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

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.

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 . . .

Merry Christmas!

This is Richard's newest piece. The original is for sale at the City Creek Deseret Book Gallery in Salt Lake City. I love this depiction of the Nativity, especially the tenderness with which Joseph is leaning over and comforting the baby. As a mother, Mary's adoration of the Christ child and the way she is holding his hand bring to mind how it felt gazing at my own children. The piece really captures one of those lovely little moments in family life. 

The piece below was finished last month, but I didn't get it posted here on the blog. It's such a fun, elegant little addition to the Shakespeare paintings: