Painter

New NY Giants Painting WIP

I have five paintings that I am currently working on including this rather ambitious watercolor of the NY Giants playing the NY Jets. Guess who won? This measures 14 x 22 and I'm working on 140lb Waterford Saunders Rough Press. My main goal is this piece is too capture the intensity, excitement and movement of thr game. I don't want to get too tight and I'm really just letting the paint do it's thing. 

In this second image things are starting to throw a shape. I'm finding my darks and establishing my center of interest which will be the player facing the viewer. He's got the ball! As far as technique goes I wet the paper and drop the pigment in and move the board around and then lift out the light spots. Anything goes to achieve the effect I'm after. 

I have more on this on my studio Facebook page. You can check it out at Deborah Bollman Fine Art on Facebook. As always comments welcome! 

For you football fans I am one of the Official bloggers for the NY Giants for SportsBlog.com at our blog GiantsBigBlueBlog.net so be sure to pop on over to Facebook and like our page and then check out the blog! GiantsBigBlueBlog.net on Facebook

Happy painting!

Deborah

Running For Glory

Running For Glory, Watercolor, 8 x 10 ©Deborah Bollman

Just a short post today  becasue I have some very cool news! My painting Running For Glory was one of the FAV Top 15% for January's Bold Brush Painting Competition!  It's a rather non-traditional theme so I am thrilled to even have it recognized. Here's a wonderful comment that I got on this painting-  "Running For Glory" - Brilliant! It's seething with power. I think you captured the anonymous brutality of the game. Whether you were going for that I don't know. But it's in there." I'm a painter, not a wordsmith,  but this description sums up, better than I can write, exactly what I was going for.

Have an amazing day! :)

Deborah

Work in Progress-Football Painting

The sketch

    Another update on the San Francisco Forty Niners painting.  So I'm back to the drawing board with this  (so to speak)  adding light glazes and starting to push the darker values. I'm pretty happy with how this is progressing. As so many of you know with watercolor there are so many ways a painting can go terribly wrong. So fingers crossed! 

To get updates to my blog be sure click the Flollow my blog link over there on the right and you will get updates delivered right to you mailbox!

Forty Niners are Going to the Super Bowl!

Yes, this my art blog and, yes, the title of this blog post is about football but my passion for football and art are intertwined. I paint what i am passionate about and I am passionate about my San Francisco Forty Niners! And they are going to the Super Bowl!  And on that note I am in the middle of a 49er painting that I have composed using reference photos from my day at the 49ers/Jets game at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey back in September. Anyway, over the summer I found a really great gold plein air style frame at a yard sale and I had a great idea for an interesting composition for a football painting featuring...ta da... the Forty Niners. 

This first photos is the intial sketch all laid out..

Then comes the first glaze. The next decision I had to make was do I paint the jersey in the away colors of white or their home color of red. I am partial to the red but I took a poll on Facebook and the answer was a resounding yes to the red. So red it is!

In the image below I have started laying in the first glazes of the red and am playing around with the background. What to see more? Be sure to stop back as I'll be posting more of thei work- in - progress!

It is an interesting size painting at 6 1/2 x 18 but I really like the size. It is a bit further along than this but I'll save that for the next post. Watercolor on Arches, 300lb Rough Press. 

Be sure to check out my other football painting in my gallery here.. Football Gallery

Go Niners!!!

Follow me on Facebook- Deborah Bollman  Fine Art

Watercolor Classes at Front Street Gallery

Watercolor painting classes starting May 7 at the Front Street Gallery in Patterson, NY. The sessions will run for 4 weeks. We will start with getting to know out materials,wet on wet, wet on dry, finding basic shapes, color value and basic color mixing. A great way to get a jump start on painting skills if you are looking to get outside and paint! This class will be limited to 8 students. Materials provided by student and list is available on sign up. Mondays, Jan 14 from 2-4 pm, 4 sessions $175. Drop- in $50 per class. 

Happy Holidays From Deborah Bollman Fine Art

Wishing You and Yours a 

Very Merry Christmas and an

 Amazingly, Awesome and Creative New Year!

This one is for you! This egg nog will not disappoint and is not for the faint of heart!   This recipe has become a tradition  for me so I'd like to share it with all of you. This Egg Nog is  one sinfully delicious concoction and totally worth the effort. If you have snow it benefits from sitting out overnight in a snow bank but a few hours in the freezer will work, too! The icy snow or freezer will make the nog thicken and the flavors come together even more.

San Francisco Forty Niners Art and Etsy Sale!

SanFrancisco Forty Niner's Patrick Willis Original Watercolor

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

I have this one finished and it is ready to go! I love this painting of San Francisco Forty Niner (my favorite team) linebacker Patrick Willis! This one literally flowed off the brush and I feel it captures the power and determination of an athlete. I was half thinking of hanging onto this one but if you ask me nicely it could be yours to hang on your wall! :) Or what a great gift it oquld make for that 49er/football fan!

This is unmatted and unframed which significantly reduces shipping costs and will need to go under glass. Feel free to contact me if you simply must have it! To purchase-  Patrick Willis/ SanFrancisco Forty Niner Painting

I am havin a 3 day sale in my Etsy Store and I am offering my followers 15% off anything in the store! Simply add Coupon Code FBThanks on check out! My thanks to you for your loyal following!

My Etsy Store 

Football Work in Progress and Other Musings

Quarterback Watercolor

    I have been quite a bit remiss in my blogging efforts as I have been working on diversifying my art business. Many exciting changes on the horizon!  By getting out of my comfort zone with business decisions as well as the artwork itself I am making discoveries that  last year I would have never have even dreamed possible. I had found myself becoming intimitated by that blank sheet of paper and not knowing what to paint.  I have,also, found myself wanting to avoid the acrylics and focus only on watercolors.  I have expanded my interest from painting my usual subjects of horses and dogs to football paintings and plein air landscapes.

    I am particularly passionate about painting en plein air with watercolors. There is no better medium for me for capturing the immediacy of the moment, atmosphere and light than with watercolors. Plus, I find my muse out in nature. I work with the bare minimum of a sketch, find the big shapes, lightest lights and darkest darks and just run with it.

      There is one part of myself that I have discovered and that is I'm a very impatient painter. It is a part of myself relative  to my work that I have struggled with and I happy to say I have finally come to terms with. I have learned to be okay with my impatience! Oddly enough in every other area of my life I am extremely patient.  Go figure! The better my technical skills and understanding of the medium the easier it is to be successful in the outcome. When I have an idea I need to just get it down and out. Otherwise, I tend to lose interest. I'm not one to have painting languishing on the easel for days as I work glaze upon glaze! Nope, not me! I get in there and get out. And this is where I love, love, love watercolors. It is perfectly suited to my style. I'd love to hear how you other artists deal with aspects ands pecific traits of yourselves  relative to the painting process.

I'll be blogging a lot more about my process in the coming months. So be sure to bookmark or sign up for updates.

A super fast plein air piece done in the very early morning hours.

Watercolor, 10 x 8 on Waterford Saunders, 140lb, Rough

Sold

     I have been busy in the studio painting and playing with watercolors and exploring light. My favorite moment in a painting is throwing in those dark darks. Adding those darks just makes the light jump off the paper and brings the whole painting to life! And as  I become more fluent in watercolors I find that I don't wait until the end of a painting anymore to throw them in there. 

   This work-in progress is an 8 x10 of San Fransisco Forty Niners Quarterback Alex Smith. The painting is just about finished so I'll get the final up this week. This piece was basically about exploring light and dark and keeping the whole conception loose and fresh. Big brushes, juicy washes and working standing up ( so that can I use my whole arm) with broad brushstrokes helped me to achieve the effect  that I was going after in this painting.

Happy painting!

Deborah

Other places to find me ...

Deborah Bollman Fine Art

Facebook

GiantsBigBlueBlog Facebook

Watercolor Classes

Running For Glory, Watercolor, 8 x 10 ©Deborah Bollman

I'm teaching a new watercolor painting session starting in April at the Front Street Gallery in Patterson, NY. We will start with getting to know out materials,wet on wet, wet on dry, finding basic shapes, color value and basic color mixing. A great way to get a jump start on painting skills if you are looking to get outside and paint! This class will be limited to 8 students. Materials provided by student and list is available by request. Mondays, April 2-23, 1-3 pm, 4 sessions Contact me more for more info or to sign up! Deborah@DeborahBollman.com

Running For Glory

Running For Glory

     Running For Glory is a real departure from my usual subjects of horses, landscapes and dogs. Those of you who know me know that I am a huge football fan. I had been playing around with the idea of doing some type of sports art for a while. I have had some success selling quick baseball sketches from my son's Little League games. I was thinking painting various stadiums might be fun but that didn't feel right.

    It always seems that I need to hear exactly what I need to hear at the right time. A friend gave me some really nice suggestions on how to approach the paintings and with his encouragement I decided to just jump in and give it a try. On my first attempt I totally crashed and burned. I tried too hard to control the medium and I was afraid to make a mistake. For those of you who are not familiar with watercolor ...controlling watercolor just isn't possible. Not for me anyway. The medium is unpredictable and tempermental. I handled the small brushes by the ferrule and worked sitting down at my painting table.....trying to get every detail. The result was rubbish! One huge mistake. I produced one very stiff, forced, boring painting.

   So now that I had gotten the mistake out of the way I gave it another try.  I figured I couldn't do any worse than the first attempt! I cranked up the music, worked standing up, handled my biggest brushes from the end furthest from the ferrule and just painted with abandon. I focused on painting the big shapes and eliminated fussy details. Running For Glory painting is the result of that attempt. I received this comment on the painting.. "Brilliant! It's seething with power. I think you captured the anonymous brutality of the game. Whether you were going for that I don't know. But it's in there!"   That is exactly what I was going for.

Running For Glory

Plein Air Sketch, Lakeside, Pawling, New York

I'v started getting out and painting again after taking a bit of a break. I have missed painting outside and haven'n doing it as much as I would like to this fall. BUt I'm back at it. I have a cople of others and I'll get those posted as soon as I scan them.

This is a quick sketch that I did en plein air at a lovely park in Pawling, NY where I like ot run my dog every morning. The light was changing quickly so I did finish up some of the darks in the studio. Measuring 7.5 x 10 this watercolor is  painted on Fabriano, 140 lb Rough Press Paper. Available for purchase ..here. Unmatted and unframed.

Midnight Rendezvous

Midnight Rendezvous - is the title of this original acrylic painting. This painting depicts a very manly stallion that I brought a mare to. After a late start with horses not wantng to load I  arrived up at Saratoga around midnight. When the mare was being prepped for breeding I caught a glimpse of this very handsome boy peering out at us from his backlit stall watching us. I thought it would make a wonderful impromptu painting. So here he is. Gallery wrapped canvas.

Art Show Opening

Plein Air by Deborah Bollman-OSullivan

Patterson, NY – What happens when fourteen artist meet for an artist salon? They plan a show. ArtWorks, an Artist Salon Show will open Saturday, April 9th, at The Front Street Gallery, Front Street, Patterson, NY. The opening reception will take place from 5-8pm.

Focused on art and marketing the ArtWorks salon meets at the Front Street Gallery every other week and currently has 14 members. The salon is led by equine artist Deborah Bollman O'Sullivan, using the book, I'd Rather be in the Studio by Alyson B. Stanfield, as a reference. Members vary from artists who have shown widely and with great success to artists just getting started. For each artist Bollman-O'Sullivan's salon is an opportunity to focus on how give their their work greater exposure and make use of new technologies.

“I was sitting at the first meeting of the marketing salon,” says Jeremy Wolff a co-owner of Front Street, “when I thought, why not finish with a group show? Most of the artists have experience exhibiting but this is an opportunity for them to put new marketing skills into practice.”

Participatng artists are Deborah Bollman-O'Sullivan (Pawling) painter of equine, canine and nature themes in water media, Amy Brenner (Wingdale), a studio art potter showing sgraffito stoneware portraits of iconic musicians, Tela Cook (Pawling) a photographer specializing in the alternative process of Polaroid transfer, Victoria Hayes (Pawling) who creates pastels and prints inspired by the landscape, and ceramic artist Kathleen Heidemann (Holmes) who hand-builds pieces with a sense of whimsy and animation.

Anne Huibregtse (Wingdale) will show her iconic cow sculptures in steel and bronze, Lonna Kelly (Pawling), photographer, will show contemporary scenes with an eye for the ironic, Elizabeth Palmer-Buchman (Pawling) designs and handcrafts one-of-a-kind beaded jewelry and wearable fiber art, Donald Partelow's (Pawling) pencil illustrations of spirits are semi-realistic distortions of the human form and Karen Presser (Pawling) – creates nature, architectural, and Buddhist images using digital photo collage.

Jeanette Rodriguez (Patterson) will show her richly colored kiln fused dichroic glass pendants, Mary Smoot Souter (Pawling) is a contemporary, fine art oil painter of still life, landscape and portraits, Rebecca Tocci (Pawling) brings a background in painting and love of vintage photography to her photography, and Liliana Washburn's (Holmes) abstract watermedia paintings focus on emotions.

The Front Street Gallery opened in Patterson in April, 2010, as a artists’ cooperative and community resource. Front Street features nationally recognized artists, as well as group shows of local and regional artists. Art classes, for children and adults, and musical event are on-going. For more information call the Front Street Gallery at 917-880-5307 or email info@frontstreetgallery.

My Favorite Brush-

Rekab Kazan 320S Pointed Mop in a #8

I had mentioned a few weeks ago on my Face Book page that I had bought a new brush and I received a flurry of emails in reference to what exactly it is, could I post a photo, where did I get it and why do I like it. So I thought a perfect subject for today would be about my favorite brush. I am primarily a watercolorist and I adore my brushes. I have only a few that I use regularly. As you may know any good quality natural hair brush is very expensive but well worth the investment. My most used brushes are my Rekab Kazan 320S Pointed Squirrel Mops. I use the #4 and the # 8 most often and an Escoda Tajmyr Sable in a #8. For today I am going to talk about the Rekab Mops.

The Rekab brushes are superbly made and are surprisingly affordable considering the quality. These brushes have a quill ferrule wrapped four times with brass wire and short black handles. You can paint all day without having to recharge the brush.They come to a very sharp point and you can paint the tiniest of details with them or do large juicy washes. Unlike othe squirrel mops that I have tried they are not a floppy brush. I have an Isebey Squirrel Quill that I like but for my purposes this brush outperforms the Isabey every time. I did bring these to an Alvaro Castagnet workshop I attended and he said these were very, very nice brushes.

The only place I know to purchase these is through Armadillo Arts . You need to send them a request for prices on these brushes. To give you an idea I paid $24 + shipping for the #4.

Happy painting!

Deborah