Category: Landscape

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Berkeley Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Life in general Outdoors/Landscape Painting People Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Sketching at the Berkeley Pier

Fishing & Strolling the Pier, ink & watercolor
Fishing & Strolling Berkeley Pier at Sunset, ink & watercolor

It was the hottest August day in the history of San Francisco, smack in the middle of the coldest summer since 1975. So for our Tuesday night sketch-out we headed for the cooling breezes coming in off the Pacific Ocean through the Golden Gate Bridge (in the center of the picture above, to the right of the San Francisco skyline). We weren’t alone. The pier was full of people strolling and fishing and enjoying the rare warm evening.

Men's Bathroom on the Pier at Sunset, ink & watercolor
Men's Bathroom on the Pier at Sunset, ink & watercolor

Although my sketch buddies selected a more scenic perspective from the same vantage point (which you can see on our Urban Sketchers Bay Area blog here), the men’s bathroom and shoreline rocks glowing pink and orange in the sunset attracted me instead. Apparently I was holding my sketchbook at a strange angle as I was drawing and painting (or else the world temporarily tilted) causing the wonky slanted horizon and bridge.

The sky turned indigo blue as we walked back down the pier towards land, and a huge full moon rose over the hills. Then a group of half a dozen kayakers with little headlights on their boats paddled right under the pier and out the other side below us. It is special sights like this that make getting out in the world to sketch so special.

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Albany Building Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Outdoors/Landscape Painting Places Plein Air Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Cool News (Urban Sketchers) and Albany Hill Sketch

Peet's Coffee El Cerrito and Albany Hill, ink & watercolor
Peet's Coffee El Cerrito and Albany Hill, ink & watercolor

Our Tuesday night sketch group is now an official Urban Sketchers group, known as Urban Sketchers SF Bay Area. If you’d like to visit our Urban Sketchers blog, you’ll get to  meet my fellow Bay Area sketchers and see the different ways we interpret scenes in our sketchbooks, often from the same viewpoint.

The sketch above was done while sitting on the steps of the Pier One across from Peet’s in El Cerrito. It was the first sunny day in ages and it felt so good to enjoy a latte and some sketching in the sun. Albany Hill sticks up right behind Peet’s. It’s an odd bit of geography that resembles a very tall cupcake (sprinkled with trees instead of jimmies) in an otherwise flat landscape.

Albany Hill’s “Dynamite” History

In the late 19th century, the Judson Powder Works used the hill for the manufacture of dynamite. The company was forced to move from San Francisco and then Berkeley because of continuing accidental explosions. They planted the eucalyptus trees on the hill to catch debris and muffle the sound of their explosions. The stop on the transcontinental railroad tracks just to the west was called Nobel Station, after the inventor of dynamite.

Continue reading “Cool News (Urban Sketchers) and Albany Hill Sketch”
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Art theory Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Photos Places Plein Air Pt. Richmond Sketchbook Pages

Lifting Fog: Painting at Miller/Knox Park

Lifting Fog, oil on canvas panel, 8x10" (plein air painting finished in studio)
Lifting Fog, oil on canvas panel, 8×10″ (Sold) 

When I arrived at Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline the sky was gray and cloudy but even in the fog the park had so many great views: a salt water lagoon, Mt. Tamalpais across the bay, a fishing pier, an abandoned ferry landing, beautiful trees, and across the road, a railroad museum and a squat yellow building that houses a motorcycle club.

Miller Knox thumbnail
Miller Knox thumbnail

I finally picked a spot and got started with the above thumbnail sketch. I set my ViewCatcher to 8×10 and looked through its “window” to choose the composition. Then I put the ViewCatcher on my sketchbook and traced around the inside of the window to outline a box in my journal of the same proportion. By the time I was ready to add watercolor to the thumbnail sketch most of the fog had lifted except over the hills, and the sun was shining.

After 2-hour plein air session, oil on panel
After 2-hour plein air session, oil on panel

Above is how the painting looked when I brought it home. The composition needed work: the picture is evenly divided in half with 2 trees on left, 2 trees on right and an empty center. The lagoon and bay should have been different colors. Too bad I’d ignored my thumbnail once I started painting because it had a much better composition.

I tried to continue the painting from a photo but the photo didn’t match my memory of the colors and light, even after Photoshopping it (below). But it did at least offer some clues for fixing the composition, like adding the sailboats (duh!).

Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline photo
Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline photo

Maybe I should add in the little “No Swimming” sign (only putting it on the left side as I did in my thumbnail). What do you think?

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Art supplies Berkeley Book review Building Drawing Ink and watercolor wash People Places Shop windows Sketchbook Pages

Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore: Mockingjay District 12 Window Display

District 12 at Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore, Ink & watercolor
District 12 at Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore, Ink & watercolor

Since I’d read, and surprisingly enjoyed, The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins’ first book in her dystopian futuristic trilogy, I understood why this display was in the Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore window: it was advertising the third book in the series, Mockingjay.

The Hunger Games trilogy is about a boy and a girl struggling to survive an annual contest where teenagers from 12 impoverished districts are forced to fight for their lives in the ultimate televised reality show, with the winner bringing honor to her district. When a reliable friend recommended this young adult novel, I was highly skeptical on so many levels. But I found it to be a good read (or listen really–I borrowed the book on CD from the library).

Goorin Hats, Berkeley
Goorin Hats, Berkeley

Before sketching Mrs. Dalloways, this little brown craft-paper sketchbook from the UC Davis college bookstore (a gift from my friend Pete Scully) was perfect for warm-up sketches with a brush pen. College Avenue is full of interesting, upscale little shops like this hat shop.

This previous sketch of Mrs. Dalloway’s is one of my favorites. It’s a wonderful bookstore with a special focus on books about gardens.

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Art supplies Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Places

Early Morning at Kaiser Garden, Oil Painting

Early Morning Garden, oil on canvas, 20x16"
Early Morning at Kaiser Garden, oil on canvas, 20x16"

I think I’ve finished this painting (but then I thought that several times before). The last time I thought I was finished, I looked back at the notes I’d written opposite my journal sketch about what interested me in the scene and my goals for the painting. I saw I’d missed a point or two and worked on it some more.

Now I’d really appreciate some honest feedback:

Do you think it’s finished or does it still need something, and if so, what do you suggest to improve it?

This was painted with Holbein Aqua Duo water-soluble oil paints. It’s such a joy to oil paint without odor, to thin paint to a wash without solvents, and to mix water instead of turpentine with the Duo linseed oil to make painting medium. The pigment quality, drying time and consistency is identical to regular oils.

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Building Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Painting Places

Tuesday Night Sketching at CHORI

CHIORI, sketchbook spread, Ink & watercolor
CHIORI, sketchbook spread, Ink & watercolor

Micaela suggested the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) building in North Oakland for our Tuesday night sketching and it was an interesting challenge. The 1923 building with 80,000 square feet of space was once a high school. Abandoned in the 1980s, it sat disintegrating for many years, with boarded up windows and peeling paint.

When Children’s Hospital took over the building they kept the original design and built within a high-tech facility for the study of biochemistry, hematology, molecular biology, genetics, and more. The laboratory is backed up by emergency power and critical systems such as freezers and incubators are monitored 24 hours a day.

We could hear the hum and buzz of those systems (along with the loud passing BART trains on the overhead rail across the street) while we sketched. It was so cold, foggy and drizzly damp that Sonia sat in her car to sketch and Micaela and I wore multiple layers of down and fleece. Will summer ever come to the Bay Area?

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Berkeley Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Painting Places Sketchbook Pages

Sketching Berkeley’s Northside

UC Berkeley Library at Sunset, ink & watercolor
U.C Berkeley Library at Sunset, ink & watercolor

The past two Tuesday nights we’ve taken advantage of the absence of U. C. Berkeley students to sketch in the area known as the Northside on Euclid between Hearst and Ridge Road. The first week I wandered onto campus a bit and sat on the balcony of the Asian Studies building with this great view of the library. I spent the entire evening there on this one sketch, having a blast with all the details as the sun was setting.

Northside Berkeley (Hearst & Ridge), Ink, watercolor, colored pencils
Northside Berkeley (Hearst & Ridge), Ink, watercolor, colored pencils

Since I was so late getting there last week after going home from work for dinner first, I went directly to the Northside this week. But I still only managed to get in these two sketches. I was intrigued by the window above on the left and the view of all the signs stacked behind each other looking straight down Euclid towards campus.

The highlight of the evening was hearing Cathy’s tales from the Urban Sketchers International Symposium last weekend in Portland and seeing her sketches, notes from the panels, and how inspired and excited she was by the event.

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Flower Art Landscape Painting Watercolor

Big Tulip Watercolor Painting

Big Tulip, Watercolor on paper, 30x22"
Big Tulip, Watercolor on paper, 30x22"

Big Tulip started with this journal sketch and photo which led to a craving to work big for a change. I jumped right in with a full sheet (22×30″) of watercolor paper, reminding myself that it’s not that different:  just use bigger brushes, bigger puddles of paint, and bigger movements.

Of course there’s more to it than that. In planning the painting I decided I’d be free and loose with the background, just go for it and see what happens rather than draw it in. It was fun, but there was a lot of background. I’d like to try the painting again, doing it a little differently.

I’d draw the background plantings with more specificity and I would also use different pigments. I’ve been experimenting with using cadmiums for the yellows, orange and red instead of my usual transparent colors in my palette.

The cadmiums are perfect for journal painting when I want to try to get a rich color down in one layer. They’re stable and easy to work with so they will remain in my travel palette.

But when trying to work with juicy wet-into-wet washes, the cadmiums just sit there and don’t move, like stodgy, Wednesday night meatloaf. For painting close-up flowers I like the excitement and challenge of colors that charge into each other and zip around. It’s fun to paint a petal with lots of water and then drop in rich, bright colors, let them mingle, and try to get them to go where you want by tilting the painting.

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Berkeley Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Life in general Painting Places Plein Air Sketchbook Pages

Berkeley’s Clark Kerr Campus (aka School for the Deaf)

Clark Kerr Campus Building 14, ink & watercolor
Clark Kerr Campus Building 14, ink & watercolor

Tuesday night we sketched at UC Berkeley’s Clark Kerr Campus. Built in the 1930’s as a residential school for the deaf, it now serves as home to hundreds of university students and 200 low-income seniors in a peaceful setting of mission style architecture, courtyards and sunny lawns, located just behind rowdy Fraternity Row.

Clark Kerr at Sunset, ink & watercolor
Clark Kerr at Sunset, ink & watercolor

With the students gone for the summer and few of the elderly out and about, we had the place to ourselves. We met at Derby and Claremont and tried to stay in the light, moving west to follow the sun as it set. I enjoyed painting on site, trying to capture the light instead of making many drawings and adding color later as my sketching pals like to do.

Read this brief, wonderfully scandalous “get-even” tale by one of the facility’s elder low-income residents about her earlier life as a mistress to a rich, powerful man who was a member of the Bohemian Club (as was Bush). What a story and how bizarre to find it while Googling for info about the campus.

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Art supplies Bay Area Parks Landscape Marin County Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Places

Marin Headlands: Water-Soluble Oil Painting Experiment

Marin Headlands oil painting, 5x7" on Gessobord
Marin Headlands oil painting, 5x7" on Gessobord

I got inspired to try water-soluble (aka water-miscible) so researched which brand had artist quality paints made with real, archival pigments that performed most like regular oils. From my reading, Holbein Duo Aqua Oils was the answer.

I bought 3 colors (Cad Yellow, Napthol Red, and Ultramarine Blue) and white and gave them a go with this happy little painting above from a photo and watercolor sketch. I really, REALLY enjoyed working with them.

Indeed they worked exactly like oils, but with no solvents, no odor, and brushes clean up with water! To thin the paint you can use a little water or Duo Linseed Oil. The consistency was nearly perfect but I used a tiny bit of water because I like my paint smooth. Next time I’ll try the oil.

After working with the Golden Open Acrylics for several months I became frustrated with the way they dry darker and how sometimes the paint gets tacky or dry in minutes (outdoors) and other times stays sticky for days.

When I paint, I like trying to match the colors and values I see, so I’m disappointed when I paint with Open Acrylics and the painting dries to look completely different. Supposedly they only shift 10% but I just don’t seem to be able to guess right when mixing (and don’t want to have to guess!)

With the Duo oils I loved being able to mix colors and have them not change, and to not worry about the paint getting sticky during a painting session. I spent about 2 hours on the painting above last night and  it’s still wet today. And, because I could clean the brushes with a swish of water while I worked, I only used a few. Clean up was quick and easy, with a little Masters Brush Cleaner for the brushes and a spritz of water and a paper towel across the palette.

Holbein Duo paints are more expensive than the other water-soluble brands because of their higher pigment load and use of more expensive pigments. Their prices are about the same as regular artist-quality oil paint. From my research and my first experiment with them, they’re worth it. I’ve ordered a few more colors and look forward to trying them out for plein air painting too, where I think they should be ideal.

P.S. I know you can use regular oils without any solvents, and that you can clean up regular oils using walnut oil followed by soap and water. But it means painting with thick paint and spending even more time in the clean up process.