"Cycling Together" 16"X 24" watercolor (Demo video)

 

Cycling Together © April M Rimpo

Cycling Together

Watercolor & Fluid Acrylic

16" X 24" gallery wrapped

As in most of my cycling paintings, my goal is to capture the movement and energy of cyclists. I so admire bicycle riders for their strength and athleticism. When a local triathlon runs through our town I capture them in photographs as they ride by. I love their interplay as they ride in groups, sometimes passing each other on their way by.

Abstracted backgrounds help bring focus to the rider but also augment the sense of speed with which the rider is traversing the landscape.  Cycling Together is primarily a watercolor painting with a small amount of fluid acrylic in the shadows cast by the tree line onto the road.

Below is a video created by Sylvie Carter, who started Art with Sylvie - "Unlocking the journey of artists and their work." Sylvie is an artist in Canberra, Australia who set about interviewing artists in a variety of media and creating videos to share their art. I am honored that she was drawn to my paintings on Instagram and asked to include me and my work in her free videos. This is the second video she created with me where I demonstrate and talk about creating this painting.   

You can see more of Sylvie's Art with Sylvie Free videos on her website at https://artwithsylvie.com/free-videos/  

There are portions of my process beyond what Sylvie included in her video that I also wanted to share. Below is my 25 minute video about creating this painting.

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Contact April and see more of her art on her website

Copyright April M Rimpo All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.

"Cycling" and "Race": Different approaches to showing their movement

Cycling 14" X 11" Fluid Acrylic
by April M Rimpo

         Cycling

Fluid Acrylic
14" X 11" gallery wrapped and varnish
$375

Available for purchase on my website.

Race 18" X 12" Fluid Acrylic
by April M Rimpo

Race
Fluid Acrylic
18" X 12" gallery wrapped and varnish
$540

Read more about this painting on my website

Race was selected for the Georgia Watercolor Society's 2019 National Exhibition on exhibit 
March 9 through April 26, 2019.

The exhibition is held in:
Bowen Center for the Arts
334 Highway 9N
Dawsonville, GA 30534


Wondering how these paintings evolved? Sometimes you can't really tell when you look at a finished painting where is started from.  I think Cycling falls in that category, while Race is much more obvious. Let take a look.

First I created the backgrounds for the two paintings by spraying water and applying fluid acrylic paint until I had the "netting" background I like to use when painting high energy paintings. My cyclist paintings are nearly always in this category because they are so active when they flying by.

Cycling Underpainting & Drawing

Race Underpainting

You can barely see the warm underpainting that was the beginning of Cycling in the final piece. It evolved through a variety of stages eventually ending up with a fairly dark background of purple, burnt orange, and dark greens to represent the natural treed background. A lighter swath of mostly pale greens and yellows for the grasses by the road that are lit by the sun. Only the drips that cross the road remain from the underpainting.

Race at start of demo

On the contrary, I decided to start by painting the woman in Race allowing some of the underpainting to come through providing the illusion of shadows on her body. I so liked this appearance I shared the painting at the stage shown at left with some artist friends to get their feedback. They all felt the simplicity was perfect and that I should not develop the background further. My intuition had told me the same thing, so it was nice to get validation of my thinking before I went further. 

I continued to work on Race as part of a demo in a gallery where I had a solo show on exhibit.  The images below show me completing some details in the bike and reinforcing parts of her form to get to the final version shown above.



My thanks to Mala Sarkar Sehgal for taking these photos while I worked. 

Refining the bicycle

Nearing the end of the demo

Interested in learning more about April's art inspirations, tips about her painting process, or art business tidbits? Want to know when her art is in exhibits? Consider joining her friends and collectors by signing up for her twice-monthly email.

Copyright April M Rimpo All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.

#hocoarts  #hocoartist #touchstonewdc #bicycles #fluidacrylic

Quite a Run in AcrylicWorks - Best of Acrylic

It never gets old being selected for the Northlight Publications' Best of Acrylic Painting series AcrylicWorks.  Each year when the new Edition arrives I am thrilled to share it with friends and to add it to my bookshelf at home. 

AcrylicWorks3: Creative Textures featured work that used either tactile textural approaches or the illusion of texture in the work.  I had  two paintings included: Moving Up and Struggles in the Southwest.  I've included the images of the two pages for these paintings. 

Since the text for Movement was on the left page, I've included the full page spread.

In each book the artist provides a short writeup about the paintings on inspiration and technique.

At right is the second painting in AcrylicWorks3: Celebrating Textures. I found my southwest paintings were the best subject to show how I create the illusion of texture. Crevices of rocks that provide handholds for the rock climber and the texture of the rocks in the mounds of each grave were perfect subjects. 











AcrylicWorks4: Captivating Color included one of my paintings, Freight Yard, which continues to be a favorite of mine. This was likely the first time I decided to do the sky in a color other than blue. I spent a lot of time considering the color scheme of the painting to really emphasize the cranes and freight cars. A blue sky would have diminished the impact of this painting. I retained the texture of clouds but the pale yellow and brown with tiny hints of blue really makes this painting sing.

Freight Yard, 24" X 45" fluid acrylic by April M Rimpo

AcrylicWorks5: Bold Values is the 2018 Edition of Best of Acrylic Paintings and I am delighted to have two works in this book: Lanterns and Movement.  Lanterns is in the Cityscape/Urban Scene section, while Movement is in Figures/Portraits section. 

Lanterns 24" X 18" Fluid Acrylic by April M Rimpo

Lanterns is available at HorseSpirit Arts Gallery in Ellicott City, Maryland. The colors pop even more in person than they do in the image here. I repeated the colors of the lanterns on the shadowed sides of the building, using purple and other dark colors to build up the middle value and darkers areas. I love how the lanterns reflect in the glass, so I included those reflections in my rendering.

This painting was included in Courtney Jordon's article 25 Acrylic Paintings from 25 Top Artists.

Movement 25" X 18" Acrylic by April M Rimpo

Movement is one of my tributes to the Triathlon that runs through our town each year. I love to photograph the cyclists and then portray them and their energy as they travel through our rural setting. When working on an abstract background, using bold values are essential to emphasize the rider. I so admire these athletes that I love to painting them.

Click here to Contact April

Interested in learning more about April's art inspirations, tips about her painting process, or art business tidbits? Want to know when her art is in exhibits? Consider joining her friends and collectors by signing up for her twice-monthly email.

Copyright April M Rimpo All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.

DC City Tour 12" X 12" Acrylic

DC City Tour by April M Rimpo

During a trip to Washington, DC I noticed this group of cyclists waiting near the White House.  It turns out this was a DC tour by bicycle. What an intimate way to get to tour a city.  Cyclists always make me think about energy. Since they were regrouping to prepare for their tour, I still wanted to send a message about high energy and chose to use splashes of paint as a playful method to insert some excitement. 

This somewhat whimsical portrayal is one of the paintings I plan to include in the Touchstone Gallery 12" X 12" gift shopping exhibit to be held in December. 

Click here to Contact April

Interested in learning more about April's art inspirations, tips about her painting process, or art business tidbits? Want to know when her art is in exhibits? Consider joining her friends and collectors by signing up for her twice-monthly email.

Copyright April M Rimpo All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.

Traffic Jam III, 3" X 24" fluid acrylic

Traffic Jam III by April M Rimpo

Traffic Jam

Fluid Acrylic

3" X 24" image

$275

My inspiration started in Amsterdam. Bikes raced along the bike lanes, which were typically wider than pedestrian sidewalks, running parallel to most roads. When crossing a street you had to remember not only to check the roads for traffic but also a final check of the bike lanes before getting to the sidewalk. The traffic in the bike lanes often moved much faster than car traffic and were actually the trickiest part of the crossing.

However any time you have a lot of traffic there are traffic jams during "rush hour." It was no different for the cyclists in Amsterdam. This painting, was the result of traveling by a long line of bikes that were stopped waiting for a light change to cross the car traffic. I had fun, adding in one person who actually turned around because she knew she had some time to wait.

This wide but short format was fun to try out. I see more in this format in my future.

View of "Traffic Jam III" and 
"Traffic Jam at the Concert" insitu
Consider the possibilities!

You can see more "Traffic Jam" paintings at these links:

• Traffic Jam at the Concert - Concert goes waiting on the ticket takers
• Rush Hour - Enjoy the view when trying to get home
• Traffic Jam III - Cyclists backed up at a crossing
• Full to the Limit - An overloaded canal
• Thoroughfare - Amsterdam: More bikes and trikes than you can believe
• Traffic Jam II - No spot at the port for the incoming boat
• Country Tour - Cars waiting on a bike race
• Trapped - Traffic congestion in a tunnel

Click here to Contact April

Interested in learning more about April's art inspirations, tips about her painting process, or art business tidbits? Want to know when her art is in exhibits? Consider joining her friends and collectors by signing up for her twice-monthly email.

Copyright April M Rimpo All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.

Des Colores: Movement III 18" X 24" Fluid Acrylic

Movement III by April M Rimpo

Movement III

Acrylic

18" X 24" image

I love color.  I still think the lights and darks (value range) of a painting are the most important design element to make a painting work, but the colors can really make a painting sing.

Last year I experimented with a number of color combinations described in a book by Stephen Quiller, Color Choices: Making Color Sense Out Of Color Theory. This painting shows one combination that really appealed to me and I have now used several times: Lime Green, Orange, and Purple. Yes, there are touches of Pthalo blue as well, but it was used to create the Lime Green, so leaving a little of it felt right in this painting. There is not enough to alter the primary color combination I chose to use. 

This painting was about the energy and speed of the cyclists who were competing in a triathlon. The abstracted background added not just a fascinating backdrop to the cyclists but helped communicate their speed since it would out of focus and really a blur of color as they moved through the world. I admire cyclists and love to share their energy with others as part of telling their story. 

This painting has exhibited in the following exhibitions:

• 26th Annual International Society of Experimental Artists (2017) Sanibel Island, Florida

• 2^nd Annual Online All-Member Juried Exhibition of the International Society of Acrylic Painters (2017)

Here are a couple other paintings where I used the same Lime Green, Orange, and Purple combination.

Cycling
Floral Wonderland
Sunset
Dancers
Shadows on the Path
Country II
Chicadee

Other paintings of cyclists
Movement Series
Cycling and Race

Click here to Contact April

Interested in learning more about April's art inspirations, tips about her painting process, or art business tidbits? Want to know when her art is in exhibits? Consider joining her friends and collectors by signing up for her twice-monthly email.

Copyright April M Rimpo All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.

"On Duty" 12" X 12" Fluid Acrylic

On Duty by April M Rimpo

On Duty

Fluid Acrylic Gallery Wrapped and Varnished*

$550 includes shipping within the United States

Now Available for Purchase

Those of you who know my art shouldn't be surprised that the first painting I did based on my inspiring European vacation is about cyclists. The setting has changed but my subject matter continues to come back to bicycles.

April with her painting when it was on exhibit at the
Maryland Federation of Art's Celebration Exhibit for 50 Years
at Circle Gallery, 18 State Circle, Annapolis, Maryland

Inspired by some photographs I took in Brussels, "On Duty" depicts some men who looked very official wearing their reflective vests as they walked across the center square in Brussels.  So here I was surrounded by these magnificent buildings and I'm photographing these men.  Yes I photographed the buildings too, but these were the guys I had to paint first.

Once I got home I looked up afdc - the logo on their vests - and found out it is a German Cycling Club.  With the auto translation of the site, there appeared to be some official business associated with sponsoring cyclist initiatives and getting things approved like "right turn on red for cyclists," but it also indicated it was a bicycling club.  You might wonder why a German club would be in Brussels; well the first King of Brussels was German so there are still remnants of German intermixed with their original French and Flemish heritage. 

Interested in learning more about April's art inspirations, tips about her painting process, or art business tidbits? Want to know when her art is in exhibits? Consider joining her friends and collectors by signing up for her twice-monthly email.

Copyright April M Rimpo 2016 All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution, but all other uses are prohibited.

DC Bike Ride, Fluid Acrylic 12" X 20"

DC Bike Ride by April M Rimpo

DC Bike Ride

12" X 20" Gallery Wrapped Fluid Acrylic, Varnish*

$575

On May 22nd, Washington DC will block off some roads and hold their first DC Bike Ride starting and ending near the Capitol Building. Proceeds from the ride benefit the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) in their efforts to deliver meaningful street safety programs in support of DC's Vision Zero Campaign. The route crosses the Potomac River and passes the Jefferson Monument and the Washington Monument. As part of the route, riders will pass the Holocaust Museum and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, both of which are portrayed in my painting DC Bike Ride. Although the Cherry Blossoms have finished, the ride passes through the area where the Cherry Blossom festival is held each year.

I'm wishing the riders a wonderful day. I had hoped to take photographs, but this is a special event day at Touchstone Gallery as part of our 40th Anniversary celebrations, so I had to invent my own ride. Artistic liberty is great!

* No frame required

Interested in learning more about April's art inspirations, tips about her painting process, or art business tidbits? Want to know when her art is in exhibits? Consider joining her friends and collectors by signing up for her twice-monthly email.

Copyright April M Rimpo 2016 All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.