. People like my paintings. I sell a number of them at art fairs and to various other venues. My prints seem to be pretty popular. At this time, I sell enough to pay for all of my shows and my supplies, plus my display systems.

So, given all of that, why am I not confident in my artwork. It was IMC. Seeing all of those amazing artists, I realize that I have a LONG way to go. Seeing the amazing paintings and concepts from people, I view my art as relative simple. I think that it's just not good enough.

We are our own worst critics.

How do I get back to where I was confident again? Simple. After indulging in the emotion of not being good enough and self-pity (I always indulge in the emotion. As Tuesdays with Morrie wrote, give into the emotion, see it for what it is, then release it), I now have a plan of attack. I realized that I LIKE my paintings. They may be simple, but I LIKE them. I'm not one to admire the really complex painting with a lot of things going on. So, given that, what can I do? I can make my abstract shapes a little more complex (eventually adding a 3D aspect to them). I can render the landscape more realistically (do a better job of massing the shapes).

I don't need to follow everything that I did when I was at IMC. I just need to get the pieces that I learned and liked and fold them into my painting style. I LIKE my painting style and my paintings give me a sense of peace when I view them.

Now, back to work.

Eyes again

2011-06-21T18:57:00.001-07:00

Yep... more eyes. As I draw more and more eyes, I'm getting used to certain features that are always present in the eye. The curvature of the eye, the various textures within the pupil area, and the various ways that the eye lids look. Now that I think that I have the basic eyes down, I think the next phase is to work on various eye expressions. I started that a little bit with the last image, but I need to explore different ways that the eyes and eyebrows are shaped for different expressions.

IMC Notes

2011-06-20T19:30:00.001-07:00

Here's a collection notes and things that I learned while I was there. This is, by no means, the complete list, but it's very useful information:

1) Draw the shape, not the object

2) Great idea to copy the masters. Not just the old masters, but people's whose work that you admire. Check out their brush strokes, how they composed the painting, their value range, etc.

3) Learn to know how to see. Don't use symbols.

4) Think always in terms of foreground, middle-ground, and background.

5) warm shadows -> cool light, cool shadows -> warm light

6) When drawing, the thinner line is facing the light and the heavier line is facing the shadows.

7) The best paintings tell a story. What's the story? Figure out the story and then the emotion and then the painting will fall into place.

8) Artwork is about pushing yourself. Do what you want to do and be passionate about it.

9) Clients do not hire you because you can do everything, they hire you because you can do something no one else can do.

10) Find your motivation. Have to want it. Not give up. It's not fun. Get over it. Get back to work.

11) Be your own toughest critic. There are no perfect first draft. All drawing is re-drawing.

12) Beware of the dark side. Bitterness and Blame. Failure is good. It's what you do with the failure that determines how you do.

13) Identify your limitations and then ignore them. Time is a crucial input to excellence.

14) Delay gratification and reset contentedness. Embrace small accomplishments along the way.

15) Have Heroes. Study other paintings that you admire. See how they did it. The brush strokes/pen marks, the compositions, the lighting, etc.

16) Embrace failure. Train. Stop. Analyze Failure. Improve. Move on.

17) A picture is more articulate with a light on a center point, rather than on all of it.

18) Be Courageous. You must show conviction in yourself, if you want to convince others.

19) Write down the core emotion that you want to have for the painting.

20) They wouldn't call it bottom feeding if there wasn't food down there.

21) If you don't know what emotion you want to convey in your work, you will feel... nothing.

22) You want to reach someone's heart and hold it. Make them feel the emotion.

23) You have to be prepared to open your heart.

24) You want them to fall in love with what you've given them.

More Eyes

2011-06-20T19:08:00.001-07:00

Yep... more practicing with eyes. They're not coming out too bad. The nice part of the practice is that I get more familiar with my line marks. Since I draw directly with the pen, rather than ink over pencil marks, I need to make sure that the line is the correct line. Once I get done with a total of 60 eyes (going to try to draw 3 eyes a day for the next 20 days), I can start the painting of them.

One of the important things that I learned from the Illustration Master Class was that you need to practice drawing, in addition to painting. They all affect one another. If you have an hour here or there, you have time to draw. The most successful artists spend a lot of their time working (drawing and painting). If I want to get to that level, I need to step up my game and work harder.

Paul Bachem Study

2011-06-20T16:36:00.000-07:00

So, during the Illustration Master Class, we were told that a great way to improve our work is the age-old method of studying the "masters". I've heard that before, but never really thought about trying it.

The caveat, as the instructors said, is that you need to study the paintings of people that you admire. They don't have to be the old masters. You need to study the painting, see how they did their brush strokes, see how they laid out the composition, etc. That's a great idea and there are a lot of modern day painters that I really like.

One of them is Paul Bachem. I love the way that he does landscapes. So, I started working on studying one of his paintings (I forgot the name of it). I like how he mixed non-traditional colors into every part of the scene. There's a lot of energy to the painting.

More studies to come.

The Eyes Have it

2011-06-20T10:56:00.000-07:00

For some reason, during the IMC, I started having an interest in Eyes (and candles and burning things). Not sure why.

However, to indulge myself, I decided that I need to start drawing eyes for a while and see where that gets me. Not sure what I'm going to do with them, but some of the images may involve syringes near the eyes, cascading water droplets, teeth around them, etc.

I'll have to see what weird things my imagination dregs up.

IMC: Day 7 (Friday)

2011-06-20T10:21:00.000-07:00

Friday was the last day. We're all tired and really don't feel like working on our painting. This was a mixture of a sad and happy day.

I got up early and had every intention of heading into the studio to get more work done. However, after hanging out with people at breakfast and having only an hour left to paint, I decided that it was done enough to look good. I didn't want to mess up the painting in the last hour.

So, went around the studio talking to people and checking out their artwork. The interesting part was that I noticed that the art was not near as finished as I thought they were several nights ago. Most people were about in the same state that I was currently at. The paintings were not finished and there was still a lot of work that needs to be done.

Being tired definitely skews up the results.

So, after the final departing lectures, we had a book-signing where all of the artists and students sign each other's book. Nice part is, since we are all artists, everybody just drew in the other people's books. Once the signing was done, we were done. Everybody was heading out for a big drink-fest party that night in Amherst.

When the day started, I was really planning to go. I decided to go home. The issue is me. I may seem to be out-going, active all of the time, etc. In reality, I'm a pretty quiet person. I spent most of my life alone and I like the quiet. By the end of the week, I really really needed to get away from people. So, hopped into my car and did the 4 hour drive home in the quiet.

It was a lot of fun and I can't wait to go back, next year.

IMC: Day 6 (Thursday)

2011-06-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

So, woke up that morning, not feeling great at all. It's been about 6 days and I've been working on around 2 - 4 hours of sleep each night. I remember laying in my bed thinking: That's it. I'll never be an artist. The most that I'll ever be is a dabbler. A dilettante playing at being an artist. Everbody's work is coming along so well and mine looks like a childs. I don't even know why I'm at IMC.

After a while of indulging in that emotion, I let it out of me and then started thinking: People like my paintings. People spend their money on my paintings. Just because I'm not near as good as most of the people here, does not mean that I'm not a good artist. Why am I an artist? Is it due to the money that I could make. Is it the recognition? Is it just a thing to pass the time away? Nope. I'm an artist because I have the need to create. I like creating things and expressing my thoughts visually. I like the way that my paintings look. They may not be professional level, but that doesn't mean that I won't get to that level.

So, with some new hope (and some rest... I got 4 hours of sleep that night), I had breakfast and headed into the studio. I saw my painting and said... "Wow! That's awful!" However, I LIKED the coat that I did the night before. Okay, so there's hope. I got down to work.

As I'm working on the egg and the dragon, I was using too small of a brush. It was starting to look "dotty" again. So, Scott came over and showed me what I was doing wrong. In his style, similar to Greg's, the smaller brush strokes are close to the center of focus and the larger brush strokes are farther away. So, I fixed the egg. Greg came over, made a couple of comments and indicated that it was working out well. The only thing that I really needed to fix was to make my dragon even lighter (to push him farther back into the background... which would make him even larger and scarier).

So, it was a long day of working, but the painting was coming along. By 1:30 a.m., I was tired and have given it my all. However, I was happy with the progress that I made. So, it was time to get 4 - 5 hours of sleep. There was no way that I was going to finish it by Friday morning, so, I got it close to a finishing stage.

IMC: Day 5 (Wednesday)

2011-06-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, at this point, I was feeling pretty good, since my color compositions worked out well and I got some rest (3 - 4 hours). I started my block-in color phase in the morning and thought that it was going okay.

Then, it happened.... this day was just awful. Maybe I was more sensitive because I was tired. I don't know. Maybe it was just the pressure and I'm no longer used to it, I don't know. I do know that I was in a pretty depressed mood that day. So, what happened?

So, Greg Manchess (who's work I absolutely admire) started taking a look at my painting and my current portfolio. First thing that he asked was "How long that I've been doing oil painting". So, I mentioned about 3 years or so. He thought so. He commented that the sky and land had horizontal strokes and trees were mainly vertical strokes. I used dots as flowers, I didn't mass properly (in the trees) and whole litany of things that were wrong about how I paint. Then he mentioned that he and Scott Fischer would stop by later to show me how to use my brushes with oil painting.

From there, I started doubting everything that I knew about painting. By now, my ego is pretty crushed. By that night, I wasn't even sure that I should have even been there. I was looking all around me and everybody was doing great. The paintings were coming along, etc. Mine looked like a child did it and it wasn't even completed.

I was feeling pretty down. Rather than working on my painting, I just sat there, did some sketches that were really really weird and just let my emotions dump out onto the paper.

That night, Scott Fischer came by and gave some instruction about how to use the brush and various strokes. We talked about effective ways to lay down lines using the square-headed brushes. We talked about how to change the shape of the line by changing the stroke, etc. It was incredibly informative.

Greg came by, that night, told me to not look so glum and gave some instruction about how to paint using his style. Now, Greg's style, I absolutely love. He places a stroke down and then places another one. The strokes are generally at different angles, but each one has a different value. Therefore, you are left with a painterly look, but not static. It's gorgeous stuff. So, since I was here to learn and not finish my painting, I decided to just get to work and see what he has to teach.

After some false starts, I started understanding about the stroke and placement of the stroke relative to values. So, I played a little bit with the strokes on my main character's jacket, and after a while, it started looking "eh". Not great. By that time, I had to go home and get some sleep.

IMC: Day 3 (Monday)

2011-06-20T09:45:00.000-07:00

Now that I've got my drawing done, I was ready to begin the mounting phase. This is a matter of using acrylic matte medium and then, essentially "gluing" the watercolor paper to the masonite panel. The procedure was pretty simple to do and went on well. It takes about 2 -4 hours to dry. Once the watercolor paper is "glued" down, then, for oils, you add another then layer of matte medium over it, wait for it to dry, sand it down, and then add one more coat (let dry and then sand). Once completed, you have a pretty good mounting and smooth surface to paint on. In addition, you can see your line drawing on the panel.

Now that the mounting was completed, I was able to start my color compositions (around 6:00). Things were going well and I was ahead of schedule. I was pretty happy... things definitely go south from there. So, after working up different color compositions, Ian comes over and checks out my comps at 1:30 a.m. Looks at them... Asks me if I am happy with what I have (I say that they are okay, but missing something). He then turns to me and says: "No.... need to fix this. There is no separation from the foreground, middle ground, and background. It's too flat." So, he gave me an assignment to do for the next day. Explained about how to create a better separation.

By now, it's 2:30 a.m and I just want to get back to my dorm room. A bit dejected, but I'm here to learn, not to impress people. So, time to clean the brushes and get back to bed.

IMC: Day 4 (Tuesday)

2011-06-20T06:58:00.001-07:00

Okay, well, things are starting to get a little tougher. Mainly (now that I can easily think about it) due to the fact that I'm getting more tired.

So, after getting some sleep (not much... about 2 hours... spent part of the time thinking about what I'm doing wrong with the color compositions), I had breakfast and headed into the studio to get more work done. Next lecture wasn't until 9:00, so I had about 2 hours to work. I started working on the new color compositions and fully realizing that I was starting to get farther and farther behind.

After getting the two basic color compositions done, I found Ian and asked him what he thought. He just gives me that smile and says "No...Better... but, no". Okay, now I'm still not getting it and realizing that the time is slipping away. The issue, that Ian says, is that I now have a less flattened painting, but I have a foreground/middle-ground and background or a foreground and middle-ground/background painting. So, next assignment: Do the same thing, but use only black, titanium white, yellow ochre and cadmium red.

So, back to the drawing board and more lectures to attend. I finally finished the third piece around 11:30 to midnight. Ian comes over and has this happy smile: "YES!!!!! That's exactly right! See that Foreground (Egg and Man), Middle-ground (Dragon) and background (sky). That's what I wanted you to see!".

So, feeling pretty good, I went to bed earlier that night... but, my mind was still reeling, so, got about 3 hours of sleep. Maybe tomorrow, I can actually start my painting.

IMC: Day 2 (Sunday)

2011-06-20T06:41:00.000-07:00

Getting tired. Had about 3 hours of sleep last night. The worst part is that my body is trained to wake up at 4:30 - 5:00, so going to bed around 2 - 3 a.m., doesn't help me get any rest.

So, headed over to the studio after breakfast and started working on my drawing. More lectures that morning and more drawing time. After a while, Greg Manchess and Ian McCaig came over and checked out my work. The dragon's head was still too small and I needed to make it larger.

Once the dragon's proportions were correct and I got the basic drawing done, Greg Manchess didn't like the wings. Using the standard single hook hand didn't do it for him. He suggested that I start positioning my hands at different angles (similar to a bat hand) and then work from there. That did the trick. Worked out much better and also produced a nice composition block for the right side of the painting.

Now that the basic composition shape was correct, I started to begin the process of creating a full-size drawing (18 x 24) on two-ply watercolor paper. This is the initial process for Donato's technique of mounting the paper onto masonite.

So, working until late that night, I finally finished the composed drawing and was able to go home at a reasonable hour (1:45 a.m.)

IMC: Day 1 (Saturday)

2011-06-20T06:29:00.000-07:00

It's very very exciting! The first day of IMC (Saturday), I couldn't wait to get into the studio to see what was going on. Breakfast started around 7:00 a.m. and then off to the studio at 8:00. There were three studios available (two for painting/drawing and one for digital work). So, after checking out the various studios, parked my butt upstairs with one of the larger wooden easels. Since I paint standing up, I like to have some room to move back and forth.

So, after that, we had our basic introduction meeting and then off to the critique session. The critique's were broken into groups of 12 students with 4 instructors (in each room). After looking at my drawing, the basic comment was that it needed to be a LOT more exciting. We changed the viewing angle so that you were looking up at the egg (which made the egg a lot larger). Also, the guy needed to be more exciting. Rather than being half-way through the stroke, we re-positioned the main character so that the sword was at a full-back swing and showed a lot of emotion in the face.

An interesting comment was that they asked why there was a man running in the back. What was the basic premise. I finally mentioned that I added him because I thought that we had to have, at least, two people. Didn't need to. So, the running man added nothing to the story, so he was removed.

Now, that I had the basic idea going, during the afternoon, it was time to start restructuring the drawing using the new ideas. First thing that I had to do was to change the perspective of the guy and the egg. Make it closer and look up from the middle of the egg.

Then, the next step was to change the position of the sword to make it more dynamic. This entailed taking more reference photos with the sword behind the head and the person starting the swing at the beginning of the arc, rather than the middle

Once the angle was changed and the person was positioned correctly, the next step was to add the dragon. So that the dragon was looming over the guy, I needed to redraw a totally different dragon and then fill up the negative space with some wings or something else.

After I had my basic drawing done, Ian came over and readjusted it to make it more dynamic. The dragon had to be bigger and more menacing. The sword had to come back farther. The coat had to swing more.

In comparison to my drawing, this is the equivalent of me coming into a room and saying "Hi... I'm Dougie" versus "Yo!!!! Dougie's in the HOUSE!!!"

Illustration Fixed

2011-06-07T04:43:00.000-07:00

So, after showing several people my latest submittal for the Illustration Master Class, they all commented on the same thing: The woman who had her arm reaching out confused them. Honestly, this was an afterthought addition, so I'm not surprised that people didn't like it. After reviewing it for a while, I decided that I didn't really care for it, either. It lacked the impact that I wanted and made some of the depth cues confusing.

So, I decided to change it up. The right side of the drawing was definitely missing something and thought that a person running to the guy destroying the egg would be more interesting. It balances out the drawing much better and doesn't detract from the center image. I also added the cloudy mist that the dragon appears from.

I'm happier with this final composition, so that I can now focus on the color scheme.

Tree Study

2011-06-05T04:57:00.000-07:00

Well, I've not been happy with my trees lately. There are a number of issues that I have with them. First of all, the colors that I use for my greens are a bit too saturated. Not terribly so, but a bit more than I like. The second issue is that the massing of the trees are not quite right. Most of my trees looks like balls or cylinders. This means that I'm not actually looking at a tree, but using a tree representation in my paintings. Okay, how do I fix that. Simple... more plein air work and studies.

So, this morning, rather than going out somewhere to do a full plein air study, I just went out my back deck. The tree on the right is the tree in my backyard. There's no reason to go anywhere when you have study material all around you.

First thing I did was to mix various colors of green to match the color that I saw. I mixed various versions of Cadmium Yellow (light, hue, and deep) with various versions of Blue (Ultramarine Deep, Ultramarine Light, Cerulean) and my favorite dark green (payne's grey with Cadmium deep). Using a palette knife, I mixed the colors and held them up to the tree to see what matched. Some of them, I had to add some greys to tone down the saturation a bit.

Once I got the colors right, I then started squinting and separating the dark and light areas. This gave me my basic structure. From there, it's magic. Adding a bit of light grey here and there for the highlights and a bit of the dark green to the mid-green to darken some areas.

Overall, I'm pleased with my results. However, still need a lot more practice with it.

Latest Painting: Rainbow Bridge

2011-06-04T12:00:00.002-07:00

"Rainbow Bridge" is an original 16" x 22" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

This painting is a remembrance for those who have lost dogs. Every dog owner knows about the rainbow bridge. I like to think of it as an area there there's lots of trees, water, sunshine and lots of room to play.

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.

Finished Assignment

2011-06-03T20:05:00.000-07:00

So, for the Illustration Master Class that I will be attending next week, we had to come up with a drawing of our proposed concept. The requirement (for the assignment that I chose) was two or more people and one or more dragons.

So, here's the piece that I came up with. In this case, the woman and the dragon are not happy about the guy destroying the dragon egg. The area around the dragon will have lots of clouds, etc... so that he comes out of the midst.

I'm pretty happy with this. My first attempt at something like this.... drawing an actual scene from my head using various reference photos of me and my wife in different poses. It was a lot of work and a lot of fun to do.

It will be interesting to see how the instructors change it around.

Illustration Master Class: Working on Concept

2011-05-25T09:16:00.000-07:00

Well, the Illustration Master Class (2011) is now less than 3 weeks away and I am still working on my concept sketch. It's getting there. I finally figured out what I'm going to do and how plan to do it. The rules that I have to work within are: 1) One Dragon (at least) that is showing some sort of human emotion, 2) 2 - 4 people with one person being detailed, 3) Sized for a hardcover book (front and back is optional).

So, I came up with the following image:

In this story, we have the main character destroying an egg. There'll be another person in front of the egg that will be on their hands and knees with the outstretched hand to try to stop the person. The egg will have a bright glow on the inside and clouds will be coming out of the egg top (The egg is sitting in a bed of rocks). From the clouds, you'll see the two dragons above the guy being emitted (They are part of what he has released within the egg that he is destroying). They also are angry about him destroying it and are trying to prevent him from destroying it.

So, there's still a lot of drawing to do on this. Once the drawing is done, I'll then decide the color scheme and value structure.

So, to get the posing right, here I am outside in my duster. Since I'm not very good about drawing out of my head, I decided that I needed some action/reference shots to see how the clothing flows and the body position. This was a bit weird, but kind of fun to do. My wife, Melissa, just kept shooting lots and lots of pictures while I hopped around on the deck.

You can also see the dinosaur toy that I used for the basic head structure. On the final drawing, I'll need to elongate the head, add some quills, and change the facial structure a bit so that it looks like a dragon, as opposed to the dinosaur.

Plein Air (Lilac Festival)

2011-05-23T14:20:00.000-07:00

Here's my plein air attempt from the Lilac Festival at the Shelburne Museum. Cloudy, rainy and not a very nice day. This was the view from under a porch.

Crouching Dragon

2011-05-21T19:13:00.000-07:00

Tonight's drawing of a dragon is based on another painting by Boris Vallejo. The reason that I like his paintings are due to the volume that he gives his creatures and people. The edges are not flat.

Studio Dog

2011-05-21T04:28:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of my "studio" dog: Willow. Willow is a (almost) 2-year old Bedlington Terrier. Whenever I start working on a painting, she props herself on the loveseat to the right. This way she can get the occasional belly scratch when I'm stepping back and looking at the painting.

What a life she has. ;-)

Dragons and More Dragons

2011-05-20T18:50:00.001-07:00

Dragons and more dragons. So, the Illustratioon Master Class is coming up in 3 weeks and I need to have a sketch of a scene with some dragons in it. The only problem is... I don't know how to draw dragons out of my head. So, I figure that, if I did a bunch of drawings of dragons from the internet, I could figure out the muscle structure and shapes to be able to create my own dragons (before the three weeks is up).

Here are my first two drawings. The first drawing is based on a painting by Boris Vallejo. I love his work and am very excited that he will be one of the instructors at the workshop. The second drawing is based on a picture that I found on the internet. I don't know who did it, but it represents a typical dragon pose/shape.

These were fun drawings to do and more will be on the way.

Latest Painting: A Tree Stands Among Them

2011-05-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

"A Tree Stands Among Them" is an original 16" x 22" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

While viewing this particular tree on my way to work, I realized that it seems to be totally surrounded by all manner of buildings, parking lots, etc. In many cases, you'll see a lone tree that stands out in its surroundings. Sometimes, it's the shape or color of the tree. Sometimes, it's just the fact that there is nothing non-made surrounding it.

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.

Still Life: Bottle

2011-05-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

Tough study. The hardest part about this painting was the simulation of glass and getting the drawing correct. The glass seemed to turn out okay, but the drawing was another matter.

This means that I just need to spend more time on my drawing skills. Drawing is one of those skills where, if you don't practice it constantly, it deteriorates extremely quickly. This is where still life studies of man-made objects comes in. There are definite shapes that are symmetrical and, if the drawing is wrong, it's pretty noticeable.

Lilac Festival

2011-05-16T05:01:00.000-07:00

Ahhh... painting outdoors. It's fun. It really is. Some days, it's more fun than others. Yesterday, it was fun... but, cold and rainy.

So, at the Shelburne Museum (Shelburne, Vermont), I was one of the participants of the Lilac Festival. For those interested, I would be talking about plein-air painting and how I go from the studies to a final studio painting. I could show people my setup, talk about my artwork, pass out some studio information, etc.

The only problem with yesterday was that it was extremely cold and rainy. So, rather than an average attendance of 3000 people, I think that I saw around 20 - 40 people (if that). Instead of painting lilacs, I painted a lot of green trees and started working on a building. Instead of being out in the open air sun, I was underneath a porch (had to keep continuously moving my easel due to the fact that the wind kept blowing the rain farther and farther in under the porch).

Would I go out and paint outdoors again? Absolutely. The only time that I really really don't like painting outdoors is when the mosquitoes and bugs start "bugging" me. No chance of that, yesterday. :-)

Latest Painting: Cloud Generator

2011-05-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

"Cloud Generator" is an original 9" x 12" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

When watching some storm clouds, I am always curious about how they are created. About the dirt that is brought up and the moisture in the air. In the clouds, I sometimes imagine that there is a little factory that takes all of the surrounding material and creates the storm clouds.

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.

Latest Painting: Cloudy With A Chance

2011-05-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

"Cloudy With A Chance" is an original 14" x 18" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

No matter how bright things seem to be, for some, there always seems to be a cloud. I was watching some basic clouds on a bright and sunny day and realized, after looking at them for a while, there each had a dark underlayer. However, that's not what I first noticed. I always noticed the bright spots. So, this is the enhanced concept that ran through my mind when studying the clouds.

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.

Latest Painting: Temple Journey

2011-04-30T06:15:00.000-07:00

"Temple Journey" is an original 18" x 14" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

Everybody makes a journey. The roads are steep and treacherous, for some. In the beginning, it seems hard, but, as you go along, the road seems easier and the world around it seems to be a lot calmer and less treacherous. The destination is what you make of it. If you really want to get there, you'll go through the obstacles needed.

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.

Latest Painting: Peekaboo

2011-04-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

"Peekaboo" is an original 16" x 22" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

What if your eyesight was a camera with a filter. This affects how you look at things. What if your eyesight wasn't a perfect filter. This is how parts of everyday life changes how you look at things.

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.

Still Life: Best Friends

2011-04-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

For the couple of weeks, I've been pretty burnt out on painting, but my class, last night, totally rejuvenated myself. Besides being with other artists, I really like painting still life toys. So, here's my effort: Best Friends.

I like the composition and the fact that I was able to get the rounded look done properly on the animals.

So, I'm thinking that it may not be a bad idea for me to do more of these. They are definitely a lot of fun.

Drawing Concepts for next painting

2011-04-19T06:22:00.000-07:00

Started working on my latest painting. As a general first step, I like to just sit and doodle. As you can see from the various scribbles, I was playing with various shapes and came across one that I liked. Now, the question is to how to incorporate it.

Drawing 1 was my first interpretation. I could have some sort of shape pointing out areas of the landscape. This led me to think about Drawing 2 (what if the landscape didn't take up the whole image?). Abandoned that idea for right now (may use it later) and played more with Drawing 1 (resulting in Drawing 3). Now, things are starting to take shape.

Drawing 4 is a more finished version of my general shape. The concept would be that the entire painting would be in a monochrome color with a silver/metallic looking device interacting with the painting (It would need to throw a shadow on the painting to make it stand out from the landscape. Wherever the "device" touches the painting, there is an area of color.

Drawing's 5 and 6 play a little more with this concept to work out different variations of it. Drawing 5 explores more tendrils, but no body and Drawing 6 explores no machine... just a painting with areas of colors.

Overall, not sure which one that I should go with. However, that's the fun of painting.

Still Life: These boots are made for walking

2011-04-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

Well, time to get back to posting. With two shows going on lately, I haven't had that much time to get some painting done. When I did get the time, I was not really interested in doing it. But, starting to get my "mojo" back and time to start playing again.

As most people know, every week, I go over to Cambridge, Vermont to study with Karen Winslow. I have been doing this for almost two years. Karen has shown me a lot about mass painting and observation. I don't always listen or remember what I'm taught, but that's about part for me. My memory is not that great.

However, there are times when I actually look like I know what I'm doing. These boots were definitely it. I had massed out the background, foreground and general shape of the boots. Once the basic mass was done, I defined the dark and light areas to create the sides and tops of the boots. Rather than accurately define each portion of the boot, it was enough to just define the general lighting. Some highlights were added for the buckles. Notice that the buck is not a perfectly round circle, but more along the lines of some loosely defined edges.

The hardest part of this painting was getting the foreshortening correct on the left-most boot (the one directly facing the viewer). I spent more time on the drawing of the boot than I did on the entire painting. However, after stepping back a number of times, I finally achieved the look that I was going for.

Castleberry Spring Craft Show at Hartford, CT

2011-04-11T05:58:00.000-07:00

The Castleberry Spring Craft Show in Hartford, Connecticut was a total washout for me. I did not sell any paintings or prints. As usual, the show was extremely well run and no problems with the promoter or the location. Prior to the show, I was given plenty of information about the check-in procedure, deals for hotels in the local area, and when we could setup. One of the nice things about this show was that, if you arrived on Thursday afternoon, you could actually drive up to your booth location and immediately unload (During certain pre-scheduled times). So, I was able to leave on Thursday morning and arrive by 2:00 for setup. The trip takes about 3-1/2 hours and consists of strictly highway driving.

After evaluating my booth, pricing structure, and layouts, I’ve determined that there was nothing that I could have done better. The fact of the matter is that the foot-traffic was non-existent. I believe that it relates to two situations. First of all, two weeks ago, there was another large craft show that is a local tradition. This is the Sugarloaf Spring Craft Show. It’s been held there for a number of years, and apparently, the place was mobbed with people. The second reason was that the weather was almost 70 degrees. Therefore, there were a lot of people taking advantage of some extremely nice weather for the entire weekend. In the end, hardly anybody showed up.

In terms of my artwork, the paintings were very well received. Nobody commented that the prices were too high or that they could not afford them. In fact, there were a number of people who seemed very interested. Unfortunately, no one decided to go that final step. As usual, there were also a number of people who took my card and asked about shipping. They may or may not purchase a painting at a later date. The most popular pieces still tend to be the mixing of the landscape with the abstract shapes. I will need to generate more of those types of paintings. There were some interest in potentially doing some commission work for another vendor and some sales to people, after the show. However, they don't count until I actually see a deposit.

Breakdown went pretty fast. With the new display setting, it takes about 2-1/2 hours to set up and 1-1/2 hours to break down. Unfortunately, the Rav4 is completely filled. I will need to explore renting a van when I have more invent tory or when Melissa (my wife) decides to join me for shows.

Plein Air Setup

2011-04-05T09:42:00.000-07:00

So, last Sunday, I was out working on a plein-air landscape and freezing my tushy off. Even though the temperature seemed warm in the sun (at least it seemed so in my back yard), when I went out to a field, near my house, I realized that the brisk wind easily drops the temperature by about 100 degrees. Needless to say, didn't paint outside very long.

When I'm painting outdoors, this is my typical setup. It's an alla-prima pochade (http://www.allaprimapochade.com/) that is worth every penny that you pay for. The pochade is a custom made box that is extremely sturdy and easy to setup. The pochade is mounted on a Manfrotto heavy duty tripod (rated for 11 lbs) and, if the wind is brisk, the set up is still pretty rock-solid. On the ground, you see my basic supplies: a backpack to carry everything, a container of water (I use water-soluble oils), paper towels, plastic container holding my paint tubes, trash bag, a brush holder for all of my brushes, and an empty plastic container to put paint that I have not used, but is no longer in the tube.

So, when I started setting up, I pulled out my viewfinder to determine what I wanted to paint. I loved the view of the mountain in the distance with the single tree to the right. Thought that that would be a good starting point.

Also, I need a lot of work on my trees and, studying trees during the winter time is a great way to understand the basic structure of a tree. Also, it's really really hard to get the thin lines working for the tree branches.

So, my first process is to just block out the areas that I would like to paint. Once I block out the areas, I start adjusting the values so that the farthest features recede. This is done my adding various levels of greys to my colors to dull them down for the distance. I always try to remember that the darkest darks and the brightest brights are close to you. Also, the closer the objects are, the more detail that you can see.

As you can see from the picture, the basic structure is there, but the dark of the mountain needs to be a lot lighter so that the mountain is pushed farther back into the horizon.

I also need to do this to the groups of trees in the mid-ground.

As I worked more on the painting, it started coming together. However, this was about the time that my hands started getting cold and I was more interested in getting out of the wind versus actually painting.

Overall, not bad... but not great. I can do a lot better. It's a matter of getting out there and practicing more.

First Plein Air for 2011

2011-04-03T11:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, it was absolutely gorgeous in Vermont today. The day was bright and sunny... and coooollllldddddd......

When I was driving home from setting up my nephew's computer for DSL, I saw this seen near my house. I decided that: "It's bright, it's sunny, and I would LOVE to paint that scene". So, I got home, rushed out to get my gear and then headed back to the spot (it's about 5 minute drive from my house).

As I started my setup, the wind was seriously kicking up in the field that I was working. However, I had my hoodie, hat and gear. I should be warm enough! Hah! No chance. Standing in a windy open field on a cold day is just asking for your hands to stop working. However, as you can see... here's my effort for the day. Took about 1-1/2 hours to paint. Later on, I'll post the basic procedures how I do my paintings and my setup.

Castleberry Spring Craft Show at Rockingham Park (Salem, NH)

2011-03-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

This last weekend, I had a booth setup at the Rockingham Park in Salem, NH. This was the first time that I’ve attended the Spring Craft show, but I had done the Winter one several years ago. This is not my show. Although there were a number of people that attended (receipt sales show 4500 people), I really sold only a handful of prints and one small painting. The standard comment was “I love your work and the prices are extremely reasonable, but, unfortunately, I can’t afford it.” I felt like my booth was more of a gallery showing than a sales booth. There were lots of people standing around just checking out the paintings, but no sales (outside of prints).

This Castleberry show, as usual, was incredibly well organized. I love Terry’s shows. I was given plenty of information prior to the show about set up time, hotel stays, etc. During the setup and the show, she could easily be found, if there were issues (I had none, but I noticed her walking around at various locations). Also, break down was quickly done. The only issue that I had with the show was that the Rockingham Park is extremely drafty. So, if you were near the outside of the building, you quickly learned to have multiple layers on.

The show itself was the standard price for a mid-size show. The flow of the show was a basic circular pattern, kind of like a racetrack, with vendors on both sides. When Saturday morning started, there were a significant number of people waiting in line and the crowds were pretty brisk in the morning. The nice part was that the crowd was generally pretty steady the entire two days. There were no parts where you saw nobody. At least, you would see about 5 or 10 people at some vendor’s booth.

Now, even though the crowds were good, my sales weren’t. That’s not to say that people weren’t buying. The table across from me had a solar lamp on some decorated wooden blocks. These lamps would be placed at next to your door at a permanent summer camp. Those were selling like hotcakes. The family kept running out of product and by the second day, they had sold almost 100 of them.

Me? I sold some prints. The other photographers and painters were in the same situation. I didn’t really see anyone carrying paintings or prints (there were a total of 8 photographers and painters). I did see a lot of woodwork signs, rustic signs, pillows, and jewelry being sold. After talking with the promoter a bit, she confirmed that this is a tough show for Fine Artists and Photographers. So, this definitely is not a show for me. Other’s? Absolutely… just not me.

Fishies, Fishies... Where are the fishies?

2011-03-23T09:26:00.001-07:00

What can you do when you are creative? You can have atypical fun. Actually, anybody can do this. However, being an artist who loves strong colors, this was REALLY REALLY fun. So, it's my sister-in-law's birthday last weekend and, as usual, I made another cake for her. This time, my wife saw an article in a Family Fun children's magazine, that my nephew gets, about how to make simple fish on cupcakes. They looked awesome!

So, we decided that that was the cake we were making this year. I took out my cake decorating kit, got some white frosting, M&M's, and candy fruit slices. I mixed up the correct hue (color) that I wanted and tinted it a bit with some black/white frosting to get the value that I wanted. Once the different frosting colors were set, it was time to decorate.

She loved it!

Instructions: http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/school-o-fish-cupcakes-984981/

Cast Study

2011-03-16T09:10:00.000-07:00

Studying apples worked! One of the main reasons for doing the apple study (in January) was to get a feel for creating realistic round objects. This process is needed for a lot of different objects that a person could paint.

Well, it worked. Last night, at my oil painting class, I was able to use two different techniques that I've been working at: ghosting and rounding. The ghosting technique (which my instructor calls it) is a method where you mass in all of the values and then using a soft brush, you smooth everything down. Then, you subsequently add more and more stronger value paints until you get what you want. This help create the roundness because the edges are now more subtle. Also, it's a great way of tying in all of the various paint values together.

So, working on a cast of a head last night, this is what I came up with. I'm pretty proud of it. It doesn't quite look like the model, but it definitely looks like a real face. The cheeks/forehead and neck is rounded appropriately.

Now, let's see if I can repeat this for Saturday's live model.

Figure Study

2011-03-12T03:32:00.001-08:00

Well, had some time last night waiting for my wife in the Emergency Room (She hit her jaw on the coffee table because she tripped while playing with one of our dogs. She's okay.) so I whipped out the old iPad and started working on some figure drawings. No, these nude models were not just hanging out where I was (which would have been nice... but they weren't).

Actually, there's a great new website that I found that has some awesome pictures of nude models and a timer. The site (http://pixelovely.com/tools/gesture.html) has nude male, female and animal pictures that can be studied. Not all of the images are great (there's a small percentage in which the photographer used too much light and washed out the model), but there's a significant number of them that had decent shadow/light contrast depth.

Now, this definitely doesn't replace painting/drawing from a live model, but, in terms of figure practice, this will work in a pinch. As always, I try to make sure that I do more life studies and try to translate that to my photographic studies.

Landscape Study: 2

2011-03-10T04:42:00.000-08:00

Newest landscape study. This was based on a photograph that I took when we were on vacation at Webster Lake, New Hampshire.

Man! Do my trees need work. So, do the foliage in the front. I was having trouble with this due to the fact that I laid on too much paint for the underlying structure. Once that is done, alla-prima is difficult to get the bright lights and dark-darks placed on the painting.

The part that I do like about this is that you get the feel of the water moving and the distance is definitely apparent. Also, there is a sense of "energy" with the painting. In my eyes, I can see the movement of the water (which is the main goal that I was trying to create). Also, the shapes for each section are interesting and non-static.

Another fun part of this painting was that I tried painting with my palette knife. This was done to lay down some textured areas in the trees and to smooth out the water (before laying in the ripples). It was fun to do. It's kind of neat "swishing" the paint around to see what happens.

Since this is only a study and not for sale, there is a sense of freedom to just play around and not worry about the results.

The Important Things

2011-03-09T03:47:00.000-08:00

So, last night, I was getting set to work on my next landscape study. However, didn't get to it. My dog, Fizz (a two-year-old Bedlington Terrier puppy), has not been his usual jovial self for the last 4 days. Not eating that much. Not drinking much water. Not playing that much. Just wanting to sleep. So, my wife and I took him to the vet to see what's going on. Fortunately, nothing serious. He has a raging urinary tract infection. We got the medicine and he's mending out great.

So, as I was saying, last night, I headed over to the easel, got out the paints... and there was my little buddy... dragging his large stuffed bone over to me and just looking at me. Want to play? Of course, little Dude! So, we played tug for a while, then he went outside to play in the snow with his sister. After they came back in, figured, okay... I can now get some work done. So, I sat down on the couch to figure out what photo I wanted to study next (on my laptop).

Mr. Man (one of our nicknames for Fizz) is standing on the couch next to me, just looking at me. What? What do you want? Oh... my lap. So, I moved the laptop and he curled up on my lap and went to sleep. Now, I definitely couldn't get up. He hasn't wanted to do this for the last 4 days. So, I let him. No painting. Just hanging out on the couch with my bud.

I like to paint and I definitely need the practice. However, a sick dog who wants to just curl up with you and play with you, always trumps that.

Landscape Study: 1

2011-03-07T10:36:00.000-08:00

Well, since doing a lot of small apples was definitely helpful in working some of my issues with still lifes, decided to try it with landscapes.

So, I have on my still life setup, my laptop positioned with a lot of landscape images. The purpose of these studies is to study tree, atmospheric effects, rocks, etc in order to have a believable landscape painting. In the summer, when I start up doing plein air painting again, these lessons should come in handy.

The one nice thing about working with photographs is that you can do multiple paintings of the same photograph in the comfort of your studio. The hard part is to not use the photograph as the actual image, but just general shapes. For me, that means that I have to remember that the things in the distance are duller and not as detailed.

So, my first attempt last night. This was fun. I like the idea of just playing around with small 8 x 10's to get the feel of the landscape, rather than the actual detail down. That will come later.

Photoshop: Images are different on the web

2011-03-02T07:57:00.000-08:00

Well, yesterday, I was trying to post the image of my latest painting for the web and couldn't figure out why the image was so saturated. I tried to get the correct color and couldn't. Did some more research about it this morning and learned something about Photoshop and color proofs.

When creating your image for photoshop, the standard method to create the image for the web is to use the "Save for Web & Device". This runs the old ImageReady program. However, there are times that the image is so over-saturated. I thought that it was due to the web colors. Not true. It's due to the color profiles that are stored with the image file.

To see the image as accurately as possible, use the menu option View->Proof Setup and you will see different choices. When creating the images for the web, you should choose: Monitor RGB. This shows how the images will look on your monitor (depending how well the color is calibrated on your monitor). If you select the default, Working CYMK, this will show you more accurately how the printing of the image will come out.

As we see in my current painting, there is a large difference between the Working CMYK (actual image) and the Monitor RGB (Web Version). The image on the left is a fairly true representation of the painting. The image on the right was the “Save to Web” version of it. It’s too highly saturated and there is too much red in it. So, by setting my view settings to “Monitor RGB”, I was able to correct the image in Photoshop to the true colors. When I posted it on the web, it was showing the colors that I expected.

Recommendation: When creating images for the web, immediately set the View->Proof Setup to Monitor RGB. Then make your adjustments to the image. When saving the image using “Save to Web”, you should see the same image as you see in Photoshop.

Note: Using this option will look good for most monitors. However, not all of the monitors. It is highly recommended that you set the color settings correctly for your monitor before creating these images. This is a simple procedure by going to Control Panel->Color Management and following the rules to calibrate your monitor. Gives the best chance of creating the correct looking image.

If you are used to using the Adobe Gamma program to calibrate your monitor, it is no longer available for Windows 7 or Vista.

Latest Painting: Apple, Vase, Grapes. Oh My!

2011-03-01T13:38:00.001-08:00

"Apples, Vase, Grapes. Oh My!" is an original 14" x 18" oil painting created on a 1" stretched, high-quality canvas. The painting is presented as unframed (Sides are painted).

Traditional still life involving, you guessed it...an apple, a vase, and some grapes.

All Artwork is copyrighted to Doug Hoppes Studio and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the permission of the artist. Sale of this item does not transfer its copyright.