Time to face facts

For several years now I have been working on what I've come to title my Civil War 150 Project, with a goal of working in a chronological order to create works focusing on the often-overlooked people and events of the Civil War era. As we begin 2012, we are in the 150th anniversary for the year 1862, which featured such battles as Shiloh, Second Manassas, Antietam and Fredericksburg. And while it continues to be my intention to study each of the battles carefully and create works to represent them, I realize that it is not going to be possible to cover them in-depth, as I've done so far with the First Battle of Manassas, within one year's time, and still stay on track with my additional project of developing works that relate to the civilians of Gettysburg. Because my gallery is located in Gettysburg, and so that I may be able to do justice to that series in time for our 150th anniverary commemoration in 2013, I realize that I'm going to have to make some sacrifices. I've finally resolved that, since Antietam and Fredericksburg are closer in proximity to my Gettysburg gallery, I will focus on producing a few pieces that relate to them. Once we've passed the 150th anniversary period in Gettysburg, I plan to revisit some of the other battles of 1862 and 1863 that I've had to skip over for now.

I've had to put the brakes on my Basil Biggs project once again, as I've recently learned that there may be another source of photographic images of him that I had not known about, and want to look into that before I go further. In the meantime, I have a number of Civil War-related commissions that I will be posting in this spot, and will begin developing some pieces dealing with Antietam. Relating to that, today's post shows a piece I created in 2002 for their 140th anniversary. The print edition is sold out; however the original art is available for purchase. Please contact me at civilwarfineart@yahoo.com, if you are interested in learning more about this piece. As always, I invite you to visit my website, www.CivilWarFineArt.com, to view all of my Civil War-themed works.

Back in the flow

Long time, no posting! Fall was incredibly busy, between running the gallery, working on commissions, and having a full exhibition and teaching schedule. Today, as I sit here trying to come back to "real life" after having a wonderful few days with as many of my family members as were able to be present, I thought I'd share the image I used for my Christmas card this year. This is a scene set up at the Shriver House Museum --309 Baltimore Street in Gettysburg, PA -- in the parlor of the Shriver House for their annual Candlelight Christmas tours, depicting traditions and decorations of an 1860's Pennsylvania family. It's a wonderful museum -- a beautifully restored 1860 home -- with a fascinating story of how one family dealt with the Battle of Gettysburg. I highly recommend a visit in person, or at the very least to their website: www.ShriverHouse.org.

Happy Holidays to all! I'll be posting new work soon.

Basil Biggs, Step 3

Progress has been slow for me on this project. I'm doing a lot of teaching right now and have a number of commissions that I need to devote time to, so I don't have quite as much time to give to my series projects. But that's OK -- I enjoy the variety!

Before the end of the month I need to finish my research on Basil Biggs at the Adams County Historical Society, because they will be moving out of their building while it's under renovation and their collections will be inaccessible during that time. And I still need to determine what buildings are known to have been standing on the south side of York Street from Lincoln Square to Stratton Street. At least I've made a little progress on the horse.

Codori Barn from Little Round Top

I took a break from working on my latest Battle of Gettysburg/Civilians of Gettysburg piece about Basil Biggs, to produce this small landscape from the Gettysburg battlefield. I created a much smaller version of this scene in colored pencil for entry in the upcoming Miniature Art 2011 exhibition at the Council for the Arts in Chambersburg, PA, and decided to try this second, larger version using watercolor and colored pencil on a sienna-colored piece of Pastelmat. Once again I love this particular combination of media and working surface; it's the same combination I used on Summer Sunset, McPherson Farm (see post from June 12), and on my one-day drawing/painting giveaway of  Stone House, Manassas National Battlefield (see post from June 21).

Basil Biggs, Step 2

Made a little progress -- at least it's easier to tell this is a horse! So far I've not been able to find photos of the buildings on the south side of the first block of York Street. Next week I hope to get to the Wills House where there's a new diorama that shows the buildings that were standing on streets close to the square in 1863, and it sounds as if it's very well-researched and accurate. In the meantime I'm working on some small landscapes of the Gettysburg battlefield that I may post. If we get the fringes of Hurricane Irene here in Gettysburg over the next  two days, I may have a lot of time for blogging! Who would've guessed we'd get an earthquake and a hurricane all in the same week?

Battle of Gettysburg/Gettysburg Civilians Series: Basil Biggs

Not much to see with this composition, yet -- in fact, you may have to look at the enlarged view to understand what it is. The only portion that shows color, at this point, is the -- um --"hindquarters" of the horse. The scene is a depiction of an event which occurred prior to and shortly before the Battle of Gettysburg: the evacuation of the town's black population, among them a farmer by the name of Basil Biggs. Understandably fearful that the invading Confederate army would take them prisoner and send them south into slavery, the local African-American residents either hid or made their way out of town to presumably safer locations.  Biggs fled town, on a borrowed horse, heading out York Road as he could see the Confederates filling the town square from the west.

I have a little more research to do, to determine what buildings were standing along this stretch of York Road in 1863, besides the Lutheran Church that I have roughly indicated to the left. But I thought that posting this very early stage would help jumpstart my progress on this piece. The composition is 16" x 20", rendered on museum board with colored pencil using a traditional dry layering, sharp point-scumbling technique.

Back to Work

This post title would seem to imply that I haven't been working, which certainly isn't the case! What I'm really getting at is that recently I've been posting previously completed works that relate to 1861, as 2011 is the 150th anniversary for that year. Now I think it's time to get back to my original primary intention for this blog: posting newly-completed works and work-in-progress.

In keeping with my Civil War 150 Project, and to have an image to submit to an upcoming exhibition at the Clara Barton National Historic Site entitled "The Art of Clara Burton", I completed the above image in colored pencil on Canson Mi Teintes paper (color: Sand), Study of Clara Barton. I'm still learning about Ms. Barton and I'm sure will do more works that feature her in the years to come, since she played such an enormous role in the Civil War. This piece was an effort to study her facial features and see what I might learn from them by working closely with two of her Civil War era portrait photographs. Ms. Barton's first involvement with Civil War nursing was the result of her witnessing the wounded and dying soldiers brought back to Washington (where she worked at the Patent Office) after the First Battle of Manassas, something which would have been occurring approximately 150 years ago.