Reaffirm, renew, invent and explore

  Now is the time to find new ways, look for better places and explore unforeseen options in order to maintain sanity and redefine to save our art careers.  Many things will never be the same (for some, sadly, more than others) but new opportunities will present themselves as we struggle to make sense of the constant changes. My brick and mortar gallery is closed and will not reopen anytime soon. All effort and time is now being focused on launching an online gallery for my website. We are working out the details to make it easy to peruse and purchase with confidence. The new gallery will be offering the highest quality canvas prints of my most popular paintings. They will be stretched, gallery wrapped and coated with a satin finish true to the originals. In fact, they can easily be mistaken for originals. the quality is exquisite!

Center Panel 40x30

This is "Center Panel" one of the many images that you will be able to choose from the new online gallery. Also available will be greeting cards, my two coffee/end table books, puzzles and a fist full of other cool stuff that will be added as we expand this new venue. Soft launch should be sometime next week! I am looking forward to sharing this new adventure and hearing any comments that you have. Stay healthy and happy.......Don

Ventana Gallery

I am excited to announce that my art will be represented by the prestigious Ventana Gallery located on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I gained acceptance into this  gallery early in February and recently shipped three of my newest paintings that will be hanging with the likes of John Nieto and Rebecca Tobey! You can check it all out at http://ventanafineart.com/

Early Start 40x30

Restoration Complete 30x40

Spring Creek 48x36

These are the paintings that are now on display and may be purchased from the Ventana Gallery!

Fields and Fences

I have been busy painting a new series of my "Fields and Fences."  Here are a couple that I just recently had photographed. It is fun playing with some new color combinations. I am intrigued with shapes and the fields and roads can be whimsically manipulated in so many ways!

Around the Bend, acrylic on canvas 36x36



Morning Light, acrylic on panel 36x36

Summer "Pop Up" Gallery

 Well, it is official. We will again be occupying the lower corner space in the historic Hastings Building for our "839 pop-up Gallery" in downtown Port Townsend.. This is an awesome space. It has fairly good light, high ceilings and the art shows very well. I am again partnering with Jim Jacobson another local artist who works with oils and creates popular local and marine scenes.





We will be moving in the first of April and staying through the summer. I am looking forward to meeting all kinds of fun and exciting people and talking about art.  And, hopefully, we will be shipping a few paintings to new locations around the country.

May in Olympia

Nine of my newest works will be showing during the month of May at the Childhood's End Gallery in Olympia, Washington. My art will be featured along with that of four other artists.

 

 

"Meet Me for Lunch" 24"x24"

Check out their website at www.childhoods-end-gallery.com. The exhibit will be up through May 31st. If you are in the area stop in and have a look at this great gallery!

January workshop

 We are beginning a new and event filled year and I am excited to be doing painting workshops again. The classes will be held at my studio overlooking the bay here in downtown Port Townsend. My studio will comfortably accommodate from ten to twelve students. These smaller classes allow for personal attention to each student and good visibility for the demonstrations.  New this year is a kit I put together providing the canvases and brushes we will be using which should make it easier for everyone to obtain more uniform results while learning the process. The kit will be included in the price for registration.  It consists of 2 black gesso primed canvases (one 14"x18" and  one 12"x16") and 3 quality Daniel Smith brushes (3/4, 1/2 and 1/4) also I will personally sign one of my coffee table books for the kit. The January class will be held on Friday the 24th and Saturday the 25th from 10:00 a.m. to  4:00 p.m. The registration fee will be $250.00 for the 2 day class.  For more information or to sign up for the class please email me at www.don@dontiller.com or phone 360.379.5450.


These are the items included in the kit

Plant-a-thon commission

A little over a month ago I had a surprise visit to my downtown studio by Jude Rubin from the Northwest Watershed Institute.  She asked if I would be interested in creating a painting for the annual Plant-A-Thon where the image would be used on "tree cards" to be sold by students to raise money for their schools.   I quickly accepted the commission even though the deadline for completion was fast approaching.  The next day Jude took me hiking through the Tarboo Watershed where I was able to get a feel for the landscape and explore the salmon runs.  I went back to my studio and sketched out some ideas.  I decided to do the painting on a 30"x42" panel which would scale down perfectly to the 5x7 card size. After hours of editing ideas and drawings I settled on a final theme and sketched a full size drawing (shown below) which I submitted for their approval. 

 

 

 

It took me over three weeks to complete the painting and get it photographed and ready to be sent to the printer. We made the deadline and the cards are selling fast. Here are some excerpts from an article that   appeared in the November 27th issue of The Leader.

 

         

You need an online service to

Screen Name or Email Now I remember!

 Local artist Don Tiller has created an acrylic painting especially for the ninth annual Plant-A-Thon.

The image is featured on the Plant-A-Thon “tree cards,” which are sold by students to raise a grand total of $300,000 for their schools.

For each of the 3,000 trees to be planted by local students during the Plant-A-Thon in February, students sell a tree card for $10; the card entitles the buyer to “plant a tree in honor of someone special.”

Best known for his bright rural landscapes and his playful rendering of patterns of human land use, Tiller often works from his childhood memories of South Dakota farmland. But when he accepted the commission for the Plant-A-Thon card, he hiked through the Tarboo Watershed for firsthand inspiration.

Titled “Thriving Watershed,” Tiller’s painting reflects his fascination with the interdependency of salmon and forests.

“The colors in the tree in the foreground represent the energy and nutrients from the salmon that trees take up after salmon spawn and decompose,” he said.

Tarboo–Dabob Bay is included in the image, as well as a barn on Dabob Road, a historic legacy of the Daniel Yarr farm that operated there during the early 1900s.

“I tried to include the many elements that the Plant-A-Thon program brings together: the salmon, the trees, the history of farming and of course, the kids out there planting,” Tiller said. The tree planters in the painting are modeled after a photo of youth crew leaders Heather and Daphne Hamilton and Hannah Spitzbart.

“Thriving Watershed” is now on display at Tiller’s studio on Water Street in Port Townsend, above the Public House restaurant.

Tree cards are available at participating schools: Port Townsend’s OCEAN Program, Chimacum Pi Program, Swan School, Jefferson Community School, and the PTHS Students for Sustainability Club. They are also available at Farm’s Reach Cafe, the Chimacum Corner Farmstand, and at the Chimacum Crafts Fair on Dec. 14-15, the final Port Townsend Farmers Market on Dec. 21, and at the Food Co-op from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Dec. 23.

 

Here is a link to the actual article:

Leader Plant-a-thon article.

 

 Also, here is the link to the card site where you can purchase cards online:

Ocean honorary tree cards

 

 

 

"Thriving Watershed" 30"x42"

Sketchy moments

Well, I have taken a little break from blogging but my wife and I have been doing our outdoor sketches on a fairly regular basis. Here are few highlights.

 

It was a nice sunny afternoon and we sat at a sidewalk bistro and sketched the Rose Theatre.  We love this little theatre and usually hit a matinee or an evening feature once or twice a month.  We watched "Gravity" in 3D and last week we saw "Captain Phillips".  Both are excellent movies.

I am thinking of doing a full size painting from this sketch.

We do a lot of hiking and this is a quick little sketch that I did while sitting in the Dosewallips State park next to the trail head.  We were having a lunch break after completing  a 4+ mile scenic hike through the forest.

 

This was a relaxing day at the beach.  It was sunny and windy at Point No Point so we found a spot to sit out of the wind and sketched the lighthouse. The beach was crowded with beachcombers, kite fliers and fishermen casting the surf for salmon.  Fun day!

 

 



The Amazon venture

I along with many other people received the email from Amazon announcing the launch of their fine art store, Amazon Art, a marketplace that gives customers direct access to more than 40,000 works of fine art from over 150 galleries and dealers.  At launch, Amazon Art showcased artworks from more than 4,500 artists. The store is one of the largest online collections of original and limited edition artwork for purchase directly from galleries and dealers.   I feel very privileged to be a part of this venture!  Amazon selected galleries worldwide of all sizes, including the Gunnar Nordstrom Gallery in Bellevue which lucky for me is one that represents my art!  So.., if you venture to www.amazon.com/art and look up Don Tiller or The Gunnar Nordstrom Gallery you will find my art for sale on the new Amazon art store!  here is an image of one of the paintings listed.

Open Gate 40"x60"

 

I like that Amazon lets you see the painting hanging next  to a chair so that you can visualize the actual size.  sometimes dimensions can be confusing and this certainly helps to see it in the proper perspective.

A "real" painting

I like super realistic paintings although I do not try to paint them very often.  This orange was sitting on my studio table begging to be eaten or painted so I decided to see how realistic I could paint it with my fluid acrylics before I consumed it.  I had a little 6"x6" canvas handy that was primed with venetian red gesso so I drew it almost life size and filled the entire canvas with the subject.   I had so much fun that I went into the kitchen and borrowed a lemon and an avocado and painted them both in the same manner.   They turned out great and both sold before I got them photographed. 

 

It is great to paint outside of your comfort zone once in a while but now I look at this little 6x6 inch orange and think of how awesome it would look on a six foot by six foot or larger canvas!

 

The code of the Northwest

In order to maintain a lively business I feel that I must attempt to keep up and experiment a little with new technology.   So I decided to create a QR code for my sandwich board that I display at the entrance door to my upstairs studio here in Port Townsend.  These codes are nothing too new, you see them everywhere, but I rarely use them so I thought that I would try it and see if anyone would actually use one to retrieve information about my studio. You have to have a smart phone and an app (you can download one for free) to read the code.  Mine takes you to a short,  fun video that we put together.  So get your smartphone out and scan this code and give me your comments!

I have only had the board in place for a couple of days but I am pleasantly surprised by the response so far.  I think that this will be a successful endeavor and now I am kind of hooked on checking out other QR codes to see if  they have better ideas for using this "new" technology.
And......if you are ever in the neighborhood,  please do "come on up" and visit me in my studio!

Drawing what you see

My wife Jolene is also an artist and we have made a commitment to plein air paint or sketch together at least once a week during the spring and Summer months. We enjoy living in Port Townsend because there are endless subjects to fascinate us and no matter where you you look a vista craves to be painted.   These are pencil drawings of the sail loft at Point Hudson and the Pope Marine building as interpreted by Jolene.....

Here are my depictions of  the sail loft and the Pope Marine viewed from the same vantage point...  

It is fun to draw or paint together and see how novel each of us captures the same subject .

Back in the studio

I have been able to put in some studio time recently and I have been finishing up a few canvases that I stared late in March.  I previously posted pictures of  three in the very beginning stages with just the first layer applied.  here are  two of that group that  I have finished.

I also finished a couple of others that I had started.  Here are the final results.

Plein Air Convention and Expo

Wow!  We just returned from the 2nd annual Plein Air Convention and Expo  held in Monterey, California.  We had a great time taking in all the marketing seminars and most of the artist demos.  We packed light and didn't take our painting supplies but we really enjoyed watching all the outdoor painting.  It was fun to watch the artists pick a location and a subject and then proceed to make a great painting within an hour or two. It was pretty windy and I felt very intimidated by all the talent but I managed to sit still long enough to do a quick sketch of Fisherman's Wharf.

Here are a few of  my convention highlights!

This is one of my favorite painters, Ken Auster doing one of his demonstrations onstage.  This picture was taken from the huge screens they had on either side of the stage.  Very easy to watch.

This is Ken's finished painting.  He paints large (love it) and completed this San Francisco trolley car scene in less than an hour.  Impressive to watch!

This is Russian painter Alexey Steele drawing a likeness of another great painter Scott Christensen.  Alexey is very animated and great fun to watch.  He will keep you fixated with his accented commentary.

John Crump, Another of my favorite painters is shown here painting on the windy beach.  He also paints larger than most of the others so naturally I am interested!

This is John's finished painting that he created for his demonstration the day before.  This 24"x48" painting was executed in about an hour. Amazing!  I missed his demo but sought him out on the beach and got to talk to him in person.  Great guy!

This is Don Demers doing a demo on the beach.  He is a great Maritime painter and always draws a huge crowd.

And there were plein air painters everywhere!  They came from all over the world to be here for this event.  Spectacular!

Saturday night gallery walk.

 Our monthly first Saturday gallery walk always turns out a loyal crowd of art lovers so for the month of March I am showing some of my newer paintings at the Spice and Tea Exchange here in town. It is a great new business and they have an 18x26 foot loft for showing artwork.  We gathered a nice crowd from 5:30 until almost 8:30 p.m. and I enjoyed chatting with old friends and some interesting  new people.  A fun Evening!





When in Port Townsend you must stop and sniff the spices at The Spice and Tea Exchange  and give me some feedback on my newest paintings.   Jon and Judy, the business owners  have a wealth of  spice and tea knowledge  and  will keep you well informed and  entertained.

Thinking Spring!

I know it is still February but I do believe that I could feel a hint of Spring in the air on my morning walk!  Ahh, the anticipation of fun times and great experiences ahead! This is my favorite season.

While checking my e-mails a couple of days ago, I was pleasantly surprised  to see an image of my "Valley Farm" pop up on the Artist Network Newsletter!

 Last year  the Watercolor Artist magazine called  and asked me to write a column for their "Creativity Corner" explaining my layering and glazing process.  This was one of the paintings that I created for the article that was published in the August 2012 issue.   There is a link to the article on my website. www.dontiller.com

The newsletter page link is  http://view.artists-hub.com/?j=fec4127077620c78&m=fe9a15707463077574&ls=fe6f15757464057c7117&l=ff60107573&s=fe9016777063007b75&jb=ffcf14&ju=fe5f1575716d067a7510&et_mid=602685&rid=2757460&r=0 

 Think Spring!