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A little tip I’ve learned through the years that might help other artists conserve the fast drying acrylic paint. The above photo shows my used palette on top of a new one as I transferred usable paint from the old to the new. Through the years I’ve learned to conserve and save my acrylic paint by frequently spraying it with water and storing it in the freezer when not in use. If I paint every day the original piles of pigment are good for 4-5 days, or until they are used up which ever comes first. It is time to transfer to a new palette when the old one is full of dried mixed color and the piles of paint begin to harden. I do this at the start of a painting session while the paint is still frozen. It is easy to scrape up a frozen clump with a palette knife and transfer it to a new surface. The photo shows that I’ve transferred all the usable paint, and after throwing away the old palette I will put out fresh paint for the missing colors. I prefer disposable paper palettes, they are light weight and easy to replace.

This is the week of Thanksgiving and a time to say thank you for all of our blessings. I will not be posting blogs for a few days while our family comes together to celebrate the holiday. Our family is exceptionally busy, our photographer son and his wife keep major travel schedules and our daughter and her family who care for a developmentally disabled child while raising two other amazing children spend every weekend on the ski slopes of Girdwood, Alaska, learning to become competitive skiers. And, of course, we are not the average couch potatoes. It is a rare and wonderful time when we can all be together. I am looking forward to being with our family.

Gail Niebrugge, Artist

It seems like ages since I’ve painted but I’m back to the easel again and I finally finished the acrylic painting “Skating Outdoors”!  Yahoo!  After changing the color of the boy’s jacket three times, I’m satisfied with dark green. The finish detail included adding more definition to the trees in the background, punching up the darks and lights on the foreground trees, softening the shading on the distant mountains, lightening the cast shadow of the skaters, and defining detail on the figures. This strikes me as a sweet little painting, nostalgic, depicting a moment in time in a beautiful place.

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska Landscape art

Alaska residents love the Holiday Arts and Crafts Emporium and arrived en masse. Our booth was so jammed during Saturday that I had to stand outside in the aisle. On top of all the energy, and excitement, our smooth booth operations nearly seized when the credit card machine hook-up kept giving the command “no line”. A technician arrived to trouble shoot the problem and within no time we were in business again. “Sun Raven” and the mini “Sunflower” are in a tie for the most popular print. We included two originals in our booth this time and are well received. People enjoy comparing the texture and technique of pointillism in an original painting and can better understand the conversion from an original to a print. Canvas giclee prints look the most like originals, the next are giclee prints on the heavy rag paper with hand-torn edges. Our new line of smaller giclee’s are drawing a lot of attention and are the most popular choice for Christmas gifts.

An hour after the show closed the building looked like this! What an amazing quick change. Kudos to the new venue at the Dena’ina Center and to the excellent management by Bill and Barbara Webb, owners of Webb’s Consulting and Management Services who host this event.

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska artist

So goes the life of a busy artist, I had to interrupt my painting and prepare for another show. We are back at the Dena’ina Center in Anchorage, Alaska, setting up our booth at the Christmas Arts & Crafts Emporium, a two-day event that promises to be the best ever. This is a new venue for this show, in the past it took two floors of the Egan Center along with several floors in the Anchorage Performing Arts Center to house all the vendors. The main floor of the Dena’ina Center is large enough for almost all of the booths, a small overflow of new exhibitors will be housed on the spectacular third floor level. It is such a joy to setup in the new building, it is large enough to drive vehicles inside where loading and unloading is done in a heated space. Large commercial sized hand trucks and eager helpers are ready and waiting making the setup seamless and easy. Gone are the hours of schlepping many loads on our small dolly struggling up and down snow covered streets and sidewalks, down a dark narrow alley into the Egan Center. With the opening of the new convention center, Anchorage has come of age and has become a beautiful, modern city. We will be in our booth all day Saturday and Sunday, November 22-23, greeting collectors and friends. See you there!

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska artist

There, I think I’ve found the color of ice. It looks like it is in the sun, but not as bright as the snow. Whew, that little section of the painting has many layers of dots! Next I’ll begin to finalize the figures and the snow covered trees. People often ask; “how long does it take to paint a painting?” Well…….it depends on how quickly I can solve problems. This one is relatively small, 18″x24″, but it has taken me longer than some of my larger works. Each canvas begins with a set of problems to resolve, unless I paint the same scene over and over again (which I don’t because it would be insanely boring), the solutions are all new. Depending on how long it takes to tame the beast, sometimes the first brush strokes are perfect, other times it will take forever. Most fall somewhere in between. No matter what the dilemma it is usually an enjoyable experience. But, this ice will take awhile for me to appreciate.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Painter of Snow Scenes

It is humiliating and humbling to publish the progress of a painting and during the process completely mess it up! I could have just skipped photographing this phase and no one would be the wiser, but I think it is a good lesson.  Painters often go too far, and don’t know when to stop! I thought the ice was too blue and blended into the shadows on the snow (look at previous post). The figures are in the sun and the ice looked like it was in the shade. So, in my infinite wisdom, I began to warm up the color of the ice. What I have now is people skating on dirt! Today I’ll spend all day changing the color of the dots to resemble ice with sunlight. During my non-stop painting frenzy, I became frustrated with the yellow color of the boy’s jacket, and at the last-minute changed it to dark blue. I’m going to have to think about this for awhile, but I will have plenty of time because re-painting the ice will take quite a few hours. The reason all of this happened is that I didn’t take the time to step away from the painting and evaluate changes as I made them, it probably looked good at some point but I just kept on painting like someone in a trance, dot a dot a dot, dot dot dot, and raced over a cliff.  Sob, sob, the beauty of opaque paint is that it will cover what is underneath, if that is any consolation
More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, frustrated artist

Leaving the figures in their original “roughed in” state, I concentrated on darkening the color of the sky to emphasize the sunlit peaks in the background.  I’m also darkening the ice, but now it is a little too dotty and doesn’t look smooth. The kids look like they are skating on gravel.  To create a smooth look I’ve got to lay in a lot of dots of the same value.  This is a challenge, the figures are sunlit but the ice is the same color of the snow shadows in the background. Hmm, this needs some thought.  Lots to do, the end is not in sight.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Landscape artist

It is hard to keep my momentum going on this painting because I’ve had so many other commitments to deal with. I work best when I can block out a period of time of one or two weeks, and paint every day. This is a busy time of year and I paint whenever there is a free day, sometimes more than a week will pass without time at the easel. Nevertheless I’m making progress. The figures are still only “roughed in” to determine color and value. As I observe the frozen lake outside my studio I realize that the ice is much darker than snow, it is partly transparent and influenced by the dark color of the lake bottom. So, I begin to add darker colored dots to the ice and as I continue some will be even darker. I am also going to darken the sky to make the mountains really stand out.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Painting Winter Alaska

The above photo shows that I’ve loosely defined the clothing on the figures, and began to add pointillism, one dot at a time, to the sky and the foreground.

Here I’ve added more pointillism to the foreground ice, some on the snow in the tree shadows, and I’m adding more definition to the distant mountains. I’ve softened the tree line on the mountains and defined some of the ridges. These changes are very subtle at this point, but essential.
More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska Landscape Painting

Last Thursday evening the Palmer Museum of History and Art hosted a show of original paintings by local artists. It was a lovely event with excellent snacks and wine, and most of the artists were present. It was fun to visit and get caught up on the news. Pictured above is my friend, artist Judi Rideout, on the left and Mimi Pippel, president of the Palmer Arts Council, on the right. I, of course, am the old gal in the center.

Gail Niebrugge, Alaskan Painter

Now the colors in the painting have all been roughly blocked in. Rough, very rough, but now I can see where I’m going. I chose colors for the figures that would compliment the colors in the landscape. My next move will be to define more carefully the shapes of the snow on the trees, and the clothing on the figures. Then I will begin adding pointillism on the foreground and in the sky. This painting is a lot of fun and very nostalgic. I used reference material from my previous yard in Palmer, Alaska, and skaters in the wilderness on the Chitina River many years ago. Searching through my files of reference material before I begin a painting really brings back memories.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska artist

A quick application of highlights to the snow on the trees and the foreground snow establishes the values throughout the landscape. I’m still using a flat application of paint at this stage. The pointillism technique will happen as I’m developing detail. My next step is to select colors and paint the two figures in the center.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska Paintings

At this stage of the painting I begin to add the tree line along the distant mountain peaks paying careful attention to light and shadow.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Landscape Painter

At this stage of the painting I begin to establish the dark and light (shadows and sunlight) areas of the trees. These trees are heavily laden with snow and the time of day is late afternoon, the source of light is from the right and the angle of the sun is low. This lighting condition gives a strong pattern of light and shadow, with a rosy glow, and has all of the elements that will make the scene colorful and interesting. I haven’t under-painted the figures or the ice in the foreground yet because I want to establish the colors of the surrounding scenery, then choose clothing colors that will be compatible with the environment, yet add interest. What I do know at this point is that the figures will cast long shadows and be lit on their right sides.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Landscape painting

Bob pictured in the center, working in our booth at the Holiday Food and Gift Show in the Dena’ina Center, Anchorage, helping the many shoppers make purchases of new prints, artist proofs of sold out prints, cards and books. The weekend was jam-packed with customers and all enjoyed the event. This new venue features spacious aisles, good lighting, comfortable heat/air exchange, excellent selection of food, and an outstanding assortment of vendors from low-end fun stuff to very high-end collectibles. We really had a wonderful time and a very successful show. Our next show is in the same building in two weeks, the annual Arts and Crafts Emporium that in the past has been held in the Egan Center and the Performing Arts Center. My hunch is that the move to the new location will work out very well for vendors and shoppers alike. See you there in two weeks!

Gail Niebrugge, Artist of Alaska

Early shoppers are purchasing art for Christmas at our booth during the Holiday Food and Gift Show in the Dena’ina Convention Center downtown Anchorage. I admire people who plan ahead and make their purchases well in advance, unlike me who will wait until the last minute and regret not taking the time to shop when doing these shows where all the hand-made goods are fresh and new. I suspect this year, as usual, I’ll be out fighting the crowds searching for something exquisite, the perfect gift, only to find out that all the good stuff is sold-out and I should have bought at the early Holiday shows. Friday one of our most popular new prints, besides the “Sunflower”, is “Sun Raven”.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Art for Alaskans

I have to take a break from painting and get ready for a show. The cavernous new Anchorage convention center, Denai’na, is the new home to the Holiday Food and Gift Show, November 7,8 &9. By Thursday afternoon, November 6, our booth is completely set-up looking a little strange standing almost alone out there in the middle of the bareness of the expansive room, watched over by a big inflated figure of a turkey. Friday noon, November 7, is opening day and a lot will have to happen between Thursday night and Friday noon before this massive building is full. When we return the place will be alive, abuzz with energy and full of vendors. All of the new prints are on display in our booth and they look really nice. See you there!

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska Artist

After laying in solid color in most of the top two-thirds of the painting I begin to add a few dots. I do this to primarily to help determine values (darks, lights, and mid-tones), the colors of the dots will change many times over the course of the painting, but once the values are established they should stay the same regardless of color.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska Landscape Artist

For this painting I’ve changed my approach and blocked in areas of color without using pointillism. Each painting is unique and I do not follow a formula for how to begin. This time I’m using a stretched canvas with only a light coating of Gesso primer, leaving the texture of the canvas quite pronounced. I need a smoother surface for the pointillism technique, so instead of layering many coats of primer as a base and sanding in between, I will use the first layer of paint as a primer to fill in some of the texture of the weave. It works o.k., not great but not bad. Eventually as I paint the first of many layers of dots the surface will shape up for what I need for the finish details. I really don’t get hung up on having everything “just right”, I’m more interested in getting into the painting and solving color problems. I will roughly follow the pencil sketch underneath but not be a slave to it, I will use it merely as reference.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska Artist

“Buddies” 4″x6″ miniature giclee open edition print, matted 8″x10″ $30.00 US.

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