New Instructional Magazines

I just published this new instructional magazine, and I am really happy with the way it came out.
  I have been teaching classes and doing demonstrations based on the concepts in this book for a year now.
SPLAT!!! makes me really happy because it incorporates careful planning with fresh playful brush technique.

The magazine is affordable and easy to understand.  I really hope my students and past students pick up a copy.


I published "Tools for Painting Landscapes last spring.  It is based on class noted I took during a William Reese Workshop I attended in 1994.

The next magazines, (coming Soon) will be on creating color harmony, perspective, and values and light.
  I'll keep you posted.

A Safe Place

East of the Pass 24" x 30" acrylic Dianna Shyne

Looking for Light 24" x 18" acrylic

In my childhood games of chase, there was always "Home Base", a place where you were safe and no one could get you.

Right now, my home and studio feels like "base". A safe place in a uncertain time.

This summer, my wonderful husband of three years, Michael Gotz, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer affecting the bone marrow and blood.  Suddenly, our wonderful, blissful life of making art and music  has changed.  Stress and uncertainties loom.  Battles with the insurance provider are ramping up over what services they will and will not provide.

Michael is great.  He keeps writing music and going to gigs.  He is constantly cracking me up with his jokes, and caring for his wild birds out the window. He will play his guitar until he drops.




Walk in the Wild 16" x 20"

 

Mother of the Field 24" x 30"

One Small Gift 20" x 16"

 As I look over the work I've done in the last few months, I can see the arc of feeling and emotion...it's almost like a personal journal...The protective mother under a scorching sun, the uncertain watcher looking for hope, a bend in the river, a creator of small gifts, a blissful cat on a crooked porch.

Painting has always been the way I find joy, work through problems, work off excess energy, cope with stress, express my emotions... deal with uncertainty.  I think I'll get off the computer and go paint.

Porch Cat 16" x 20"

Evening Fire

 An October Trip to Prince Edward Island became the inspiration for these two most recent paintings. I spent a good part of December working on them when I should have been preparing to have a houseful of family for the holidays. I managed to cobble together a reasonable facsimile of Christmas, and everyone seemed happy with the results. But the pay off was that I took the time I needed to paint.

 

Evening Fire 30" x 40" acrylic on canvas

I've been working on creating mood in my landscape paintings, exploring elements in each painting that evoke the essence of mood, and how I can  use these elements to improve my next piece.  I brought these two painting into my classes this week and asked my students about the feeling or mood that they experienced when viewing them side by side. The discussion revolved around the aspects of the paintings seemed to evoke mood. I was pleased that the consensus of the students matched my goals.

   

In "Evening Fire", it is the end of a day and the end of a season. The day is shutting down, the temperature is cooling off. Everything is going quiet. The muted dark colors, soft edges and lone figure imply quiet introspection. I started this painting with cooler grays and harder edges, and the feeling was depressing and morose. When I softened the grasses and warmed the colors, the feeling of the painting became warmer as well.
I loved the fiery glow of the last ray of sun as it slid down the far bank of trees, and reflected in the buildings on the distant shore.

 

 

Canoe Cove Tide Change 30" x 40" acrylic on canvas

In "Canoe Cove", I was trying to recreate the feeling I had when first viewing the scene. It was a feeling of peaceful anticipation...of a day yet to be experienced....sun, sand and an empty beach...sand bars just exposed and ready for exploration. The complimentary colors and gentle diagonal movements in the clouds and sand seem to create a subtle energy.

 

 I am always searching for ways to improve my paintings.  It is sometimes a slow road, but I keep working.  The work itself is a reward.  I love the moments when I close the door on the studio, squeeze out the paints, ready my brushes and realize with joy that this could very well take all day. Christmas won't wait, but sometimes inspiration won't wait either.

 

Two Weeks In Oakville

The last two weeks in October were spent teaching workshops in Oakville, Ontario.  I love all the wonderful painters who attended the classes.  Here are some photos of them and their work.  The studio was situated in an amazing garden right next to lake Ontario.

 

 

 

 

Island Time-Canada Style

North Rustico Lighthouse  20" x 16" Acrylic




"Spire"  36" x 24" acrylic

"Off Broadway" 24" x 20" acrylic



"Last Nice Day of Summer" 8" x 8" acrylic



"Power Pull"  20" x 24" acrylic

 

Tomorrow I head back to Prince Edward Island...a place I have loved for over a dozen years. This time it will be seriously fall.  It's hard to believe I've never been there in the fall.  I've visited in Spring when the wildflowers are rolling up every hill, and in Summer when the beaches and sidewalks and open air restaurants are lively with people enjoying the sun.

 I'll be teaching a short workshop as well, so my week there will seem very short.  Prince Edward Island almost demands that you spend time, park the car, explore on foot, window shop, laugh and linger with friends, ramble along the beaches...get sand in your shoes. I'm eager to dive into Autumn.

After my week in Charlottetwon, I'm off the the Toronto area to teach two five day workshops.  This is such a lovely opportunity to experience another town and more wonderful Canadian aritsts. I'll report back....

Click for more paintings of Prince Edward Island

Workshop Demo

Roses on the Ruins 36" x 24" Acrylic on Masonite

This weekend I taught another workshop at the Winslow Arts Center. This painting was a demonstration on using a limited palette.  It was completed in a little over an hour of furious painting.  I did it during the lunch break because I wanted my students to get back to their own work.
It was amazing to see the progress they all made in two short days.

Painting Paint

 

 

North Rustico is a wonderful small fishing village on Prince Edward Island.  It is populated with rustic groups of old buildings.  Recently I used many of these buildings as reference for a series of paintings based on tight, almost abstract compositions painted with realistic detail. 

I was hoping that by saying less about the building as a whole, I would say more about the poetic quality of the aging process and the movement of time.

In this technological world when the pace moves faster and faster, I loved the idea of peering through the age worn paint and rippled windows into slower, simpler time.

 

More Paintings in This Series

My Colombia: Breathing in the Landscapes of My Life

Confluence 30" x 30"

 Acrylic on canvas Painted on location in Wenatchee WA

(below) First Dusting of Snow

20" x 20" Acrylic on canvas

I spent my childhood living on the slope of a valley overlooking the Columbia River. We could see the river from our house… every sunset reflected in its expanse.
My favorite playground was a dry, steep, sage covered slope punctuated with an outcropping of lava rock. It was a perfect viewpoint for the valley, the river and the mountains beyond.

Autumns from that vantage were abuzz with the sound of chainsaws: smelling of leaf smoke and burning apple wood, and stirring with the activity of the harvest. The river wound bright blue through the golden leaves of fruit trees.

Winters were shadowy ultramarine and crisp white drapery over the rolling hillsides. Shivering cold, the river was a steel band that seemed to hold the world in place.
  
Spring blazed with wildflowers that raced up the sides of slopes, blue, white and yarrow yellow... the air perfumed with apple blossoms. As the soft green grasses ripened into gold of early summer, I would imagine the slopes were the tawny sides of a giant sleeping lion, with the river its bright string toy.


But summer was a wonder! Because my father was an avid water skier meant every spare minute was spent on the Columbia….our speeding boat slicing through the blue. My father, graceful and athletic as a dancer, balanced on one ski, leaning back, holding the line with one hand…waving and smiling….sliced through the wake with a little jump….my mother, sister and I getting soaked with spray. The smell was rich, like frogs and fish and mud and boats and power.

In those years, the Columbia was ever present … a silver thread that stitched its way through the center of my young life. 

In Many ways, these early memories are imbedded in my love of painting in the open air. Spending time in nature, observant and very still was a way of life for me as a young child, and continues to be so as a painter. Although I do much studio painting, I rediscover my self when I am painting outdoors surrounded by and breathing in the landscapes of my life.

More?  http://diannashyne.com/pleinair.html