Stacy Weitz Minch

8x10", oil on linen mounted to hardboard Another plein air water sketch. Water is some tricky stuff, and the way the light was reflecting in the distance  here was really hard to capture. I kinda liked how the foreground came out though. It has some feeling of movement and depth, and contrasts nicely with that big rock in the corner. I haven't painted much water at all, but so far I find it to be really interesting to study. It's fun to look at something that is so complex and in constant motion and try to simplify it down into its most basic shapes and colors. It's a very impressionistic process, which seems to be right up my alley. I love laying down the impression, but getting into the nitty gritty finishing aspects of a drawing or painting is always a challenge for my patience. I can do it, but I'm not always a happy camper while I'm at it ;) I'm sure I'll learn to enjoy those aspects more with time. I always get frustrated when I'm learn...

11x14", oil on panel, 1.5 hours I decided to venture out and do a little plein air painting this afternoon.I kind of like where the clouds were going here, but painting mountains is really tricky (especially when the cloud shadows on the mountain change so quickly!).I was at a park and there were all sorts of soccer goals, jungle gyms, and other structures that I didn't really want to include in the picture. Which left me to invent the foreground and it's feeling a bit bland. Maybe next time I go out and do plein air painting, I will try to choose a more zoomed in scene that I can copy more faithfully. Painting outside is hard enough without having to make it up ;) Maybe I should have drawn a little footpath in there or something (not that I still couldn't...). Definitely the worst part of plein air painting is gathering all the materials to go out, and then carting them all back (plus a wet painting and palette!) when finished.

10x8", oil on board I think I'm ready to call it quits with this painting. Working from photos--I probably just shouldn't do it. One of my professors told me that a long long time ago, and he was probably more than right, but for some reason I keep coming back to it. And why? Convenience. It's so much easier to be able to hang around in the corner painting after the kids are in bed than arranging for some way for them to be occupied or cared for while I paint outside on location :P And sometimes I get tired of painting still life (which usually ends up being piece of fruit I have around the kitchen). But painting from life leads to much better decision making, and it's worth avoiding the frustration of trying to translate a photo into paint. Anyway, I think the color is alright (though it does seem a little hyper saturated in this photo). What really gets lost, I think, is the freshness of approach. For some reason, the immediacy of having the thing in fro...

I've been doing a little painting on this 8x10" landscape I started from a photograph several months ago. Painting from photos is tough and painting over old sketches... I dunno :/

10x8", oil on panel I felt like doing a landscape yesterday, so I pulled out a photo from a trip to Bryce Canyon a couple years ago. We were there on Valentine's Day, and it was beautiful weather (at least in the afternoon--pretty unusual for February!). I was into shooting film at the time, and I took lots of photos (always with the idea in the back of my mind that I could paint them sometime--film had a better dynamic value range than digital, at least a couple years ago, and my digital camera is about 8 years old now). This particular reference photo was from a hike on the bristlecone pine loop. Bristlecone pines are some of the longest living organisms on earth. They can be up to 5,000 years old. And they grow in the rockiest of terrain. I always feel a little floored when I think about something that's been around that long (though this tree definitely looked among the smaller/younger ones on the loop). Here stands this little tree on the very edge of a cliff...

5x7", oil on linen panel It was calm and sunny when I headed out to paint, but within a few minutes of setting up, the wind had started blowing across the lake, pushing that ominous-looking cloud directly my direction (and whipping my hair in every other direction--next time, ponytail!!). I painted as quickly as I could, and I'm pretty happy with how the clouds/mountains/water turned out. The foreground is a bit of a segmented mess, but I was in a major hurry, so I'll forgive myself (this time). After that plein air workshop in April, I was all fired up to get outside and paint, but finding the time in my real life is another story altogether--I'll count it a success that I got outside to paint at all! It's always a fun adventure, if nothing else :)

7x5", oil on linen panel This was about a one-hour study at a park near our house (what a beautiful day!!!). Okay, I was trying to figure out why this was feeling a little bit weird to me, and I think it's because those pines in the distance are darker than the shadow on the grass in the foreground. Even though I think they were darker, this might have been a good place to force some atmospheric perspective.  Anyway, I have this new goal to try to be a little bit nicer to myself in terms of my art, so maybe I'll start playing a little twist on the Polyanna glad game in my posts and list a couple things I like about what I've done (because you know I can't resist picking it apart--maybe this will balance things out a bit ;).  I think I did a much better job of simplifying the mountain down to a manageable color mass than I have in the past--and it's a pretty color :) I kinda like that I incorporated the goal net for a little added interest--thoug...

This weekend will go down in history as the best Mother's Day gift to date (hats off to the tall, dark and handsome fella who took two days off work to hold down the fort!). I went to Paradise, UT for a plein air workshop with Josh Clare. It was the first time I've  ever attended a workshop, and it was a blast. Paradise is all sorts of nestled-up-in-the-mountains gorgeous--sweeping purple-mountain views, larger than life clouds, and rustic, historic buildings every which way you turn (but if you're looking for a gas station, you're outta luck!). Josh seems like a very down-to-earth, small town kind of guy with a darling little family. They live in a charmingly restored century-old brick home (I loved that the interior doors have windows above them so the light flows from one side of the house to the other). He paints in a small studio attached to the home (killer north-facing skylight, too!). I've been admiring Josh's paintings for a while now online, and th...

6x6", oil on canvas panel, 4/20/16 Aside from the steaming bag of dog poop 10 feet away (I really wish I would have spotted it BEFORE setting up, painting, and taking down--such a pleasant day apart from that occasional whiff of what is that!? ;), this was actually pretty fun. (And people, if you bother to pick up the poo, please at least walk it over to the garbage can. Really).  I like painting from life, though like other living things I've encountered, nature doesn't stand still. There's something invigorating about painting in real time, though, as opposed to staring at a static photograph. I really needed a little break from that special kind of tedium. My main focus was trying to match value/color here. Drawing was a bit secondary (and I left out the fence and row of houses on the horizon there. It seems you have to be a bit selective when doing landscape painting--especially when painting this small. There's just so much out there. Note ...

  My sister Jackie gave me a very cool plein air umbrella for Christmas, and this was the first time I've had the chance to use it. It was a beautiful day and the umbrella was awesome! But my plein air skills are, well, let's just say they're not where I'd like them to be ;) Getting the values right outdoors is tricky.  Jackie says my mountain looks like a melting ice cream cone. Ha, she's right--slight room for improvement here (oh, the possibilities! ;) Maybe I need a little more than an hour... or a smaller panel... or a thousand more hours of practice. If at first you don't succeed...  Also, I don't know what the deal was with my paint, but it felt like I was painting with honey! It's been sitting in a backpack in the house for 5-6 months or so, but it was really really hard to handle. Maybe it was the cooler weather? Or my palette/canvas were sucking up the moisture? And let's just not get started on the drawing and colors, ha. ...

8x10", water mixable oil on canvas panel, 11/13/15 A quick plein air sketch I did yesterday afternoon (about an hour or so). It was so sunny and beautiful and peaceful out in the crisp fall air. And then I came home, turned on the 5:00 news, and learned about all the tragedy in Paris. :'( "You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty." -Mahatma Ghandi

5x7, water mixable oil on linen panel, 10/23/15 The clouds have been unbelievable lately here in Utah--so big and billowy. Whenever I go outside, I have this urge to paint! But I'm not a landscape painter (yet)... not that I wouldn't like to be. I'd like to be able to paint whatever I want :) However, I used to have this idea that I just couldn't paint landscapes (after a couple of miserable failed attempts).  But now I'm thinking, "Why not?" I'm sure I can learn how with some practice, and I do want to. I'm finding lately (especially since starting this blog and recording some of my thoughts as I go along), that I have this constant inner dialogue regarding my art. There's always a voice saying "you're not any good and you might as well not bother." I don't like that voice. And since I'm more aware of it, I'm becoming more effective and pushing it away. Who really cares if I'm not any good anyway? No on...

6x6", water mixable oil on canvas board, 9/1/2015 Another crack at the fog challenge on dailypaintworks.com--this time with a purple ground.

6x6", water mixable oil on canvas board, 9/3/2015

I painted this scene from Yellowstone a few months ago, and it's been bugging me ever since. It seemed unfinished, but I was a little afraid to go back over it, for fear I might overwork it and ruin it altogether. But since I was unhappy with it anyway, I decided to go at it this weekend and see if I could make any improvements. On my first attempt, I basically just copied exactly the values from my reference photograph. But on my second attempt, I really tried to visualize the true values of the landscape (photographs clip both ends of the light/dark spectrum, giving false values). There was too much dark in the sky and distant hills, making them jump up into the foreground, and there were too many hard edges I the sky. Although I'm not 100 percent satisfied with this painting (I'm not sure that will ever happen anyway), I'm happy that it seems my changes improved the feel of the image, instead of the opposite, which seems to be what usually happens :) ...