Something new?

http://studioosterberg.com/
I brought my 2nd studio piece up to about 95% finished yesterday, and worked on piece #3 for a while. Piece 3 is proving to be a bit perplexing. It shows just enough hope that it will turn the corner, but its developing so slowly. Yesterday I pushed pretty hard on the color, and it started to improve....but it just doesn't "sing" yet...it is still "dis-chord". So I'll try to harmonize all the color chords a bit, hopefully with out losing the color brightness.
I want to try another speed painting done from my sketch pad today also...I have a few more cool thumbnails I'd like to bring to life. The painting in this post is my first beach "quickie" I try to keep painting time down to under 2 hrs. with no retouching the next day. I find the more I fix something the less fresh it looks.
Need to set up studio piece #4 today also, so I can keep production happening. My goal is a minimum of 5 studio works a month.......we'll see. Bye for now.

Todays task

Its Saturday morning here at Studio Osterberg, and I am working on completing a series of paintings to be used for Gallery submissions. My 1st piece is completed, and I have 2 more in mid process....one of which has "settled" into a nice piece and just needs the work done on it to finish it off. The other is coming to a crisis point which is when you labor mightily on it and it just doesn't have the "glow" or magic, or excitiement. I am contemplating wholesale changes in design and pumping up the color, but I always hate erradicating a weeks worth of work. The only thing that allows me to do it, is that when I look at the piece, there's nothing there.........so destroying nothing seems acceptable.
I am also doing some impulse paintings from sketches in my field pad, using sketches that are interesting enough to catch my fancy, but may not lend themselves to full blown studio pieces. Doing a quick 2 hour 16" x 20" acrylic, or a small oil pastel in my watercolor pad enables me to bring these sketches to life and allows me to be really free with color choices, and looseness of painting style........plus it is really fun and sometimes you get a surprisingly nice piece!! Maybe next time I'll post one of these with my entry.
TIME TO GO TO WORK :.))

A Rainy Day

Today I'm on the "mainland" as we Hawaiian residents call it. Almost 3000 miles from home, and away from my wife for 12 days. I think of the new studio, I am going to build back home, and all the new paintings I will create there. I want to try some new media..oils in place of my usual acrylics, and go back to my old subject matter..."intimacy". All of that seeems so far away now....but it will happen before I know it. Somewhwere down the line....the success I wish for waits....I'll see you there!

Life with my sketch pad

Yesterday I looked through my sketch pad at all the drawings I had done in the past month to a year. I was surprised at how good and interesting a lot of them looked. At the time I drew them I hated them..they were no good and not even close to what I was trying to draw. But seeing them with fresh eyes after some time had passed I realized they were pretty cool. I was inspired to actually bring some of them to life in full color, and get my paints out.
I have found that in previous paintings where my sketch pad was used for inspiration, I often said "I like this drawing, if only the subjects leg looked more like a leg, or maybe the head was the wrong shape or whatever. I found myself "fixing" things in my sketches as I painted.......till the painting was so far removed from the launching point sketch, the reason I had been attracted to it in the first place was gone. I came to a realization that the reason the sketch had turned out the way it had, was because I had wanted it to come out that way! While I sketch very fast, and they seem crude...they capture a certain something........
Hence I have decided to sketch everyday, even if its only one quick drawing, and maintain the crude integrity of the drawing when I turn it into a painting. Can't wait to see what happens....J

Studio Osterberg says hello world!

Welcome....My name is James, and I love color! The more pure and vibrant it is, the more exciting it becomes. In this opening post at Studio Osterberg, lets look at some of my art, and some really eye catching color!

This piece is titled "Dancing in Frisco" and was completed after arriving home from my first trip to San Francisco. It was my first trip to California, and the the first time I'd ever been to a city like San Francisco. Needless to say I came home with a sketch pad full of ideas and a ton of enthusiasm.

My aim with this piece was to capture the quirky, exciting people and night life that comes out "after dark" in the bay area. A swirl of color and activity....the twinkling and reflections of background light, a seductive embrace and surrender, all go into the making of this piece.

So welcome all painters and color enthusiast, and remember......Life is to short to not live it in COLOR!