Blondheim Art Original Paintings

North Carolina Road
12x16 inches
mixed media on panel
gold or copper frame
800.00

Purchase HERE



Painters Journal


I have had an incredibly productive summer and have produced many, many paintings. It is amazing what can be produced when you are not traveling and teaching. I have had a wonderful time hibernating in my studio since June.

I am teaching a fun workshop in August with an art pin theme. Wearable art is a lot of fun and really good advertising too. This workshop is sponsored by CHARTPAK, one of my very generous sponsors, who has given me most of the materials for our fun and creative adventure. We will be using all kinds of markers, paints, glitter, sequins and our imagination to create these pins. They make great gifts too. There is still room in the class, so please contact me if you wold like to spend the day with us making art pins. There are no supplies to bring, and breakfast and lunch will be provided. You only have to bring yourself.

The Fee is 75.00

9 AM- 5 PM

August 4, 2007



Painters Tip

Study Values

A lot of painters think that color is the most important element in painting. I personally think that value is more important. Values really can make or break your painting. The one thing I see consistently wrong in paintings, sometimes my own :>( is a mishandling of values. So often a painting is pleasant to look at, with nice color, decent composition, but it has little style or impact on the viewer. Everything looks the same. Most of the time it has a problem with values.

You can read endless discussions about values and the technical aspects of painting them in a number of art forums. All of that gobblety gook makes me tired and my eyes start to cross.

Basically, I look for ways to add drama to my paintings by manipulating values and contrast. The repeated comment from patrons about my work that most appeals to them are crisp values and contrast. Since I am not a realist painter, I do not concern myself with using the values that I might actually see on location. That is not to say that correct values are not important. Believe me, they are. But because I am an expressionist, I tend to push values to get the results I'm looking for.

All of us have done endless value studies, but to what end? Are we really learning anything or just going through the motions? Here is a suggestion for your studies which I do with my workshop students.

Start with the mid value and go high for a painting. From medium gray to white. In other words the mid value will be darkest. On the second painting, use the mid value as your lightest value and go dark. Then do both exercises with a color palette. Do the same subject for all of the paintings. This is a pretty good exercise and will teach you something about how to manipulate value to give a mood to your painting.

Also, try doing some five value paintings, a black, white, mid tone, the value between black and mid tone and the value between white and mid tone. Using five values will help you to keep up with which values go where in the scene and give you more control.