J. Richard Secor: POTS WITH NEW HISTORY

About Me

I am continuously self-taught – meaning that my style is always evolving through curiosity, intense observation, sudden inspiration and experimentation.

My style is primarily impressionistic with a sense of what I call rusticity and looseness.

Plein air painting typically provides me with a more playful and semi abstract-impressionistic style than does a studio piece.

I have studied with a number of fine artists and I do study the techniques of painters whose work I admire. However I take these techniques and convert them into my artistic presentation within my own style.

I am a member of the National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society (NOAPS); American Impressionist Society; New Mexico Plein Air Artist’s Society; The Art Center at Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos, NM; and a Juried Member of Contemporary Water Media Forum and a Juried Artist for the 2010 Nomadas del Arte Exhibit traveling 6 Southwest States for a period of 12 months.

Quotes and Excerpts from Artists Whose Work and Artistic Approach I Admire

Guido Frick: "If you forget your emotions, then you end up with a copy of nature. But combine your visual impression with your emotional input, and you might have a chance to create a piece of art." Judie Wagner: "Use paint like you are a millionaire!" Laura Robb: "I never draw outlines of objects before starting to paint. I perceive and render subjects purely in terms of color and shape. I keep things accurate, yet unrecognizable, for as long as I can. Once you have enough information on your canvas that you can name the object, the wrong part of your brain starts trying to take over and run the show!" Laura Robb: "When setting up a still life, I try to get the objects to talk to each other and then I try to paint that converation." Laura Robb: "My work is always moving in the direction of leaving more of the detail out, as a way of making the real story of the painting more important." Kevin Mac Pherson: "Plein air painting is a method - it is not a sign of quality. A painting has to go beyond a picture, beyond the mere documentation of facts. It must have emotional ingredients." Malcolm Liepke: "I love dramatic gesture."

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

POTS WITH NEW HISTORY - PAINTING DEMO

30 x 24 gessoed 1/4 inch MDF panel - Chroma Interactive Acryic using a palette knife wet into wet. First I draw the shape of the pot with my palete knife and lay in some color to get an idea where I'm going,

Next I lay in some darker color on the shadow side as well as refine the entire pot at the same time

I keep laying in color and adding more texture to the pot with my palette knife

The color is added wet into wet utilizing the great blending capabilites of Chroma Interactives. Color and texture are but someof the reasons why I paint - I love to build on the texture with layers of blended color

I start defining the BG and the FG, which I always do last as I want the center of interest to project (in thickness of applied paint) from the BG and yet have the reflections of color in the BG and FG. Based on the thickness of the paint applied to the C of I, I can better determine the intensity of the palette knife strokes to use in the BG & FG.