My Unbelievable Night!

As I get ready to submit my paintings for the 2014 Colorado Plein Air Arts Fest, hosted by the Golden Triangle Museum District in downtown Denver, I realized I never wrote a post about the FANTASTIC night I had last December at the 2013 show.

Scott Ruthven -  2013 Colorado Plein Air Arts Fest Awards

I entered three paintings and all three won awards!!!  Wow, was I shocked when I walked in and saw the award medallions.

• The painting on the left, "San Pellegrinos & Lime" won 2nd place in the professional artist category
• The middle painting "East on 16th From the D&F Tower" won the "Prudent Man Award of Excellence.
• And the painting on the right, "Aligned and Sublime" won an honorable mention.

54 professional artists had work juried into this show, which makes winning these awards even more special to me.

You can see all the work and full list of award winners here.

Cheers,
Scott

Paint The Poudre Plein Air 2014

Here are my five paintings from the "Paint The Poudre Plein Air" competition in Fort Collins, Colorado this July.

Drive-in, Mishawaka Style, 12"x9", Oil
©Scott Ruthven 2014
Fist Place Winner and Purchase Award Winner

Balance and Grace, 12"x12", Oil
©Scott Ruthven 2014

Evening Walk, 11"x14", Oil
©Scott Ruthven 2014

Quiet Pastures, 11"x14", Oil
©Scott Ruthven 2014

Last Light on The Poudre, 9"x12", Oil
©Scott Ruthven 2014

To cap off the week, I was thrilled when the amazing landscape painter, Marc Hanson, awarded my painting "Drive-in, Mishawaka Style" first place!  

Marc is a wonderful person and artist whom I have learned a lot from over the years.  Receiving this award from him is something I never would have imagined just a few years ago.

Receiving my award!
Photo credit: Ani Espriella

Cheers,
Scott

Banish Your Paintings To The Closet!

The value of putting a painting away for a while then taking a fresh look at it later.

As artists, we get so involved with a piece that our brain starts to see what it wants and often will overlook the most obvious of flaws.

Here are two of my paintings where this happened.

"B's" and Smiley faces

In the painting with the plane, somehow, the dashes and dots of color I built up in the trees formed a perfect capital 'B'.  You can see it dead center in the detail photo (2nd below).  It wasn't until I was looking at thumbnails of the painting on my computer that I noticed it.

In this painting, done plein air, the tangle of roots and dead branches at the base of the fallen tree formed a pretty clear smiley face, complete with a long nose!  It looks like a character from the Wizard of Oz.

Maybe, there is something else happening here...some larger code being delivered through me over the course of my painting career.  Hmmmm....just saying :-)  Anyway, fixing these was easy enough, you just hope you find these things before the painting makes it out into the world! 

Of course, once you find a flaw it is the ONLY thing you can see from then on.  It SCREAMS at you to be fixed!

Scott 

Ahhh, Springtime!!

Finally, Spring has come to Colorado.  I love painting winter scenes, but it sure is nice to mix up some greens and dollop on some pure cadmiums!

Here are two recent paintings.

Springtime In Boulder, Colorado
10"x8" | Oil on linen panel

Painting this scene of the foothills and snowcapped peaks from Boulder Colorado was a real treat.  In this one scene you experience the cold, snowcapped mountains, the foothills, which have just a bit of now on them and the fields bursting with golds and greens of Spring.

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A Spot For Tea
10"x8" | Oil on linen panel

This was a quaint garden at an early 20th century home in Eaton, Colorado.  The Forsythia is in full bloom and the larger trees on the property create that wonderful dappled light on the lawn.  What a lovely spot to sit with a cup of tea and listen to the birds.