I’ve been busy putting together the opening for the “Barrio Painters” at the Arizona Theater Company.  I guess in some way this project describes my process of being creative -from start to the exhibition.

    During the summer the Tucson’s Barrio Painters have been meeting early on Sunday mornings to paint Tucson’s colorful Historic Barrios. It has been fun and the good news is that we are having a show of the work at the Arizona Theater Company.

    The reception is this Sunday for the “Barrio Five” on September 17, 2017, from 4:30 to 6:30 at the Arizona Theater Company. The Art Gallery is located on the second floor at 330 South Scott Ave, Tucson, Arizona. The ends October 7.

These paintings of mine in this show are all done on location.  They begin with a lot of looking, composing with a camera and several sketches which I sometimes take to a lot of completion.  In this process, I am looking for big shapes and reconstructing nature to suit my creative intent and get the best composition.

I don’t try to copy what is there, but rather use and rearrange a lot of shapes to make the statement. In this process, I am always thinking “what is my focal point”, or more directly “why am I painting this painting?  This is a concept I hammer on a lot when teaching.   I find that many artists do not have a solid understanding of this concept and it leads to weak painting from the outset.

From there, we can talk about values, color and finish.  I paint broadly with a palette knife, pushing the color and values to create a painting that is harmonious and exciting. This is all done within a 2 hour or so less time frame with a few final touch-ups in the studio.

Being creative to me is taking the elements of the landscape an creating something colorful with a snap.  It’s easy to fall into a tonal approach and I try to avoid that in my painting and my teaching.  That’s not to say there are not a lot of very good tonal paintings out there, it’s just not my style.

You can join Roger on Tuesday afternoons at Tubac School of Fine Art LLC and learn more about creating something with color and snap!