Category: Outdoors/Landscape

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Art theory Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air

Plein Air “Grunts” with No Green for St. Patricks Day

Quick starts plein air

Oil on panel, 12″x16″,  (larger)

In Camille‘s class today we painted at Helen Putnam Regional Park in Petaluma. Our instructions were to paint four small, very quick (about 20 minutes) starts (sort of like rough drafts in oils) on one 12×16″ panel. If I understood correctly, we were to try to capture the color temperature of a bright sunny day, the relationships between the hues and values, and the relationships between the distant, mid and close up values and colors. And all of this without using green to paint the extremely bright and vibrant lime green hills.

I’m at the point now with this work where I feel like I’ve been living in a foreign country long enough (the land of plein air oil painting) that some of the words the natives (my teachers) speak are starting to be understandable. I still can only respond with grunts (see above “painting,” — definitely no more than a few grunts!) but I kind of get what my teachers are saying.
I’m starting to see the vivid colors in nature beyond the local colors (green tree, red apple). And I’m maybe starting to understand why you might paint a sky a pale yellow before over-painting it with very light blue, or a green hill orange first because it’s in the bright sun, and then modify that orange with something that, when compared to the color next to it, reads as green.

Categories
Berkeley Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air

Mustard Grass Meadow, Albany CA

Mustard Grass meadow

Oil on panel plein air (mostly), 12×9″ (Larger)

After working at my “day job” most of Monday, a day I usually don’t work, I grabbed my painting gear and headed to this field covered in brilliant mustard grass. I’d driven by the field the day before and was desperate to paint it. By then it was about 4:30 and the sun, which had been shining brightly all day, had disappeared behind clouds on its way down. A chilly, foggy breeze blew in from the nearby Bay but the mustard grass was still glowing.

I set up in the parking lot of the Ocean View Elementary School in Albany, looking through a chainlink fence at the field. It is part of U.C. Berkeley’s Gill Tract, a 14-acre agriculture research field owned by the university. Until recently the field was a pine forest, but the university just cut down all 314 Monterey Pines because they were infected with pitch canker and were deemed hazardous.

Several children who were being picked up from after-school activities dragged their moms over to see what I was doing. One little boy told me that my trees looked “so realistic!” He made my day because I’d been thinking they were awful. Another little girl said she liked to paint too. I asked her what she liked to paint with (thinking watercolor? acrylic?) and she said, “purple….and orange….and yellow…you know, colors!” acting like I was really dumb to be asking that question.

With the light fading fast I packed up and went home after about an hour and a half. Tonight, with the workweek finally over I returned to the painting. From memory I made a few adjustments, lightening the hills a bit, adding more dimension to the field and trying to do a little something with the trees, which maybe I should have just left alone since they looked better before like the little boy said.

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Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Outdoors/Landscape Photos

Eternal (& Happy Birthday Sis)

Eternal

Larger

I took this photo of an old house near Berkeley’s upscale 4th Street shopping area. There’s something about the image that I find so evocative.

Today is my sister Marcy’s birthday, and while I’m thinking about birth, eternity and old houses, I invite you to visit the Blue Lotus Project (click on Craftsman Home) where you can see the amazing rebirth and transformation of her home, a former fixer-upper (or tear-it-downer as I called it).

The house had been severely neglected for decades and everything was rotten and moldy. It was so awful that I thought it should have been torn down. But Marcy and her husband Tim had a vision of what it could be. After several years of hard work, it became the beautiful home they envisioned, and the place where our family meets for holiday gatherings and all of our rites of passage.

Tim is a contractor, fine woodworker, and master carpenter; Marcy is a brilliant interior designer and space planner; both are talented fine artists as well. They are co-partners of the Blue Lotus Project, a San Francisco Bay Area design/build company.

To see the amazing before and after pictures of the rebirth, click on “Craftsman Home” on their Blue Lotus Project website. There are more of Marcy’s interior designs on the Marcy Voyevod Design website and her her paintings are here.

I know sisterhood isn’t eternal, and I am so grateful for every moment we have together in this life!

Happy Birthday Li’l Sister!

Categories
Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Plein Air

Briones Regional Park, Plein Air

Briones Regional Park take 2

Oil on wood panel, 8×10″ (Larger)

Briones Regional Park take 1

Oil on wood panel, 8×10″ (Larger)

The last time we painted in this spot I had a terrible time with my paints and then stepped in dog poo as I was leaving (which of course I didn’t notice until AFTER I got in my car and drove off). Since the painting I did that day was total crap, it was a perfect end to a frustrating day. To make the suffering even worse, I continued to unsuccessfully work on that painting again and again at home (see post “Learning to Stop“]

Needless to say I was not overjoyed facing the same scene today, especially after only a few hours sleep last night. I’d gone to see The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a wonderful movie by artist Julian Schnabel, which I highly recommend. I’d come home feeling inspired and messed around in the studio, finally going to sleep around 1:00 a.m., with my alarm set for 8:00. For some unknown reason I woke at 6:00 instead (grrrr).

Expecting little, I just let myself just play with color, using a palette knife to push the paint around. I made these two paintings and enjoyed the day tremendously. The weather was beautiful: sunny, breezy and fresh. Friendly people, dogs, cows and horses wandered by as we painted. As usual in Elio’s class, I gathered new nuggets of oil painting plein air wisdom. I know I still have a long way to go, but it feels good to know that I’ve made progress too.

Categories
Berkeley Drawing Outdoors/Landscape Painting Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore, Berkeley

Mrs. Dalloway's Book Store

Ink & Watercolor in Strathmore drawing sketchbook, 6×8″ (Larger)

After my dentist appointment today I took a walk up to College Avenue in the Elmwood district of Berkeley, foraging for lunch. I chose Ferrari’s Deli where I had a delicious grilled “Perugia” sandwich (roasted pork sirloin, black truffle butter and Asiago cheese on toasted ciabatta bread). I sat a sidewalk table to eat, with a view of Mrs. Dalloway’s bookstore across the street. Then I got out my sketchbook and started drawing, sad that I’d left my watercolors in my car, half a mile away.

I took a couple photos (fearing I wouldn’t remember all the colors, like the orange reflection of Ferrari’s awning appearing in Mrs. Dalloway’s windows) and then added the watercolor at home tonight. The paper in this sketchbook is not designed for wet media but works fine if you don’t overwork it. I like it because it’s just the right size, the paper is nice, especially for drawing, and quite inexpensive.

Categories
Art theory Berkeley Drawing Outdoors/Landscape Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

North Berkeley Library & Freedom from Junk

North Berkeley Library

Ink and watercolor in 6×8″ Strathmore Drawing sketchbook (Larger)

This sketch is all about pausing in a busy day to sit and draw, taking advantage of a little sun between rainstorms, and enjoying feeling free. Until I began the sketch, I hadn’t realized how beautiful (and extraordinarily complicated) the landmark building (photo) of the North Berkeley Public Library is.

Freedom from stuff

My feeling of freedom came from filling three shopping bags with books I no longer needed and taking them to my favorite used book store, Black Oak Books. They gave me store credit for two-thirds of the books (which I promptly traded for three books I had on hold).

I could have sold the remaining bag of books on Amazon or at another used bookstore, but decided to just let them go. I dropped them off at the library as a donation and walked out empty handed, feeling quite pleased. Instead of rushing on to the next task, I plopped down on a bench and started sketching.

Now I have space on my bookshelves and room in my car (the three bags had been hogging my backseat for two weeks). And I love that wonderful spacious feeling that comes from removing clutter, whether physical or mental, from my life.

About the sketch: As you can see, my study of perspective hasn’t quite paid off yet. (The doors and windows slant the opposite direction from the roofline of the front wall). I drew with a purple Micron Pigma pen and then added watercolor at home. I tried to remember the colors of the walls but realized I didn’t pay enough attention to what was in light and in shadow. To practice using visual memory, I purposely didn’t take a photo or look at one on line.

So now I can see that my visual memory needs work, along with my perspective drawing. How great to know that there is no end to learning as an artist. I never have to worry about getting bored. Painting and learning are my two favorite things in life!

Categories
Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air

Lake Temescal in oils, plein air

Lake Temescal, Oakland, CA

Oil on masonite panel, 8×10″ (Larger)

Sunday my painting class with Elio painted at a beautiful spot in the Oakland hills. Lake Temescal is actually a reservoir surrounded by trees, hills and park, just off Highway 24 and perched right on the Hayward earthquake fault. It was a lovely foggy morning when we arrived, and as the day progressed, the sun peeked out from behind clouds. Joggers, families, dogs and fisherman wandered by, also enjoying the springlike weather.

I’m happy that much of what I’ve been studying and learning about oil painting, perspective, color, landscape, composition, etc. is starting to make sense and I’m finding ways of working that feel good to me. I got a lot bolder with color in this painting, starting off painting freely with really strong colors, knowing that I could adjust and tone them down once I got everything blocked in.

I tried to make myself finish the painting within a 2-3 hour window so that I wouldn’t be painting a scene that had completely changed as the time passed and sun moved overhead.

Then Elio did a demonstration and explained how he using color temperature (going from a warm yellow green to a medium green to a cool blue green) to create the illusion of form and depth on a tree. The greens were pretty close in value but their color temperature changes really moved the warm part of the tree forward and the cool part back, making it look very round and full. The really cool part was that I understood what he doing and saying; previously it just seemed like magic.

Categories
Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air

Viano Vineyards in Martinez

Viano Vineyards, Martinez

Oil on masonite, 9×12″ (larger)

Disclaimer: Elio made those lovely brushstrokes on the big tree on the left when he was showing me how to rescue its dorky shape that I was complaining about.

We were grateful to have been given permission to paint in this lovely private vineyard in Martinez. The fields were covered in bright yellow-green mustard grass and the constantly changing and moving clouds made the light very dramatic (and chilly, even in the weak winter sun).

I had a few celebratory moments when an area of this painting worked right and I felt like I was really getting it. And then of course there were the sad moments when I ruined a perfectly good passage, and the hilarious moments when I tried to make marks indicating the rows of vines which were just plain laughable (gone now).

For now I’ll take the improvement of the painting above over the two lame plein air paintings below that I did the previous few weeks:

Oakland Inner Harbor Park

Oil on canvas panel, 9×12″ (larger…but why?)

I painted the one above from Chappel Hayes observation tower in the Western Pacific Mole area of Oakland Middle Harbor Park at the Port of Oakland, right beside the docks where huge container ships are loaded by giant cranes that look like creatures from Star Wars. It’s a great new park with wonderful views, walking trails, and a perfect place to bring active kids to watch all the activity. An old Railroad man stopped by to chat and explained that the area where we were painting used to be where the railroads went all the way up to the ships to load the freight. We could see the rails now embedded in the grass and paved trails.

Crocket from Benicia State Park

Oil on masonite, 9×12″ (larger)

This one was painted on a hill in the cold fog at Benicia State Park’s Glen Cove. I’m pretty sure that’s the C&H Sugar Factory across the Carquinez Straights in the little town of Crockett but I’m not positive. It was a fun couple of hours on December 30 when Elio and I joined the Benicia Plein Air Painters for this paint out. It was a small gathering due to the cold, mud and fog and I didn’t last too long.

Categories
Animals Art theory Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air

Point Isabel Dog Park & a painting breakthrough

Point Isabel Dog Park Plein Air

Oil on canvas panel, 6″x8″ (Larger)

We’re expecting a series of big storms for the next week but the weather today was comfortable, no wind and in the 50s. Although I’ve been working on another painting and wanted to keep going on it, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to get outside and paint before the storm hits.

I headed down to nearby Pt. Isabel, an enormous park along the bay that is designated as an off-leash dog park. It has spectacular views of the Golden Gate Bridge but smog, fog and clouds made the visibility so bad that I picked a closer view.

I’m really excited about the breakthrough I had yesterday with oil painting, and how I was able to apply it to this little painting. Up until yesterday I’d been using various oil painting mediums to thin the paint and what I kept ending up with was thin, washed out, chalky, greyed, paint; stickiness and smell from alkyd mediums and smell (and toxins) from turpentine. I’d heard people say they used little to no medium and I couldn’t understand how that was possible. It seemed like the paint would be too thick and hard to manipulate without first thinning it down.

I finally tried it and was shocked to discover it works! Of course it means using a lot more paint, especially on this coarser canvas, but I was able to put down one layer of paint, and leave it. If I made a mistake I could scrape the paint off of that section and repaint it, no problem. Before when I tried to do that, there wasn’t really anything to scrape off because my paint was sooooo thin.

I did this painting in about an hour. I know the dogs look a little dorky, but it’s just a little oil sketch, so who cares. Then I was able to go home and continue working on the painting in progress in my studio. That painting is almost finished and I’m just so excited that after all the work and study I’ve put into oil painting it at last feels as if I’m getting somewhere. And I still have 5 more days of vacation!

Categories
Art theory Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air Sketchbook Pages

Learning to Stop (making ugly paintings)

Plein Air - untouched in studio

Oil on canvas panel, 9×12″ (Larger)

The painting above is not great, but it’s loose and free and painted plein air with no touching up in the studio.

I’ve been painting and repainting the formerly plein air painting below over the past few days and it’s been both a good learning experience and discouraging. Mostly what I’ve learned is NOT to (re)do it. When I try to “just fix one little thing” I end up working for hours (days in this case), completely losing the freshness of the original plein air painting and, at the end of the day, finding myself right back where I started from, with dull, overworked paint.

This is the final version and I hereby VOW to not touch it again (other than to throw it in the trash!) I thought I vowed that yesterday and yet today I found myself trying one more time:

Briones again...the end

At several points in the process I had a good painting but just kept on fixing one more little thing until…well…it’s like scratching mosquito bites…I just keep scratching at until it bleeds and then I’m sorry. The original before messing with it appeared on my easel in my post about my studio here (first photo).

This was yesterday’s version:

Plein Air - finished in studio

Part of the problem with retouching in the studio is that the reference photos rarely capture the colors and memories of the scene. This one sure didn’t and yet I continued to work from it and wondered why everything looked so dull!
Briones photo ref

(above: the bad reference photo)

Photoshopped photo reference

(Above) I even tried painting over the reference photo in Photoshop to try to use that as reference instead but I still ended up with mud.

So here’s what I’ve learned (AGAIN!):

  1. Stop! Don’t waste time. Make progress by painting more paintings not the same one over and over
  2. Use more paint and less medium.
  3. Mix the right color, put it down and leave it alone.
  4. Messing with a hopeless painting forever is not art, it’s OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). I need a painting alarm like those car alarms that say, “Step away from the painting…” or a Sister Mary Catherine to smack my knuckles with a ruler and snatch the canvas away from me…