It's no secret that I like wooden rowboats

February 3, 2021

Waiting on the Tide 2021. 9 x 12 oil on panel

Below is the visual process of making this painting. Fist it starts with taken a photograph. This was taken in 2017? Using my Canon EOS D5 Mark iV. A full frame 24mp sensor. I shot it in RAW format.

The image was processed in Lightroom adjusting for color and value distribution. Camera lens correction applied. Then it is exported to photoshop. Various filters are applied to help see the value ranges. Eventually prints are made on my 14 year old Epson 7800 24” ultra chrome printer.

A 112 color spectrum palette is layout out on the glass along with 3 dual primary colors, white and two neutralizers Yellow Ochre and Transparent Red Oxide. From this full intensity palette recipe colors are ‘found’. Note that they are pretty neutral colors.

A quick drawing is made with charcoal and the aid of a homemade proportional divider. Excess charcoal is air off. Workable fixative is sprayed applied.

Real painting begins. first the point of focus. Colors derived from the recipe are mixed and expanded. The ‘under painting takes shape. The temperatures get balanced. Highlights and last minute indication

The whole composition took about a year. First the negative space had to be as powerful as the boat. Horizontal and vertical intervals had to balance. A complimentary rectangle had to be agreed upon.
A 3 x 4 format thus the 9 x 12. A three by four foot canvas has been made so that may one day soon this boat may be painted on it with the knowledge found from this small painting.

The Return of the Sixes

October 29, 2020

I’m entering my three latest little Kitchen Art paintings in this years Sixes show. 2020 Peach, Wild Apples and Red pepper. All oil on papel. Priced at $240 a piece. This is a giant fund raiser for DVAA hope you can participate.

Wild Apples

October 29, 2020

Wild apples are a favorite of mine to paint. Wild apples can be the odd apple tree along the side of the road which these are. They could also be from apple trees which are part of a long neglected orchard. There is an orchard nearby that has been mostly revived over the past few years with great success.

This year I collected apples from three trees. A late season drought killed off many of my roadside harvests. Buy the way these apple make for great pies. They’re only unappealing on the outside.

The color in this painting as in most of my recent work is done from a neutral palette. Most everything I see is neutral, Chomeric grey if you will.

2020 Peach

September 29, 2020

This fuzzy peach painting suffered a mishap coming off the easel about 10 days ago. I had to wipe down a portion. I was so bummed I put it away. This morning I finished it. I love the colors and barely control brush strokes. Not a great photo though.

I have some road side apple I picked last week ready for a few more ‘Kitchen Art’ paintings.

It’s been a tough summer. Hell it’s been a tough year. Last weekend I went fishing at Salmon River at Lake Ontario and caught a giant male King Salmon. My first real excursion out. Now I’ll hide out for a couple of weeks. Maybe get some more little paintings done.

Katlin on an orange field

September 29, 2020

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.

August 22, 2020

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

July 30, 2020

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.

First palette since early march

July 24, 2020

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

February 18, 2020

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

February 18, 2020

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

October 4, 2019

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.

One model 4 poses

August 2, 2019

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.

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

July 15, 2019

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.

Jitterbug Straight Up

April 21, 2019

Sold! Purchased by a fellow art traveller. 8.6.19

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.