Brimley Studios

The Value of knowledge

2012-01-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

So it has been a couple of weeks since my last post. As mentioned before I started to paint PleinAir paintings because I found my landscapes to be flat. I was hoping that in doing on site paintingsthis problem would be fixed but all I found I was doing was repeating thesesame problems. So I took a step back anddid a lot of research as to what I was doing wrong. Through my research I found many things I wasdoing wrong. First of these was my tonaldepth was off. But a big part of thiscame from not taking into consideration the paint I was using. What I mean is that I rarely use blackpaint. It kills colors, making them dulland lifeless. Well what I neverconsidered before is that white will also do this. I’ve always known that black and white arenot colors but tones. I just neverthought of them as the same coin and thus both dramatically affecting thecolors they are mixed with. So if I wasn’tgoing to use white as much as I was what was I going to use to lighten up mycolors? Well the answer was either I buyprecise premixed colors which is both expensive and can limit your choices or Ijust use light versions of my main colors. I went with the later. I’ve nowadded a light yellow, for my warm colors and a light blue for my cool colors. In using these instead my colors keep theirchroma and value base, without becoming dull and chalky.

Also I learned a lot more about color theory. Ilearned there are 4 properties to paint, Value, Hue, Chroma and Temperature. Value is light and dark (grey scale). Hue is the name of the color itself and I don’tmean “sand” or “Sea Green”, I mean “Red, Yellow and Blue”. Chroma is the color’s relative brightness ordullness. A fire truck is a bright redhue but a brick is a duller red hue. Temperature is how warm or cool a color is. Red, yellow and orange are warm, where asblue, green and violet are cool as a general rule.

I learned not only about value contrasts but also Hue,Chroma and Temperature contrasting too. All to produce a better more visually appealing painting.

With this I learned that dramatic value passages are formore appealing to the viewer then similar ones which tend to blend togetherthus making a dull boring looking painting. A passage is an area of the painting.

For example the single blueberry in this still life paintingis a passage or an area the eye moves across it and onto other passages aroundthe painting.

So to test all of this I did a test painting. This is the result of it.

Now see the side by side comparison to see thedifference. The one on the left isbefore and the one on the right is after. Also remember both paintings were painted at the same time of day and the same location.

I think I’ll do one more test painting before going out todo another Plein Air painting to further en-grain the new skills and knowledge.

2012-01-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

    Well here is the painting I did yesterday. I didn't meet and tonal goal. I think I was distracted by how cold it was with the wind blowing at me from off the lake. I had forgotten my gloves too and by the end I couldn't feel my fingers at all.

    I've sat down and thought about what all went wrong and I think I may go out again to the same area and try doing this painting over. I choose a different angle and I'll bring gloves and maybe a blanket too. I need to think more about the gray scale while working on this. Maybe I'll make a scale and have it with me as I'm mixing my colors to get the proper tonal depth.

    The cold had a interesting effect on my paints too. They became very thick and required more mineral spirits to work with them. This painting was done on a panel so the paint when thined properly moved around a little easier and thus dried faster.

    I had the sheriff drive by twice but he didn't stop and another truck drove by, but beyond that I was alone. Well there was a small flock of black bird who sat in a tree the near by watching me for a bit, a about 100 plus geese flew over circled then flew off south and two hawks flew over and checked me out too.

Main Street Vineyard

2012-01-09T13:23:00.000-07:00

    This is the map selection location for this weeks Plein Air painting. I've scouted it out a head of time a little. There is an old abandoned farm out here that I think will make a great focal point for this painting.

    My First goals for this painting is to try and focus on creating depth and distance through better tonal use.
    My Second goal with this painting is to paint it later in the day with an evening lighting setup.

900 West 200 North Provo Painting

2012-01-07T13:01:00.001-07:00

What a wonderful experience! I can now see somewhat why painting Plein Air is so addictive. Just being out of the studio in the fresh air was great. It took me 3 hours and 22 min. to do this painting. I've been told that a typical painting should take at least 4-6 hours. I realized about a third of the way through that you really need to just pick how and where the shadows should look in your painting. Because the whole thing is changing right in front of you. Of course I first noticed this when I was trying to paint in some clouds. I was feeling the whole time I need to paint faster and be more decisive in all aspects.

I guess i should explain that when I do a painting I work top down and back to front. Also with this style of quick painting I learned I need to block in all my major shapes and the over all major tones too. I didn't do this with this painting. Being my first ever I just went out there and started painting. I also learned that my Maul Stick is an important tool to getting straight cleaner lines (2/3 through the painting). It is important to lock your painting down, because having a wet painting suddenly blow at you is a bit excited and frustrating. I still do not know how or where I picked up that yellow paint on my hands, but it quickly spread all over me, my brush handles and into my mouth! Later that day I even found some under my lower lip and once again all over my hands.

I had 2 neighbors come by and one looked for a bit. The mail lady walked by but I was still at the beginning so nothing much to see. My neighbor across the street came home from somewhere and after going inside promptly open their front windows and watched for a bit (they are new and I don't think they know I'm an artist. They probably think I'm a nutter now). I had one guy on a funky looking bike ride passed 3 or 4 times, getting slower with each pass. The problem was I was facing the street so the canvas back was all anyone could see.

I was nervous starting out but as I started painting the rest of the world just disappears and I was off and painting. Time flew by and before I knew it I was done. I look forward to next weeks location and painting. Monday I'll post the new location and goals. So with out further ado hear is the painting.

900 West 200 North Provo

2012-01-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

I wasn't sure if this weeks painting was going to happen. Seeing as the first part of this week I was trying to recover from a nasty bout of the flu. But this morning I felt great and when I got up early it was a clear day. So I decided to go for it. Seeing as this is my first Plein Air ever I decided to do it out in front of my studio. Also this would be a great place to work out unforeseen problems (which there were many). As stated in the earlier post here is a map of the painting area.

My goals with this painting are really just to start this project and get it going. I said I was going to start with the first of the year and I mean to do so now.

Plein Air Painting Project

2012-01-05T15:21:00.000-07:00

I’ve come to the conclusion that my landscape paintings needimproving. I want them to move towardsbeing more photo realistic. I’m notlooking for full photo realism or hyper-photo realism, just cleaner andbetter. I’ve struggle with tonal difficultiesand color temperatures too. So to tackleall of these at once I’ve decided to finally start doing En Plein Air (in theopen) paintings.

What are Plein Air paintings, you may ask. Here is a great article from Plein Air Painters of America explaining it.

To do this I’m going to do one Plein Air painting aweek. Either I will choose a location orI’ve created maps of Utah Valley that I can roll on to find a location randomly.

At the beginning of the week I will show the location I’mgoing to go to on a screen shot of the map. I will blog about my hopes and goals for that particular painting. Afterwards I will blog about how things wentand my thoughts and feelings about the whole experience that day and anyinteresting that I may have experienced, i.e. people, animals and such.

Sacrament Meeting Notes

2011-09-08T13:16:00.001-06:00

It's time for another edition from my "Sacrament Meeting Notes". I drew each one of these drawing in about 40 min. The ideas for them I usually come up with just before I draw them or they maybe apart of a series of similar drawings all growing from the previous one.

Enjoy

A Behind the Scenes look at Grandma's Blueberry Jam

2011-08-10T19:27:00.008-06:00

I want to start by sharing the story about how this project came to be. I had been feeling a bit weak in my tonal range and depth of view in my paintings, when I came across an article excerpt in the June 2008 magazine American Artist, titled “Classical Painting Ateliers : A contemporary guide to traditional studio practice” by Juliette Aristides (‘ateliers’ is French for ‘workshop’). One of the exercises discussed about was about tone. I decided to try this exercise to see if tone was indeed my problem.

The first question always seems to be ‘what to paint?’ I knew I wanted to do a still-life painting after the classical style. I kept my eyes open for subject ideas. One day I was looking at posts of my various friends on Facebook. One of my friend’s had commented on a photograph of some blueberry jam that her sister had made. Looking at that photo, I knew what I wanted to paint: a bottle of blueberry jam, with a some blueberries scattered about and a few orange slices for color contrast and that pop of vitality.

I spent an afternoon gathering my parts. I borrowed a glass jar from my mother as well as some gingham for the cover, bought some fruit from the market, and some raffia from the local craft store. After arranging the rough idea in my head, I laid out a few simple, quick thumbnail sketches, and took a picture to have something to show here. At this point I’m just getting my layout arranged, Golden Mean set up, eye line and so on, nothing very drastic.

I decided to paint this on a canvas board of standard size, 11 x 14, mostly because that is what I had laying around. I started by doing a rough pencil lay-in. As you can see faded in the background, I moved the jar over more to the right. I found I didn’t like the edge right up against the main vertical Golden Mean, thus placing the body of the jam bottle too close to the middle of the painting. So, I redrew it with the body of the jar centered on the main Golden Mean line. All the various angles and measurements are based off of that Golden Mean in one way or another. Another picture taken.

Using a sienna brown colored pencil, I drew in the final drawing. It is interesting to mention here that I prefer to use a cheap, Crayola brown colored pencil for this stage of the painting. I have found it to be of better quality than the more expensive, “high-end” art pencils (which I will refer to as the ‘others’) in that the lead in the cheap Crayolas are more complete and not shattered every few inches as the others tend to be. Also, the others tend to crumble under the slightest pressure of drawing. I think it also fair to mention that one of the other colored pencils costs as much or more than an entire Crayola 12 pack of colored pencils. Alas, Crayola is also not without its cons. The biggest problem with the Crayola colored pencil pack in my opinion is that they only sell them in color sets – one of each color, and I only want one color, the brown one. So, either I deal with the more emotional other pencil or I have a studio filled with every color of Crayola except brown. I have contacted Crayola about buying just a case of browns, but so far they have told me that they no longer offer single color bulk purchases. So depending on my mood I’ll either add another ‘11’ to the pile, or crumble my way through another brand. For this painting I chose to crumble my way through it with a Prismacolor. Photo taken.

Finally I get to add some paint. First comes the under painting. As per the direction of the article when you do this step you paint straight out of the tube, with no use of medium to thin the paint down. I always do an under painting on all my paintings (well almost always, the exception is when I paint on paper). On most of my paintings I will use a rag and scrub in a greatly thinned down unifying paint color (Burnt Sienna). Then I’ll go in with Burnt Umber and put in my darkest area, and use the reductive technique for my lightest area. With this particular painting, I used Raw Umber straight from the tube onto the canvas using a large, soft, one inch #12 flat brush. Then, using various brushes and a rag, I employed the reductive method to create the tonal under paint image. The reductive method I prefer involves using Mineral Spirits to wipe out the thickly applied Raw Umber paint to create the various tones (lights and darks) I’m looking for. Another photo.

Once the under painting stage is fully dry to the touch, I then start applying the local colors in thin, transparent layers, letting the under-painting come through. I’ve been experimenting with thin layers of paint (called Glazing) since the start of my painting career, but it wasn’t until I read a book written by Leonardo Di Vinci, that I felt I really mastered it. This book was originally written by Di Vinci in Italian and later translated into what may have been some older form of English (lots of fun, once I learned with help from my wife, that what looked like a single letter, could indeed be either “F, P or S”, and they apparently hadn’t invented punctuation yet, giving the appearance of one giant run-on sentence). Besides trying to make sense of the “spelling”, the biggest problem with the book, was that Di Vinci would reference other books to better understand concepts he was talking about, only they hadn’t been written.

After the local color lay-in and before the paint is dry, I’ll use a more Western Wet-on-wet technique to finish off the rest of the painting. Last photo.

After completing this painting, I don’t think that tones are really my main problem on my larger paintings, but rather it might be more the color temperature. So, I’m putting together another Atelier exercise, and this time I think I will do something around peaches, probably with a French country theme. I don’t yet know exactly how I will bring them all together, it just seems to warm my heart as I think about it. I’m also a sucker for Florentine and rococo designs (these themes are almost always somewhere in my fantasy paintings). A note in closing, I was originally going to go with peaches in this first experiment, but the photograph of the Blueberry jam formed an idea so strongly in my mind that I chose to go with that instead.

Children's Picture Book

2011-07-30T13:11:00.011-06:00

Well, it’s finally time to do another fantasy painting. I can only hold it off for so long. As I’ve mentioned in the past, people love my fantasy art, but they just always sure what to do with it. So I’ve decided to try something that is new for me. I want to paint a children’s picture book, but with a twist. I don’t want to spoil it so early in the game, so you will have to wait and see how the project develops.

Even though this project is “fantasy” in nature, I still like to paint from models – even if it is only for reference. With that, I come to what I need help with – finding models. First and foremost, I take the safety of your children very seriously, so let me be very clear that ANY submission of photographs must be provided with consent of the parent or legal guardian. I don’t want any parents or other concerned persons to have any doubt about the legitimacy of what I’m doing, so any questions will be welcome. I’m looking for children to be stand in models for the main characters. In the past I’ve either worked with kids from my neighborhood, family or friend’s kids, or worked through friends to find models. Norman Rockwell use to do it that way too. I’m always looking to expand the pool of model choices.

What I’m looking for on this particular project, are children between the ages of 8-10, three boys and one girl. My usual method is to come over to the home of the children and do the photos shoot there so their parents can be involved, however, I’m willing to work with the parents on what they feel most comfortable with. The first boy will need to have a suit (preferably a dark suit), white long sleeve shirt, tie (not zip or clip), belt and dress shoes and dark socks. The second boy will need “classic” style, two piece pajamas with a button up top. The third boy will need to wear a Cub Scout shirt and a ball cap. Finally the girl will need to wear a long dress (preferably with lots of frills).

Again, for the safety of the children and for me, I will only work through the parent or legal guardian of the children; I will never contact your child directly. If you are interested in allowing your child or children to be a part of this project or if you know of someone who would be interested, please email me a head shot (like a school photo or family photo) of your child or children, along with contact information (phone or email, whichever you would prefer) and we’ll go from there. Any questions can be addressed by email to brimleystudios@gmail.com.

Below are some sample drawings of each of the characters from the book.

Tea with the Ogres

2011-07-14T16:16:00.005-06:00

“Tea with the Ogres” is finally finished and scanned. This painting has taken me years to complete. The original photo shoots took place clear back in 2008. I had just been picked up by a large international gallery and they encouraged me to paint bigger than what I was doing at the time. I painted this on a canvas 48 inches high and 60 inches wide. That’s four feet by five feet. It is almost as big as my wife is tall. After I discussed the idea of the painting with the gallery, which they liked, I started to paint. I was about two thirds of the way through the painting, when the gallery owner contacted me and told me they didn’t like where I was going with it. They said it wasn’t scary enough and the Ogres looked like “good Mormon boys in bad Halloween costumes”. So it was back to the drawing board. I took additional pictures of a good friend of mine to help add to the Ogres. I took pictures of a second little girl and made a composite of both girls. With these adjustments I was able to come up with the refined concept that had all the elements both the gallery and I were looking for. I got a new canvas and set to work. After getting about half way through the new painting, I just ran out of gas. It sat unfinished in my living room for months. In the mean time, I painted a commission piece of the Salt Lake Temple. When the gallery saw this painting, they decided they wanted to take my art in a completely different direction, more LDS temples. As a result, this painting was pretty much shelved without completion. Months passed, and I would occasionally think about it. Then, last summer, when I had a break between commissions and with a lot of encouragement from my wife, I was able to sit down and finally finish the painting.
The next big problem was scanning it. I hate scanning, and the last time I scanned a painting this size I had plenty of room, a more powerful computer and a completely different scanning setup. Now my scanner is better, and I have things set up differently, both of which contribute to an easier scanning experience. The downside is that my computer is less powerful and my studio has lot less room. So I kept putting it off. It wasn’t until a year later that I had built up enough desire to scan it and figure out just how I was going to go about it. It took over 50 individual scans. It took me three days to scan and an additional 2 days just to piece them together as well as deal with some unexpected challenges. But, I am very happy to report that it is finished and uploaded to my print website.

Too Creative?

2011-07-05T15:07:00.002-06:00

Now that I have some down time while waiting for some collectors to decide on what they want, I thought maybe I could do a fantasy painting. More specifically a western fantasy painting with a steampunk twist. The problem with this is that collectors don’t buy my fantasy art. They tell me they just don’t know what to do with it. I remember one gallery, as they were rejecting my work, telling me that I was “too creative”.

The interesting thing is Kids of all ages, both boys and girls love my art. When one of my fantasy paintings was hanging in an art gallery, a little girl came with her mother. While her mother was there for over an hour on business, she spent the entire time completely drawn into one of my paintings. I love having kids tell me what they think is going on. They have no inhibitions. They know immediately. Their imaginations fire up and they are off telling me a story. Teenagers also are drawn to my work, even though they are less willing to venture a story. Of the adults, men seem to be the most receptive. While there are a number of women that have expressed appreciation of my art, it is difficult for me to tell if they truly enjoy it, or if they are just trying not to hurt my feelings. Since most collectors are women, I find myself trying to understand what it is they truly value. All of the collectors of my religious art happen to be women and I am very grateful to them. They love my religious work. They give me a lot of freedom to do paintings as I see them. They are patient with me and willing to work with me and I love working with them too. They have great ideas and such strong feelings and faith. And from time to time they think about buying one of my fantasy paintings, but once again what do they do with it?... I had someone once suggest that my work would be perfect for a coffee table book, something that can be viewed and displayed without it being overbearing. I would love to be able to see how popular this would be, but unfortunately, that is an experiment for the future.

So when I decide to do a fantasy painting, I do it knowing it will most likely never see the light of day. I’ve been told on hundreds of occasions that I’m just too creative. I don’t know entirely what “too creative” means, if there even IS such a thing. So the dank, dark basement will be its home. But, for a short time at least, I’ll get some enjoyment out of it. Well, back to the religious paintings (which I also love and enjoy), until once again I get that itch…

Jeff

New Blogs

2010-08-04T09:48:00.001-06:00

I've decided to split my blogs. I've created http://jeffreybrimley.blogspot.com/ for all of my Temples and more traditional types of art and http://havenvale.blogspot.com/ for my fantasy art. I'll have more on this in just a bit but I've got to go, my ride is here.

Just in time for Christmas

2009-12-18T03:09:00.002-07:00

"Santa's Littlest Helper"

I've been meaning to get this painting up on the blog for a bit now. So here it is. For those of you who don't know, The model of the boy is my nephew (one of the hazards of knowing me is you never know when one of your kids will end up in a painting). For Santa I used my head and my wife for the body. I have this red bath robe that drapes just wonderfully on her (seeing as she is fourteen inches shorter then me). I love then old world Santa Claus, so this is the result of it. Also I love Victorian Architecture so I modeled the fireplace and room after that style. I've been kicking around the idea of painting another Christmas painting, maybe this time I 'll use a little girl.

The all important Painting Surfaces

2009-12-09T02:00:00.005-07:00

Canvas. For me canvas is a general term I use to discribe just about any painting surface I use to paint on. In reality only part of the time do I use canvas or to be more exact cotton canvas. Let see I have used stretched cotton canvas (either pre-stretched or stretched by me). To stretch canvas you wrap it around stretcher bars which typically are made of wood.
In recent years a newer type of canvas has come out on the market. It goes by several different names like, gallery wrap, studio wrap, museum edge and creative edge, just to name a few. But they are all basically the same thing.
The canvas is stretched from the front clear around the sides and fastened in the back. Thus leaving the front and sides to be painted on. Plus these types of canvases tend to be deeper thus giving the artist more room to paint. I've seen them go as deep as six inches, looking more like a box then a panel. Plus because the sides are painted there is no need to frame these paintings. Thus saving money on not framing.
Another type of option is canvas board. Where canvas is adhered to a board.

There are many different cloths you can paint on after they have been primed with gesso. The two I prefer are cotton or linen, with linen being my favorite. I like the interesting and unique variety of textures linen creates with out being too rough. Now my mentor Greg Olsen is a bit more brave then I am. He has painted on all sorts of surfaces, from silk, to polyester, plaster (which he carved first to make it a relief carving then painted it), wood panels and hardboard (both having done paintings on the smooth side and rough side). Also to add more tooth (texture) to the painting surface you can add some marble dust to your gesso. A small amount is like 200 grit sand paper and a large amount it like 20 grit (Greg has also add so much marble dust to one of his paintings that the gesso was like very think paste. So he sculpted it into trees and rocks for a relief like sculpture and then painted it too). I like a very smooth surface, so needless to say these approaches to surface texture do not appeal to me.

Ah Paint

2009-12-02T03:12:00.002-07:00

Paint. Enough said right? Well sort of. Like I've said earlier I paint with what is called a limited pallet. Which means I use almost just the primary colors to paint with and then just mix these colors to get all the colors I need. To do this you got to first understand at least a little about color theory. Which basically is for example red and blue make purple, or yellow and blue make green and so on. But then there are also warm colors cool colors and then there are opposites, color chords and even opaque and transparent colors. And on and on and on... There are collage courses and 'clubbing baby seal' size books just on this subject.
I don't want to scare any one with how complex this kind of topic can become. For me when I first started to paint I painted with a limited pallet more out of cost than out of any sort of artsy high minding ideals. An average tube of paint will run any where between $20 to $75 (at least for the type of paint I use, but more on that later). So I went with as few a colors as I could get away with. Which is around 7-9. Burnt Sienna (reddish brown), Burnt Umber (dark brown), Ultramarine Deep (blue), Titanium White, Cadmium Red Deep, Cadmium Yellow Light, Indian Yellow (a warm orange-yellow) and sometimes Dioxazine Purple and Raw Umber.
Next I took a sheet of mat board and cut it up into four inch squares that I gessoed (it's a type of primer). Then I would paint each square with a mixing of various colors to see how each color worked with each other. Red and yellow to make an orange color. After I had mixed all primary colors, red, yellow and blue. Then I mixed primary colors with secondary colors. For example red (primary) and green (secondary, made up of yellow and blue) make brown. And then depending on how much of either color you mix depends on the kind of brown you get, more red you get a redish brown and more green a greenish brown.
Now I need to warn people that when you first start mixing colors everyone seems to go through a stage of learning I like to call, 'the gray mud' stage. This is when no matter what color you are trying to mix, all you seem to be able to mix is a dead looking gray mud color. I went through it and everyone I have ever taught goes through it. This stage for most people is often the time when they quit painting (mostly because they don't have the artist disease too*). It is their first real wall. I pushed through it (and wasted a lot of paint too).

The type of paint you choose to use will in the end be more about preference or as I like to call it, how the paint feels as you mix it and how it feels as you apply it to the canvas.
The paint I use is called Maimeri Puro. It comes from Italy. I buy it from Jerry's Artarama online. The reason I use this more expensive paint is because the pigment that the paint is made from is ground to a much finer consistency then with other paints I have tried. The colors are also richer and brighter. Plus I need less of it to cover the same area as with other brands. It mixes easily and glazes much better then other brand too. which is very important to me because I do more glazing then I use to. Glazing is to apply multiple thin transparent layers of paint. But thats getting into techniques than tools, which I'll talk about later.

*The artistic disease - I once read another artist describe painting for them as a disease with no cure. All he could do is push it off for a little bit by painting. It is like a nervous itch that build up over time and the only way to make it go a way is to paint. This is painting for me too. I've met some artists who just love to paint. They will spend every waking moment in the studio painting. I always felt bad, because I didn't feel this way. There are times when I'm like this. But they are short lived and few and far between. When I studied under Greg Olsen he told me that there are times for him too that he really struggles to sit down and paint. He calls himself the laziest painter (I doubt this because he is prolific). After hearing this and reading about other artists I didn't feel so bad.

Brushes! The work horse of all paintings

2009-11-30T11:45:00.005-07:00

There are three types of brushes that I know of or that I use. Flat, Bright, and Round. I for the most part just use flat for the bulk of my painting. And round for all of my liner work. I've tried Bright brushes off and on, but i don't like how they move the paint around. Just a little too smudgy for me.

This first set of brushes I either just use on Large paintings (24 x 30 and up) or in some instances I'll use them to blend two or more colors together. These range in size from one and a half to three inches in sizes.

This next set of brushes I use primarily for painting in large areas. For all of my temple paintings I used these brushes to paint in my sky's for example. The brush on the left is a new never been used brush. The brush in the middle is the same brush just four months of use. As you can see all of my brushes slowly spread out, no matter how well I clean them. From time to time I'll even use an ultra-sonic cleaning tool to clean my brushes. But in the end they all spread.

These next set of bushes are the same as the above brushes just smaller. I try to work with the largest brush I can get away with in an area so as to spend less time noodling away an area. Although recently I've tried using smaller brushes to improve the over all texture of my paintings. With all of my paintings which brush I use is really based mostly on how lazy I'm feeling and over all feel. Every artist has his or her own preference to brushes based on there own approach to painting. The only real way you can learn this for your self is to just jump in and start painting. I once had a dean of the art department at the University of Utah tell me that if you want to learn to paint, then just go and paint. The two best teachers for painting are Trial and Error. Experimentation is how I learned to paint ( and Greg Olsen's patience).

The last set of brushes are my Liner brushes. To the left is a new brush, the middle is one that has had it as a liner and the right one is one in which I trimmed down after it had spread. So that is the future of the middle one. I'm often trimming my brushes, especially when they start to spread out.

Behind the magic of painting

2009-11-24T11:19:00.003-07:00

So I thought I would give a little behind the scenes look into not only how I go about painting but also what tools I use in doing this. This first image is of my pallet. I mix my paints on an old MDF board with a sheet of wax paper tapped down over the top. Usually I place the blobs of paint across the top, but sometimes I will haphazardly place paint all over the pallet. I paint using what is called a limited pallet. The colors are from left to right. Burnt Sienna (reddish brown), Burnt Umber (dark brown), Ultramarine Deep (blue), Titanium White, Cadmium Red Deep, Cadmium Yellow Light, Indian Yellow (a warm orange-yellow) and sometimes Dioxazine Purple. Another thing I need to point out is that I do not use any black when I paint. Black is the anti-color, it kills color, mutes it.
The brushes lay on the left. I have a drawer full of brushes in various states of use from new to desperately need to be thrown out bellow my pallet. But these are the one I'm am currently using.
The top left is my pallet knife that I use to mix my paints to get all the various colors I paint with. Sometimes I just use the brush I am holding to mix a color I need.
The spray can on top of the pallet is a fixative I use to help solidify a layer of paint so I can work faster.
The green-brown looking jar on the top right side of the pallet is full of mineral spirits. It is used to clean my brushes. It has a spring in it that I scrub the bristles on, thus aiding to the cleaning.
Next over is a container that says linseed oil but contains more mineral spirits.
And finally is a yellowish jar filled with an even mix of Galkyn and mineral spirits. This is my Medium. I use it to thin my paints to an almost water color consistency.

2009-11-20T00:49:00.001-07:00

For some reason the images of the Temple paintings are up loading too dark. They look fine at the print's website at http://jeffrey-brimley.fineartamerica.com/ but not here. I'll have to fiddle with it later.

2009-11-20T00:48:00.001-07:00

2009-11-20T00:46:00.000-07:00

2009-11-20T00:44:00.000-07:00

More Temple Paintings

2009-11-20T00:30:00.003-07:00

Blogger-tard

2009-11-20T00:11:00.002-07:00

At night when I'm waiting for paint to dry (I prefer to paint at night because it is more quite) I find myself blog surfing. Either by hitting the next blog button or by linking through peoples friends lists trying to get the 'seven degrees of Kevin Bacon' effect. Over the months of doing this I have come to realize I really suck as a blogger. Also some of these people's blogs are super artsy-fartsy. Which causes my extra X chromosome to flare up and make me want to stop painting and start blogging. Then I get all worked up. But then it hits me. Either I can keep painting or I can blog, I don't have the mental fortitude to do both (especially with Christmas coming, I've got the portraits to paint of my sister's kids for gifts and I just picked up 1 more commission to paint 2 more temple paintings, Provo and Manti temple). So for now my blog, facebook, link-in and twitter, will all have to suffer.

Temples on my mind!!

2009-09-02T02:29:00.012-06:00

Nauvoo Temple 20 x 16 Oil on Linen - many have asked if this is "The Phoenix" Nauvoo Temple. It is not, but that one will be painted soon.

Logan Temple 16 x 20 Oil on Linen - I love the fall. The changing of the seasons and cooler weather. Plus my birthday is in the fall too.

Manti Temple 40 x 30 Oil on Canvas

Manti Temple (East Doors) 20 x 16 Oil on Linen

St. George Temple 20 x 16 Oil on Linen

Kirtland Temple 20 x 16 Oil on Linen

2009 - 2010 Season

2009-07-13T15:34:00.002-06:00

So the Rive Gauche Art Gallery that represents my originals down in Scottsdale, Arizona have decided they want to for now only represent my temple paintings. I'm really surprised and excited. I will miss doing fantasy paintings (I'll try and sneak one in once in a while). But a while back when I was studying under Greg Olsen (I'm still his apprentice and will be for life). Greg asked me if I liked painting or do I just like painting fantasy? I of course said I like to paint. And so you have it, Temples. Plus it is a great way to represent the Lord and serve him at the same time.

So the Gallery ordered 10 smaller paintings 11" x 14" or 16" x 20", historic temples by the end of October. (I choose 16" x 20") Also I need to finish 4 - 6 larger ones too (Salt Lake Temple is done and the Manti Temple is almost done). These are 30" x 40 ". I was going to do one of them 48" x 60" (seeing as I have the canvas) but I felt it was just too big and the gallery owner agreed.

I've been really excited but I had no idea how I was going to pay for all of the supplies needed to do this project. So my wife, Liz had me put together a wish list as it were of supplies needed for the project and sent out an email to a few family members and friends to see who could help and who wanted to be apart of this Temple Project. 12 hours later her brother over in China called and said not to worry about it and that he payed for it all and the supplies would be here in a week or two. I was blown away to say the least. That night my wife and I thanked the Lord for his and many other peoples generosity and kindness.

So now I've got to produce 1 Temple painting a week. I would like to in the end paint 12. So I can put out a calendar along with my prints that I currently offer at:
http://jeffrey-brimley.fineartamerica.com/
I've all ready sold many prints of the Temple paintings too. It is interesting that in the seven months I have been painting Temples. I have had more interest in my art then in 10 years of painting fantasy. So when people ask my why the switch. This is what I tell them.

Well enough for now back to the Manti Temple Painting.

Thanks,

Jeff Brimley
brimleystudios@gmail.com

Manti Temple Step 5

2009-07-13T15:30:00.000-06:00

Finally done with the under-painting and I'm onto the sky.

Manti Temple Step 6

2009-07-13T15:28:00.002-06:00

Here I've painted in the tops of the 2 towers. Now onto the body of the temple.

Manti Temple Step 4

2009-06-20T16:18:00.002-06:00

In this step I added a layer of dark brown. I've started to also do some shading with this color. To get the various shades of color I simply removed paint with a brush and a rag. In doing this step I have to keep in mind not only the sun directly behind the temple but also the lighting on the upper towers and the non-directional omni light, which is the sunlight reflecting off the ground. Thus even in shadows objects have shading and highlights, otherwise objects in shadows would look flat.

Manti Temple Step 3

2009-06-20T16:17:00.000-06:00

Ok here you see is the first step with the under painting. This is a single color of paint. I put it on with a rag and the scrubbed out the lighter areas. Now onto the next darker color.

Manti Temple Step 2

2009-06-20T16:15:00.000-06:00

Well the drawing of the Manti Temple is finished.

Now onto the four tone under painting (you see what I mean as I'm doing it).

Manti Temple Step 1

2009-06-12T14:45:00.001-06:00

I've gotten put of the habit of doing these step by step photos. So I've decided since this painting is (and most others from now on) going to be done in the newer style. Instead of trying to explain it to you all. I thought I just show you all.

In this photo you can see I've drawn in a rough outline of the basic shape and location of the temple in pencil (the left side of the drawing). Next I've taken a dark brown colored pencil. In the passed I've used a graphite stick that is sepia in color with a stylus that is both troublesome to work with and is only available from Australia. The colored pencil I'm using is from a cheap $5 colored pencil set you may buy for a child. In fact the box cover has a rather cartoon looking monkey, giraffe and lion on it. Now I've started drawing in much finer detail then I usually do, the finished drawing of the temple.

The next step after the drawing is finished in the next few days I will start on the under-painting.

Mount Timpanogos Temple

2009-05-12T11:00:00.002-06:00

This painting was commissioned by a friend of mine. He is giving it to his wife for her birthday. It was the temple they were sealed in. The size is the same as the Salt Lake and Provo temple paintings, 18 x 24 oil on canvas.

2009-05-12T10:42:00.002-06:00

This painting I painted in just under 6 hours. I painted it and gave it to my Mom as a Mother's day gift. I had some painting technique ideas kicking around in my head for some time so I had some fun doing them for this painting. I guess the hazard of knowing me is getting stuck with paintings I do as experiments. Although not all painting experiments turn out to be finished paintings. Some are really rough looking.

2009-04-07T11:17:00.000-06:00

This is my latest Salt Lake Temple Painting. This one is being sent down to the gallery in Scottsdale. It is 40 x 30 inches on canvas. I wanted to show the Temple reflecting in the pool of water but I did not like the straight on view (what makes a good photograph does not necessarily make a good painting). So as you can see I turned it slightly. Also I changed the proportions of the temple, and the lines, thus adding to the drama.

Temples on the Brain

2009-03-31T17:29:00.000-06:00

I was recently approached by my Ward to do a couple of paintings to hang in the Young Women room. We settled on the Provo Temple because it is our district temple and the Salt Lake Temple because it is on all of the Young Women literature. I also felt that because the paintings were for the Young Women that they should also include all of the value colors.
As a result from doing these paintings I have had several requests for prints. Which will soon be available in the next day or two, both fine art paper and canvas. I have found a place online that will do prints on demand, framing and ship to anywhere in the world. Also as a result the gallery owner that represents my original paintings, Rive Gauche Gallery, www.rivegauchegalleries.com, now would like me to paint 5 Temple paintings for him. Which I am now working on. The 5 I have chosen to do are the first 5 temples, Kirtland, Nauvoo, St. George, Manti and Salt Lake. Yes another Salt Lake Temple (the 3rd one so far). I'm going to paint the paintings less architecturally accurate and more emotionally and spiritually charged. The first 2 I am currently working on are the Salt Lake Temple (the canvas is 30 inches by 40 inches) and will be titled "Mountain of the Lord" and the Nauvoo Temple (the canvas is 48 inches by 60 inches) and will be titled "The Phoenix".

2009-01-09T13:28:00.000-07:00

I was really excited to get the first Ogre painted. My goal for the other two is to make them more ugly and scary looking. I really want to see how far I can push this with out going too far. Even with Ogres there is a careful balance. I want kids (and adults too) to see the Ogres as scary and ugly but not frightening. I don't want anyone having nightmares after viewing one of my paintings. Accept maybe the nightmare of having not purchased it in time before some else has. But alas the paint is getting bumped aside again for a bit while I work on 2 commission paintings. I'm going to be doing paintings of both the Salt Lake and Provo Temples. Quite a different subject then Ogres, should be fun though.

2009-01-01T15:04:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of portraits that I painted of my brother's kids. I painted portraits of my brother's kids as a Christmas gift to him and his wife. I also did a couple of commission paintings over Christmas too (I decided not to take picture of them so that the images wouldn't accidentally get out before the husband could give them for Christmas). So it has been a busy Christmas. But I'm finally back to working on the Ogre painting. I should have a new image out on it tomorrow.

2008-12-09T14:45:00.000-07:00

Here is one of the reasons the little girl is looking put off about this whole bit about having tea with Ogres.

2008-12-09T14:41:00.000-07:00

Here is a close up of the little girl. The flowers on the lower part of her dress are poppy flowers. Poppy flowers symbolically can represent imagination.

2008-12-06T11:18:00.000-07:00

This is the first sketch for the painting. It is called a Thumb Nail Sketch. It is done small and quick to lay out my initial ideas for the painting. Getting it out of my head and down on paper.

2008-12-06T11:15:00.000-07:00

In the upper left corner is a design for the tea cups. To the right are designs for the embroidery on the little girls dress. The lower left is just sketching out what the girls hat may look like with a fury hat band.

2008-12-06T11:12:00.000-07:00

Here I'm just working out what the background trees will look like. The rough lumps in the foreground are the Ogres and the little girl.

2008-12-06T11:08:00.000-07:00

With this early Ogre design I also was starting to work out what style of clothing the Ogres would be wearing.

2008-12-06T11:06:00.000-07:00

Here is one of my earliest drawings of an Ogre having tea. He doesn't seem to be very happy about it at all.

2008-12-06T11:04:00.000-07:00

2008-12-06T11:03:00.000-07:00

2008-12-06T11:02:00.000-07:00

2008-12-06T10:46:00.000-07:00

2008-12-06T10:42:00.000-07:00

2008-12-06T10:38:00.000-07:00

The current painting I'm working on is titled "Tea with the Ogres". A lot of pre-work goes into creating a painting of this size and detail. So I've decided to post the sketches from my various sketch books to help illustrate this.