Katlin on an orange field

Untitled 30 x 24 oil on canvas 2020

This painting was unfinished from our life painting sessions. I just finished it and I like it. The colors are just what I imagined. this is an uncorrected iPhone photo. I really miss our weekly painting sessions. I miss the light in Johan’s studio. Daylight. I do my best in artificial light but it’s not the same.

I’ve been painting a bit over the last month, making canvases and building compositions. I have a 3’ x 4’ canvas for a big boat painting waiting on the easel.

Another addition to my Kitchen Art series.

It’s been a long time since I did any little paintings. About a year. Even longer for a piece of Kitchen Art. This pepper came from Roger’s garden. We didn’t have a garden this year because the deer have figured out the fence. Next year I’ll figure out the fence.

This painting was done using my dual primary spectrum palette. I added Lukas Vermillion Deep and Geneva Pyrrole Rubine. Painted in one pass. I may have stopped to pee.

I haven’t been able to work since March. We shut down the weekly figure painting session. I miss the light of Johan’s studio, the camaraderie and the challenges.

I am a steaming pile of co-morbidities. Age, and health make me a rather fat target. Only recently have I come out of my basement like Joe Biden. Except I don’t want to rule the free world. All I want is to paint and sell enough to buy supplies and a desert island in French Polynesia.

Block in of my first painting in 3 months

I have a bunch of props hanging around my studio. Stuff I just have, stuff I’ve found, and stuff i’ve bought. This is just a bunch of stuff composed in a sort of classical manner. A gas can, some brass bunnies, petrified citrus, big house painting brushes and a tea towel. Just shapes forms, color and value. Pretty much drawn out to what I want . Time to finish.

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Progress to 8/3/20

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Progress to 8/6/20

First palette since early march

From left to right:

Red Violet, Violet, Blue Violet, Blue Dual Primary ( Outremer, Cobalt ). Blue Green, Green, Yellow Green, Yellow Dual Primary ( Primary Lemon, Cadmium ), Yellow Orange. Orange, Red Orange, and Red Dual Primary ( Alizarin Crimson and Cad Red Deep).

The weekly figure painting group broke up a week before lockdown. Needless to say there was a lot of anxiety about what was happening. I was trying to finish my boat. I couldn’t by paper goods. My wife’s office shut down and she moved her work home. I was shocked by the severity and swiftness of events. Finishing the boat was hard. Finding even nuts and bolts was difficult. It’s done and is a great boat. I finished it last week. Now it’s time to get back to painting.

Boat build by Dr Paul Diamond and Jim Kingston

The Road to Kevins

Started this three weeks ago at Peters workshop. I let it sit for a while to give me a fresh eye. I’m trying to create space with mostly just shapes and color. Today was a crummy rainy day and the furnace was broken. So I planned to paint while waiting for the plumber. I’m glad I did

This is painting using the semi neutral colors I mix and tube. The result is this highly chromatic neutral work. Not a great photo though. When I finish I’ll make a good one. For now I put it away for a bit to come back again for a new look.

A long winters pose

Almost done. We have been painting this pose since November. We painted another pose in between the start but all agreed that we needed more work on this. The light this winter has been horrible. We paint with natural light from overhead skylights and the weather has been so gray and gloomy. This was the first week that we had great light. At the end of the session I wiped out the face. Oh well, next week.

This is an exercise in neutral color.

Another life painting

It seems that all I paint these days is nudes. I guess that’s all I’ve been painting is why. Is is a 7-8 hour painting over 4 weeks. It ain’t slick or super precise but it is correct in it’s space and excentuates the gesture. Again neutrals.

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One model 4 poses

Earlier this year we started a series of painting where our model Katalin would strike multiple poses with the intention that they would go into one composition. Sound hard? You bet.

Painted in the colors I see. Neutral mixes of bi-colors to achieve chromatic greys This was quite an achievement for me in that I did this in 10 to 12 hours.

This is the finish.

Dance 30 x 40 oil on canvas 2019

Below is the sequence as it was composed and executed.This was painted over 5 weeks. Every Monday for three hour or about 2-2 1/2 hour of model time accounting for breaks. Painted under natural light that was constantly changes minute to minute week to week.

Pose 1

Pose 2

Pose 3

The most beautiful light

The front room of the Olsen House

We were up in Maine for the Fourth. We usually go for Labor Day be this time we were early. It was very different. Lots of fish activity at the cabin. Blues chasing big schools of bait fish on the changing tides. Seals chasing bait fish and thousands of seabirds. It was hot. Except on the from deck. The photo above was taken in the Olsen House where Andrew Wyeth paint so many iconic paintings. Truly the best light I have ever encountered.. The highlight of the trip for me.

Of course there was Moody’s where I had the best blueberry pancakes on the planet. I was a trip jam packed with surprises. We went to a clam shack in Seabrook, NH I haunted in my youth. Visited with an old friend in Haverhill my home town

Moody's

David's house on the Merrimac in Rocks Village

Brown's Clams and such

On the why to the highway I turned onto the street where I grew up ‘I think I’ll drive by the house’. I stopped in front. A woman and a dog were there. I’ Grew up in this house’ I said. “Are you Jimmy Kingston the artist?’ she asked. It’s a long story made short we looked around inside flooding me with forgotten memories. Wow. Far out.

125 Kingsbury Avenue

Jitterbug Straight Up

Sold! Purchased by a fellow art traveller. 8.6.19

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Oil on Linen Panel 2019

This illustrative painting is the result of a series of doodles and sketches done over the past few years. This antique Jitterbug was purchased about 3 years ago with the intent to make a painting of it.

This is a rendering with a touch of expressive brush stroke.

The first Largemouth Bass I ever caught on a lure, maybe the first fish I ever caught on a lure, was with a Jitterbug on Angle Pond in Hempstead, New Hampshire. My cousin Raymond Sweetser taught me how to fish with lures and flies in the summer of 1960. I never thanked him enough for doing this.

This is the latest in a long series of fishing lures and flies I’ve made over the past 30 years. Pieces in watercolor, oils, and cg.

WIP from weekly life painting

The is a detail from the biggest painting I’ve ever attempted from a live model. 4’ x 3’. I think I got pretty far along in the about 7 hours over three weeks. It’s not done by any measure but a good solid base to finish from a photo. This is Katalin our new model. Again it’s color and value. She had a crown of flowers in her hair like it’s 1967. Far out great fun to paint.

Spring Maiden 4’ x 3’ oil on canvas 2019 WIP

I'm offering dog portraits by commission

I like dogs. We have three of them. I like painting dogs as you’ve seen in this blog. So why not offer painting of people’s pups on commission.

Reasonable pricing and turn around. A painting may take a week to 10 days. Drying and varnish time 2 weeks to a month.

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Trout the Dog Not the Fish

jimkingston.com/huntingdogportraits

Vaporous

Thoughts are like vapor. They come and grow and go as they came. With age they are harder to solidify.

This is a painting done with 75¢ brushes. Bristles on the edge of control. Simple complementary colors with just a little contamination. Softened layers with big brushes. I can see more of this to come.

Blue skies nothin' but blue skies...

What can be more boring than blue skies. Gimme some clouds. Big puffy things .moving fast through blue yonder.

I did this rough piece as a demo on pushing value to create dramatic effect and keeping color in a value range. Painted on canvas pad about 9 x 14”

Value is the most important thing most of the time when making a painting. Color in itself is value.