Category: Life in general

Categories
Life in general Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape People

Lake, Little Girl & What Makes You Happy?

Little Girl at Lake Temescal (Revised)
Little Girl at Lake Temescal (Revised)

Updated: I worked on the painting and tried to make the little girl sunnier (ABOVE). When I compared the finished painting to the original photo I discovered that the girl and the ducks were way too big compared to the actual scene. Oh well.

The original is BELOW:

Little Girl at Lake Anza, Oil on Gessobord, 8x8"
(Original) Little Girl at Lake Temescal, Oil on Gessobord, 8x8" from photo

When I woke up this morning I was feeling grumpy because it was my last day of vacation and I’d hoped to accomplish more in the studio than I had. I tried to think of an antidote to grumpiness so I didn’t ruin my day. I decided to write down everything that makes me happy and was surprised that it took three pages in my  journal. When I finished writing I was feeling much more cheery.

I’d be interested to hear what makes you happy.

About the painting: I took the photo when I was painting at Lake Temescal in Oakland last month and cropped it to experiment with a square format. I pretended like the image on my monitor was a plein air scene and tried to paint as if I was outdoors. I must admit I didn’t really fool myself, and knew the light wouldn’t change and the little girl wouldn’t move.

What makes me happy: (in the order it occurred to me this morning):

A nice walk, fun in the studio, a good meal, a beautiful rainy day being cozy indoors, an enjoyable movie, a snuggly cat or dog, comfortable clothes, good art supplies, loving friends and family, a good book, a day to myself, learning something new, a new art magazine in the mail, days off work, a hot bath or shower, unscheduled time, bursts of creativity, being pain free, comfortable shoes.

A warm beach, windows into other peoples’ lives, my guardian angel (don’t ask), great art, beautiful art books, libraries, book stores, art supply stores, wearing colorful bandanas, finding the right shade of lipstick, looking and feeling cute, tall men with strong arms, drawing people, drawing anything, the flow of watercolor on paper, a successful painting.

A clean house, a toasty warm bed on a cold night, doing dishes, scooping the litter box (I know, I’m nuts), a speedy computer, learning to see colors accurately, my framed art hanging on the wall, a good workout, a small garden, smooth stones, shells from the ocean, the scent of the sea, eating fresh oysters.

Remembering my Grandma, seeing my sons happy and healthy, a hug from my sister, a good laugh, a hike and catch up chat with a friend, organizing things, an air conditioner on a hot night, a refreshing drink when I’m thirsty, a latte made with love (and Peets coffee), a smooth road without potholes, competence, a good teacher.

Good news for a change, financial security (someday), walking instead of driving, people who work for common good, generosity, kindness, puppies, kittens, rain, having someone say “God bless you.” My GPS (not getting lost anymore), my spunky little Toyota RAV4, my Soltek easel and plein air cart, my fuzzy slippers and ratty sweatshirt, my closet for storing canvas, my washer and dryer, owning my own little house.

My neighbors, the internet, my iPhone, good healthcare, a nice cup of tea, writing and/or sketching daily in my journal, a fridge full of fresh healthy food, silly kitties, a massage and sauna, my special black-handled cereal spoon (was my mothers from her 1950s kitchen).

What makes you happy?

Categories
Art supplies Art theory Life in general Oil Painting Painting Still Life

Procrastination & Painting Pomegranates

Pomegranate and seeds, oil on Gessobord, 9x12
Pomegranate and seeds, oil painting on Gessobord, 9x12"

I never thought I was a procrastinator but after a week’s vacation meant to be spent painting but rarely getting into the studio until early afternoon at best, I began to look at how I’ve spent my time this week and had trouble figuring out where it had gone.

Then l saw this incredibly creative and well-made four-minute movie on YouTube entitled “Procrastination.” I could see myself in every single scene (except maybe smoking).  If you’ve ever procrastinated getting started on a creative project out of fear of failure, perfectionism, artist’s or writer’s block or any other reason, this video and will make you laugh (or cry).

About the painting:

I discovered Gessobord this week and fell in love with the wonderful surface of these panels. They’re smooth but have a texture that sort of bites into the paint and grabs it, as well as enhancing the colors of the paint. It’s really amazing and is a total pleasure to paint on with oil paints. I wish they were less expensive, but they’re still cheaper than pre-stretched canvas, especially when purchased on sale online.

Instead of trying to do a one or two hour painting and finishing this still life in one chunk, I had to do this one in several short sessions over a period of a few days (because of procrastination and various holiday events and other responsibilities).

I paused and studied the painting, and saw that I needed to improve the composition and values:

Stopping point before analyzing and improving value contrasts
Stopping point to analyze problems

I looked at the painting and the set-up through a piece of red plastic (which elimates the color, emphasizing values) and could see that I needed to darken the background and the inside of the fruit on the left side. I also added the seeds and stains on the cutting board to avoid so much empty space and lead the eye into the painting.

The pomegrantate (already less than fresh when I started) got less attractive and eventually I had to stop and call the painting finished.  I think it will serve as a good stepping stone to the next as I try to put more “miles” on my brushes. And now to stop procrastinating and focus on starting that next painting!

Ooops…when I posted what I thought was the “finished” painting (at bottom) a few minutes ago and then posted this photo of the set-up from day one, I could see that the color of the pom needed to be warmer and the background cooler so I just applied a dark cool glaze to the background and a warm red glaze on some of the pom and posted the finished picture at the top of the post. Now I’m done (I think).

20081130_2566-pomegranate-photo
Photo of set-up on day one
Pomegranate and seeds, oil on Gessobord, 9x12
Thought I was finished but more work needed
Categories
Drawing Life in general People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Life Without Coffee

Life Without Coffee, ink & watercolor in sketchbook
Life Without Coffee, ink & watercolor in sketchbook

This is what I look like far too often these days as I’ve gradually been reducing my caffeine intake. I’m down to one cup of 25% caf & 75% decaf in the morning and then nothing but decaf after that.

My painting ritual had been to make a cup of coffee before heading into the studio and bringing an entire vacuum pot of the stuff when I went out plein air painting. The extra energy from caffeine not only kept me painting when I should have been sleeping, but it also fueled my late night blog visiting and email answering.

It was fun having that artificial boost, but burning the candle at both ends was doing bad things to my health. While I miss the energy, I am sleeping at night now and waking up feeling alive and ready to go instead of feeling like my head is full of mashed potatoes.

It reminds me of something Maya Angelou said her grandmother told her:

“You don’t always get what you pay for, but you always pay for what you get.”

Yes I was squeezing extra hours out of the day but I was paying for them with being constantly sleep-deprived.

I asked a friend who doesn’t use caffeine what you’re supposed to do when you’re tired if you can’t drink coffee, thinking she’d have some other trick for keeping going. She looked at me perplexed at what seemed like a silly question.

“You rest!” she said. What a novel concept!

Categories
Life in general Oil Painting Painting Still Life

Toilet Paper Roll in Lovely Light

Toilet Roll in oils, 6x8"
Toilet Roll In Lovely Light, oil on board, 6x8"

You know how in movies when someone has a black eye they always say they got it from walking into a door? I could never figure out how that could happen until I did it myself last week during the night and then forgot about it when I woke up.

Yesterday I was trying figure out what a sore red bump on my forehead was—a sort of vertical red line. I thought of all kinds of scary possibilities, going from pimple to blood poisoning to brain tumor. Finally, this morning I remembered that when I was sick last week I was hurrying to the bathroom in the dark and walked right into the open door.

What I hit my forehead on was the narrow side of the door, not the front or back of the door. I’d always pictured people walking into a closed door and it seems like that would make it difficult to bump your face on, since your feet would hit first. But the side of the door was easy; my feet were on either side of it. Fortunately I don’t have a black eye, just a red stripe up my forehead.

About the painting:

With all the nose blowing and drinking vast quantities of fluids while I was sick, this was a sight I saw frequently over the past week.

My bathroom has a large glass block window that shines the most lovely morning light on the less lovely items in the small bathroom. Since it’s such a small room it would be hard to get an easel in there so I took a few photos and worked from them.

Categories
Life in general Photos

Now Hope Can Grow

From a dead stump new growth sprouts
From a dead stump new growth sprouts

Taking a walk, I saw these plants sprouting up from a sawed-off, dead tree.  What a perfect analogy, I thought, for the joyous results of yesterday’s election of President Obama. Maybe there is hope for this country after all.

I’m not too sure about my fine state of California however.

I’m pleased that we approved Proposition 2, to provide civil rights to some farm animals (poultry and veal calves must be provided enough room for them to stand, turn around or spread their wings—and what a disgrace that this must be legislated!).

But I’m dismayed that the state approved Proposition 8, to take away the civil rights of some people by outlawing same-sex marriage. I am so sad for friends whose weddings I’ve attended that now stand to be annulled by the state. They cherish each other and have built long lives together and are models for how to make a loving relationship work.

Categories
Life in general People Sketchbook Pages

“The Onion” Writers as Seen on TV

Joe Randazzo, Ink in sketchbook, 8x6"
Joe Randazzo, Editor In Chief, The Onion. Ink in sketchbook, 8x6"

I’ve been sick with a doozy of a cold/flu all week and spent much of the time randomly channel surfing. When I saw the head writers from the satiric “Onion News Network” being interviewed by Charlie Rose I was struck by how each of them had such distinct and interesting characteristics that would be fun to draw.

Will Graham, Ink in sketchbook, 8x6"
Will Graham, Writer, The Onion. Ink in sketchbook, 8x6"

I set my TiVo to record so that I could draw them when I felt better. Finally tonight I felt well enough to sketch for a few minutes and replayed the show, setting it to pause when I found a pose I liked.

Carol Kolb, Ink in sketchbook, 8x6"
Carol Kolb, Writer, The Onion. Ink in sketchbook, 8x6"

Although initially I thought they all had such long faces, I have a feeling that the show might be recorded in a different format than my standard TV displays. They couldn’t all have such tall heads, could they?

Charlie Rose, Ink in sketchbook, 8x6"
Charlie Rose, Ink in sketchbook, 8x6

I’ve posted these in the order that I drew them. I was feeling pretty rusty with the first drawing at the top, after not holding a pen or brush all week. But I challenged myself to just start drawing with ink and let the sketches go where they would.

After a horrible week feeling really awful, it was such a pleasure to have a lull in the coughing and sneezing and enough mental bandwith to actually focus and draw.

Categories
Life in general Oil Painting Painting Still Life

Green Fig (Minus One Bite), Rock Tours, Guardian Angels

Green Fig, Oil on panel, 8x6"
Green Fig, Oil on panel, 8x6

I took one bite out of my last green fig and was treated to an explosion of taste and color so brilliant I had to paint it. I gave myself the length of a Tom Waits live concert podcast to paint it. I finished before the concert did. It’s still playing and is fantastic! It’s one of many of NPR’s “All Songs Considered Live Concerts” that can be listened to directly on their website or downloaded from iTunes.

The back up musicians are incredible (love that sax and drums) and there isn’t a boring or annoying song in the whole 2 hour performance. Of course Tom Waits is not for everyone. He trained his voice when he was young to make it sound like a gravelly-voiced old man and it stuck that way. His songwriting is eerie and strange and some might be offended by his more irreverent themes. “Glitter and Doom” is the name of his 2008 tour and it fits the music perfectly.

2007: The Oil Slick Tour

I’ve always been jealous of how musicians get to name their tours, like Madonna’s “Sticky and Sweet Tour,” (yuck, gross) Elton John’s “Red Piano Tour, ” U-2’s “Vertigo Tour.” I love the idea that for a period of time you name your “tour.” I think I’m going to start having tours instead of years. I could call 2007 the “Oil Slick” tour, as I’ve worked hard this year to learn how to paint in oils, with lots of slipping and sliding along the way.

Now it’s time to plan my tour through 2008, and gather my roadies and back-up singers. Hmmm, what shall I call the tour? I’m thinking maybe the “Anchored Angels Tour” based on some helpful advice from two friends about completely unrelated issues:

Setting Anchor

I’ve been trying to get to bed earlier but my caffeine habit makes it hard to do that. So my friend Ree told me that she never drinks coffee after a certain time in the afternoon. She thinks of that time of day as setting an anchor, putting in to harbor for the day. Then she’s able to get to bed at reasonable time and wake up rested instead of being kept awake by the caffeine into the wee hours and waking up in need of another jolt of java.

Guardian Angels

Another friend said “Don’t fly faster than your Guardian Angel.” I loved that saying since I’m often doing a dozen things at once, trying to get more than is possible done, and can barely keep up with myself.

If I were rich I’d have a full time personal assistant/personal trainer/life coach/personal chef. But since I’m not rich, I have to do all those things for myself, and sometimes I can be quite incorrigible. So maybe if I adoped a Guardian Angel (and not just the wind-up Parking Karma Angel on my dashboard) she could tag along and fill in for that personal trainer/coach/etc. All available Guardian Angels, please apply within.

Categories
Drawing Life in general People Sketchbook Pages

Coffee With White Socks and Sales Lessons

Coffee & White Socks, 8x6", graphite
Coffee & White Socks, 8x6", pencil sketch in sketchbook

Trying to recover from a caffeine hangover headache this morning, and completely out of coffee at home, I walked (slowly) to Peet’s for a latte and a bag of beans to replenish my supply. While I was sipping and sketching this lady, two clerks from the nearby Trader Joes sat at the table next to me and held a training session that provided an interesting behind-the-scenes look at the grocery business for the always curious (and eavesdropping) me.

They took turns reading aloud from a document contained in a bright blue cardboard folder. I learned that the average checker completes about 200 sales per day and that that number is used to compare the productivity of workers. I learned about when and why they have to declare goods unsellable and that they then donate them to food banks, including flowers.

They pondered that one for a while, trying to figure out who would actually want unsellable flowers and what they would do with them. They concluded that food banks probably don’t need flowers so they must go elsewhere. But I was thinking the flowers would be nice to brighten the homes of the needy people getting the food.

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

Confessions of a Dangerous Driver

Morning light, Petaluma, oil on panel, 12x9"
Morning light study, Petaluma, oil on panel, 12x9
Afternoon light color study, Petaluma, oil on panel, 12x9"
Afternoon light study, Petaluma, oil on panel, 12x9

I ran a red light right in front of a police car on my way to painting class on Monday. If that wasn’t bad enough, I didn’t even realize I’d done it.

I even thought to myself as I drove past the police car that was waiting for the light to change, how nice it is that police don’t look at women like me suspiciously the way they might at young men in loud cars.

Seconds later I heard the siren, saw the flashing red lights, and pulled over. The cute, young officer was shaking his head,  it was so ridiculous. He couldn’t believe what I’d done and, trying to make sense of it, asked if I was distracted, was looking at a light further ahead, etc.

I never even saw the other car he told me had had to slam on the brakes to avoid me, and who then looked at the cop as both of them shrugged and shook their heads in amazement for a moment.

I eventually figured out what happened. Because I was distracted,  the traffic signal had registered in my mind as a stop sign. So I stopped politely, feeling immune to police scrutiny, and then drove on, leaving the officer sitting behind me at the light.

Thank goodness there was no damage or injuries (other than to my pride and pocketbook—it’s going to be an expensive ticket). It was a good lesson about driving distracted.  I’d been thinking about how late I was AND (hate to admit it) I was on the phone leaving a message for someone (although using the required headset).

About the paintings

Camille offered an extra afternoon session Monday so that we could do both a morning study as usual, and a late afternoon study of approximately the same scene to capture the difference in light. I simplified the buildings, trees and landscape to abstract shapes or puzzle pieces, so that I could focus on the colors and light effects.

In the morning the foreground and midground was mostly in shadow while the distance was in open sun and the sky appeared a weak yellowish to slightly pink color.  In the afternoon everything was front lit with a very warm light.

It was a long day and after Camille made some adjustments to my afternoon study and gave suggestions for doing more,  I realized I was too tired to paint any longer. I lay down on the grass in the park and spent the last half hour of class sketching a palm tree on my back (I mean I was on my back in the grass; it’s hard enough drawing palm trees, let alone sketching one on my own back!).

It had been too long since I laid in the grass on a summer day in the shade of a tree looking up at the sky. I need to do more of that and less rushing around distracted!

Categories
Gardening Life in general Oil Painting Painting Plants Still Life

Early Girl on Blue Velvet

Tomato on Purple Velvet, Oil on panel, 6x6"
Tomato on Blue Velvet, Oil on panel, 6x6"

Last year I planted Early Girl tomatoes and Best Boy tomatoes. They must have gotten together and had some fun over the winter because they’ve returned bearing fruit this summer all on their own.

I was ready to paint something other than that stupid scene at Sibley. Rummaging around in the kitchen a  tomato caught my eye and then when I reached into the stack of colored cloths I keep for still lifes (or is it still lives?) in an overhead cabinet, I came away with a blue-violet piece of velvet (actually it’s a small velvet bag).

It was fun working with such saturated vibrant colors but now I have to clean brushes and let go of painting for a few days while I return to my “day job.” Although I often feel grumpy at having to make that switch, today I’m feeling very grateful for a good job and my comfy home and studio, given all the terrible news of financial ruin and weather-caused devastation I’ve heard today. I haven’t been watching any TV for the past month, which has been great, but today I took a look at the news while I ate dinner and was so sad to see all the suffering.