Robert Rigsby, Jr.'s Artspan Blog

     Welcome to my new blog.

     Most know me as a veterinarian and a growing numer know me as an artist.  For years, I have been a full-time vet and part-time artist.  I've had a room over my garage where I escaped to paint.  It's how I relaxed and rejuvinated after a hectic day at the veterinary practice.

     My favorite medium is oil paint.  I statred in the early 80's with water color but later found oil paint suited my mindset better.  It seems more natural to work from darks and shadow to lights and highlights which you do with oils rather than working light to dark and around the highlights with watercolor.

     I've also seen my technique evolve.  I've always persued and impressionistic style.  That is, used a limited palette, juxtaposing primary with secondary colors to attempt to express the effects of light.  It also seemed the more stress I was feeling, the thicker the paint and brighter the colors.  This 9x12 is a great example:

This must have been a stressful day.  It was started on a rose tinted canvas so the greens would pop.  Then cadmium yellow and orange were plastered over the pink using a palette knife.  No brush touched this canvas.  Painting with a knife, impasto cadmium primaries, now that's venting! 

     Compare it with this piece.  Painted from a live model in a studio in Raleigh.  I hadn't been in the clinic that day.  Quiet earth tones layered with filbert brushes.  Just enough cadmium colors to give highlights.  Done on a relaxed weekend morning in a cool comfortable studio.  No venting, practiced technique:

     Hope to see more of this style of painting but if they don't sell, you'll see more frustration, anxiety, cadmium and impasto!

     Both of these paintings are still available for sale.  Contact me if interested. 

    Come back soon...