"Still Water"
by James Swanson / Traveler Eric
8"x 10" Oil on Panel

When it rains it pours, and what do you do when you're in the middle of a hike and this happens?
My new Traveler in this painting adventure Eric knows.

Traveler Eric

Traveler Eric, is another new friend of mine that I've never met in real life. I kind of stumbled across Eric while I was doing research for another art project, and it was a very lucky slip on my part.

One of Eric's photos from this hiking trip.

You see Eric is an avid hiker from Canada-The Great White North, get it? sorry- and he has hiked, biked, or caved everywhere there and also loves to take photos to document the trips. A perfect fit for this Traveling art concept.

Just a walk in the woods?

Eric has agreed to let me paint a few of his wonderful adventures, and I'd like to say, I am very happy to have Eric on board for for this painting journey. He has a very nice eye for his photography and gets to places I could never get to also.

The start of this journey.

Traveler Eric Story: Gros Morne North Rim Traverse Hike (Newfoundland)

It's hard not to remember that place. It was about a 2 hour hike thru grass higher than our waist

- and all of it sopping, dripping with dew. We were soaked within a few minutes.

A little bit of dew.

Then there was the climb up the canyon walls. The best part was coming down a day later - in the rain - and coming down waterfalls while hanging onto trees and whatnot.

Here are pictures at the campsite at the end of the pond. We just had a day of fairly heavy rain and the sound of water coming down from the plateau is all around you. Where there was dry rock the day before there are now waterfalls.

The image I choose to work from.

Traveler Eric's Painting: "Still Water"

When I came across Eric and his photo's I was blown away by where this guy has been and how he got around. My feet hurt just looking at all his photos. Since I have just finished my vacation of Plein Air Painting I thought I'd keep it going a little longer and try and painting one of Traveler Eric's images in that style.

Like always, I start with the sketch. I try it get familiar with my subject before I dive in.

Since I'm painting this Plein Air style I'm going to work small 8"x 10" on a wood panel I prepared.

Artist Tip:One of the best tips I ever received in Plein Air Painting is to mix the main painting colors that you see in the subject before you start to paint. That way I paint fast and can capture lighting effects that probably drew me in to paint the scene in the first place. I use this idea in all my painting, it's good way to plan out the painting before you paint.

Moving fast I block in the darks for the structure of the painting.

In Plein Air Painting you have to work quickly or you will lose the light. Working this way brings out big bold brush strokes, because there is no time to dilly dally here. Here I am putting in the sky and water.since the water is reflecting the sky this goes quite quickly.

Fully blocked in. Time to go back in and adjust some colors.

I added a sky hole just to add a little more interest to the sky and water and to lead the viewers eye around.

Done pretty much just need to work on the paint edges. Paint edges are really important, they are almost as important as color. Hard edges of paint strokes come foreword soft edges recede in space.

Done. Here are some Details of the painting.

Framed and ready to go.

"Still Water"
by James Swanson / Traveler Eric
8"x 10" Oil on Panel

I painted this pretty fast, not as fast as if I were in the field, but pretty fast. I had the luxury of the sun not moving and the rain not hitting me.

Thanks goes out to Traveler Eric, for his time and images for this Traveling art adventure. We will be seeing a lot more of Eric I'm sure, because like I said earlier he's been a hiking all over Canada and what not, and he has some real nice photos too.
If you had a great trip somewhere and have a story to tell about it, go to my web site TheArtistAndTheTraveler.org and let me know. From here I'm going to be mozy-ing on down the road to meet up with a old friend but new Traveler in the San Juan Islands. Watch your top knot.

Strange Times ahead.

"Strange Smoking Man"
By James Swanson/ Traveler Greg
24"x 18" Oil on Linen

Ever get the feeling that something is out of place?

Traveler Greg's randomness

Our New Traveler Greg is a Texan transplanted to Chicago. Greg is a senior art director for a advertising agency and a good friend of mine.

. Greg and his wood.

When I told Greg about my idea of Traveling the World in Paintings Greg said "cool" that means- he liked it. Then I asked him about some photos he posted and about one photo that jumped out at me. It wasn't because it was beautiful or anything just really out of place I thought. Greg laughs, and goes into this long story of how he took the photo.

Taos New Mexico

Traveler Greg's Tale: August, three summers ago, we took a spontaneous drive up from Aledo, TX, through Carlsbad, NM and up toward Taos for a little hiking and cooler air. On the last leg of the trip, we dropped down from the mountains and stopped into Taos for a couple days.

I generally take tons of pictures, mostly of food, and things we want to remember. That afternoon was spent walking the side streets, checking out the local architecture when we walked by a patio and almost missed this guy.

He was just sitting, staring into the distance, having a smoke. So stoic...and strange. Almost like a wax figure. We stopped just past the opening to his patio, so I quickly peeked back around with my camera and snapped a picture.

Greg's photo titled Strange smoking man.

I’d say ten seconds had passed since I first saw the man and he remained in the same pose in that span of time. That’s it. Never talked to the guy. No reason to. Seemed he was content being a part of the Taos scenery being dressed the way he was, so I didn’t feel the need to ask permission for the shot. Had I done so it wouldn’t have been the same.

We returned to our little motel—the next picture in the sequence was our room’s door with a Post-it note taped to it from the owner: “Dog deposit due! $50.”

They had the biggest cottonwood tree I’ve ever seen in their parking lot.

"The Smoker" by Paul Cezanne

Artist's Note: When I saw Greg's photo it reminded me of a old painting I once saw by Paul Cezanne "the Smoker" and I wanted to paint from it. There was something timeless about it and charming, so here I go again. This is how I went about painting Greg's travel picture.

Strange Smoking Man painting: Painting a portrait is kind of different for me, I like painting landscapes with water and beautiful skies. Portraits, are a lot tougher to do but are rewarding in a lot of ways- I use my brushes differently, paint colors on my palette and the color combinations are different. Paint edges the soft edge and the hard edge are not as easy to pick out as a landscapes.

The Sketch: as always starting with a sketch to figure out the composition for the piece. I decided to lean the man back a little and have him flow diagonally in the painting. I also want to concentrate on him no the background as much.

Here I'm using a linen canvas that comes with a clear coat acrylic on it. I like seeing the raw linen showing threw so I going to leave a lot of it showing.

I'm putting in my darks first and then my lightest light color. I then started working the blues into the painting.

With the shirt blocked in it's time for some skin tones. Next I worked on the hat and vest. The vest was so interesting in the photo so I wanted to hit that hard and make it pop with the least strokes possible.

Time to put the pipe in. In the photo the man was smoking a cigarette, I dislike cigarettes so I changed it to a pipe- artistic license. After the pipe it was time to tackle that background. I didn't want that flowery background to over power this man, so I just put in a feeling of background colors.

A couple of fixes to his hat brim and I'm there. I thought I was done with this painting, but the hand holding the pipe bugged me, so I had to take another look at that.

Details

Done and framed.

"Strange Smoking Man"
By James Swanson/ Traveler Greg
24"x 18" Oil on Linen

This was my first portrait that I've done in a while and I knew it was going to be great fun to do. Greg went out of his way for this shot and I felt I should do the same. Greg said that this trip to Taos NM was one of his family's favorite vacations and the way Greg lit up telling me the story I'm sure it was, thanks Greg for your time and travels.

Thanks for stopping in I'm heading North of the border for my next Traveler meeting. Also check out the new web site for this blog www.theartistandthetraveler.org

End of the Hunting Day.

"End of the Hunt"
By James Swanson & Traveler Jim A.
18"x 16"Oil on Linen

A New Traveler- Jim A: I was having breakfast at a diner one morning with Traveler Jim A. when he said he had some great hunting trip photos for me. I'm not a hunter. I fish a little, and like the great outdoors, but I don't hunt.

Traveler Jim A.

But Jim A. is a friend of mine so I had to take a look.

Jim took me through his photo albums and let me take what I wanted. I've been working with digital images for years so working from these old photos is kind of a throw back and a challenge again.

Laying in wait.

The Jim A's Story: Jim has a tradition. Every year in the late fall he goes bird hunting in North Dakota just 75 miles South of Canada. I call it bird hunting because what they hunt is whatever bird is there at the time, duck, goose, or pheasant.

The old house they use while they are there

In this photo we see Ed, who has been coming to this spots for years with Jim A's dad. On this trip they came to hunt geese, but an early snow drove off their prey. So they ended up pheasant hunting instead. Ed is coming up one of these coolies-this is what they call the hills there- after a long day of hunting with his catch. It is also his birthday, a happy hunter.

Ed on his Birthday Oct.25

Traveler Jim A's Painting: I wasn't going to paint this shot when Jim gave it to me I just thought it might be nice in a blog for color. Well, I was dong some cleaning in the studio, moving some things around, trying to get more room and I came across some old painting of mine.

You can kind of see the old painting through cover up paint.


Canvas is rotated for new painting.

I picked it up for a laugh, it was pretty bad painting, but the linen canvas was still tight and square. Me being the frugal artist that I am thought I could paint over this, why not? So I sanded it a little to knock off the old paint ridges and rubbed some oil paint over it to start.

After this sketch to warm up and to look deeper into this old photo, I've decided to move Ed over out of the center and give him the feeling of the end of the hunting day. I'll use the coolies to lead the viewer into the painting and back to the horizon.

mixed palette colors

Since I'm kind of doing an experiment here painting over an old canvas I didn't want to waste a great Traveler image on it. So I picked out Eds picture to try.

Negative painting, background was painted first

It looks like a pretty simple image so to challenge my self I decided to try something a watercolor artist friend does sometimes, negative painting. Painting the shapes around something to define the thing it self. OK let’s go.

Having the background blocked in it's time to start on Ed.

Painting Tip: Painting can be like Noah's Arc- use brushes in pairs when you’re painting-one for light paint colors and a same size one for dark paint colors. This makes painting cleaner, clearer, and you won't pollute the paint puddles too much. Just wipe off your brushes and keep going.

The Painting is getting there, just a few color and brush stroke adjustments.

The background needed some depth and I want the horizon line to soften up a bit.

Details from painting

Finished painting

"End of the Hunt"
By James Swanson & Traveler Jim A.
18"x 16"Oil on Linen

Well that was different and fun. As an artist we have to challenge ourselves. They don't have to be extreme or permanent changes just some experimenting. I don't know if I'll do some more negative painting again for a while, but I did give it a shot. Thanks to Jim A and his hunting pals for the hunt and the tales. Thanks for looking in as its time to move my easel on down the road and see what else there is to paint in this world.