Holton Studio Landscape Show -A Heaven in the Eye

The opening for the current landscape show at Holton Studio, A Heaven in the Eye, took place last Saturday, Nov. 14th. The show features 7 Northern California landscape painters: Kevin Courter, Christin Coy, Mark Farina, Paul Kratter, Terry Miura, Robin Moore, Brian Mark Taylor. Tim Holton has assembled a strong show of landscape paintings, all beautifully framed in his Craftsman style frames, each one custom built to suite the painting it surrounds. The gallery is open daily and is located in Emeryville. Please visit the website for more information. http:/www.holtonframes.com

Cold Weather Painting, by Paul Kratter

In late February I spent a couple of days at Silver Lake just south of Lake Tahoe. A recent storm left a fresh layer of snow and cooler temperatures. I had a chance to do some sketching (I'll write about that later) and did one painting.
Winter painting offers some unique challenges, mainly staying warm. The obvious extremite to keep warm is your hands, but most of the time I'm able to paint glove-free. My feet always get cold standing in one spot and the freezing temperatures seem to slowly crawl up from my snow boots. Temperatures started at 18 degrees in the morning, but quickly rose as the sun warmed up the area.
Snow offers a unique color range from soft pinks to blues and purples. I saw this beautiful grove of pines standing out against the cool mountains in the background. The light and shadow patterns of the snow offset the strong graphic nature of the pines. I'm happy to sacrifice some cold feet in exchange for a chance to paint such a beautiful scene.

Terry Miura

Made another big step in this year's plan to grow the theme of the picture gallery as contemporary paintings of the local and northern California landscape: Sacramento painter Terry Miura recently delivered his first batch of paintings. They are a real privilege to have here, and I look forward to framing them and displaying them. Terry, who's a friend of Paul Kratter, is also a graduate of the Art Center in Pasadena and has a professional commercial art background, having worked in New York as a freelance illustrator for magazines and newspapers. Originally from San Diego, while in the Big Apple his paintings naturally focused on cityscapes, but now he's delving into the rural landscapes of his native state. He's got a wonderful tonalist palette, reflecting his gentle vision of rustic California as well as a humbler approach to the role of painting as just one of the arts that create an architectural interior.
Terry will be included in the group show coming up next fall, "A Heaven In the Eye," in which he'll have new work capturing the Sacramento Delta. (Christin Coy, Paul Kratter, Kevin Courter and possibly another artist will join him.) But in the meantime we'll proudly show a sampling of his work. See our inventory here.

Wedding Gifts

With wedding season approaching I thought I'd put out a couple of examples of pieces we've recently done as wedding gifts. This picture's framed close in a simple walnut "Hudson" frame with a gilt slip. Walnut, which is a tight-grained wood, has a smooth finish which suits the finish of the photo. The form gives a picture some space but has a graceful shape that suits the figurative subject matter. I think we struck the right balance between the formality of the image and occasion and the informality of the rustic porch (it's actually a kind of stage set at the Museum of the New South in Charlotte, NC).

The second example is a mirror made for a customer who found an image in tile that she liked as an appropriate image for newlyweds, and wanted it integrated into a mirror to give as a wedding gift. (Mirrors make great wedding gifts, because when you get married you have to watch yourself.) I also carved the year of the wedding, 2009, into the bottom. The tiles are by Motawi Tileworks (the two on either side of the landscape tile are actually glaze samples). Made in quartersawn white oak (Weathered Oak stain) it measures about 38" x 18-1/2".

Carved Walnut

Of all the woods we use, we tend to emphasize quartersawn white oak. But walnut has always been a big favorite too, especially for carving. In preparing for the Paul Kratter show in June, the painting we decided to use for the publicity suggested walnut. Here's a corner detail of the frame, which is a compound design, meaning it's composed of more than one molding. This one has a cap molding as well as a liner. The liner has pale gold leaf laid directly on the walnut so the grain comes through.

The color of walnut harmonizes well with many pieces because it's rich without being too intense. We typically stain it - this one has a light stain - to mute it even further.

We use walnut frequently for drawing frames (i.e., narrow profiles), but it's often great on paintings and other items.

Online Exhibit of Old Prints at Good Prices

Print dealers C&J Goodfriend have posted a very nice exhibition of prints by undervalued artists. Here are a couple of examples that caught my eye. By the way, we do frame old prints! Typically these would be matted, often with a single ink line, just outside the mat window, to echo the line work in the print and provide definition. The frames I tend to choose for these are our narrower Century Series profiles, such as the Gloucester, below, in stained quartersawn white oak.

Jean Sanchirico website

Jean Sanchirico, who we started representing last fall, has launched her website, www.jeansanchirico.com. You can preview the ones we have, which we've framed, at Jean's page on my site.