I’ve posted 3 photos; 1 photo of the scene that inspired the painting, 1 photo of the under-painting and 1 photo of the finished painting.  In the first photo you’ll see the actual scene that inspired the painting, or in this case, the element or shape that inspired the painting.  I really like the the way this small grove of eucalyptus trees were leaning, like in a beautiful dance. I often see eucalyptus tress as an elegant woman draped in an flowing gown, it’s what I imagine when I paint them.  I view oak trees and cypress tress differently, each species having it’s own characteristics, it’s own personality.

What I didn’t find compelling was the view of the valley below. It did nothing for me.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great view, I would love to have a home with this kind of view.  But for my paintings I want something simple, something quiet, something peaceful. It also didn’t help that it was in the middle of the day when the sun is high and the light is flat.

When I look at the world and what I want to paint, I look at in in terms of parts or shapes that make up the whole ( like a puzzle).  From there I choose what parts or shapes to include or not include in my work. This piece is a perfect example of that mental process.  It’s actually found in much of my work.  I’m not often concerned with capturing the specifics of any given location. I’m much more interested in shapes and colors that can evoke emotions and take the viewer on a journey.  These journeys usually involve their memories, memories I know nothing about but are brought out by the use of shape and color.

A view from Sierra Road in San Jose, taken during the Tour of California.

So, “how to handle this in my painting?”  You’ll see in the next couple of photographs how I handled it.  I completely changed the background, something more suitable to my vision for this particular piece. At the end of the day I could have painted the scene just as it was and it may have been OK, a nice painting.  I wanted something more.

Do you want something more out of your own work?  Shake up that box of puzzle pieces, reach in and only use a few pieces to create the image you want.  How many pieces you grab is up to you.

I hope you enjoy the painting as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Underpainting

"Dance of the Pacific", 14 x 18, Oil on Linen

You might be asking “where is this is going and where did it come from”?  Well, I was watching a movie last night with my family titled “Stardust“, you may have seen it.  It’s about a young boy out looking for adventure and love.  He has dreams…big, daring dreams. In the beginning of the movie there’s a certain young woman he has his eye on and he’s doing everything he can to get her attention.  It’s important to say that this young man works in a small market.  In one scene the 2 are having a semi romantic picnic, at least he thinks of it as being romantic. During their conversation she refers to him as a “shop boy”, from his perspective, not a term of endearment.  His response? “I’m not a shop boy, I just work in a shop.”  I love that line and it got me thinking about my own life, being an artist and how I use this blog. There’s much more to the movie, check it out sometime.

“I’m an artist, but I’m not just an artist.” God has blessed me with an amazing wife, 3 great kids and 1 pain-in-the-butt-but-we-love-her-dearly dog named Sienna.  Together we live an amazing life.  Nothing flashy. No fancy cars, no sparkly bling, heck, we don’t even own our own home…yet. Our life is not even easy at times, but no ones life is truly easy. We have close friends that we love dearly and a family that loves us dearly. We have a great church along with some pretty great neighbors.

A little over eight years ago, I, along with my family, took a huge step of faith to follow a dream to paint full time.  It’s a dream I’ve had since I was a very young boy. I’m living that dream.  But that’s not all I’m doing and it’s not all I am, it’s not all I have a passion for.

I recently discovered a passion that was buried many years ago; cycling.  Not just cycling to the store to pick up a gallon milk, but some serious cycling.  My wife and I have been riding for a few months now and it’s been amazing. It’s been great to share cycling with her.  My brother came up from his home in the LA area to ride with us for a couple of days.  We had a great time spending time with him, but it wasn’t nearly long enough.  Oh yeah, there was no painting during that time.  I dedicated my time to riding with my wife and brother.  It may seem shocking to you, but art rarely enters my mind when I’m on my bike.  When it does, it’s usually because of the beautiful area we’re riding through that brings it to mind. It’s brought balance back to my life. Painting is not all I think about, nor should it be.

A few days ago I took the day off from painting and all things related to “work” and joined my wife to go watch the uphill finish of the Tour of California in the hills above San Jose.  For those of you not familiar with The Tour of California, it’s the largest professional bike race in the country.  The worlds top professional cycling teams come to California to race for 8 days. We love this stuff.  We both look forward to watching the Tour de France on TV every year.  We wake up early each morning to watch it live.  This year will be a little different, instead of watching it early in the morning we’ll be out riding and catching the numerous replays during the day.  We drive our kids nuts for the month of July watching the Tour de France on TV throughout the day.  It’s our dream to go watch the tour live in France one day.

“I’m an artist, but I’m not just an artist.”  I’ll be sharing more of these stories and passions with you in upcoming posts.  I don’t want you to worry though, I’ll still share my art and all the things that go into it.  Many of the things I have a passion for such as cycling, hiking, fishing and hunting take place outdoors, in and around the very places I paint.  There’s a connection. There’s a common thread that winds it’s way throughout my life.  I want to share these things with you. Take a look at the photos below from our trip to the bike race, can you see the connection? One of them might be a painting.

If you need balance in your life, I hope these stories inspire you to bring balance to your own life.

It was a beautiful day

The Tour of California on Sierra Road in San Jose, CA

Chris Horner, winner of the day and eventual winner of the whole race.

As you may or may not know, the Quick Draw event is held for those artists that received awards for their work on Saturday.  I was fortunate enough to receive one of these awards for my painting “Pebble Beach Gold”.

Pebble Beach Gold, 14 x 16, oil on Linen

On Sunday morning I decided to paint the dunes on the southern side of 17 mile drive along the coast.  Artists are required to arrive in the town of Carmel to have their canvases stamped for the morning competition. (The stamp on the back proves that the painting was painted that morning.) Once the canvases are stamped the artists are free to go to their painting locations to set up and wait for 9:00am to begin painting.  Each artist has 2 hours to paint, frame and deliver the painting to the show and sale which begins at 11:00am. (this is why it’s called a Quick Draw).  Most artists decide to paint somewhat close to town so they have the more time to paint, frame and deliver their painting.  I, on the other hand, decided to paint in an area that takes about 15 minutes to drive to.  This gives me about 1 3/4 hours to paint, frame and get the painting back for the show and sale.  A bit risky, but I’ve done it before on a number of occasions and never had a problem…until now.

We ( my wife, Janice, and I) got to my painting location with plenty of time to get set up and start painting at 9:00am.  The painting process went well, even while it rained fairly hard for about 15 minutes.  My wife was in the car reading a book and enjoying the view of the coastline while I painted.  I loved having my wife out with me, it’s not very often tat we get the chance to do this.  At one point she had to turn the key on (not to the point of the engine starting) so she’d be able to turn the wipers on to clear the rain that was impeding her view of the coastline that was quickly clearing.

I ended up finishing the painting at about 10:20, plenty of time to get it framed, get everything back in the car and to drive back to town..right?

I get in the drivers seat to head back to town.  I go to turn the the engine on…nothing.  Let’s try it again…nothing.  THE BATTERY IS DEAD.  Remember when Janice turned the wipers on?  Well that process also turned the lights on. She did turn the the key back to the off position but the lights stayed on (design flaw). By the way, I did get her permission to tell this story, she’s got a great sense of humor, one of the many things I love about her.

The battery was dead.  We had 30 minutes to get the problem fixed and get back to get the painting turned in.  Remember, it takes 15 minutes to drive back to town, that leaves 15 minutes to get the problem solved.  We quickly prayed  a simple prayer: “Jesus, help us remain calm and solve this problem”.

We did remain calm but the problem still needed to be resolved. The road we were on only had about 3 houses on it.  I ran up to the first house to see if anybody was home…there was.  A nice woman who answered the door in her aqua colored bath robe as her little dog rushed out to greet us.  I introduced myself and explained to her what was going on and asked her if she’d be able to give us a jump.  She agreed but did not know where the jumper cables were.  She tried calling her husband on his cell phone with no luck…we could hear his cell phone in the house ringing.   She was at a loss.  So I asked if she’d be able to give us a ride into town, she actually agreed. She told us she had to go change her clothes and that she’d be right out.  We started walking down the hill back to the car.  As we did, a car was coming up the road so we flagged him down.  Maybe he would be able to give us a jump.  It ended up being the woman’s husband and he knew where the cables were. He quickly got the cables and was able to get the car jumped and we were back on the road at 10:45…10:45!  We should make it.

We got back on the road only to have slow motorhome in front of us, it seemed everything was going against us.  We remained calm and the problem was being resolved.  After a short time the motorhome pulled off which cleared the road for us.  We got back in town just in time to get the painting to the show, it was 11:00am.  We had made a phone call to make the organizers of the show aware of the possibility of us being a little late, so by the time we arrived the news of our adventure had been circulating through the crowd of artists and patrons of the show. I ran into the park where the show was being held, quickly set up my easel with the framed painting and stepped away to take a breath and unwind a bit.

About 15 minutes later they announced the winner of the Quick Draw event. It was my painting!  The award was given by the judge of the show, John Stern, a renowned California Art historian and writer. It was an honor to receive this award among so many great painters.

A simple prayer was answered. We remained calm and the problem was solved. The painting also sold to a very nice woman from Sun Valley, Idaho. My wife and I will continue to share and laugh about this story for many years, it’s part of our great life together.

I  love great stories, I think this qualifies as a great story…at least in my small world.

Note: I never got a chance to get a photo of the painting, my apologies.

As an artist I’m always trying to keep things fresh, not only for my collectors but for myself as well.  I want to continue to grow and take a few chances with my art.  It can be difficult though.  There are times the demand for my landscapes make it difficult to try new things.  I’ve had more time in the past couple of years to do try some of these news things, including a few still life paintings. This is the first time I’ve entered still life’s in a national recognized show.

I hope the collectors of my landscape work find these pieces to be a breath of fresh air at the Salon International even though it may take them awhile to find them. The show opens on April 2nd.

Figs, 7 x 14, Oil on Linen

A Good Start, 18 x 22, Oil on Linen

This is actually the first time I’m showing my Grand Canyon paintings so I’m pretty excited.  As I discussed in an earlier post painting the Grand Canyon was a very overwhelming experience but I really learned a lot painting these 3 pieces.  The most important thing was to slow down and really make sure the drawing was correct. And of course the colors are so much different then what I see here in California.  Though my palette of colors remained the same, the way in which they were used and mixed was very different.

I look forward to painting the Grand Canyon in the future and hopefully I can remember what I’ve learned on these 3 and apply it to the next group of paintings.

I hope you enjoy my work of the Grand Canyon.

Canyon Light, 18 x 12, Oil on Linen

Canyon Beauty, 10 x 18, Oil on Linen

Canyon Rain, 20 x 22, Oil on Linen

The show will last through April 16th.  For more information please visit Holton Studio.

I’ve included a few of the images to be shown.

Spanish Bay Moonlight, 11 x 14, Oil on Linen

Evening's Mystery, 30 x 10, Oil on Linen

The article can now be viewed on-line at http://www.southwestart.com/featured/kevin-courter-personal-panoramas

Check it out and let me know what you think.

At Lands End, Point Lobos, 24 x 18, Oil on Linen

It was pretty dark first thing in the morning, no sun light to be found anywhere.  The rain was light but the wind was howling, at least on the rim.  And the cold, the cold never really left us on our whole visit to the Grand Canyon.  After picking up a cup of coffee for my wife at one of the lodges we headed down the Bright Angel Trail which takes you to the river below  and back up to the North Rim.  We only planned to travel about 3 miles down the trail, it’s about 9 miles to the river below.  The trail is nothing but switchbacks after switchbacks.  I did have some concerns, after all, I had a heart attack a few months prior in April and we were at an elevation of about 6500 feet.  We decide to take it slow and really gauge ourselves for the return back up to the rim. A few years prior Janice and I hiked to the top of Halfdome in Yosemite National Park so we were no strangers to long steep trails. We hope to have the chance to hike the “Rim to Rim” hike in a couple of years.  This hike would take us from the North Rim down to the river and back up to the South Rim, about a 20 mile hike.  Stay tuned.

We ended up only hiking about 1 1/2 miles down the trail, not because of the strenuous nature of the trail but because the sun started to make an appearance in the canyon below.  We thought our time was better spent seeing the canyon from the many vantage points of the rim as opposed to the single trail we were currently on. We hiked out at a very steady pace and felt quite good doing so, something I found very encouraging.

After reaching the rim we hopped in the car and proceeded to West Rim Drive.  Prior to our arrival at the park I had found out that West Rim Drive was closed to private vehicles and the only mode of transportation along this route was by park bus, bike or on foot.  None of these we’re great options when taking into consideration all my painting gear.  It was at this point that I decided to talk to a collector of mine who worked for the National Parks about getting a pass which would enable us to drive our own vehicle.  I’m happy to say the park was gracious enough to offer us a driving pass for the few days we were in the park.  What a blessing that pass was, especially in the wind and rain.  There was a small amount of guilt that set in while we were getting into our car while others had to huddle under trees in the rain and cold, waiting for the park bus to save them from their misery. We did our best not to make eye contact with those waiting for the bus but non the less we felt their glares. The guilt quickly passed and we were on our way to the next overlook in our well heated vehicle   The views along West Rim Drive were excellent, each one offering it’s own unique view of the canyon.

This particular day with all the wind, rain, rainbows and dappled sunlight ended up being the most spectacular day of our visit.  Everywhere we went we were struck with a sense of awe at the views we encountered.  It was an amazing light show that only a creative God can provide and one we won’t soon forget.

We finished our day at the same place we finished every day; enjoying a glass of wine and watching the people at the El Tovar Hotel.

The next day an a half were crystal clear and coldest of all the days.  I spent an afternoon painting the Grand Canyon for the first time.  Painting the canyon was overwhelming.  The canyon is so large it’s hard to know where to start.  The light also moves very fast. I can easily imagine taking years learning how to paint this amazing place, but I have to start somewhere.  My next attempt will take place in the studio.

Here are a couple of photos from the day and a studio painting I recently completed.

Cayon Rain, 20 x 22

Visiting the Grand Canyon was a first for me and my wife, Janice.  I’ve always seen and been inspired by great paintings of the Canyon by Thomas Moran and contemporary artists such as Curt Walters, Wilson Hurley and William Scott Jennings.  I’ve heard people say that it’s hard to describe the Grand Canyon, I learned that that was a tremendous understatement.  There are no words.

We left early in the morning from our home in Mountain View and planned to arrive shortly after sunset, a 12-13 hour drive.  The drive was long but we had a great time sharing the driving and seeing the sights along the way.  Breakfast in Bakersfield and lunch, well, I’m not sure where we had lunch other than to say “in the desert”.  As we got closer to the Grand Canyon I realized that we just might make before the sunset, what a treat that would be.  As it turned out we arrived at the Grand Canyon about 30 minutes prior to the sun setting.  Approaching the Canyon is not like approaching other National Parks where you can see your destination from the road, perhaps miles away.  According to the road signs we were just 1 mile away but no sign of it anywhere, the anticipation building.  We finally were within a few yards of the Canyon when we caught glimpses of it through the juniper forest that creeps up to canyons rim.  We exited our car and walked to the rim, simply AWE-MAZING.  The colors at sunset were something to behold, what a blessing to see the canyon for the first time at this time of day. The sheer size of the Grand Canyon was the next thing to sink in and after that, the COLD.  I’m a California boy, so 25 degrees is a little on the cold side.

Being a painter, I’ve done a fair amount of traveling, usually by myself or with other painters. I use to be able to travel like that, alone.  But over the past few years I found myself getting very lonely on these painting trips, even with close friends around.  What I really wanted was to share these experiences with my wife and kids.  My kids are not really big on joining dad on painting trips, after all I was working.  This was one the first big trips with my wife.  It was a great blessing to see and share the experience of the Grand Canyon with her for the first time.  I look forward to seeing more of these great sights with her in the future.

The next day was gonna be a crap shoot.  A big storm was forecast so we really didn’t know what to expect.  Hang on to your hats, it’s gonna get wild and wooly.

That’s it for part 1.  Be patient, paintings to follow.

That’s it for now.  Be patient, paintings to follow.

In the detail below, you’ll notice the reddish under painting in the deep dark shadows as well as the branches and trunks of the Cypress trees.  This is accomplished through the use of transparent pigments not only as the under painting but in the majority of the finished painting itself.  Cad. Red Medium, Cad. Yellow Light and Lemon Yellow are the only 3 opaque colors on my palette, everything else is transparent.

Under painting is also a great way to work out compositional and design ideas prior to starting the actual painting.

If you’ve never tried starting with an under painting you should give it a try.

Cradled Moon, 12 x 14, Oil on Linen

Under Painting for "Cradled Moon"

Detail, Cradled Moon