A Different Style!

Homage to my Tonalist Roots

I've been working on a painting today that I keep coming back to, each time I'm just sure that if I add this or change that, I can make it better. This piece is a tribute back to my more tonalist days of painting - my study of Inness, Tryon and Francis Murphy. It's a very low key, high contrast piece that the trees have changed shape more times than I change my socks in a week! Ok, I'm exaggerating - BUT, they have changed form a few times. It used to be in my painting world that I lived from deadline to deadline and had to have X number of paintings for each show and I just worked my fingers to the bone getting a nice show together. I'm really slowing down more and I want each and every baby that leaves my hands with me giving it everything I can possibly give to make it the best that I know how to do at the present time. Once in awhile, a painting comes back to me because it hasn't found a home yet and I can see that I have progressed enough to know what to do to make it my best NOW. I will rework a painting until I have learned everything I can or feel proud of it for what it is. And sometimes I also realize a piece has a spirit about it that even if it was done at a time not as evolved as the present, it needs to be left as is. The hard part is knowing the difference. When to leave it alone or when to keep working it. Hmmmm, maybe that is a great analogy to life!

Familiar Territory - Watercolor Sundays!

I'm taking a page out of my past for my painting experience today! When my kids were small and it was virtually impossible to get in much alone time, every Sunday I would spread my watercolor palette and board, brushes, towels and water in a great spot on the floor in front of the television and watch NFL football. Noone in my family was much interested in watching with me, but the kids would bring their friends over, eat munchies and hangout playing games and watching me paint. There was always noise and commotion going on, but somehow I could tune it all out and keep painting, taking breaks long enough to let my glazes dry and catch up on the game. I knew where my kids were, who they were with and what they were doing - all while doing what I loved to do! Well, today has been another day like those with a few exceptions - I can't sit on the floor like I used to (I would never get up again)! The kids are gone, except for a short visit today from my grown up son and his dog. I'm no longer watching the games alone because my husband LOVES football. I still can tune out the noise and commotion and paint, I'm just a little a little slower than I used to be, not quite the multi-tasker I used to be. Here is today's work and hopefully there will be another by midnight!

Small Pieces Available!

I'm down in the studio getting small paintings together for a couple of

holiday shows. Lots of work to do and keep me busy down in the studio!

Some large pieces are coming next.....stay tuned!

Work Delivered!

I just left the Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale and am back on the road to Sedona to the Mountain Trails Gallery for my show tonight and tomorrow. I really feel good about the work I left behind - a lot of my heart and soul and hard work coming from the studio. I've left my "children" behind for them to find their way to their new home. I will come home to an empty studio and start the journey all over again. With each body of work completed, I analyze what elements worked for me, what little obsessions were revealed and where I can make changes to go off in a little different direction for the next body of work. We drove through Southern Utah and Northern Arizona through some unbelievable skyscapes, cloud formations and strong sunlit value patterns. The colors were actually quite subdued against a dramatic sky. I think I will start the next series of work with these images burned in my brain. They will be vistas, not as intimate as my normal work, but I think I can really enjoy the experience of simplification and subtlety. I'll leave you with a little visual imagery (photos) to enjoy!

Newsletters

If you are interested in receiving my bi-monthly or so email newsletter, please go to my website shannakunz.com and complete the "email newsletter" section! Your email address will ALWAYS remain private and you won't be bombarded with newsletters as it takes so much work and computer knowledge for me to make them :) Every two to three months! Thanks for your support!

Shanna

October Newsletter

New Work for the Sedona/Scottsdale trip!

This is the newest completed painting off the easel. It's called "Snowmelt" and is 36x36, oil on canvas. I must be getting anxious for winter because I really enjoyed painting snow again. It's coming soon enough! Back to the Aspen painting waiting to be finished.....

Final Touches! My largest painting

30x90! All but the final touches are done. Wow! This is the Chief Joseph River by Wisdom Montana. What do you think?

Progress!

Coming along a little more slowly than I would like, but here's to progress!

Here goes!!!

Well, my largest painting EVER! This piece is 30x90. I have had the canvas with a partial drawing on it for three years - intimidating me into submission. I've finally got the gumption to dive in. I have absolutely NO idea who will have the space for a painting of this size, but I've got a studio wall large enough so it will have a home one way or the other :) Please excuse the messy studio, but I have been working pretty much non-stop and lost my studio helper (Marco) to a job. Maybe by January I can do a little cleaning ! LOL

Endurance, 36x48 oil on canvas

I've been working on this piece this last week. This is another previously thought finished piece, only to really dig in and push it a little further. The palette in this piece is so analogous, so subtle that it was lacking something that gave it "umph". I love the tension of the diagonal, the strong value key contrast between the foreground and the background. Something needed to tie the two together with a common thread. I cut back into the trees a bit more, gave them a little more definition to make the separation even more dramatic. Then I added a highlight of water coming down the diagonal to bring a little sky color into the green and break up the subtle values in the foreground. I also like the thin background layers against the thick foreground texture. I reworked a little brushwork in the distance to give the surface just a little more continuity, but I don't want too much. This painting really emphasizes a minimal composition and that is what gives it strength. It's always a challenge for me to paint this large and keep the quality as strong as I possibly can. It's getting me ready for my 30"x90" piece - WOW, scared to death to do something that big! Stay tuned.....

Sunlit Pines of Flagstaff

New piece off the easel! This piece was inspired by my recent trip to Sun Valley for the Kneeland Plein Air Exhibition. I was painting up by Galena Lodge and the side of the mountain fascinated me with the abstract shapes, shadows and color. I did a small little 6x6 of it which sold at the show, but it haunted me to do a larger one a little less abstract. I think I will do a series of this, maybe a couple more. Square formats fascinate me as well. For my upcoming shows, I plan on using quite a few square compositions, maybe a few more odd sizes as well. I am not quite ready to put my signature on this piece above - not for a day or two so I can live with it, but I'm pretty happy with the feel of it!

July Newsletter

So sorry guys for sending out a duplicate newsletter. I have STILL yet to figure out the size requirements for my website company and the first one was too small for anyone to read. The second one is too big for anyone to see! I'll get there, I promise! I'm just a little computer illiterate!

Eccentric?

I was on the phone with a dear friend, Lori McNee, yesterday commiserating over our tight deadlines and procrastinations. I confessed that it has been a "few" days since I had showered because I just keep rolling out of bed and heading directly down to the studio and painting until it is WAY past time to cook dinner, spend an hour with my honey and get some sleep to do it all over again. This will only last until Saturday because at that time I have to drive the work 4 hours to its destination. I really don't think I've had this tight of a deadline in a very long time. With my confession, Lori said I might be getting a little eccentric! Anyway, I started thinking and analyzing the way I work with the procrastinations and all. I think I truly AM a bit eccentric! I function best when my studio is a mess. I work best in my overalls and a ponytail, which is fine in the studio but NOT in the grocery store - WHEN I get to the grocery store. I have become a bit reclusive over the years when I used to be so outgoing and social. I generally perform best when pushed to the last minute and have no other choices. Any other time, my garden calls me first, a great cookbook catches my attention before the canvas, the damn computer imprisons me (notice I'm blogging this morning when I should be painting) - my lack of focus frustrates me. But in the end, there hasn't been a deadline I haven't lived up to. The paintings always get done and get where they need to be. I am a "functioning" eccentric. Maybe I'm no different than most artists. My family and non-art friends don't believe it but they are tolerant. They love me for my eccentricities, not my discipline. Most understand that there are times (more than I want to admit) that I am a flake. My memory is challenged and blamed on paint fumes. Maybe you can relate to all of this. I know when I hear of similar stories, I am relieved to a degree that this might just be an artists' mind. I love this artist life! We see the beauty in all, the positive in life and what we can create with it. There is never a problem that can't be solved some way. Show me the good and I'll hide from the bad! Yep, that's how I roll - I'm eccentric and quite proud of it!

Well, ??? Another mountain to move....

I have such a tough time being objective about a painting, especially when it is something out of the ordinary for me. I'm generally overly harsh or I get a crush and can't see it for what it really is. Here is the barn, all but finished. The hard lines of the mountains in Sun Valley area are a real challenge to make work in a composition. There is only one place around where mountains are angled so steeply. That's what makes it so beautiful! Still - tough to make work. What do you think?

Ok, it's the next morning and I've decided to take out the left mountain. Stay tuned....

Mountain considerably chopped down. Still having a tough time with this one...

Almost finished!

Working on my very large vertical series, with this new one "Woodriver Storm Rising" It is a 48x30. The other two in the series are Majestic and Queens Court following.

status update :)

Well, the admonishment to myself of FOCUS - didn't work. Went shopping instead. Sometimes burnout can kick your behind! Back at it tomorrow I guess. Will post the painting when it's done. I am so LAME!