Oliver's NW Gallery

10/28/2024

Well, we had a great time at the Applegate Art Guild this afternoon painting "The Nebula"! It was a lot of fun and everyone did well! I am particularly happy with the creative choices people made when we explored the colors.

Nebula paintings have a lot of flexibility due to movement of the gasses in space and whatever filters the photographers use. Lots of great photos are online and shared for public curiosity and are great inspiration for artists!

We used black 16 x 20 inch canvases and started with Dioxazine Purple for the first color in the middle. Purple works well with all the reds and blues and acts as a shadow giving depth to the subject.

We then added reds, using thin paint and some blending and a little brighter pinks to make the color stand out and look busy. Blues were added with some lighter colors to make the nebula basses seem to move and billow.

The last color added was a mixture of Phthalo Green and Turquoise for brightness and a lightening strike effect. We used white and colors to finish the moving edges and ripples in the gasses.

Stars came last to create the perspective by making them larger on the outer edges and smaller and more plentiful in the middle. White, pink, and light green made the mixture of lights for effect.

Great work, class! These are beautiful and will make great gifts and keepsakes! I love the fact that we painters can create something that will celebrate our decades of discover and be memories!

10/24/2024

This Sunday at the Applegate Art Guild in Veneta we will be doing another Space Nebula. This is the time to make another scene to make a matching set if you did the first one! I find mine get sold or given away! See you there!

10/22/2024

Hello everyone! Don't forget the coming painting class at Applegate Art Guild this Sunday, Oct 27, at 1 pm when we paint The Nebula! These will be done on 16 x 20 inch canvases.

I love photos of outer space and the knowledge we are gaining in our century.
See you there!

09/16/2024

Wow! Great time at the Applegate Art Gallery in Veneta today! We embarked on a big adventure of using 10 x 30 canvases for a panoramic in oils of a waterfall and Spring!

This required careful use of gray colors in the back to keep a fresh foreground in the front with Spring flowers. We put in the sky first and then used Burnt Umber to scrub in where the bank and field would go. Burnt Umber lets us use a soft warm brown that mixes nicely with the greens and bright colors just dulling them a little to keep them in the distance.

As we came forward, we mixed Prussian Blue in the greens and browns to make them darker for closer shadows. The water fall was gently dropped in with a fan brush followed by a little scrubbed white for mist.

Oranges for the field and bank were made with Alizarin Crimson and yellow. The flowers in the front were made with Cad Red Deep and bright Yellow. This created just enough difference to show the bank to be behind the foreground.

Our trees were made with Ivory Black and Prussian Blue for strength and definition. We added green leaves to the trees and finished the foreground flowers with reds, yellows, greens, purples, and blues for all the cheery blooms.

Thanks to the class for a lot of hard work and great attention to detail. This was an ambitious painting and you didn't let me down! See you next time when we will be doing Space Nebulas!

09/10/2024

Just a reminder, everyone, that the "Coming Spring" class is this Sunday, Sept. 15, 1 pm at Applegate Art Guild in Veneta.

This will be a fun and special class using 10 x 30 inch canvases to capture joyous memory of colorful life on a special long panoramic scene to fit over a door or as an accent to a room!

We will be using the palette knife and brushes to achieve the effect of bright, thick blooms of color and a wistful, distant waterfall somewhere in a magical country.

I hope to see you all there! Please call if you need directions or contact us if you are coming. Thank you.

Weldon Oliver 541-991-0648 Sharon Jepson 541-525-1903

09/06/2024

Music has always held a special place in my heart. Youtube has presented some opportunities I never thought possible when I was younger. Now I can revisit the emotions of my childhood by hearing new mixes of original songs presented with technology that makes them live again. Here is my favorite:

https://youtu.be/p33zl1_EEGkhttps://youtu.be/PkplPxx1JBMI've received numerous requests to remix The Beach Boys' 'The Warmth of the Sun' after releasing my r...

08/22/2024

Spending more time in the studio lately since the air has cleared. This is the third in a series of paintings for childrens classes. It is done on a 10 x 20 canvas.

This time I used Diox Purple, Quin Rose along with Alizarin Crimson instead of using only 3 colors for mixing. Using tube colors gives them more strength and purity to accent the layers in the sunset.

As the third composition, students will have gained brush skills and some mixing experience. With this third painting, the knife work will have included some mountains and rocks.

These paintings will be the foundation for more complex compositions and larger canvases.

08/20/2024

I was back in my studio again adding to my class set for children's school. This piece is called Rainbow Lake and is the next study using 3 colors and black exploring distance and color mixing.

Students will have a progressive series of compositions that show brush handling and control of the oil paint. I look forward to the coming classes.

08/11/2024

Fun practice time in my studio today. The heat wasn't as bad and it seemed the air was a little clearer.

This is the Horsehead Nebula, one of the most popular astro subjects that is photographed by large telescopes and small.

Special thanks to Richard Trousdale for permission to use this photo. I'm looking forward to class doing it on Aug 25, at the Applegate Art Guild.

This painting was done on a 22 x 28 canvas painted black with I chalkboard paint. I started by oiling out the canvas and then using thinned Burnt Umber in the corners to warm the sky. Some purple made with Alizarin and Thalo Blue was added for shadow light in the corners and the middle where the light will be.

I used Thalo Blue to map where the horsehead will go and spread it like blue flames. Cerulean blue was added for a lighter layer and then white and blue for the bright flame look. Stars were added for effect with some of them larger with color.

The horsehead was done with black and brown mixed and deepened with blue. This creates the sense that it is in the foreground and there is distance behind.

I look forward to fun the class will have creating this iconic astro scene and the joy of spraying stars to complete the image.

07/22/2024

We had a great, busy time today at the Applegate Art Guild painting our Glacier Waterfall! This multilayered composition on
10 x 20 canvases was a challenge in gray oils!

We started by creating the feeling of hazy Winter becoming spring by using a gray blue sky made of Cobalt Blue and Ivory Black. Just a tiny touch of Alizarin Crimson kept the mixture from showing any tinge of green.

After adding clouds, we made the mountain with our red and blue and black for a soft, Magenta looking distant gray. All these colors in the sky and background have the hazy, cold, not yet bright sun look that will come later in the year.

Snow was added with blue for shadow, using a mixture now of three blues, Cobalt, Prussian and Thalo to show depth and melting water while the white snow showed the distant sunlight. The glacier was made with blues sweeping back and forth in the valley with ice on top done in white. Layers of blues were put in until the paint was thick and smooth.

The water fall was pulled down with the fan brush over some of the dark shadows used in the rocky cliffs. The cliffs had Burnt Umber, black, red and blues mixed together for the rocky, eroded look with misty water boiling upward.

We used Thalo Green with dark colors to make the scrubby cliffs that were beginning to show flowers and new grass growth. We used bright reds and a little orange for the beginning of wild flowers in the coming Spring. Trees were added at the top of the cliffs to show where the glacier leveled out and the foreground began with the waterfall.

The front bush in the lower left foreground used Permanent Rose for blooms that looked brighter than the flowers behind on the cliffs. This helps to create depth in the painting and lets the viewer know where they are standing for observation.

Great work, class, this was a real lesson in stacking layers of gray colors for realism and control. It will take weeks to dry since we stacked so much paint! See you next class!

07/18/2024

Just a reminder, fellow painters! This Sunday at the Applegate Art Guild in Veneta will be painting Glacier Waterfall! These paintings will be done on 10x20 inch canvases. I look forward to seeing everyone there!

Walk ins welcome or contact Sharon Jesson at
541-525-1903 or Weldon Oliver at 541-991-0648.

07/15/2024

Working in the studio to avoid the heat, passing the time on one of my favorite astro subjects, The Horsehead Nedula! This composition requires several layer of thinned color.

This painting is done on a 16x20 canvas covered with black chalkboard paint for a smooth dark surface. I began by using a bristle brush and scrubbing the surface with my oil medium and letting it dry for a few minutes and then doing it again. It is important to be able to finely and smoothly blend the thin colors to represent gas in space. Then I took a wadded napkin and swiped most of the color and oil off using wide strokes. This left a slick, warm workable surface.

I mixed Alizarine Crimson with Burnt Umber to get a soft, flat warm reddish color but not to bright so as to stand out in the photo. I scrubbed this in the corners of the canvas to warm the black. Then I added Phthalo Blue to the mixture and put it in the middle where the light of the nebula goes. I added several layers of the blue to be sure I had enough to add lighter colors on it.

The oil on the canvas thinned the paint and helped it spread. Mixing Cobalt Blue and Cerulean Blue with a touch of white I then began mapping the bright light in the image. I used the brush to sweep up the strokes for the flame looking mists. It took repeated light blue and brush strokes to get the look I wanted. Finally, I added some extra dark Phthalo Blue for depth and beauty.

Using Cobalt Blue and Alizarin Crimson I made a light mixture of gray magenta for the shape of the light to go behind the horsehead image. This was added and softened with gentle movements of a light varnish brush.

The dark horsehead image was made from a paper stencil with black painted on the surface and stamped in place. I touched up the image to get the desired edges of the image.

Bright stars finished the composition, some with a touch of yellow in them and some with red surrounding them for variation. Spray stars completed the scene. The class in Veneta will be painting The Horsehead Nebula sometime this Summer. Fun times!