Category: Outdoors/Landscape

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Art theory Landscape Oil Painting Other Art Blogs I Read Outdoors/Landscape Painting Photos Plein Air

Inspiration Point, Tilden Park

Inspiration Point, Tilden Park

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Oil on panel, 9×12″

Sunday was my plein air oil painting class in Tilden Park and we met at Inspiration Point in Tilden Park in the Berkeley Hills. On a clear day you can see far into the distance from this site. Unfortunately, when we arrived at 9:00 a.m. the fog was so thick we could barely see halfway across the parking lot. Our teacher, Elio Camacho, had planned to start class by doing a demo — an expansive vista on a large canvas. To try to accomplish something until the fog cleared, he had us set up our easels facing the alleged view and get ready to paint. I enjoyed the idea of randomly picking a spot with no idea what I’d see or paint.

At 10:00, after delicious coffee and treats from Peets Coffee generously brought by a class member, Elio did an amazing small demo of the sun glaring through the fog above some nearby trees. Happily, just as he finished the fog lifted and we got to work.

This time I remembered to take a photo of the scene before I got started so that I could finish the painting at home:
Inspiration Point, Tilden - Photo

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Art theory Landscape Oil Painting Other Art Blogs I Read Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air

Sharing my learning process

Tilden Park Plein Air & Studio 3

Oils on 9×12″ canvas panel
Larger view

In the interest of sharing my learning process in oils, I’ve posted this painting and some of my teacher’s critique. There are so many problems with this plein air plus studio painting that it seems to prove Dee Farnsworth’s saying, “Plein air is French for ‘bad landscape painting.'” I like to think of plein air painting as being the outdoor version of figure/life drawing — you’re trying to capture a 3-D live subject in real time, but with changing light.

The biggest problem is that it’s a painting of nothing…that is, there’s no focal point. In fact, the thing that interested me the most about the scene (some interesting branches) didn’t even make it into the painting. The composition basically sucks: there should be a path of dark values for the eye to follow but instead there’s a bright path leading nowhere: your eyes go up the path where you can turn left or right but there’s nothing there to see.

The shadows on the road don’t work because they’re too lumpy — shadows should be flat with softer edges. The daubing paint application is basically the same everywhere (I was trying to make myself use more paint–I tend to be too stingy with oil paint and was trying to work thicker). The foliage should be painted as masses–clumps of different sizes and shapes that go from dark underneath to light on top–just as you’d paint an apple–to give them dimension and form.

My teacher thought the painting was better before I messed around with it in the studio. Here’s the original done at the park (below):

Tilden Park Plein Air 1st

I’d gone out painting with my friend Susie who is much more experienced at plein air than I. When we packed up she pointed out that when we set up to paint, the Eucalyptus trees were light against a dark background, but as the sun had moved, the scene had reversed and the foreground trees were now dark against light background trees. I hadn’t even realized that but had unconsciously kept “correcting” my painting as the afternoon progressed which was not a good thing for the painting. It was best at about one hour. After that it just got more and more mucked up. When I brought it home I decided to work on it some more in the studio and lost a lot of what I’d originally liked about the painting which I didn’t realize until I posted both of them.

About knowing when to stop…I’ve always loved this story by Danny Gregory:

“When Jack was in preschool, there was one teacher whose class always did the most amazing paintings. Each one was clear and sharp and intelligent, Picassos in a sea of muddy fingerpaints. I asked her what she taught her kids, what she said to keep their visions so pure. She replied, “I don’t tell them anything, really. I just know when to take their paper away.”

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Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air Sketchbook Pages

Painting & Problem Begin with P

Alameda-Boat

Oil on panel, 12×9″
Click to see Larger

Yesterday I went out painting in Alameda with my plein air group. The view was delightful, the people were warm and friendly (both the group and the natives), the weather was nearly perfect and the city had actually blocked off a lane on the bridge (for construction–not for us) which gave us a perfect area to paint.

And I had nothing but problems. I’ve been reading several different books on oil painting and they all contradict each other. So I went out to paint with my head full of different approaches and with a goal to stop hoarding paint and put a lot on the canvas. Needless to say, the painting was a mess. After two hours I packed it up and watched a more experienced oil painter at work. I immediately saw where I’d gone wrong and decided that after the critique I’d go back out to the bridge and start over. But my feet hurt and I was hungry and the wind had really picked up so I decided to take a photo and paint at home using my first painting and a photo as a reference. One more problem…I’d forgotten my camera so had to use my cell phone’s crummy camera.

Here’s the photo which tinted the sky purple (which it wasn’t):

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Art theory Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air

Sunset View Cemetery- Oil sketch

Sunset View Cemetery Sketch

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Oil on Raymar Panel 9×12″

Sadly I wasn’t feeling well enough to join the Benicia Plain Air Painters at Mare Island Friday and Saturday. I was fighting a cold (I won…after 12 hours sleep last night!). On Saturday it took me until 2:00 in the afternoon to get out of my jammies and into the shower, about the time the event was ending. Even though I still felt crummy the weather was beautiful (though windy) so I decided to try painting someplace closer.

The Sunset View Cemetery is quite nearby and has some lovely views so I headed up there. I drove around and around trying to find a spot to paint. Then I walked around, dragging all my gear, finally settling on this view. Unfortunately it was on top of the hill in the bright sun and very windy so I couldn’t use my umbrella to shade the palette and canvas, making color mixing tricky.

Even though I felt funky and tired, once I started painting all I felt was joy and pleasure. Then I ran out of steam after about 90 minutes, just managing to block in the lights and darks. I fiddled with it a bit today but wiped off all my fiddles. I decided I liked it just the way it is so I’m calling it a finished “sketch.” I may try making a larger painting from the sketch.

Value studies

Here are the compositional value studies I did first with Copic Markers (more about the markers). I meant for the tree to be further to the right like the bottom sketch but it ended up being closer to the middle in the painting.

Cemetery-value-comp

Alla prima in oils vs. watercolor

Two things that are important in working alla prima (all at once instead of in many layers) in oils and very different from my approach to watercolors are:

1) The importance of planning the composition (of course it’s important with watercolor too, but with watercolor you can crop off the bottom or side of a painting if you need to do improve the composition) . With stretched canvas or canvas panels it’s not nearly as easy as just snipping off the offending section or hiding it under a mat.

2) Getting the values (darks and lights) and the color right the first time. In watercolor I’m used to going for an approximation of the right color and then adding washes to make it darker, cooler, warmer, etc. In alla prima painting in oils I’ve learned I need to figure out the values first, then put down the darkest darks, and then the light areas for each main shape. Unlike watercolor, there’s no corrective glazing or washes when you’re working with wet gooshy paint.

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Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting

Mare Island, Vallejo CA

Mare Island, Vallejo CA

Oil on panel, 8×6″
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Tomorrow I’m planning to go to a paint-out on Mare Island in Vallejo with a group of plein air painters based in Benicia. The organizer of the event posted some photos and a map of where we’ll be painting and I thought I’d get a head start by doing a practice painting from one of the photos of possible painting spots. It’s a two day event that started today but after I did a bunch of errands was too tired. Now tonight I’ve developed an icky cough and I’m hoping that my tiredness this week wasn’t because I’m catching a cold. There were a couple of coughing snifflers at work this week (grrrr)….

While I was working on this little painting the three kids (age 5-10) from next door came over to bring me a plate with a slice of orange jellow and a piece of birthday cake (it was the little girl’s birthday) so I invited them in to paint with me. I set them up with paint, a 64 box of Crayolas, some Caran d’Ache watercolor crayons, and a pile of paper. They each did several paintings (most contained the same little peaked roof house, with front door, doorknob, tree, smoke from chimney and the words “Happy Birthday” on them) but one painting was all black.  (Once they left the cake and jello went in the trash…I’m still on my diet and not a big fan of supermarket cake and jello anyway).

Now for some vitamin C and some sleep!

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

Berkeley Marina & Guerilla Painter Pochade Box

K Dock Berkeley Marina in Oils

Oil on RayMar panel, 12 x 9″ (Click to see larger)

This is my first “official” plein air oil painting that I did at the Berkeley Marina this morning where I joined a group of local plein air painters. I’m so thrilled to have found them. We met at 10:00 and then  went off to to paint in different spots, getting together again at 1:00 for a lively critique. I got some very useful suggestions  (e.g. adjust the bottom line of the boats is straight across the canvas so adjust to more of a diagonal slantig down to the left). I noticed that very problem when I was working out my preliminary thumbnail/value sketches but I momentarily forgot about artistic license and left it as I saw it instead of changing it for a better composition.

Although I felt shy about being so unskilled at oils and plein air painting I felt very welcomed by the group. It was a beautiful sunny (but cool and windy) day in Berkeley with the usual assortment of nuts, hikers, bikers, families and local characters passing by who all stopped to offer supportive comments or tell me about an artist they know or have seen before. I was so pleasantly suprised — not one person said, “Ewwww! What a bad painting!” or laughed at me. I didn’t worry about that with watercolor but somehow with an easel and all the trappings I felt like I stood out more.

Plein air set up at Berkeley Marina
(Click to see larger)

This is my new Guerilla Painter 9×12″ Pochade Box Plein Air Easel set up and I love it! It holds almost everything needed for painting plein air and is sturdy and super fast and easy to set up. I’ve never been so impressed with a company’s customer service as I had at Judson’s Plein Air either. I had a million dumb questions in trying to decide whether to buy this “cigar box” style easel or a french easel or a Soltek (which I couldn’t afford anyway) and when I called (twice) I spoke to Monica, who patiently answered every question, gave great advice, way above and beyond the usual which was so appreciated by this novice plein air painter.

The box is incredibly well made, really beautiful and makes setting up to paint, painting and carrying wet canvases a cinch. They also offer watercolor and pastel and acrylic versions of this box in various sizes. The tripod has a quick release so you just set the box on it and it clicks into place, and is very sturdy. It has separate adjustments for height and leg spread (far apart for windy, rough, or uneven conditions). It comes with an attached “stone bag” (the black thing at the bottom) for putting something heavy on it to weigh it down (only necessary for gale force winds, I’d think because it was windy today and nothing budged or wiggled). Their Mighty-Mite Brush washer  jar is also wonderful. It fits in the box and doesn’t leak like every other container for mineral spirits I’ve found. The palette is in just the right spot as is the canvas with this box. I bought the plastic covered palette accessory which is a good addition. As someone who really appreciates good tools, I couldn’t be happier.

In the picture above on the right is my shopping cart I use for carting my plein air supplies around. It’s pretty practical although stuff can fall out the open spaces and picking it up is tricky since it tries to fold in on itself. I’ve ordered two different closed wheely carriers and when I get them will compare them all and pick the best for my purposes.

Thumbnail value sketch tools
(Click for larger image)

Above are the tools I used to make my preliminary thumbnail composition and value sketches. I recently discovered wonderful Copic markers–they’re fabulous — no smell and they blend and go on like silk. This handy composition/value finder can be opened to a marked setting for the size of paper or canvas. Then you close one eye and look through it to decide what to put in your composition. It’s middle gray so that you can also compare colors to it to determine if they’re darker or lighter. I used its opening to trace the rectangles in my Aquabee sketchbook so that the thumbnails would be the same dimensions as my canvas.

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Drawing Life in general Outdoors/Landscape

Sausalito Sailboat Birthday Party for Robin

Sausalito Palm Tree

Ink in Moleskine sketchbook
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The short version:
It was very crowded on the sailboat and there were many interesting people to talk to, so I even though I brought art supplies, didn’t get to draw anything until we left. My sister parked at a nearby upscale grocery store to grab a cup of coffee for the ride home. I pulled out my sketchbook and did this quick sketch while Sophie and I chatted and waited. I’d realized I’d never really “seen” a palm tree until I drew this one.

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Landscape Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Towata Park, Alameda

Towata Park, Alameda

Ink and watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor sketchbook
Click here to see larger

Thursday night was a 2-hour plein air paint-out on Alameda Island that was part of the Frank Bette Art Center’s annual invitational weeklong event that culminates in a show and a fund-raising auction in the park Saturday. Susie and I went there straight from work and had a very enjoyable time looking at all the accomplished plein air painters at work spread out over about a half-mile square area. It was warm, very windy and the sun was setting on the water, creating glare amidst views of a marsh, the bay, a small boat harbor, San Francisco across the bay, and a huge old concrete bridge with rush hour traffic flying across it a very short distance away. Despite all these challenges, the artists were doing some amazing work. After we’d admired all the interesting styles and techniques we found a spot where we could sit and draw too.

We’d both been attracted to the funny little boat to the left of the picture so we both drew and painted the same scene (but quite differently) in about 20 minutes. Then we took another walk around to see the finished pieces and left as the artists were setting up their paintings in a circle so that they could vote on the winning painting. While we were there, I got to see Ed Terpening, a fellow blogger, in action (the painting he was working on last night can be seen by clicking his name), and met Tom Zephyrs, a fantastic artist who is the brother-in-law of a childhood friend. Susie and my favorite was a large pastel in brilliant colors of the imposing bridge by artist and blogger Ann McMillan. She won first prize at last year’s event and that pastel is featured on the Frank Bette’s website page about the event.

Two nights in a row of painting inspiration and two nights in a row of dreaming about painting…until the earthquake hit at 4:42 this morning, putting an end to lovely dreams for the night. Fortunately it didn’t create any problems and was short enough that I didn’t even have time to do my usual earthquake reaction: panic and try to remember what it is I’m supposed to do during an earthquake. It felt like someone had taken my one-story, rectangular house that is much longer one way than the other, and picked it up at one end and snapped it, like you do with a sheet when you’re opening it and laying it on the bed.

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Art theory Landscape Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Outdoors/Landscape Sketchbook Pages

Snow Park, Oakland

Snow Park, Oakland

Ink & colored pencil in small Moleskine notebook
Click here for larger view

I drew this sitting on a wall in front of the building where I work, waiting for a ride after I witnessed something disturbing and weird this evening that changed my plans for the evening. I left work and headed to BART to get home and meet Lea to go to the California Watercolor Association meeting where Jody Mattison was going to be demonstrating painting using a grisaille technique in black and white oil painting over an acrylic underpainting in burnt umber, and then glazing in color in oils (odd for CWA which is usually all about transparent watercolors, but serendipitous for me since I wanted to learn that technique).

I saw a boy in a small group of middle-school age skateboarders being attacked by a huge security guard half a block from my building. The security guard looked and acted just like Forrest Whitaker as Idi Amin in the Last King of Scottland. The boy couldn’t have weighed 100 pounds and the enormous guard must have been 6’4″ and 280 pounds. They were fighting like kids in a school yard shoving each other and yelling. The guard shoved the boy hard who threw his skateboard at the guard, who then pushed the kid down in a raised planting bed and began choking him. He finally let the kid up with a viscious crazy laugh and the two began yelling at each other again. People on both sides of the street and driving by in cars looked stunned. The guard kept roughing up the kid, pushing him down, strong-arming him and yelling madly. Two cars pulled over and tried to intervene but the guy ignored them, and I could see people calling 911 on their phones. Occasionally the guard would talk into a radio and then go back to acting crazy and aggressive with the kid.

I started to leave and then just couldn’t. I walked over to them and said, “Excuse me sir, do you work here? This is totally inappropriate and unprofessional behavior.” He said he worked for the security firm hired by the building. The kid was saying, “Did you see him attack me? He was harassing me…” and his buddy said “I have it all on my camera!” He showed me the film on his little digital camera and it clearly showed the guard’s aggressive behavior and the kid defending himself. I asked them if they would all follow me back to the building where I knew the building security guards who staffed the front desk would be more reasonable. Surprisingly they all agreed to follow me as did several witnesses. Inside the building the guard said the police had already been called and everyone agreed to wait for them or left their names and numbers for the police.

Meanwhile I realized I’d never get home in time to meet Lea so I phoned her. She offered to bring me dinner so that we could go directly from my office to the meeting. Finally the police came, interviewed everyone separately. From what I heard while waiting, apparently these kids regularly skateboard by the building because the boy who got attacked’s mom owns the Togos Deli in the building and the guard regularly harasses them about skateboarding, even though they stay on public property, not on the building’s grounds. And the guard claimed the kids harass him. I told him that he still had no business behaving that way and I told the boys that they were asking for trouble, knowing that this guy was wacked but still tempting him by skating nearby but that still didn’t give him the right to harm them.

Finally I left everyone in the building with the police and went out in front and did this drawing of the sunset view of the park across the street with the huge herd of geese (it’s too big to call it a flock) that hang out there, Lake Merritt in the back to the left, and a tall, glorious Art Deco apartment building behind the trees. Lea arrived with a wonderful dinner for me, and drove us to the meeting for the demonstration which was terrific!

Tomorrow when I go to work I’m going to talk to the building management to tell them that guy should NOT be working there.

Categories
Outdoors/Landscape Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Colusa Circle’s Kensington Bistro

Kensington Bistro

Ink and watercolor in small Moleskine notebook
Click here to see larger

I supposedly work half a day from home on Mondays so that I can get out and paint in the afternoons. Unfortunately I often have trouble turning off the work email and end up working most of the day. Today I forced myself out the door around 3:00 for a walk and a visit to my favorite produce market, Colusa Market in Kensington. I parked at the Colusa Circle, took an enjoyable walk, and then came back and sat on a bench in front of the pub called the “Kensington Circus” and drew the Kensington Bistro across the traffic circle. The little peaks on the building are all wonky but I just couldn’t make myself get out a ruler and use 2 point perspective. I just wanted to draw so I did. The bistro is situated on a slight hill so the building does slant downhill from left to right…but still…