Mix and Match Wall Nativities

Affordable. Original. Art.

Remember your grandma's Christmas village? The one that she and your grandpa built up over years and years of collecting? Remember how each piece had a story and each feature was somehow connected to their Christmas memories?

Richard Lance Russell's 

Mix and Match Wall Nativities

A beloved new tradition

You choose your favorite pieces and create your own nativity. Each painting tells the story of a participant in the first nativity. Paintings are priced for any budget and collectors can purchase a whole nativity or an individual piece each year. New pieces are unveiled each year to add to your nativity. 

Begin your collection with one of this year's newest paintings:

Monticello Elementary School Open House

The murals have taken up residence in their new home at the Monticello Elementary School! We delivered them a couple weeks ago and stayed for a fantastic community celebration that far exceeded our expectations!

Being an artist is often solitary work. There's no lunch break chat (well, once in a while when my friend Jon English stops by the studio!) no water cooler to gather 'round and talk about the challenges and successes of your current project, no one dropping by the cubicle to bounce ideas off of. It can be isolating, so shows and unveilings offer a welcome opportunity to discuss the craft and share your work with others.

In this case, the most exciting thing was unveiling these paintings to the community in which they will live. The celebration was held at the new school, and the paintings were unveiled at eye level so that community members had a chance to see them up-close before they were placed on the walls in the central entryway to the school.

It was so fun to see the school kids who had posed for the paintings run up and find themselves. They'd exclaim to their families: "There I am! That's ME!"

In order to control focus and provide depth, some of the figures in the paintings are a painted more loosely. That turned out to be a fun thing, because a lot of kids that didn't pose came up and said "There's ME!" They saw themselves in the paintings, which is exactly what I wanted. I want every kid who comes into that school to see themselves and get excited about learning.

I got to work with such amazing people on this project. The San Juan School District School Board and Bill Boyle, editor of the wonderful "San Juan Record," and president of the school board. He gave a great speech at the opening, which really highlighted the values of Monticello. It was published in the paper the next week. You can read it here:

New School Dedicated

His insight and vision are matched only by his dedicated support and service to the district.

And Superintendant Doug Wright, whose 11th grade English class inspired my wife (who is now an English teacher herself) while she was a student and who now directs the San Juan School District with excellence:

I also got to work with the school community council and Julie Holt, principal of Monticello Elementary School. Her commitment to providing the best educational experience for the kids at her school is inspiring. She comes by it naturally, as her mom, Nedra Bunker, has been an important part of life at the school for many years:

Most of all, I loved working with the community of Monticello, whose kids added enthusiasm and magic to the project and whose values, heritage, and dedication to their kids and their future were the heart and inspiration for these pieces:

I really wanted these paintings to capture the spirit of this community. I wanted them to be reflective of who the members of this community are and what they see as their values and identity. It was wonderful to attend this grand opening and be surrounded by hundreds of members of this community. Seeing them surrounding the paintings and hearing their comments, sharing the excitement of the new school with them, made this unforgettable.

If you're interested in reading a little press about my work and about the new school, the San Juan Record has run some great articles:

Monticello Elementary Memories

Local Artist Likes To Paint From Life

Figurative Friday: Monticello Murals Sneak Peek

If you haven't seen much of me lately, it's because I've been in the studio every. waking. moment. (And some non-waking moments, too.) Along with the summer's Plein Air competitions, some illustration jobs, and the Deseret Book Lunch and Learn, I've been painting some murals.

Detail of "Adventure: The Readers' Circle"

Earlier this year I was commissioned by the San Juan School District to create some original art for their new Monticello Elementary School. I was excited, because I had a great time working with them a couple of years ago and also because my wife attended the old Monticello Elementary School.


These are big paintings: 3 and a half feet tall and over 7 feet wide. There are six of them. These pieces have challenged me, engaged me, and delighted me over these last few months. They've been a great project. 


I wanted these paintings to be both site-specific and universal. I worked with people from the community for models (including some teachers who actually teach at the school) and used local landscapes. At the same time, I tried to capture themes that are common to childhood and education. My main goal was for the kids who walk under the paintings every day to see them and get excited about the possibilities of the things they were learning. I wanted the paintings to give Monticello Elementary School students a connection to where they came from, who they are, and what they can do.

Detail of "Discovery: New Friends at Loyds Lake"

This post is just a taste of the murals. The complete set of 6 will be unveiled next Tuesday, September 9th, 2014 at the new Monticello Elementary School. A description of the event from the San Juan Record: "Dedication services are set to begin at 5 p.m. Afterwards, an open house and celebration will run from 6 to 8 p.m. The event will include food, tours, and activities for kids and adults. Six paintings by local artist Richard Russell will be unveiled at the event." (Read more: San Juan Record- New Monticello School . . . )

Detail of "Creativity: Kid Made"

I hope you'll join us for the unveiling and check out the new school!

Wednesday Wanderings: More Plein Air Rockies

Every piece I completed at Plein Air Rockies has its own story. Every one is, for me, connected to the moment in time that I was capturing and to the unique character of each place I stood.

The following piece is connected to the perfect serenity of Rocky Mountain National Park. At times, I found painting there to be almost meditative. This piece, titled "Boulder At Rest," was painted beside the rushing water of the Big Thompson River, in a shady spot between boulders and ponderosa pines. The entire time I was working I heard the song of the river and felt the remarkable calm of things that have been still for a very long time:

Boulder At Rest
Oil on Panel
14" x 11"
Plein Air Rockies 2014

This piece on the other hand, is not connected to serenity:

Moraine Park Morning
Oil on Panel
16" x 20"
Plein Air Rockies 2014

Sometimes an idea for a painting just hits you in the face as soon as you see your subject. Other times, the actual painting hits you in the face. That's what happened with this piece. I was in Moraine Park, surrounded by grassland and towering peaks and WIND. It was an incredibly windy day, one on which I might have, under different circumstances, stayed in the studio. But in a timed plein air competition, every day matters. You have to take advantage of every moment that the light is catching your subject just right. It was the last day I would be able to paint Moraine Park in the morning, and I couldn't stand to miss it.

So I put my hat down further on my head, leaned into the wind, and painted. I had just finished the sky and peaks and was working on the tree when a huge gale simply picked up my painting and smacked it flat into my face. I had blue across my nose and forehead and grey on my cheeks. The worst part was that the painting then landed face down in the black dirt of Moraine Park. I suppose that's what makes a plein air painting authentic, though, right?

This piece holds memories for me that are different from the other pieces. This was painted at Lilly Lake, which has a popular walking trail around it. I was set up on the trail, and all the people who were out walking the trail would stop and see the painting and chat for a few minutes. It was a very social, engaging place and I could see that it was much beloved by all its visitors. Some of that fun community feel permeates this piece. There is a huge fallen tree with crazy sticking-out branches right beside the trail, which people love to climb on and comment on as they walk by. It had real personality and was a character I had to capture in paint.

Guardian of Lilly Lake
Oil on Panel
14" x 11"
Plein Air Rockies 2014

People who make scrapbooks or slideshow videos or keep journals of their travels know the particular joy and satisfaction of returning to that place and reliving a single moment of your experience there. It's like a gift. I love finding those moments again through each painting.

Rocky Mountain Plein Air Festival: An Epic Challenge

I'm having a great time here in Estes Park, Colorado participating in the Rocky Mountain Plein Air Festival. Rocky Mountain National Park is a National Park in the grand old style. It's the high country where the light changes fast and the views are breathtaking. 

Painting up here presents a special challenge as I try to capture this amazing place in its best light. We hiked up to Alberta Falls, and on the way passed through a stunning Aspen grove. With the light streaming down through the leaves, the place was magical. That's where I stopped to do my first piece for the festival: 

 When you're painting plein air, you have a limited amount of time to finish your painting, because the light changes as the sun moves across the sky and whatever you are painting looks completely different in a couple of hours.

That is something many people don't notice. Changes in light influence the color of what you are seeing, the contrast between it and everything around it, and the shadows that fall on and around it. Naturally, for a realistic painter like myself, plein air paintings are necessarily small so that they can be finished before the light changes.

But when I arrived here and saw Rocky Mountain National Park towering around me, I knew I was going to have to give myself a particular challenge. Though my small canvasses worked great for the small, intimate portraits of the landscape like the aspen grove (above), the front range (which is a row of incredible 12- and 14-THOUSAND foot peaks) is an epic view. In order to capture it like I really wanted to, I had to have a large canvas.

So I got up before dawn, set up in time to see the first light, and undertook the creation of an 18" x 36" painting of the front range:

And it was a challenge. But it was also exhilarating to race the sun and complete the piece:

Here it is:

And people really responded to this piece. It was as if the spirit of this bold and rugged place came through to viewers. The piece sold quickly, and tonight at the awards ceremony I received The City of Estes Park Award:

Everybody loves a big blue ribbon, right? This piece was a huge undertaking, and it tested my limits as a painter. Maybe that's why I enjoyed it so much. 

I actually completed many paintings up here and learned something new from each one. I'll show you some more of them in future posts.

Nocturne

Everyone knows Chopin's Nocturne In E Flat Major Opus 9, number 2  (or if they don't, they should). It's a beautiful piece of music. Many people don't know that there are also paintings called nocturnes. James Abbot McNeill Whistler (remember? the guy who painted his mother?) applied the term to painting, and, like musical nocturnes, they are inspired by the nighttime, evocative of it, or simply depicting it.

I am enjoying painting at the Rocky Mountain Plein Air Festival this week and they keep us busy with painting events. Tonight I participated in their "Nocturne Paint Out," where we all met downtown and created Nocturne pieces.

I chose this charming house for my subject because it was slightly lit by the streetlamp in front of it and because it had these strikingly warm lit windows, which complemented nicely the cool colors of the night. It was great meeting and visiting with the other artists, listening to the river rush by as I painted, and tackling the challenge of a nocturne piece.

Figurative Fridays: Pioneers and Plein Air

This has been a busy summer. We kicked it off with the Easter Show at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, which I mentioned yesterday, and then we had a lot of fun at the Plein Air Fest in Jackson Hole:

My wife Josi and I had a fantastic time in Jackson Hole at the Museum of Wildlife Art's Plein Air Fest! I arrived with a blank canvas and spent 4 hours filling it with the beautiful and scenic East Gros Ventre Butte.

Timed competitions are always intense, and this one was no exception. There was a great crowd, though, and the painting sold at auction that afternoon, benefiting the amazing Museum of Wildlife Art.

Capturing a little piece of the beautiful and rugged terrain of Wyoming added some perspective to the pioneer paintings I tackled when we got home. Those early settlers traveled so far and sacrificed so much. And, just last weekend, we spent a great time at Deseret Book in downtown Salt Lake City unveiling two of those new pioneer paintings and doing a live painting demonstration for Deseret Book's lunch and learn:

My beautiful wife was kind enough to pose for me in a pioneer costume. It really made Pioneer Day come alive! As many of you know, July 24th is Pioneer Day in Utah, a day commemorating Brigham Young's 1847 entry into the Salt Lake Valley with the first group of Latter-day Saint settlers who had crossed the plains. It's a day that represents family, and history, and culture, and reverence, and fun.

I've been working on a new series of pioneer paintings and I thought the Pioneer Day weekend, across the street from the Salt Lake Temple, was a great time and a great place to unveil the first two pieces in the "Come, Come, Ye Saints" series:

With Joy Wend Your Way
Come, Come, Ye Saints Series #1

Grace Shall Be As Your Day
Come, Come, Ye Saints Series #2

Another great model here, both for life and for paintings: Josi's mom, Carol, posed for this one. She makes beautiful quilts off the canvas, too.

Keep an eye out for some more from the "Come, Come, Ye Saints" Series. They're in the works. I've also been commissioned to do 6 murals for the new Monticello Elementary School, so that has me busy! And now, back to the easel . . .

Wednesday Wanderings: Old Friends

It has taken me a while to get this posted, but it's worth doing, even if it's a bit late!

This year I participated in a fantastic Easter Art Exhibit at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City. It was a great time, with about 40 artists exhibiting, including myself and Robert Barrett, who was one of my instructors in the Illustration program at BYU and an artist I really admire. My friend, a great illustrator and artist Sam Kennedy, also dropped by the show and we had a great time catching up. 

There is a certain camaraderie among artists. Few others understand the trials and triumphs of trying to capture your vision in just the way you want to. Few others can relate to the ins and outs of the business and the unique personal investment it takes to create. I value their input and their friendship and getting to see them made the show even better.

Isn't the Joseph Smith Memorial Building an amazing place? Look at that beautiful ceiling! I've been accepted into the Inspirational Art Association's Christmas Showcase 2014 on December 3rd-6th, which will be held there, too. I'm excited to show there again!

Wednesday Wanderings: Albus

Meet Albus. I recently painted him for my sisters' birthday. And yes, Albus means white in Latin, but I suspect he's named after the much more famous Dumbledore. I haven't done a lot of animal painting. But it's always fun to tackle a new subject.

The interesting challenge with Albus was that he is almost completely white.  White, you say? Well what's wrong with painting white? The thing about white is it's, well white. White is almost always very high keyed. Meaning it's just so much brighter than everything else. As I paint in oil I'm lucky to get eight separate value steps. If I use all those values on white fur Albus is going to look pretty grey and dirty and his eyes are going to appear too light in relation to his face. And the real Albus has astonishingly bright blue eyes. So without the use of all my values to define form and shadow I have to use color.

Our mind's eye has been wired to use color to separate shadow and form. Using a combination of cool and warm colors in the same or similar values still allows me to separate light and shadow without eating up all my value range. Essentially, I can keep Albus white and his pupils dark.
Now with Albus and other white-furred animals (my family had a Dalmation for which this held true as well) the skin under their fur is often a different color. Albus' is pink. That means where the fur is thin, like above the nose, that pink will show through. So now I have another color introduced into the mix. It can be tricky. I use my painting experience as much as anything to know how to push values here and there, and sometimes take some guesses to have my painting reading how I perceive it should be.

All in all, I like this portrait of Albus. I managed to stay loose with my paint but still catch the dimension in his fur and his head so it comes across as an accurate portrait. Plus, it's always fun to paint for someone in the family.

Figurative Fridays: Christmas Cards

Just wanted to let everyone know we received our "Let Us Adore Him" Christmas cards and they are ready to ship! Those of you who already placed your orders should have already received them. If you haven't placed your order yet, they're here while supplies last, so order soon!

 To refresh your memory, here's what the cards look like inside and out. This is a pack of 20. They are also available in packs of 10, 25, and 50 (click on the dropdown arrow) at our online store: http://www.richardrussellart.com/store/ 

Wednesday Wanderings: Church Rock

As the weather shifts and we're getting our first hail and rain storm I'm posting another plein air piece from Moab.

Church Rock
8"x 10"
Oil on board

I started this painting just as the morning light hit the rock. Those of you who have traveled this area will probably recognize this formation. Church Rock is a local landmark near the entrance to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. The small cave bellow was blasted out by a local rancher in the 1940's to store salt licks and feed. Church rock is particularly striking as it sits freestanding in Dry Valley.

One of the fun occurrences that happen in the red rock country is the color mixing that occurs in the shadow side of the rocks and canyons. The usually clear blue skies reflect and mix with the deep red and yellow rock colors with the result being some spectacular color shifts. Fun stuff to paint though the colors change quickly when you're painting from life. This painting is a good example of the great color you can observe in the shadows along with the beautiful fall colors of the desert brush.

Wednesday Wanderings: Hang In There

Sometimes life is easy. Sometimes it's decidedly not. One thing I love about painting in the desert is seeing how the living things face this very tough climate and survive. 

This juniper was beautiful not because it was a perfect, symmetrical specimen, but because it was not. Its struggle to survive was evident in it's gnarled bark, its bare twigs, and its broken branches. Those details made the brilliant greens of its living branches all the more striking.  

"Tenacity"
14" x 11"
Oil on Board

In the desert, every tree, every little bush, every bit of grass, even the little clump of yellow flowers at the base of this tree makes a sacrifice for its survival. That sacrifice is what makes them strong and beautiful and fun to paint. The forces that they endure shape each one in unique ways. So it is with people. As we get through each tough thing, we become stronger and more unique.

Wednesday Wanderings: Purple Canyon

Well it was a wild wonderful week. I got to explore the desert and do what I love. I was able to paint and talk shop with a lot of my fellow artists. I painted in the sun and the rain and the wind and I came home with some big ribbons, which is always fun.

Along with the First Place in the Quick Draw Competition that we posted about last week, I also won an award in the Saturday evening competition. One of the judges, Vern G. Swanson, paid me a great compliment during the awards ceremony by comparing my work to that of Sorolla, who is one of my favorite painters. Vern is well qualified to make that comparison, having authored or co-authored 15 books on art/art history as well as serving as the director of the Springville Museum of Art, Utah’s oldest art museum, for 32 years before retiring in August 2012. So his kind compliments on my work were well appreciated.

One of the hardest parts of this week-long Plein Air competition is the fact that you can only enter one piece for the final judging. I selected "Purple Canyon" to be my entry. It wasn't the more standard epic landscape that most artists enter for jurying. However, something just pleased me about the color and fresh view this painting offered.  It was fun because the placement of the tree allowed me to do the kind of intimate desert portrait that I love to do while also allowing me to capture some of the grand vista in the background. Those sandstone buttes, with all their planes and shadows, are fun to paint. And as is often true here in the Four Corners there was such wonderful morning color.

Purple Canyon
Oil on board 14" x 11"

Sometimes I ask myself if another painting would have pleased the judges more. Could I have tailored my painting more toward the judges' tastes? In the end, I have to enter the painting I most love. If I don't, why am I painting? I could try to paint how I think others would like. But then how would my artwork ever be my own unique vision and passion? You must be true to yourself to truly love what you do.

Wednesday Wanderings: And the winner is . . .

Well, Richard is off wandering this Wednesday, so I'm stepping in to write the Wednesday Wanderings post. His wandering this week is tied into the Moab Plein Air competition and it has been wild and fun!

Watching him work this week, I've come to realize that there is a special energy about painting from life, trying to catch what you can before the light shifts, before the clouds come, before the subject changes. It's painting at its finest: capturing your vision just as it is in one fleeting moment of time, preserving a subject that will never be exactly the same again.

In this competition, artists registered last Saturday and have one week to paint any subject within 50 miles of Moab, Utah. On Saturday Richard had the honor of painting in Moab Plein Air's Main Street Gallery, where he did a painting of a live model whom you may recognize.

The most exciting part of the week so far, though, was yesterday afternoon. Richard participated in a 3-hour "Quick Draw" competition at the Red Cliffs Lodge and Castle Creek Winery on the Colorado River.  He only had 3 hours to find a subject and complete a painting.

To me, that's almost incomprehensible. It's a challenge to create no matter how much time you have, but going from blank canvas to finished, framed piece in 3 hours is a tough test of skill. I think his finished painting was impressive. Apparently the judges thought so, too!

Castle Creek Casks
10" x 8"
Oil on Board

He was awarded first place and a purchase award for this gorgeous piece. My personal favorite part? The barrels. I love the way the light hits them and shows the warm, worn wood.

Figurative Fridays: Seeing An Old Scene In A New Way

There are certain scenes that artists have painted over and over through the years. Whatever the reason, that means many of the finest artists have painted those scenes. It can be intimidating to tackle a painting that was painted by the masters of bygone days. But if you're drawn to paint one of these scenes, you shouldn't avoid it. Painting is a very personal and intimate activity. Nobody will paint it just like you will.

Perhaps because I am a father of young children, I feel a great empathy when a family welcomes a new child. I still have strong memories of my own feelings when each of my children were born. Therefore, I wanted to explore that moment from the life of Christ.

Let Us Adore Him
16" x 16"
Oil on Board

When I painted the Holy Family painting "Let us Adore Him" I was a bit baffled on how to portray them. I initially thought about painting an elaborate manger scene with all kinds of livestock. But the more I thought about it the more I felt it should be about the little family itself. Accordingly, I took a much more simple approach by focusing on just the Christ child, Joseph, and Mary. The fun part of that simplification was I was able to create a very tight and clean composition and consequently a very intimate focus on the relationship.

You'll notice I worked very hard to create a circle from Joseph's face down to Mary then to her hand holding Christ's little hand then back up to Joseph through his arm. There is also a secondary circle created by Joseph's robe and left hand following around with the light on the cloth under Jesus. I wanted it to bring to mind the familial relationship between Husband and Wife and Child.

As a side note, in response to requests for Christmas cards of this piece, as of today we have them available on our online store: http://richardrussellart.com/store. They are  4.25" x 5.5," folded, and have the words "Let us adore Him" printed on the inside. They are available in bundles of 10, 20, 25 or 50. Free shipping and envelopes included. Please come and preorder now as we are doing a limited print run and will be shipping out orders by November 1st.