This friday I will be one of two featured artists at the Circa Gallery here in Asheboro, NC.  I will be showing with Lenton Slack, a local artist and interior designer, who has taught at a couple of the colleges for years.  My work will be a mix of Abstract and local landscape paintings.  The show will be up through the 3rd week of June.

Come take a look.

Here is an artictle from the areas tourism website:

http://www.heartofnorthcarolina.com/newsroom/index.pl?id=629

Well here is another painting in my series about my area.  I love the different colors in the field, and the way the warm yellows, oranges and reds read against the darker trees, and bluer mountains.  This is one of my favorites so far!

I love history.  I enjoy visiting older places and wondering what has gone on there over time.  When I lived in Macon, Georgia, my apartment was in an Antebellum mansion, and I loved walking around the neighborhood seeing all of the homes.

Here in Asheboro, there are a few old homes. This home is my favorite.  It is so grand, with such a stately balconade. I wonder who built it, and what there life was like living here.

I painted this house with the morning light shining through the pillars, and the old gas lamp still on and lit.  The warmth of the sky contrasts nicely with the coolness of the white home, looking blue in the shadows.

Enjoy!

I love living in the country.  I love the open spaces, the forests, and the farms.  I love not having to deal with stop lights, and traffic.  We only live about 12 minutes out of town, but that is far enough to breathe. 

This painting is of a farm nearby us on High Pine Church Road.  I drive a loop by here, and over past the farm that the last painting was of. 

I love the bright greens, contrasting with the reds and oranges of the plants in the foreground, and the barn.  Scale is important here.  Distance is shown through size.

One of my favorite stress relievers is to take a drive in the country, and I live in some pretty country. The Uwharries are an ancient, eroded mountain range in central North Carolina. I live in a community built in the north end of the range. It is beautiful.

This particular view comes from across the Uwharrie River, looking east toward the range, across a beautiful farm, on a dirt road. My Sister was here visiting last summer, and found the view with me.

This painting is a good example of atmospheric perspective. As you look in the distance, things become hazier and bluer. You can see this with the mountains. This painting also contains good warm/cool color contrast.

I hope you enjoy!

Asheboro has a nice downtown area. Sunset is an artsy street with galleries, restaurants, and antique shops. Fayetteville is the main drag, with the hospital, banks, and most of the more established businesses.

I chose to paint from this vantage point because of the interesting composition that was created from the awning overhead, creating negative shapes with the bank building and light pole. It is a non typical view and very fun.

2007 was a difficult year for my family. In January the oldest nephew passed away suddenly. After the funeral we walked out of the church, and it started snowing. The world was covered in a clean blanket of  snow.

Later that winter my sister’s family went to the temple, and performed sacred ordinances in behalf of their son. One of our beliefs is that work done in the temple is eternal, and can be performed for yourself, if living, or for family members that have passed on. Marriages in the temple have the ability to bind families after death.

This painting was done for my sister for Christmas (not finished until January). I painted the temple in the winter in honor of their son that had passed away.

This is one of the first paintings I have done since she was born. It is monochromatic in nature, which means it basically uses one color. That color is yellow. I have intense yellow, and dull yellow, warm yellow and cool yellow, dark yellow (brown) and light yellow. I did add a little red for some spice.

This technique is a great way to create a mood in artwork.

This painting also evokes the landscape.

One of the things that got me started in art was fishing. My dad and I would go every weekend from March to October. We would go out and enjoy paddling around on high mountain lakes. We would catch the most beautiful fish, Trout.

During the winter, when the lakes were frozen over we would sit bored at home. We tried lots of things to keep us interested and occupied. One of the things that we did was cast key chains out in the snow and reel them in. What we did more often though, was draw and paint pictures of us fishing. That is kind of how my Dad, Tom Slack http://www.tomslack.com , and I got our start in art.

I painted this on a whim. It was lots of fun. I still love fish, and doodle them all of the time. water has become one of my biggest influences.

I love autumn, with all of the beautiful colors, The weather in autumn is fun, with many different moods, from morose to cheerful.

This painting was painted after a drive through the countryside near my home. I simmered what I saw in my memory and condensed the essence into this painting. It worked beautifully. It is one of the paintings which I sold this weekend at the Arts on Riverdale festival.

I hope that you enjoy it!