Building on Color (Jon Redmond Talk Notes)

Park Caretaker's House Study-9x12 oil on linen-SOLD

Happy Challenge Day 6: Isn’t it interesting to meet an artist you’ve admired “from a far?” Sunday I went to a fantastic talk by Pennsylvania painter  Jon Redmond who was in Boulder teaching a workshop (which I unfortunately couldn’t attend but am guessing students are greatly enjoying this week.)

Redmond’s oil paintings have a beautiful sense of light, simplicity and texture. If you have Al Gury’s  book “Alla Prima” you’ll find this beautiful minty green claw foot tub painting on the back cover.

Jon Redmond Tub Painting 

Redmond explained this tub was in an old building which had seen many renovations. While I enjoy organic subjects, I’m often intrigued by painting that explore the mystery of place like this. You can find some great examples his paintings (which include a variety of subjects) and a detailed interview with Redmond here.

Inspired by Redmond's sunlit building paintings, I decided to post one of my Hopper inspired paintings. I find light falling on structures like this gorgeous white house very captivating. Redmond said he enjoys painting windows especially bay windows. Speaking of white, he also mentioned he looks to black and white films for visual inspiration which makes perfect sense from a shape/value standpoint.

Redmond White House Oil Painting

I'm not a "light" traveler, so I’m always fascinated by compact lightweight painting kits. Redmond's fit into a small backpack (so he could easily bike to locations). It included: a compact camp chair (he paints seated), a trim folding panel holder/palette (think wooden laptop), his paints, (here’s his suggested color palette for another class), brushes with sharpened ends (so you can stick into the ground!) and an interesting pottery “scraping” rubber tool. 


Redmond also mentioned that he sometimes paints on frosted Mylar (in addition to a traditional gessoed panel) and I’m very interested to try this surface soon.