Art in the Plaza, Oct. 28 and 29

At St Phillips Plaza on the SE Corner of Campbell Ave and River Road. An outdoor tent show with many great artists.

I will show 3 new Wildlife paintings for the first time, and I'm already offering the always popular archival pigment prints on canvas of those images.

My selection of Greeting Cards

 Despite e mail and social media, the greeting cards made from my watercolors have found an enthusiastic following over the years. So it is time to introduce them all together here on my blog. They are 6.5 by 4.5 inches in size and come with envelopes. Most of my images are available in assortments. 7 images are grouped in every themed collection. The price per assorted box is $25, single cards are $4.00. Let me invite you to take a walk through my little exhibit!

Any  group of 7 cards (Size 4.5 by 6.5 inches) from this selection comes with envelopes and costs $25 plus shipping.
Single cards cost $4.00 plus shipping. Minimum order $20
You can arrange for PayPal or Credit Card payments.
I hope you see something you like!

New Poster: Butterflies of Arizona

It's done!
To my insect poster collectors and bug friends: After publishing my first 4 arthropod posters (see below), I have been asked for a butterfly poster more times than I can remember. But there is so much good stuff out on Butterflies ... I was a little intimidated. Now I think I have put together a collection that does justice to the unique diversity of Arizona and at the same time looks beautiful.

Many thanks to Ken Kertell, who allowed me to use a number of his excellent photos!

So I'm introducing my new poster, 'Butterflies of Arizona', with numbered template and corresponding species list

The size is 18 in by 24 in, it is printed on heavy, semigloss art paper with my giclee printer. That's really art print quality, not poster quality, and it will not fade.

Cost: $35 plus shipping. 

Order at mbrummermann@comcast.net, pay through paypal (I'll invoice)

 These 4 others are also still available, all selling separately, of course. All with numbered species list and template. Same price as the new one.

Sycamore Canyon Coatis

I did not start with a value chart this time - I was too taken with the narrative that I was trying to convey. So I'd break all the rules from the beginning. I also found out that my resist had turned into an unusable mess. So there is none used in this piece, and I think that worked out well.

I started with my narrative in mind and all the figures, but with the idea of leading the eye through the image.

A rule-breaker: I wanted my background yellow, like low sun rays filtered through brushes and trees.

 After filling in the middle-ground, it gets busy and confusing. It has lost some of the back-lit glitter that I was aiming for. But the abstracting stained-glass effect of the background is developing.

 

  































To finish, I enhanced the yellow in parts of the background - I believe that if you use color, do it decisively. With my big flat brush, I pulled and pushed little pieces of the background to enhance the stained glass effect and keep it simple. Then I darkened areas of the middleground to make the figure up front pop. I softened the rock edges behind the front guy to make them recede. .

'Sycamore Canyon Coatis', Quarter Sheet Arches cold pressed, framed in 16 in by 20 in. 
SOLD

 For the story behind the painting see my nature blog

Available: matted prints 16x 20 and canvas print 6 in by 8 in of just the front Coati   

Lonesome Coati

New Paintings at Fountain Hills, this Weekend!

I have a number of brand-new originals ready, and also prints and cards in case the paintings are gone by the time you visit. Orders on line are also very welcome!

My next Art Show: February 24-26, 2017
The Great Fair Fountain Hills, AZ
Booth # F20
Avenue of the Fountain/Saguaro Blvd.

Coyote Prowls

I had a clear idea about the coyote being backlit and outlined by a halo of light. So I needed a dark background. No other planning for the background - which is not great WC technique. Trying to establish some glow in the under-painting

More negative painting for the vegetation, more darks for the rock wall. Creating depth and a visual path into the painting.

Some color for the main actor - needs to be subdued because he's only catching light from behind. So I'll go back in and darken him later

Darkened and unified his body mass and infused a warm glow on his chest - thrown back from the sunlit ground. Gave him pupils and eye liner.  He's come alive now!

'Coyote Prowls' watercolor 11in x14 in. Matted 16 x 20. 
SOLD

Advanced Watercolors with Linda Feltner at the ASDM

Last weekend I attended the Advanced  Watercolor class at the Art Institute of the Arizona Desert Museum. Linda Feltner, the teacher, is a friend with whom I share many interests besides painting.

 

Top left:  Linda's own demonstration pieces. It was interesting to see how she let the first washes suggest the direction each painting would take.

I'm not sure at all that I like my juicy colors here, and I wished the mountains would stay in a greater distance

For most of our exercises we used reference photos, but they were smartly chosen to keep us from copying them too closely: they were underexposed or strangely proportioned, but all of them had an area of interest that deserved to be developed or just posed interesting problems. Accordingly, the results produced by seven students, all of different backgrounds and skill levels, were refreshingly different from each other.

This creek with its origin in distant mountains reminded me of some Norwegian Tundra setting.

 I am no great landscape painter and the mood of the suggested photos was as far from our brilliant Arizona desert light and sculptural succulent vegetation as you can get. In addition, I challenged myself to use Linda's pallet with a dominance of earth tones. So I was way out of my comfort zone. The outcome was a little unpredictable but thought provoking. The best, as with any good teacher, was of course the critique session when the paintings were all lined up on the wall. 

Maybe inspired by our unusually wet spring, I had played around with cloud formations over the last weeks. So the concept that clouds are not just amorphous wisps but have body, edges and perspective was not altogether new to me. The sky part of this little painting was thrown together and critiqued in less than an hour and a half, but I liked doing it. At home I felt the urge to push it a little further towards a finished painting. The cowboy and dog just wanted to ride into it, but seemed a little too cliche - so I did them on my computer - a brush full of pixels and a new file, but the original painting is still untouched and unspoiled and open to all kinds of other solutions

I always loved Ravens

 Twice, as a child and young adult in Germany, I was lucky enough to become the keeper of a tame Jackdaw, which is the smallest of the black European corvids. Each was a  free flying companion for many years. Their intelligence and curiosity got them into many comical or even dangerous adventures - hiking or biking with Jackdaw never got boring.

Hooded Crows in Trondheim

 When I lived in Trondheim, Norway, Crows became my favorites. Resident researchers soon invited me to  climb huge pine trees to get to the nests of rooks to get blood samples of the nestlings - I did not particularly like that idea. But I could watch for hours the behavior of those stately Hooded Crows that stood up to the biggest, loudest Hering Gulls with dignity.

Morning has Broken

 Their large cosmopolitan relative, the Common Raven, is even more intelligent and impressive. I love watching our resident pair when they let  the vortex of thunderhead cloud carry them up into the sky, only to swoop down with breathtaking speed and start it all over again.

Original Watercolor, matted 11in by 14in  $295. 

Arizona Winter Colors

Winter scenes in hot colors. That's what living in Arizona does to my style. But I always loved the German Expressionists. I wonder what Emil Nolde would have painted if he had lived here? 

Original 11in by 14 in double mat $295

Prints will be available after the original is sold or by request. All sizes.