Winter plein air. Closing out my time in Wisconsin

Just passing through this last winter in Wisconsin. It's off to Florida for the rest of my life with palm trees, alligators and lots of oceans to paint. But why not bang out a few quickies outside in the elements of winter.

 Set up at this creek

 9x12 oil on panel

 Set up next to a small lake 

about to freeze over

 9x12 oil on panel. Man it was cold!

Drive 2 hours. Paint 1 hour. Great old barn in oil

This fall I was driving around aimlessly looking for somewhere to paint. If I spent as much time painting plein air as I did looking for that so-called perfect spot, I'd be a much better artist! By chance, as I blasted down a highway at 60mph I glanced to the right to look up a weedy road. STOP...pull over and back up. Nothing posted as private so I drive in about 40 yards and here is this awesome abandoned bard/shed. The painting had to be looking inside the building with all the broken wood slats and light streaming through the roof. 

I didn't get a close up of the 8x10 oil painting, but it was fun to try and get those grays correct. I kept the palette to just a couple colors and tried to work fast. So after driving for an hour, I painted for an hour. The sun was going down and it was time to,,,drive another hour back home. Such is the life of this plein air artist.

Colectivo Coffee- Corporate Christmas Party raffle item

I was invited back this year to paint at the corporate Bostik Christmas Party. Held at the Calatrava/Milwaukee Art Museum, it was a great event. This painting was a raffle item, won by a woman who frequents this coffee shop, Colectivo, in the Fourth Ward of Milwaukee. Completed in acrylic on 40x30 gallery wrap canvas over 4 hour period. I was able to snap a couple of progress photos (bottom up).

Vernazza Italy- SOLD

Created this little one in the studio after a visit to Vernazza, Italy in the Cinque Terra area. Was fortunate enough to have someone love this painting and collect it. Enjoy.

The first painting of 2013 ends with a sale

As the year comes to a close I was wondering how many pieces of art I created this year. I don't keep very good records by month/year but I do have a pretty good idea. Sure, I can go through the dozens....185 to be exact...paintings that pile up in my studio and I'll remember what I did this year.

I had goals for my art, many were hit, some not. Art is not my sole source of income. Thank God, because I would epitomize the starving artist label. Again, I don't create art solely for making money. It's nice, believe me, when someone purchases one of my pieces. Two galleries I exhibited in closed, so I lost local exposure. I've done nothing to get new gallery representation. But, that's okay.

So what about the art? Let's start with a piece, two to be exact, that just sold to a buyer in New Jersey. He happens to be an artist too, and saw my bit on YouTube. First the plein air video. I did it during Christmas break 2012, about a year ago.


I liked the scene enough that I decided to make a bigger version back in the studio. That video is here.

24x36" Oil "December Chill" sits framed on my dining room wall. The cool thing about this one is the scene is literally less than a mile from my house. Sometimes I drive around for hours looking for a place to paint plein air. This was the painting that started out my 2013.

Gray day is a perfect day to paint outside

It's a couple days after Christmas. I'm still looking for a job. It's gray outside. I haven't seriously painted in several weeks. Hello...brain...tell this body to get off it's butt and do something...like paint.

So I know I have to paint more from life. But, it's winter. It's cold. It's ugly out. Isn't it? As a matter of fact, I love snow. It's the cold that I really could live without. I enjoy a big snowstorm. And when the snow is wet and sticks to everything, it's really a beautiful sight. Guess what it did just before Christmas? It snowed. Wet snow. It hasn't melted down and there's a painting waiting for me somewhere.

Okay, make a decision: I'm going to go paint outside. Ya know, plein air style. And I know just where I'm going to go because I scoped this spot out earlier yesterday, a whopping mile from my house. The resulting plein air trip produced a nice little study of snow, trees and a winding creek with fallen trees. It was a beautiful scene. The study has got me thinking about a full size studio version.

But for now, here's the video I put together as I trampled through a field on a perfect neutral gray day to do a little painting.

Images from the past

I came across a bunch of digital images from art that I've sold or given away over the years.

 Big Bend Plein Air- SOLD

 Red Sky at Night- SOLD

 Fall on the River- Oil

 Nala- RIP. A commission for my Uncle Tom

 Mid Summer- Pastel

 15 Minutes to Sundown- Oil (all palette knife)

 Bridge at Kettle Moraine Park- Oil

Winner- Downer Avenue Plein Air Event, 2007- Oil

139 and Counting

For some dumb reason I walked into a closet I have downstairs and wondered how many paintings I had in there. So I started counting. These are paintings/drawings I've completed over the last 12 years.

10 years is about the amount of time I got "back into" my art. During 2000 when I lived in Grand Rapids, MI I took a class on figure drawing. It was fun. Then I found a local arts group called Grand Valley Artists, GVA. This was more fun, and I met some very well known national artists; Jim Markel PSA, Larry Blovets, and a few more. It got me back into art, something I had given up during the previous 10 years as I pursued a career and got married.

So around the house I went. And in the end...not counting a drawer full of smaller canvases and my "paper" box of sketches and pastel works: 139 pieces. I was kind of shocked. I've also got, without going to my inventory list, another 40 pieces at galleries and two dentist offices.

139 and still counting. I need to have a show, even if it's my own private show just to look at how far I've come as an artist. Maybe I'll do that. Stay tuned.

Open Canvas Art Event

Last Saturday was the 10th annual Open Canvas event held in Milwaukee. Six years ago I stumbled upon a small newspaper display ad promoting this event so the wife and I decided to attend. Billed as 80 artists creating original pieces in one night seemed like an interesting way to spend a Saturday evening, especially if you're into art.

The event is put together by Jeff Kursel and his family in dedication to his father who was a successful ad exec here in Milwaukee. He also attended Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD), the only accredited private art school in Wisconsin. The amount of work that appears to go into this event is staggering. Coordinating the space; a beautiful old warehouse in Historic Third Ward, dozens of food vendors, donated art supplies from Richeson Art and finding 80+ artists to donate their time and effort, parking, valet, coat check, security and processing the payments from patrons that buy works via a silent auction at the end of the night....WOW...and then the clean up aftermath. It really is quite a show.

This is my 5th year of participating as an artist. I feel so fortunate, as this year featured 90 artists, many locals, many from the Kursel family and a guest artist from Germany. And me...little Mike Pintar, local artist from Waukesha struggling to sell anything this year. Getting the invite back in July to paint at this event gets be jacked up right up to the day of the event. With what I guess is close to 1000 people attending (based on bidder ticket numbers), the atmosphere is so electric and so much artistic energy, it's really hard to describe. I don't have time to take many photos when everyone is there and they discourage photographs anyway, so it's one of those "you have to be there to believe it" kind of things. Here's a quick glimpse of the action.

Artists start arriving in early afternoon. Doors to the public open at 6pm and bidding starts immediately with final auction bids closing starting at 9:30. If you're artist #1, you better be close to finished vs #84 where you'll have an extra hour to finish up your piece. So while it's a ton of pressure to create a piece in 5-8 hours, the process is where the action is, and what the public comes for.

Artists start at various times, but the key is to pace yourself so when the public is watching, you're in the middle of your work. Easier said than done!

The man, Tom Nachreiner of Milwaukee.

I took a "safe" subject this year, a cityscape, but went out of the box and developed it upside down. Below is a completed block-in and starting to move on to refining the big shapes. I'll detail the rest of the process in my next post. It was a great Open Canvas this year and hope to be back next year...cross my paintbrushes.