Mike Major's blog/daily paintings
My visual catalogue for my work, thoughts, and resources.
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
March @ Quorum Gallery
These pieces represent my most current oil paintings. They represent a change in application for me. It is difficult to appreciate the thickness of the paint and the texture. This is Heisler Sunset which was really the piece that changed everything for me.
In the Weeds measures 30 x 30 inches
Misty Morning in Irvine Park is very subtle in it's pallet but I really like the dynamic brush strokes within the painting.
This painting was important in my development of my new technique. In this painting I built the values from the lightest to the darkest. I gently laid down the blue paint with thick paint and gentle stokes letting the brush bristles describe the contours of the San Gabriel Mountains. This painting measures 6x6 inches.
Into the Canyon measures 8x8 inches.Here are my paintings grouped on the wall at the Quorum Gallery.
I look forward to changing up my paintings frequently. In April I will present some of my recent plein air efforts.
Wednesday, March 6, 2024
Saturday, February 24, 2024
Art Goals 2024
-Finish website X
-30 photo realistic graphite drawings.
-Enter 30 events: LPAPA Best of Plein Air, 8" squared,
-Clean and organize studio X
-Complete studio makeover
-Redo business cards X
-Marketing 15 % of art time
-Figure prints out for drawings
-start known contests events early
-paint smaller plein air for best of plein air
-The art of Orange County
-Artichoke series
-Water / pool series
-Time lapse posting
-Learn new camera
-Organize completed art
-Redo Shirt X
-Calendar on dry erase board
-Note cards
-Underwater dog photography
-Small acrylic ink for shop 10 strong images
-Get setup for Back Bay Show
-Get name plate for wall X
-July Muth hanging
-You tube channel
-Quadruple art income for year.
-Read 10 art books. In natures temple, Plein air Techniques
-Focus on increasing instagram following
-Increase painting skills in all media-10 things I am going to do to improve my skills 1-start thumbnails again, 2 -paint in oil en plein air 3 -start including figures in my art 4 -paint every day 5 -develop acrylic art skills 6 -continue to take plein air paintings out and develop them further than one session 7 -
-Begin painting pastels in studio again
-Catalogue work
-Gallery representation X
-Bio for the backs of art
-Start painting with oils plein air.
-Review and update goals every 2 weeks
-Start Art Resume
-Start Newsletter
-Cards for Gallery Wall X
-Sketch book with me at all times and drawing figures
-How to start teaching private art classes learn and develop and begin process.
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
Curatorial Review
Layering progressively darker and darker values with thick paint and not allowing the paint to dry enables me to workback into the lighter values by scraping away the darker values to get to the highlights.
Irvine Park
The layering begins. The interaction between addition and subtraction.