Images of the Day, August 14, 2012

For the next few days we’ll be featuring paintings that will be exhibited at Maynard Dixon Country 2012, home of the extraordinary Maynard Dixon cabin and ground, beautifully preserved by Susan and Paul Bingham and the Bingham Gallery in Mt. Carmel.  This event gets bigger and better each year, featuring many of the most talented artists in the country.

Credit: Maynard Dixon Country

Peggi Kroll-Roberts
Zinnia Days
Oil
16 x 20 in.

For more information see our previous post at:

Maynard Dixon Country 2011: An Artist's Artist

Image of the Day, April 6, 2012

After working for sixteen years as an illustrator, Rob Colvin quit in 1999 to work full time as a fine artist. He readily admits that he still loves to “stylize, design and to find the geometry in the land,” observing that his work is “evolutionary, in that I will start out with an idea in mind, but the piece will evolve into something I didn’t picture in the beginning. The process can be very frustrating when it’s not working and thrilling when it does.”

Rob Colvin, Razorback Bluff, c. 2011, Oil on canvas, 42 x 42 in. Credit: Rob Colvin StudioRob Colvin, Camel Back Canyon, c. 2011, Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 in. Credit: Rob Colvin Studio

Image of the Day, March 7, 2012

By Donna Poulton

“And there were the trees, clumped together in patches of woods left standing between stretches of fields—the sunlight, broken and spotted, streaming through tangled branches, illuminating trunks, bent, twisted and straight, that cast shadows across the … ground.” -- Bonnie Posselli

Utah artist Bonnie Posselli is well known for her red-rock images of the desert southwest and her painterly pastoral landscapes of rural Utah farmland. She counts John F. Carlson, LeConte Stewart and Edgar Payne among the artists whose techniques and styles have informed her work … but they never painted like this. Her paintings, Through the Looking Glass and Subtlety are strong images of delicate light held together by a tapestry of branches and luminosity.

Bonnie Posselli, Through the Looking Glass, 1992, oil 30x 24 in. Credit: Bonnieposselli.com The broken color and tonal variations transport the viewer to sun-drenched cathedrals--the branches acting as the lead in the stained glass windows--holding the picture together.  The tonal impression of light and movement reverberate in these scenes painted by this talented artist.

Bonnie Posselli, Subtlety, 1994, oil 10x 20 in. Credit: Bonnieposselli.comHer book, The Paintings of Bonnie Posselli can be found at BonniePosselli.com:

Credit: bonnieposselli.com

Image of the Day, March 1, 2012

By Donna Poulton

Jimmy Swinnerton painted in every kind of weather, the most dramatic being when dark-clouded thunderstorms loomed over the large buttes.  In Desert Clouds, Utah, the vertically developed cumulus clouds, common in the West during hot summer months, seem to emerge audaciously from terra firma.  In reality, cumulus clouds can hover as low as 300 feet above the desert landscape.

James Guilford Swinnerton, Desert Clouds, Utah, 1940s, oil on canvas, 22 x 34 in. Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts“I don’t use many colors,” Jimmy volunteers. “Two blues, one green, blue black, several reds—I’m finding all the time that it’s how you use them, not the number involved.  Light is superimposed on darkness.  You can notice that as the day grows long.  There are so many parts to a landscape that attention must be paid to all of them.  The clouds should float, instead of looking like rocks.  The sky should be air, not blue paint…” - Jimmy Swinnerton, from Painters of the Desert by Ed Ainsworth

Other Posts on Jimmy Swinnerton:

Painting of the Day, October 23, 2011

Painting of the Day, February 29, 2012

By Donna Poulton

Artist:  Steve Songer, Park City Cottage, c. 2012, oil
, 24 x 30. Credit: Monttomeryleefineart Utah artist Steve Songer was listed in Southwest Art Magazine’s “Artists to Watch” series and in Art of The West Magazine. Much of his work comes from the area around his home in Huntsville, Utah — an area nestled in the heart of the Wasatch Mountain range. The old mining town of Park City, now a skiing and Sundance Film Festival destination, is a recurring theme in Songer’s beautifully textured works. The colorful charm of the homes that scatter the snow-filled mountain side create a mosaic of color in the deep snow that the area is famous for.

Songer’s most recent work can be seen at the Montgomery Lee Fine Art Gallery in Park City, Utah. 

Artist:  Steve Songer
, Park City Winter, oil
, 36 x 40. Credit: Monttomeryleefineart