June 15, 2021
This painting is about as close to a monochromatic color scheme as I get! I thought I’d try using warm and cool blues over a warm toned underpainting. Admittedly, some of the warm blues snuck pretty close to alizarin crimson. I like it!
Crating this baby and sending it off to find its new life at Ventana Fine Art in Santa Fe.
My exhibit at Ventana opens on July 8th. I’ll be there for the reception on July 9th. Join us!
Marshall
June 8, 2021
One month from today my exhibition opens at Ventana Fine Artat 400 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico! I would love it if you’d stop by, say hello, and have a look at my thirty eight newest paintings. Whew! Thirty eight, but who’s counting!
I confess I usually feel my most recent work is my best work ever, but the truth is, and it really is the truth, this is my best work ever.
I won’t be hard to spot. I’ll be the guy wandering around the gallery with a big smile on his face!
Marshall
June 1, 2021
When I think of the nineteenth century Austrian painter Gustav Klimt’s work, his iconic figurative painting “The Kiss” immediately comes to mind. While this is certainly the best known of his paintings, he depicted a variety of subjects.
Lately I’ve been enjoying looking at his wonderful landscapes. He brings the same highly decorative style to every subject he portrays. The results are inspiring!
Marshall
May 25, 2021
I’ve mentioned in the past four painterly considerations I find important to my work. They are: light-dark, thick-thin, hard-soft, warm-cool. These are things I look for in my work when I’m nearing the end of the painting process. You can usually, but not always, see all four of these elements in my finished work.
Here’s what I’m talking about. Light-dark is pretty obvious, I think. I like to see light-dark contrast somewhere in the painting. Thick-thin refers to heavy impasto or lack thereof. Hard-soft is about adjacency, I like to see both hard edges and soft edges where colors are adjacent to one another. The edge quality seems to change the way in which colors “speak” to each other. And last of all, warm-cool. Well, here’s a pretty good example of that!
Let’s keep in touch,
Marshall
May 18, 2021
Years ago when my partner in crime Terry Nelson and I shared a studio space, our painting mantra was “Think it, Do it.”
What we were saying to ourselves was: if something pops into your head, don’t question it, don’t over-intellectualize it, act on it! That approach to art making really kept our creative juices flowing. We made hundreds of paintings. Looking back, that’s when I really learned to paint.
Sadly, Terry is long gone now, but his spirit lives with me in my studio. And our words of admonition to honor those creative ideas are ones I still live by.
Marshall
April 27, 2021
Come one, come all! If you’ve ever wondered about something, anything, that has to do with my pastel painting, here’s the opportunity you’ve been waiting for (on pins and needles, I’m sure). I’ll be teaching a workshop in pastel on Saturday, May 8th, at Kalico Art Center. Kalico is just four doors down from Montana Modern Fine Art and my painting studio. Talk about convenient.
I’ll be sharing everything I know about pastel: pigments, papers, color theory, composition, you name it. If I know it, you’ll know it too!
AND if you’re a member of The Montana Pastel Society, the workshop is free! In all honesty I should probably mention that it is, in fact, free for all!
Marshall
April 20, 2021
I surprised myself recently. As I was beginning a painting, I stepped back to get a somewhat more distant view, and, lo and behold, I was looking at a Clyfford Still. If you don’t know Still’s abstract expressionist work, do yourself a favor and take a look. He was one of the early leaders of that art movement, and his work still speaks loudly today. Be sure to visit The Clyfford Still Museum next time you’re in Denver.
I’m afraid the references to his work are vanishing as I finish working. But that’s okay. I’d like to think he, one of my heroes, would be pleased with how my painting turns out!
Oh and by the way, he and I are both proud sons of The Peace Garden State! He from Grandin, me from Grand Forks.
Let’s keep in touch,
Marshall Noice
April 13, 2021
Sometimes it pays to turn around and see where you’ve come from, literally and figuratively. I rarely struggle with finding inspiration for my paintings, it seems the ideas just keep coming.
Luckily for me, if I DO feel even slightly stuck, I take a walk. There’s no substitute for living in a beautiful part of the world for a landscape painter. Having said that, I imagine if I lived in downtown L.A. I’d be painting the urban landscape, which actually sounds equally interesting. I’m a life long fan of Richard Diebenkorn’s cityscapes.
As I was walking in Lone Pine State Park, which is literally out my back door, I turned around and was staring at my next painting. Here’s the sketch.
“I was looking back, to see if she was looking back, to see if I was looking back at her.”
~John Mayall
Let’s keep in touch,
Marshall
April 6, 2021
Just four more days to ride the lifts on Big Mountain in Whitefish! The end of ski season always makes me a little sad. Fortunately it is NOT nearly the end of ski season. Just the end of riding the ski lifts. Starting next week, we who are hopelessly addicted to sliding down a slippery slope will be plastering on the skins and walking up to the top. Great fun! Unfortunately one run a day is about all I’m good for. But I do, in fact, enjoy the climb up almost as much as the ski down.
Yours truly, all skinned up and ready to hike! I’ll send you a picture from the top!
Let’s keep in touch,
Marshall
March 23, 2021
Although color is a language that speaks to each of us differently, viewers of Noice’s works tend to experience similarly medicinal effects. “I think of being around Marshall’s paintings as somewhat analogous to the Japanese concept of forest bathing: immersing oneself in the sights, sounds, and fragrances of the forest to foster optimal physical, emotional, and mental health,” says Wolfgang Mabry, a consultant at Ventana Fine Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “People want to feel the way Marshall’s paintings make them feel – alive, colorful, free, and exactly where they want to be.”
~ Excerpt from “An Infatuation with Color“
by Rose MeMaris
Big Sky Journal, Winter 2020
Let’s keep in touch,
Marshall
