Category: Other Art Blogs I Read

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Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Painting People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

How NOT to Start a Workshop

Coffee spill

Ink & watercolor in Aquabee sketchbook (larger)

I’m taking a figure painting workshop this weekend from Randy Sexton in Crockett, CA. It’s two full days of painting a beautiful model both nude and clothed in exotic gowns. Although I was excited about the workshop, I was also exhausted and stressed after a very difficult week at work, topped off by spending Friday evening doing my taxes (ick!).

Early this morning I packed my oil painting gear into my rolling cart, stuck a big thermos cup of coffee in my backpack, and rushed off to Crockett. As I got out of my car I felt my back suddenly go into spasm. Across the street another workshop participant was unloading her supplies. As I waited for her I tried to stretch my back by doing a sort of Downward Dog yoga pose holding onto the handle of my cart.

I felt a searing hot pain go down my back. At first I thought it was another spasm and then realized it was hot coffee pouring all over my backpack, down the back of my light green shirt, and dripping onto my shoes. I’d forgotten the cup was in my backpack and worse, had forgotten to close it all the way.

I managed to enjoy the class today despite all of the above. We did multiple 20 minute paintings and then a couple 40 minute poses. It’s quite a challenge to do an entire oil painting in 20 (or 40) minutes from a model, but extremely good practice. Most of my pieces today were “scrapers” (scraping off all the paint to reuse the panel) but maybe tomorrow with longer poses I’ll have something worth saving (and posting).

Now to go take a painkiller and rest up for tomorrow’s class — which will start even earlier thanks to stupid daylight savings time!

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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!

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Art theory Oil Painting Other Art Blogs I Read Painting Photos Plein Air

Learning to See Color

Color study with blocks and food

Oil on panel, 9×12″ (Larger)

On Monday mornings I’m taking a painting class from Camille Przewodek in Petaluma. I first read about her on Ed Terpening’s blog and when I saw her absolutely stunning work I was thrilled to be able to study with her.

As I understand it, the focus of her class is learning to develop one’s ability to see light, atmosphere, and their effects on the subject one is painting and to develop the ability to interpret that in paint. Camille bases her teaching on Henry Hensche‘s, with whom she studied and then spent many years further expanding upon his work. Hensche was a student of Charles Hawthorne who was a student of William Merrit Chase, an American Impressionist who developed his color theories via his study of Monet‘s groundbreaking work.

Camille’s paintings are simply stunning. A slide show of her paintings brought tears to my eyes with their beauty…something that has only happened to me once before when I saw Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party in person.

Newcomers to the class begin by doing plein air still life color studies of colored blocks. Using blocks simplifies the subject matter in order to focus on using changes in color hue and temperature to create the illusion of form and depth. There’s an explanation of this process in the book, Painting the Impressionist Landscape: Lessons in Interpreting Light and Color by Lois Griffel, who took over Hensche’s art school after he died.

Color Study plein air with blocks

Oil on panel, 9×12″ (larger)

Above is the first block study I did in class while everyone else was painting beautiful marshland. The process for doing the studies is to block in the masses with a palette knife, leaving white space between color areas, breaking each shape into two values: shade and light. You start with one color and move to the next, focusing on the relationship between each color and the next.

Elio Camacho, my other wonderful painting teacher, also strongly emphasizes the importance of the relationship between contiguous colors. They both explain that there’s no such thing as a “muddy” color—that the appearance of muddiness results from the relationship not being right between a color and it’s neighbor.

Color Study, cloth lightened

Oil on panel, 9×12″ (Larger)

The one above was done at home under a bright light, trying to simulate sunlight on a dark and rainy day. When I brought the original version of this painting to class for critique, Camille pointed out that blue cloth was too dark because in the bright light it shouldn’t be darker than the shadow on the white block so I worked on it some more, lightening the cloth. If you want to see how it looked before, and the steps in getting there, including the photo of the blocks, just click “continue reading” below.

Continue reading “Learning to See Color”
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Animals Drawing Faces Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Painting People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Noses (catching a cold)


Pencil and watercolor, 8×6 (larger)

Pooh! I’m catching a cold. Here’s a sketch of my nose which is getting a lot of attention right now. I set up my mirror on my drawing table and Fiona hopped up to bask in the warmth under my lamp so I got to draw both of our noses.

Inspired by Laureline‘s recent experiments, I dragged out my ancient, very first watercolor kit of Schmicke watercolors. She’s right — they are more brilliant than any others. Also inspired Laura I tried using a Mars Lumograph 8B pencil I found in my pencil box to draw instead of my usual pen. It was really silky and fun to draw with and nearly as unerasable as a pen.
I wanted to do a painting about a neat flying dream I had the night before but I need to feel better to get into the spirit of that dream. I’m feeling too limp and funky to paint flying and soaring. Noses are about it for today.

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Animals Art theory Drawing Glass Other Art Blogs I Read Painting People Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Debate Doodles & New Sketchbook

January Sketchbook Cover

White ink on black paper, 8×6″ (Larger…but why?)

(above) I was so inspired by seeing Nina Johansson‘s easy-to-make 16-page sketchbook so I made one for myself. Above is the cover drawing, inspired by a dream that I was losing my hair. That was the same dream about dating Jack Nicholson; I realized it wouldn’t work out because he probably wouldn’t be interested in dating a woman with thinning hair (let alone one over 20!).

To make the sketchbook I used one sheet of 140 pound hot-pressed paper cut into 4 strips and then folded (see Nina’s page for how it’s made; it’s very cool!) . I’m going to try 90 pound paper next time since 140 pound is pretty stiff. I punched a hole an inch from the bottom and another an inch from the top and tied the bundle together with twine.

Debate Doodles

Ink and watercolor on Fabriano Artistico hot press paper, 8×6″ (Larger)

(above) This was drawn (doodled) while watching the Republican debate last night (which I found depressing; they all seemed to be competing to show they were less caring about humanity and more militaristic than the next).

Honeydew in bowl

Ink and watercolor, on Fabriano Artistico hot press paper 8×6″(Larger)

(above) Having spent the past two days preparing a spare computer and printer to give to my neighbors, installing it at their house, setting up their internet (using the signal coming from my wireless network), going with them to Best Buy to buy a monitor and on and on, I was desperate to just have some fun in the studio. This was fun. Next I’ll do it in oils.

The art I like the most is quirky, odd, handmade rather than photographically perfect, whimsical, full of personality, nutty, imaginative. Yet I’ve always felt that I should make perfectly drawn and painted work and fought against my natural inclination to make quirky, lopsided, imperfect, nutty, playful pictures. It dawned on me this week that I don’t need to do that anymore and can be as Jana as I want (and am)! Yipppeee!

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Art theory Dreams Faces Oil Painting Other Art Blogs I Read Painting People Photos Portrait Studio

Dreamt about Jack Nicholson so I painted him

Oil on canvas panel, 12×9″ (Larger)

I had a fun dream that I was on a date with Jack Nicholson so the next day I decided to paint his portrait. (I wouldn’t really want to date him–I think he’s scary but fascinating.) I downloaded some photos from the web, picked this one and set it up on my computer monitor.

In Photoshop I cropped the photo to 12″x9″ to make it the same proportions as my canvas and then set Photoshop’s grid to divided the image into thirds. Then with charcoal I drew the same grid on my canvas panel (dividing it into 9 rectangles). That made it easier to correctly sketch in the shapes that make up the face.

Here’s the set up with the painting nearly done. It so great to be able to work from the monitor instead of a printed photo though it still can’t compare to working from life:
Jack Nicholson portrait in progress
(Larger) (Alison and Pete your artwork is visible on my bulletin board, along with some other inspiring artists’ work)

When I thought I was done, I looked at both images in a mirror and saw a bunch of problems that needed fixing. I flipped the photo 180 degrees in Photoshop and turned the painting upside down too. That made it easier to spot and corrent problems as shapes instead of facial features which is harder. I wasn’t going for a perfect finished portrait, but rather was trying to have fun and continue practicing with oils.

While I was working was listening to a historical novel about Pierre-Auguste Renoir and the making of his famous painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party (my favorite impressionist painting of all time–it made me cry when I saw it in person). I’m enjoying Susan Vreeland’s book of the same name, but I can’t imagine a non-artist enjoying it as much, since it goes into great detail about colors, composition, art theory, and the struggles and joys of painting from life.

Here are a couple of great quotes by Renoir that I really loved:

“I always paint from life and never paint anything I don’t enjoy.”

“I make it a rule never to paint except out of pleasure.”

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Drawing Other Art Blogs I Read Outdoors/Landscape Sketchbook Pages Studio

Payless Shoes from Peets Coffee


Ink in Moleskine sketchbook (Larger)

After taking a huge load of stuff to Goodwill and the recycling center (that came from three days of reorganizing the studio, which led to cleaning out my closets, cabinets and the garage) my reward was a latte at Peets (and what feels like a fabulous new, spacious studio!).

Now that I’m nearly done with this organizing/rearranging project it was great to relax and just draw what I could see out the window while I sipped my coffee.

This is another sketch inspired by Pete Sculley’s drawings with incorporated overheard snippets of conversation. (overheard: “I know you can’t make any decisions.” “My parents are here and I can’t just send them home.”)

Next time I’ll post photos of my newly organized studio.

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Gouache Other Art Blogs I Read Sketchbook Pages

Waiting for the doctor

Ink in Moleskine sketchbook

Just a quick sketch while waiting in the doctor’s office (after studying all the charts of spines and wrists and skeletons). I was really enjoying drawing and hoping he’d be delayed but he wasn’t and then I had to return to the office. Nobody could focus this afternoon after an all-morning meeting and then a holiday gourmet pizza lunch complete with first visits from two co-workers who are out on maternity leave and their beautiful new babies.

We all took turns holding and rocking these little miracles while we played “Dirty Santa” (Everyone brings a gift, then we all draw numbers and pick gifts in order of our numbers. Each consecutive person can choose to “steal” the gift a previous person has opened until every gift has been opened and everyone has one.)

I brought as a gift Maira Kalman‘s wonderful new book of illustrations in gouache of her every day life and thoughts (always quirky and unique), The Principles of Uncertainty. I love Maira Kalman and highly recommend the book. Last year the hit of the party was my gift of her previous book, the The Elements of Style Illustrated (Strunk & White).

Not much work got done when the party ended at 3:00. Everyone was in a daze from the fun, pizza and desserts (including fudge–hadn’t seen any of that for years!).

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Cartoon art Drawing Dreams Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Painting People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Dream Journal: Film Crew Dinner & Sleepless Sleep Over with Laundry

Film crew dinner with Amazon Indians

Ink and watercolor in sketchbook (Larger)

I did these dream drawings right after I woke up, sitting in bed with a special SAD light (see previous post) propped up on my lap, shining on my face. My friend loaned me her spare light to see if it helped. I’m not sure if it was the lights, the sunny day, the hour at the gym and walk in the sun afterwards, but I’ve definitely been in a much better mood today than I’ve been in weeks.

Last night’s dreams were quite strange. The one illustrated above was about a dinner party with a film crew, including the director (at the head of the table) and two Amazonian Indian women who had just participated in a ritual that the crew filmed for a documentary.

One woman was displaying the scratches/lashes on her back she proudly received during the ritual. The other was mostly just displaying her boobs.

Maybe I’ve been watching too much of the TV show Bones on DVD about a forensic anthropologist? Or maybe it’s from listening to the National Public Radio series about the Ganges River (that I converted into the Amazon) and combined it with the interview on NPR’s Fresh Air with film director Jason Reitman and scriptwriter Diablo Cody.

Sleepless sleepover with pile of laundry

Ink and watercolor in sketchbook (Larger)

In this dream I invited Martha over for a little slumber party (huh?) and then remembered that I needed to vacuum because there was cat hair everywhere. I was still cleaning when she arrived so she hung out downstairs helping my mom plan some wonderful menus involving roasted pork. (I have no upstairs, my mom doesn’t live here, and she doesn’t cook, especially not pork.)

I still hadn’t finished vacuuming but realized there was laundry everywhere and so started piling it up on the spare bed to get it out of the way. Finally we said goodnight and Martha went right to sleep. I didn’t.

This dream happened right after Kate and I talked about meeting in person the next time she comes out to San Francisco (Kate turned into Martha in my dream). Having guests always seems to bring up those darn insecurities about not having a fancy home and other general unworthiness (that I can usually overcome with a little pep talk to myself).

In reality, my house is usually tidy, organized and there are no piles of laundry. There is the cat fur problem though, which I tend to ignore longer than I should…but I just warn people not to wear black to my house since it’s a cat-fur magnet.

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Berkeley Drawing Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Painting People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Eavesdropping without consonants

Peet's Coffee Drinkers

Purple ink and watercolor in small Moleskine watercolor notebook (Larger)

I love overhearing snippets of other people’s conversations and how they flavor my sketches in cafes. I’ve drawn and scribbled overheard conversations at Peet’s Coffee’s 4th Street shop in Berkeley before. When I saw Pete Scully‘s fantastic sketches with conversation snippets I thought I’d try it his way with the words in little boxes. But I’m not as tidy at printing as he is.

Peet's Coffee - ...and I got my potatoes back

Purple ink and watercolor in small Moleskine watercolor notebook (Larger)

So on this one I wrote the words I overheard on the newspaper above. Maybe the passerby didn’t really say, “…and I got all my potatoes back, you know…” – my hearing isn’t what it used to be so sometimes my imagination fills in the blanks with things that make me laugh. I can hear the words but the consonants aren’t clear.

It’s amazing how one wrong consonant can change the meaning of a sentence. (He says, “Hey, guess what! I got a hog!”…so I’m thinking…he got a pig?! oh maybe he got a Harley motorcycle, they call those “hogs”….and then I realize as he goes on talking that he said he got a DOG, not a HOG and he said it was BIG not a PIG!)