Wednesday Wandering: It's the Little Things

Today's Wednesday Wandering is another painting from the Southwestern landscape. Sometimes the breathtaking vistas around here completely absorb my attention, and other times its the smallest details that seem to leap out of the landscape.

Today's painting is of a piece of sun-smoothed root sticking up out of the sand. I run across them often on my hikes, and I like to call them desert driftwood because they are so similar to pieces you'd find on the beach.

I kept this painting small and really tried to showcase the intricacy of the twists and turns of the wood, the color playing across it, and its fascinating shape. Still life is fun because you can devote all your attention, all your focus to a single subject and try to really capture what makes it uniquely beautiful.

Desert Still Life
8" x 10"
Oil on Board

Figurative Friday: Simple Shapes

Welcome to the first Figurative Friday! I'm going to use this series to explore and discuss figurative painting.

Sometimes when you're painting the figure, it's what you don't paint that is most important. By simplifying the shapes, deciding on specific details, and controlling color, you can effectively tell a story without excessive rendering.

Bubbles
10" x 8"
Oil on Board

This is why so many artists love to paint black or white dresses. There's a lot you can do with them. They can be large, simple shapes, or you can add detail to render them more fully. Either way, they read well on the canvas.

Wednesday Wandering: High Desert Mornings

Arroyo's Edge
10" x 8"
Oil on Panel

Wednesday Wandering is a blog post series where I'll post my plein air landscape paintings.

To start out the Wednesday Wandering series, I decided to emerge from my bed unthinkably early and beat the sun getting up.  It was worth it.

The high desert is fantastic at sunrise. See?


Summer is a great time for plein air painting around here. I live in the middle of the American Southwest, with all its red rock grandeur, gnarled pinon junipers, and silver sagebrush. I've spent this summer just soaking it all in and trying to catch it on canvas. I'm particularly fond of this piece, which captures a little rabbit brush on the edge of an arroyo as the sun is rising.

Father's Day

It's amazing how much you appreciate your dad once you become a dad. Mine has always been great at teaching, reading, and working with us. And he's still helping me. I've learned so much about how to be a dad from him.  Here's a little sketch of my dad reading to my little boy. I've learned so much from you, Dad. Happy Father's Day.

New Painting and Chance to Win a Poster!

I love painting romantic pieces like the new piece below.  Love is an intimate, innocent hope that we all need and seems to be underrepresented these days.  

Journey's End

36" x 24"

Oil on Linen

Gilded Butterfly

20" x 16"

Oil on Panel

Do you know which Shakespeare painting the title of "Gilded Butterfly" comes from? If so, you could win a free signed Merry Wives of Windsor poster (Shown below)! 

We're running a giveaway (our first ever!) for a free signed poster of At Hern's Oak: The Merry Wives of Windsor. Just click on the link in the box below to enter by naming the title of the play: 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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:

Another New Piece

For those of you who haven't been to the Utah Shakespeare Festival's fall season, here's the new piece I unveiled opening weekend:

Be Stone No More: A Winter's Tale
by Richard Lance Russell
30" x 20"
Oil on Linen

Fun Painting Fact of the Day: Our models for Queen Hermione and King Leontes were actually husband and wife, and the model who posed for Perdita was really their daughter!