How Long Did It Take? - Answers to Consider

Metal Flashing Detail from By the Old Mill © 2019 April M Rimpo

Artists are often asked "How long did it take you to paint this?" Granted some take longer than others depending on a myriad of factors:

• Even if you are working from your own source photos, there is often research needed about your subject to be able to create a good design.
• Deciding on a color scheme - Color could be driven by the emotion you want to portray or could be influenced by a client's preferences. 
• The amount of detail in the painting - applies to both realistic and non-objective work where details may be more in the realm of textures needed to communicate the thoughts and feelings behind the work.
• In representational painting - the variety of materials you're simulating in your painting - such as metal, brick, cement, wood, glass, undergrowth in woods, rusted tools, a snarl of fallen trees, water, vines, a sprinkling of fallen leaves, pottery, delicate crystal, various types of fruit, clothes, crocheted items, intricate fabrics. The list is endless all requiring different approaches to creating them. 
• How you plan to present the work - framed, gallery wrapped, varnished all require different considerations even before you start the painting.

Detail - Vines growing on brick,
and reflections in windows
© 2019 April M Rimpo

As a result, when asked this question, I may answer with a little bit about the process I used to create the painting, since I suspect that might be more what the person is curious about.  I don't mean a technical description full of words that are understood only by artists, but a more general description.  

I may also talk about the inspiration and what I had to do to be sure the story or emotion of the moment was captured in the painting.

I recently finished a painting with many details and a variety of materials simulated in the painting. As a result, this painting took much longer than many of my paintings, but is that really want you want to learn about the painting?  I don't think so. Much of the time was spent figuring out how to represent each of the materials. 

I've included some detail images of my painting, By the Old Mill, to let you see up close how different each of these sections are. Perhaps less obvious is how different the painting application is to create the look of metal versus brick and vines, water, detailed branches and the illusion of distant undergrowth in the wood.

Detail from By the Old Mill - A Snarl of Branches and Water © 2019 April M Rimpo

Detail - The Illusion of undergrowth in the woods 
© 2019 April M Rimpo

Those who read my newsletter got a sneak peek at the whole painting, but I'm not sharing it widely since I plan to include this painting in an upcoming feature of my work.

If you'd like to learn more, just ask.  

Interested in April's artwork or taking one of her classes? Consider becoming a Studio Friend by signing up for her twice-monthly email. April segments her newsletter so you can select topics you'd like to hear about when you sign up. For those who Select the General Interest topic you will receive emails about twice-monthly. If you are only interested in classes, then the emails will be much less frequent discussing upcoming classes and how to register. Select as many topics as sound of interest. Thank you for your support of April M Rimpo Art.

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.

"The Perfect Ride" 20" X 12"

The Perfect Ride by April M Rimpo

The Perfect Ride

Fluid Acrylic

20" X 12"

Selected for the Pike Peak International Watermedia Exhibition, April's painting, The Perfect Ride, will be on display from June 4 - July 30, 2019 in Colorado Springs. It is one of 100 paintings selected from a field of 360 entries. Many thanks to all who organize this exhibit and to the juror Martha Mans.

You may guess the narrow street made of cobblestones is not in the United States and you would be right. The Perfect Ride captures the textures of life in this small village and the necessity for small motorcycles for traversing the narrow roads. I don't recall seeing a single bicycle during our travels through this town, since I'm sure the ride would be far from smooth. Most people walk everywhere, as you can see by the amount of foot traffic, but the streamlined motorcycles were good for longer travels. If going between towns and you need to carry goods to market, you might find the Chicken Bus more useful.

I love painting motorcycles maybe more than bicycles, that may be hard to believe, but the equipment is more intricate and provides an additional challenge. Combine the motorcycles with cobblestone and the colors of the buildings and you know I had to paint this. Gaining the right skills to know how to accomplish this painting is why it took nearly 10 years from when I first was inspired until the painting was born.

Interested in April's artwork or taking her classes? Consider becoming a Studio Friend by signing up for her twice-monthly email. April segments her newsletter so you can select topics you'd like to hear about when you sign up. For those who include a selection of General Interest you will receive emails about twice-monthly. If you are only interested in classes, then the emails will be much less frequent discussing upcoming classes and how to register.  Thank you for your interest.

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.

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.

"Traffic Jam II" 12" X 20" acrylic

Traffic Jam II by April M Rimpo

Traffic Jam II
Acrylic
12" X 20" X 1.5" deep gallery wrapped*
$600

Traffic Jam II is a second nod to Flam, Norway, where the ferry boats take travelers from near and far on a beautiful trip through a fjord. This tiny town must survive on tourists since the primary traffic we saw was the ships waiting to take us on a wonderful adventure. What a beautiful place.

The four houses you see along the water's edge are typical of what we saw in Norway. Red houses nestled on green covered mountains, with a few neighbors who chose the second favorite color, golden yellow.

The mountainside was truly the bright yellow green of Spring. I decided to feature that color by using a tertiary triad of color that included leaf green, cobalt aqua, and mauve. The mauve is a mixture of Permanent Alizarin and Phthalo Blue. I started the distant trees using Mat Acrylic Medium Gel to build up some textures then applied several variations of color from the triad to the medium while it was still partially wet.  Once dry, I used fluid acrylics for the balance of the painting, working back over the thicker background to create soft color variations in the shadowed side of the mountain.

I find that this combination of soft acrylic with fluid acrylics creates great depth to a painting, making it fun to visually explore.

* The image is painted around the edge of the canvas, so no frame is required.

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 - Sometimes it doesn't take much
• 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.

Creating a Light "Netting" Under-Painting

A textured first wash can create great interest in a painting and provide a cohesive color palette. My time-lapse video shows the creation of what I call a "netting" background which, in this case, begins to form the crevices in a cliff.

I hope you don't find the video too confusing, because it is 
upside-down, with the top of the painting
at the bottom. 

I started by spraying the watercolor paper with water, letting it run sideways, in the direction of the crevices. Next I used a large round paint brush to dab in dilute fluid acrylic but realized that this 35" X 29" sheet of paper would dry too much at the bottom if I didn't switch to a pipette for applying the paint. Since the paint was a bit more saturated with pigment compared to what I used with

the brush, I sprayed the paint with water to reduce the intensity and to help it run across the paper. At the end I splattered more paint to create some darker splotches on the cliffs. Since the paper was quite wet, many of the splotches seemed to melt into the background, which was fine at this very early stage of the painting. There are plenty of opportunities to add more drips and drops of paint to the surface creating pock-holes and crevices in the rocks.

Here is an image of the first wash after it was fully dry. You can see it is quite pale, but does develop a varied background upon which to work the cliff wall. 

In other paintings, where I want a more distinctive background, I use stronger pigment to water mixtures so the netting effect is much more pronounced and still quite obvious in the final painting. You can see an example of that in my painting, Race.

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.

Rimpo 2017 All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.

And the Excitement Begins, a 24" X 18" fluid acrylic

And the Excitement Begins by April M Rimpo

And Let the Excitement Begin

Fluid Acrylic

24" X 18" 

Mounted on 2" deep cradled wood panel

$1175

Available to purchase at HorseSpirit Arts Gallery
info@horsespiritartsgallery.com 

410-461-3505 

In And Let the Excitement Begin the lighted billboards in Time Square are the real stars. They tell you at a glance where you are, but what would Time Square be without the people? They communicate the fascination the world has with the city and the excitement it delivers. Many of the people are simply silhouettes since their presence is what counts; some show a bit more with the goal of showing something about our times. Some people are dressed up for the theater; others are casually dressed and appear to be out to just take in the event called "New York City." 


I love painting light and shadow to catch a moment of time, but I also love to include people in paintings.  They help me tell the story of a place and times. I generally don't know the people and am not striving to make them recognizable. It is their posture and what they are doing that is important to the story.

Some say paintings with people won't sell.  
I find that hard to believe.  I frequently notice paintings in a variety of public places that have people in them.  And what about famous artists like Winslow Homer? He frequently included people in his work.  His motivation was also to tell their story. Perhaps this is why I so love his art.


In fact, many workshops are given on the topic of including people in the landscape. The workshop descriptions often say something like, "Improve your landscapes with figures that engage the view and create a personal involvement in your painting."  

What do you think about paintings with people? Do you like them or not? I'd love to hear your thoughts.