Roger Kinnaman is a Reno, Nevada based artist who works in many mediums, including paintings in oil, murals in acrylic, drawings in pastel and charcoal and sculpture in clay and stone. Welcome to this digital art gallery.
Pastels
The New Work Gallery is composed of work as it is finished, photographed and posted. There will be new drawings posted with comments about techniques, concepts and thought processes. This might be more informative than just the portfolio. I will occasionally add older drawings to the “Landscapes” gallery as I update and polish them a bit.
The 2019 Carter Center Donation
This will be my donation to President and Mrs. Carter’s 2019 Carter Center Weekend. Every year the Carters hold an event to fund all of the programs supported by the Center. There is a live auction that in 2018 sold my last donation for $11,000. This is the highest price ever received for a single piece of my work. If President Carter would just give up on the idea of world peace and open up a gallery I could give up being a starving artist.
More Drawings
I have just returned to pastel drawing after taking a break to sculpt a bit. The sculptures take longer than the pastels and require a few steps I am not able to complete at this time, but are a nice change of pace. Both of the following two drawings show the effect of water, the biggest sculptor the rocks and earth of our environment, over the course of time.
Big Pastels Revisited
The full sheet size of the paper I like to use is 30 x 44.” Arches Cover Black, a heavily textured archival printmaking paper that works particularly well for achieving some of the drawing effects I need. When combined with hard pastels, pigment can be laid down on the upper level of the paper to produce a fleck of color surrounded by black. These stipples of color read well as a distant leaf or the texture of granite. A pastel worked into the hills and valleys of the paper can be overlaid by a soft pastel that just hits the tops of the textured paper. Soft pastel does not lift hard pastel so this combination of hard and soft pastel allows the layering of color similar to a glaze or a scumble seen in oil painting. Half sheets of 22 x 30″ are much more readily available than full sheets if you are interested in trying out this approach. Half the battle in success with pastel is finding the right paper. Another advantage of the dark paper is an increase in the range of darks you can produce with your pastels.
The vast majority of the drawings I produce have an image size of 24 x 34.” The way this is accomplished is by clamping an old mat of 30 x 40″ outer dimension over the larger piece of paper to give me a drawing of a standard frame size. By sticking with a standard frame size and a 3″ boarder on the drawing to hold the drawing flat ( no mounting fee) I realize a considerable savings on framing costs. I’ve done a few drawings that take full advantage of the size of the paper that I have available. The following drawings are of that larger size that have been reworked and are updated to reflect my present skill level. Because of the larger image size the width of the matting has been increased to 5″ instead of my more normal 3″ mat.
The Annual Carter Foundation Donation
I received a letter this week confirming that this years donation to the annual Carter Center Weekend event was sold for $11,000. I am happy to support the variety of worthy projects enabled by President Carters’ foundation.
This should also make those of you that have collected my work over the years pleased to be able to talk about the latest price received by a drawing like yours. I don’t think you need to mention the very, very reasonable price for which you are ordinarily able to acquire your work.
July & August
This group of drawings is from the Squaw Valley area. It revisits sites I explored during what was in effect an Artist in Residence at “The Resort at Squaw Creek.” President Carter holds an event every year as a fundraiser for the many programs sponsored by the Carter Center.
June
I suppose it is only fitting that I post images from a trip to June Lake in June. I like the way a viewer is able to look down, in and up at the landscape. The idea that a landscape is big enough to wrap around the viewer makes sense to me. The flattened picture plane rather than a deep space is a concept that a number of the 20th Century art movements played with. Color is always a major element in my work. The complexity and fine detail of the subject is also a challenge.
THE MINIS
I have drawn three big pieces and more than 25 new mixed media drawings since I last posted on this site. I’m trying something new. The little drawings are almost 5 x 8″ matted in an 11 x 14″ double rag mat. I have cropped portions of oil or pastel paintings, digitized the image to produce an underpainting and reworked the new piece with colored pencil. The colored pencil work allows for a much greater control, at this scale, than can be achieved with pastels. This shortcut to a new image allows me to experiment with variations on a theme and to produce a new image at a $40.00 pricing point that should allow my work to be more accessible to more people.
It doesn’t matter how nicely a work is framed, somehow it is always wrong for some of your potential customers. Because these are a standard frame size you can economically choose a frame that works for your design esthetic and environment.
More artwork completed this month.
I can’t give up on the larger pastels. The two images that follow are additions to The Sierra Nevada Series.
Mayberry Park Again, Pastel, 24 x 34/30 x 40″
New England
I have added a whole new section from my backlog of drawings to the “LANDSCAPES” gallery. Most of those works were done in New England during a six week, 25 drawing, “Artist in Residence.”
I spent five years in Boston as a youth. My very first pastel was produced in this area. It is nice to get back to Boston to revisit and enjoy the art and culture this area has to offer.
Fall Color, Wellesley, Pastel, 34 x 24/40 x 30″
The New Year
I’ve tried a new size in an effort to combat that often heard phrase, “I don’t have room.” I’ll do another 40 x 16″ vertical panorama to squeeze into those spaces that just weren’t big enough for an ordinary work.
Truckee Panorama, Pastel, 11 x 35/16 x 40″
Rain on the Plain, Pastel, 11 x35/16 x 40″
Washoe Lake, Pastel, 24 x 34/30 x 40″
Washoe Valley, Pastel, 24 x 34/30 x 40″
Yuba River, Pastel, 24 x 34/ 30 x 40″
Rushing Water, Oil, 60 x 36″
This is a painting from years ago that has been part of my personal collection for a number of years. As the years pass and your skill level improves you eventually want to go back into the important pieces and just fine tune them a bit.
Images from October 2017
The Log, Pastel, 24 x 34/30 x 40″
The Little Waterfall, Pastel, 24 x 34/30 x 40″
The Little Waterfall II, Pastel, 34 X 24/40 x 30″
I spent an afternoon in October with two patrons, taking them around to visit sites for some of the work they had purchased. The three drawings above are a result of that afternoon.
Fall Leaves by Mono Lake, Pastel, 24 x 34/30 x 40″
It is a challenge to draw fine detail using a pastel that is the diameter of a first graders crayon without the sophistication of coming to a point. The color and panorama of this view made it worthwhile to make the attempt.
Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Pastel, 24 x 34/30 x 40″
This drawing was hidden away for a number of years in a portfolio that I hadn’t gone through for quite some time. The textures and light articulated in the drawing are still satisfying.
Foggy Day on the Upper Truckee, Pastel, 24 x 34/30 x 40″
The challenge for me in this drawing was to capture the elements of the landscape peaking through the fog on this crisp colorful fall day.
Ashland, Pastel, 34 x 24/40 x 30″
Lithia Park, the location of this drawing, is a green space in the middle of town right next to the Shakespeare Theatre site. It is wonderful to access the peacefulness of nature and incorporate it into your life.
Lake Tahoe, Pastel, 24 x 34/30 x 40″
This early drawing was reworked after hanging in the Carson City Governor’s Mansion for quite some time. A project to renovate and add art to the mansion was abandoned. Storm clouds were evident in both the drawing and the interpersonal relationships that led to the abandonment of the project.
Fog, Upper Truckee, Pastel, 24 x 34/30 x 40″
This foggy fall day on the Upper Truckee is an attempt to capture and share the visual effect of saturated color and the emotional experience of the cool damp atmosphere of this crisp fall day.
Reflections, Pastel, 34 x 24/40 x 30″
Reflections in slowly moving water are the challenge that attracted me to this image. An artist is motivated by the light and color of a new project.
Lake Tahoe, The Carter Center Pastel, 24 x 34/30 x 40″
This piece was drawn during what was in effect an Artist in Residence for The Carter Center at “The Resort at Squaw Creek” in June of 2017. This was the first opportunity I have had to meet President Carter. The five day conference was also an opportunity for a number of interesting conversations with many interesting people.
I’ve worked on this drawing quite a few hours since the conference. Time is an important factor in figuring out what to do next and how to complete a drawing.
Colorado’s Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Pastel, 34 x 24/40 x 30″
It is interesting to draw different foreground vegetation as it varies with location and altitude. I had not run into scrub oak in any other drawing that I can remember. You will find my drawings are primarily derived from sites in the western United States, but any location is a possibility.