Rolling Clouds and Exciting News!

Rolling Clouds

6 x 6"
oil on board
© Nicki Ault, 2011  

sold

On this day, as I painted near the main beach in Waskesiu, the clouds kept changing and moving, yet overall stayed the same. They formed rows in the sky. Quite interesting to look at. I spent quite a bit of time on the land/horizon and wish the photo showed the variations more. I especially love the birch trees on the far right and would love to experiment more with a closer view of that part of the landmass.

Now for the exciting news... a few months back fellow blogger Judy Adamson approached me about doing a guest post for her blog, "Judy Adamson's Art And Design Blog". She suggested I write about my interest in painting en plein air and that is what I ended up doing. If you click on the link to her blog you will see my post! Thanks Judy for your friendship and interest in my art and my blog. And if you are new to my blog, I'd love it if you would follow my progress, here or on my Facebook Fan Page.

Have a great day everyone!    

The Forest Above Revamp

The Forest Above (reworking)

8x8

oil and acrylic on board
© Nicki Ault, 2011

It's been slim pick-in's these days to find time to paint. And the paintings I have started are all large and not finished. I have two on the go that are 30x30" and 30x40", so they will take time to complete. And there probably have been times that I could have painted, but all of my supplies are at the studio. I am toying with the idea of making a small limited palette kit to keep at home for times I can't get to the studio. My hat goes off to the "daily painting" crowd, that's for sure!

This painting is a redo of one of my abstract reflections that I was never quite happy with. You can see the original version here. The photo of the original actually is way better than it was in person! And I rarely find that to be the case! Anyways, this may still get more work and it may even be repurposed... to kindling!

Other news: Judy of Judy Adamson on Art and Design emailed awhile ago and wanted to do a post based on a comment I made on my blog. If you have time please follow this link to read her words.

Kickin' It Old School

 You Can Go Back

16x20"

acrylic on canvas

(created en plein air)
© Nicki Ault, 2009 
sold

About two weeks ago I received an email from Judy Adamson, an artist in Wales, who writes an informative blog regarding topics in art and design. She had recently been contemplating why some artists prefer to stick with traditional methods of producing art as opposed to using digital tools. She approached seven traditional artists to give their reasons why they have not made the change and I was one of them. To see the article and the responses click here.

To be honest, I have not given digital art much thought. I don't have a great program to use and in many ways I feel I am just scratching the surface with paint- especially in oils. Maybe the time will come when I want to dabble digitally- I'm certainly not against it and believe it is growing and growing as a strong and distinct art in it's own right, especially with all of the amazing, rapid advances in technology. I would enjoy the opportunity to sit with a digital artist to see their process and watch how they create. It would be quite fascinating to me.

For now in my own practice, however, I'm going to keep kickin' it old school!

Thanks to Judy for including me in this interesting discussion. I sent her the above image of a painting I did last year to include with my part of the article. (Click here for the original post that went with this painting- turns out it was one of the first few posts I ever made to my blog and fun for me to look back on).