Marshall Noice

March 5, 2019

Here’s what I’m discovering.  Strict analogous color composition, green, blue-green, blue, blue-violet and violet for example, results in very harmonious and balanced paintings.  Let me say that I believe that in order to paint better pictures, an artist has to ask better questions.  So the new question is, can I create a painting using only analogous colors that is less harmonious and perhaps on a teetering on balance point?  That is to say, more like the work I love to create.

What, other than color, can I use to achieve a less harmonious, less balanced painting?  I decided to try shade and tint.  And it worked.  It worked really well.  Red, orange and yellow look very predictable next to one another.  But a lighter tint of red (pink), next to the same orange, with hits of yellow thrown in, becomes visually exciting, edgy, and yes, unbalanced!  The painting is immediately less harmonious and I like it better.  Red orange next to yellow orange looks boring to me.  But push the shade toward a deep dark blood red orange, and place it next to a pale buttery yellow orange tone, and the colors come alive for me.  This may seem like a very didactic, constraining approach to choosing colors for a landscape painting, but it’s my idea and I’m having fun with it.  It’s definitely forcing me out of my comfort zone color wise.  And I’ve always known that forays out of the comfort zone can lead to very exciting places!  If nothing much comes of it I’ve still learned something.  And I’ve kept the wheels of creativity rolling.  Sometimes I’ve felt pigeon holed when journalists and critics  refer to my work as “colorist.”  Maybe it’s  time I moved out of my comfort zone and embrace the fact that, for me, often times color is what it’s all about.

Let’s keep in touch!

Marshall

February 26, 2019

Multitasking.  Look at me. Getting good at two things at once.   Ha ha!

Seriously friends, the magic number IS 10,000 hours.  If you want to master anything at all you need to put in the hours. Learning to paint, playing a musical instrument, speaking a foreign language, you name it.  If it’s something you want to be good at, figure out how to put in the time.

I remember my Dad’s twin brother, trumpeter Al Noice, replying to someone who commented after his jazz performance, “I’d give anything to be able to play a horn like you do.”  He told them “No you wouldn’t, because if it were that important to you, you’d do it.”  True dat.  At a very fundamental level it’s just hours.  Finding a teacher helps a lot, but the most important thing is the woodshedding.  Dilettantes step aside.

So, here I am in my studio, working on my craft, painting, and working on my edging skills, at the same time!  Oh and speaking of multitasking, you can’t see it in the picture, but I’m also praying for snow. As usual!

Let’s keep in touch!

Marshall

February 19, 2019

Sometimes I give free rein to my obsession with color.  Well, truth be told, more often than not, I give free rein to my obsession with color!  I love how certain colors, and certain combinations of colors, make me feel.  It’s really about the feeling. 

Here are a few new thoughts about color relationships in my paintings.  Lately it seems I’ve been looking at my finished work with a new frame of reference.  Let me preface this by saying that even though I strive to paint in a way that gives my intuition full rein and keeps any tendency to over analyze at bay, I like to take time with my finished paintings to see what I can learn.  Often these sessions generate new ideas for paintings.  It may be new subject matter, new compositions, or new color relationships.  If I get a “what if” creative nudge, I’m off to the studio to see what might happen.  I can be something as simple as “what if that were green?”  The question must be answered.

         In looking at my work recently, I found that my color explorations took me to almost every point on the color wheel, with one exception.  I’d never painted a picture in which I limited the colors to only those adjacent to each other, that is to say analogous colors.  For instance a painting in red, red orange, orange, orange yellow, and yellow.  Typically some complementary color would sneak in to my painting to jazz things up.  So here’s the question: “What if I tried this very limited palette?”

I’m off to the studio, check back soon!

February 12, 2019

Does the world really need another landscape painting?  Not a chance.  So why bother you may well ask.  My answer is this:  I like painting landscapes.  And I like trees.

Everything about landscape painting appeals to me.  I enjoy being out in the landscape and I enjoy being in my studio working on a landscape painting.  Even though a literal depiction of a landscape is not high on my list of priorities, I love it when a painting  resonates with a sense of place.

I recently worked from some sketches I did a while back.  Here’s the finished painting.

Feel free to contact me here.

Keep in touch, Marshall

February 5, 2019

I’m in Tulsa this Thursday for an opening of a show of my newest work at the gallery that I’ve been represented by the longest. Mary Ann Doran first showed my work in the mid 1990s. Honestly it doesn’t seem it could have been that long ago. Tempus Fugit. Nice to see that those years of studying latin in Mrs. Petri’s class were not in vain!

The first thing I do when I book a flight to Tulsa is check the schedule to see who’s playing at Cain’s Ballroom, the legendary honky tonk and home of Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys. Long before Nashville became “Music City” Tulsa was THE hot spot for contemporary country music. I’m foiled this trip though, Cain’s is dark on Friday the 8th. Oh well, there will be another trip to T-town. I’ll probably have to drive by and see if Bob is hanging out on the corner. Maybe check The Brady too while I’m in the neighborhood. Last time I was in that theater was for Leon Russell’s 60th birthday party. Shameless name dropping I know. Guilty as accused!

Hope to see you at M.A.Doran Gallery, 3509 South Peoria, Tulsa, from 5 until 8 on the 7th.

Keep in touch,

Marshall Noice

January 29, 2019

I really love these new pastels we recently sent to M.A. Doran Gallery in Tulsa. There is something about the direct and simple approach to art making with pastel that seems to facilitate a very intuitive style of painting for me. Pure pigment and a piece of rough toothy paper are the only materials needed. I get a lot of compositional and color decisions made very quickly with pastel.

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Join us from 5-8 p.m. on Thursday, February 7 for the opening of a show of my newest work in both oil and pastel. On Saturday the 9th at 1 p.m. I’ll be demonstrating in – you might have guessed it – pastel! Hope to see you at M.A. Doran, 3509 South Peoria, Tulsa. Please call 918 748-8700 to let us know you’re attending as space is limited. Hope to see you there.

Keep in touch,
Marshall

January 22, 2019

Sunshine and the snow covered peaks of Glacier were just what I needed for a day of inspiration last week! It was a decidedly blue day. Blue skies, snowy blue shadows, blue mountains, and as you can see, a blue ski jacket and blue helmet. I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the next day in my studio I finished painting “Blue Spruce.”

FYI for those of you who, like me, are still a bit fanatical about downhill skiing at certain times of the year, here are the stats:

• 17 Runs
• 22,155 Ski Vertical Feet
• 52.9 mph Top Speed

That’s a nice day in my book!

January 15, 2019

Sometimes you simply must have a painting big enough.  And sometimes you simply must have a painting RED enough!  Those of you who have followed my work over the years already know this.  I love red.  There are times when no other color will do the trick for me.  Nothing activates a canvas or enlivens a space like the color red. 

My favorite red is Gamblin Perlylene Red.  (There, now you know my secret). It’s a transparent oil color. That’s something very important to me given my painting approach.  I’ll be writing in depth about why transparency in oil paint is essential (sometimes) in a future blog. 

In this nine foot tall painting titled “Lone Pine Maples”  I’ve added pinks, oranges and opaque red oil paint over the perylene red to create a tension filled color composition and an interesting surface.  The overall effect of the combination is very active almost “jangley.” 

Sometimes big really is better.  Never underestimate the power of scale.  Never underestimate the power of jangle. 

“In the jingle jangle mornin’, I’ll come following you”

– Bob Dylan –

Keep in touch, 

Marshall 

January 8, 2019

Welcome, I’m happy you’re here. I’m Marshall Noice, and I love to paint, mostly landscapes, in oil and pastel. Maybe it would be more accurate to say I love to play with color! Often I think my work is more focused on color than the landscape! But more about that later.

I live and work in the small Rocky Mountain town of Kalispell, Montana. My studio is in a Main Street building built in 1899 by the Haams Brewing Company. The building was originally home to the Silver Dollar Saloon. I paint in a big back room that used to be the kitchen. The front of the building houses Montana Modern Fine Art, a gallery for contemporary art that features the work of some of the finest artists anywhere!

My home is in the hills five miles west of town. I live on a small ranch with two Boston Terriers, Nigel and Phoebe (brother and sister), two Quarter Horses, Tony and Julio, and my wife Jackie. Our four kids are grown and on their own so it’s just the two of us and the animals at home these days.

In addition to painting I love to ski, hike, sail, play music, look at paintings and read art books. But of all the things I do in life that make me happy, painting brings me the most joy. I love my job.

So this blog will be about painting, usually about my painting, but sometimes about other artist’s paintings. And it will be about color.

Please contact me here or comment below.

Keep in touch.

Marshall