I'm puttin' on my top hat!

"Tyin' up my white tie,
Brushin' off my tails.
I'm dudin' up my shirt front,
Puttin' in the shirt studs,
Polishin' my nails,
I'm steppin' out, my dear,
To breathe an atmosphere
That simply reeks with class"

I have a collection of landscape paintings hanging in a group show that opens this Saturday. The show is at the University Club in downtown Cincinnati and will feature other local artists Carl Samson, Linda Crank, David W. Mueller, Chuck Marshall, Ann Geise, Bruce Erikson, Clem Robins, Bruce Petrie, Jeff Gandert and Sue Gutzwiller. 
It is a wonderful historic private club with an amazing permanent collection of art from Cincinnati's Golden Age. The opening is a very fancy 'members only' event that is black tie. So I get to shove my crusty self into a tux. Though unlike the song, I do not have a white tie or tails, and I will certainly not be 'polishin my nails'.  I may dig out some dirt and oil paint from under my nails and brush my hair. My rugged handsomeness will have to make up for that "class" thing.

While the opening is for members only, you can visit the show during its run. It is a private club with a dress code so I think men need a jacket to get in the club. Not a good idea to drop in shirtless, wearing flip flops. I suggest you call first- 513- 721-2600.
http://www.uclubcincinnati.com/ 

One of the paintings in the show was started and finished the summer of 2008- or so I thought. I got it back from a gallery and decided it had some issues. One was the hard diagonal tree that clipped the corner. It was just too insistent. The skyline had changed a bit too.
I went back to the spot in Fairview Park to have  look so I could fix these issues. Well, for one thing, my tree was gone. Our skyline also has a major addition. I decided to add the Great American Insurance building (the tall one on the left) since it is such a major part of the skyline and because it improved the design.

Hazy Downtown View, 25 X 30, oil on linen, ©copyright Richard Luschek 2013

 For some reason I never got a good shot of this painting the first time around, but here is a shot of the painting 5 years ago, before it was even finished, but you can see the issue with the tree cutting that corner. The interesting thing, was with the tree gone, I decided to just paint until lit looked the way I wanted. I improved the shape, added some light along the edge, and pushed some green over the trunk to break up the mass.
Hope you can stop by to see the show.

Hazy Downtown View, unfinished from 2008.