Category: Landscape

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Oil Painting Painting Photos Plein Air Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Firehoses on 5th Ave (Oakland)

20080428_Firehose-wc

Ink & watercolor (Larger)

Saturday I painted wtih the East Bay Plein Air Painters at the foot of 5th Avenue in Oakland. It’s an amazing little enclave of funky art studios, rusty old boats in a beat-up marina, and industrial buildings not far from Jack London Square.

I arrived very late, being unable to push myself this weekend to move quickly or arise early. I did this one little watercolor sketch sitting in the hot sun and took a lot of photos. I was fascinated by the many varieties of fire extinguisher equipment on all the old waterfront shacks (I’m easily amused, I suppose) and painted the oil below from one of the photos I took on Saturday, working from the image displayed on my computer screen.

20080428_0559-Firehose-oil

Oil on panel, 8×6″ (Larger)

Here’s a photo from the 5th Avenue Marina, or, as it says in the photo, the “Oakland Riviera”:

Click image to enlarge and see the soldiers on the missile. I’ll be posting more of my photos and paintings from 5th Avenue soon.

Categories
Art theory Landscape Life in general Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air

Am I Having Fun Yet? Uh, no.

Borgas Ranch

Oil on panel, 9×12″ (reworked from original plein air) (larger)

Saturday was the first plein air paint-out of the season for the East Bay Plein Air Painters. We went to Old Borges Ranch, a charming historical old ranch with a blacksmith shop, old barns, farm animals, all surrounded by the brilliant green hills of springtime. It was very cloudy and I decided that what I wanted to focus on was trying to observe and paint the effect of the cloudy, cool, diffused light.

After wandering around trying to pick a spot, by the time I was ready to start painting I only had two hours left before our group critique. This is the same painting as above after two hours:

Borgas Ranch - @ 2 hours

Oil on panel, 9×12″ (original plein air) (larger)

I probably should have left it alone and moved on. But I was frustrated with the way I seem to always be painting hills (I’m sick of painting hills!) and they always look flat. So after the critique, I went back and started working on the painting again, determined to figure out how to make the hills not look flat. I stood there painting for 2 more hours and although I made some discoveries about paint application and brush strokes, I hadn’t improved the painting at all (just the opposite).

What I’d planned to do after the paint-out at 1:00, was to take a walk on the beautiful trails and do some sketching of the interesting sights but it was too late when I finally gave up on the painting at 4:00 because I had a long drive home and had to get ready for a dinner party that evening.

Today, even though I tried to ignore it, the painting and my frustration about it continued to bug me. I finally decided to work on it some more until I either got it or killed it. I guess I did a little of both.

The truth is that today oil painting isn’t feeling like fun. I’m missing the watercolor sketchbooking and drawing for fun I did all the time before I took up oils. I’m jealous of all the people I see while I’m plein air painting who are taking a hike in pretty places instead of torturing themselves trying to paint them. I’m missing filling up my sketchbook with fun, wonky drawings and loose watercolors. I’m longing for working from still life set ups or photos where the light doesn’t change and where it’s not always a rush against time.

I also know that I’m persistent if nothing else, and that I’m not giving up the struggle. But it’s time to have more fun with my art. After all, I’m doing this for my own creative pleasure, and as much as I love learning, sometime a woman just needs to play, too.

Categories
Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Photos Plein Air

Alpine Lake, Mt. Tam: Beautiful place, Ugh!ly paintings

Alpine Lake, Mount Tamalpais

It couldn’t have been a more perfect day, weather-wise, or a more beautiful site. Maybe it was the beauty and grandeur of the location that made it so hard to get a decent painting. Four of us met this morning on Mt. Tamalpais to paint and stayed until 6:00 p.m But despite the perfect conditions, nobody had a good painting day. Peggy threatened to throw her easel in the lake and take up singing instead of painting.

I’m posting the bad paintings because a reader asked me to show the ones I call “scrapers” before I trash them or scrape the paint off to reuse the panel. On my easel above, was the first layer–the blocking in–of painting #1, in which I “pushed” (exaggerated) the intensity of the colors I was seeing, knowing it’s easier to tone them down than brighten them in oil painting.

I liked the initial bright colors but wasn’t successful in taking it to the next stage, as you’ll see from the picture below. This was where I left off when I gave up after the sun moved and the light and shadows changed and I was just making a mess.

Alpine Lake, Mount Tamalpais 1

And this one (below) was even worse! The drawing is wrong and the silly, carrot colored-rabbit foot shaped hills on the left kept growing without my noticing and I lost all my darks. The third painting was so terrible I scraped it off on site.

Alpine Lake, Mount Tamalpais 2

Although I feel like I’ve taken a couple of steps backwards today, I will just assume that means that I’m going to have a big leap forwards soon. My paintings were complete rubbish but I was happy just being there. I found pleasure in small things: mixing a good color, the fresh paint thinner in my brush washer can, excellent company and no bugs, rain or wind so it was safe to use my umbrella without worrying about the wind pulling it (and my easel) over.

My only regret was not taking a hike like all the other people strolling by us. I felt envious of them when I heard them talking about the nearby waterfall and the wonderful trails.

I’m going to start taking a lunch time hike when I paint in beautiful locations. I think it will be good for my painting, my mind, and my butt, which wouldn’t fit into my painting jeans this morning! Must have been all the medicinal chocolate I ate the past few weeks to calm my stress at the day job.

Categories
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.

Categories
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
Art theory Oil Painting Painting Plein Air Still Life

Citrus and Camelia Plein Air

Citrus & Camelia Plein Air

Oil on panel, 9×12″ (Larger)

You really have to work fast to do a still life outdoors in the afternoon. In less than two hours the sun moved overhead far enough that I had to stop because everything was in shadow. I’d gotten all the objects and their shadows well blocked in and probably should have stopped there, calling it a sketch or a study. But of course I couldn’t.

I had to bring it into the studio to “just touch up the edges.” Then I was going to do another quick painting. But I spaced out and before I knew it, overworked areas that I’d originally painted very freely, made more problematic since I’d forgetten exactly what the pattern of light and shadow was on the objects.

Someday I’ll learn to stop while it’s fresh. Nevertheless, I think I did capture the feeling of a bright sunny afternoon, which was my main goal.

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!