Category: Oil Painting

Categories
Drawing Oil Painting Painting Photos Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Painting a Painted Pumpkin Until….Ewww!

Painted Pumpkin Painted, oil on panel, 8x10"
Painted Pumpkin Painted, oil on Gessobord panel, 8x10"

On Halloween I got inspired to paint a pumpkin but the only pumpkins left in the grocery store were huge warty-looking ones and two smaller ones with cartoon faces painted on them. I chose one of the painted pumpkins whose paint was peeling and asked if they’d sell it at ordinary pumpkin price, which they did.

I took it home, washed off the silly face, cut it open and set it on a black plate on my drawing table to make a preliminary sketch:

Halloween Pumpkin sketch, ink on paper
Halloween Pumpkin sketch, ink on paper

Then I set it up on the table by my easel inside a box made of black foam core with a strong light shining in from one side. I sketched the composition on my Gessobord panel, mixed some colors, and began painting with the intention to work quickly and directly.

But after three hours I gave up and scraped off the panel. I just couldn’t get a clean orange and everything looked chalky, horrible and dead. I emailed my friend Kathryn Law, a brilliant painter who gave me some excellent advice about mixing colors (including that orange was tough to mix from cadmium yellow and red with oils), along with inspiration and encouragement.

The next day, unwilling to accept defeat, I attempted the painting again, this time draping an olive-green cloth over the black foam core. Everything went so much more easily; what had felt like work the day before felt like fun. At Kathryn’s suggestion I used larger brushes and was more generous with the paint. I tried to put down a stroke and leave it. I kept in mind the way I enjoy sketching, and tried to keep that sense of adventure and freedom. I finished the painting and went to bed happy.

The next day I saw a few things I wanted to fix but had to go to work. I left my pumpkin still life set up for three days while I went to work. When I came back to the pumpkin today it was smelly, collapsing, gross and growing stuff:

Gross pumpkin photo
Gross pumpkin photo

Ewww! Tossed the pumpkin in the recycling bin and washed the plate. I guess the painting will have to be done as is, though I’m tempted to work on the plate a bit to try to make it look shiny.

Categories
Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Photos Places Plein Air

Fairmead Park, Richmond, Suburban (?) Oil Painting

View from Fairmead Park, Oil on Gessobord, 9x12"
View from Fairmead Park, Oil on board, 9x12"

Sometimes painting in a pretty park with views leads to painting surrounding suburbia (or is it “urbia”?)  instead of the park.  The scene I wanted to paint (a picnic area between big eucalyptus trees) was occupied by teenage boys smoking pot and I decided to leave them alone. I didn’t think they’d appreciate me setting up my easel and staring at them, and they were there first.

Fairmead Park in Richmond is a little, hidden gem of a park. It is almost at the top of a hill with interesting views, the sounds of birds and squirrels, and the wonderful scent of eucalyptus. I got a good start to the painting while I was there and took some photos so I could finish it at home. I tried to focus on values, color and getting the paint down and leaving it alone and I really like the way it turned out.

Here is the photo I used, taken from the edge of the park which goes up the hill behind where I stood:

Fairmead Park photo reference
Fairmead Park photo reference

So is this Suburbia or Urbia — it’s on the edge of a very urban area in the town of San Pablo but it looks pretty suburban, doesn’t it?

Categories
Art theory Drawing Food sketch Oil Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life

It’s All About Strong Values

Summer Squash, Tired Carrot, oil on panel, 8x8"
Summer Squash & Tired Carrot in bright light, quick study, oil on board, 8x8"

When I was teaching my last session of watercolor classes I saw my students learning so much and was jealous. I realized that I wanted a teacher too! So I began a search for an oil painting mentor to review my work in progress, give me guidance and help me progress.

Value study 1, ink washes
Value study 1, ink washes

First I tried advertising on Craigslist, describing what I needed. But the artists who responded weren’t a good fit. I wanted a mentor whose work excited and inspired me AND who was a good teacher. Then Rebeca Garcia Gonzalez sent me a postcard announcement for her show of portraits of undocumented immigrants and I fell in love with her paintings. I knew she also taught at a local art school so I emailed her my proposal, we met, and she agreed to mentor me.

Value Study 2, ink wash
Value Study 2, ink wash

At our first meeting she reviewed a dozen recent oil paintings and knew right away what I needed to work on. She said that I needed to focus on my values (the range and contrast of light to dark) and I knew she was exactly right.

Value study 3, ink and wash
Value study 3, ink and wash

She asked me to sketch using ink and diluted ink washes and to start paying close attention to values in everything I see, when I’m out walking, or just looking out the window.

Value study 4, ink & ink wash
Value study 4, ink wash

She suggested I ask myself, “Is this shape darker or lighter than that shape,” noticing the value relationships in everything I see to strengthen that ability.  For example, a black object in bright sunlight might look lighter, relatively, than something white that is in shadow.

So much of learning to paint is learning to see, and so much of learning to see involves a kind of “peeling layers of the onion” off of our eyes to see the relationships, shapes, colors, and values in the current light and atmosphere, which can be shockingly different from what we think they are.

Categories
Building Landscape Mexico Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Places Virtual Paint-Out

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (Virtual Paintout)

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, 9"x12, oil on panel
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, 9"x12, oil on panel

It was so wonderful traveling around sunny San Miguel Allende, Mexico (virtually via Google street view and my paintbrush!) while it was cold and rainy here. I tried “driving” around to find the church at the end of the road, but just like I do with real driving, I got lost and never found it.

Once I’d adjusted the image in Photoshop to straighten the walls, crop to 9×12″ and warm the color a bit, I used the “gridding-up” method to create a drawing first. I displayed the image in Photoshop using”View/Show Grid” set to overlay a tic-tac-toe like grid). Then I drew a matching grid on my paper and started drawing, one square at a time.

Using the grid makes it easier to accurately see and draw the shapes in the image, section by section. Drawing first instead of going directly to paint helped me to understand what I was seeing and to notice interesting patterns like the pipes sticking out of the buildings and the circular motif of the windows in the building on the left as well as the church in the distance.

What a gorgeous little town! I’d love to visit there sometime!

Categories
Art theory Oil Painting Painting People Portrait

Quinceanera Party Boy and When to Stop Painting

Quinceanera Party Boy, oil on panel, 14x11"
Quinceanera Party Boy, oil on panel, 14x11"

When I saw the photo I’d taken of this boy at the Legion of Honor where he was posing for his sister’s Quinceanera party photos, I knew I had to paint him (see my original blog post about that day). He is such a beautiful boy.

When to Stop Painting
Lately I’ve been focusing all of my art time on oil painting, and discovered something that might be of interest to other painters.

One night I’d been painting into the wee hours, trying to “fix” a painting. I’d put on paint, step back, then scrape it off. When I realized I didn’t know why I was doing anything I was doing, I went to bed, frustrated that after hours of painting I’d accomplished very little and in fact, probably just made things worse.

The next day I was driving to a plein air paint-out using my GPS to get me to cross streets near the destination (a little park with no address). Once I passed those cross streets, my GPS began scrolling the words “Driving….driving….driving” on the screen because it no longer had any directions for me—I’d passed the target with no further plan.

That’s when it hit me: When I’m at the point with a painting where I am just driving….driving…driving (or dabbing, scraping, dabbing) I need to STOP.

Without a conscious and specific intention (make this area cooler, warmer, darker, lighter, bigger, smaller, sharper, softer, etc.) and an overall goal, it’s just like trying to reach a general idea of a destination by driving mindlessly and randomly, hoping I’ll get there. Not too likely.

Categories
Building Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Places Plein Air

Alvarado Bar, Grill and Pupusas: Painting Plein Air in Gritty Richmond

Alvarado Bar and Grill, San Pablo; oil on panel, 8x10"
Alvarado Bar and Grill, San Pablo; oil on panel, 8x10"

I recently began painting twice a week with the East Bay Landscape Painters whose members are preparing for a show of urban paintings of unexpected, nothing-special spots. For two Saturdays we painted on the unlovely corner of McBryde and San Pablo Avenue in Richmond.

I set up my easel by the air and water pumps at this gas station and set to work. I sketched out the composition and started painting the building when a huge semi truck double-parked right in front of it and began unloading produce for the market next door. My view was just about like this so I started on the empty lot next door. Half an hour later the truck left and I could finally paint the bar. I was happy with the above painting; a rare occurrence when I paint plein air.

Pupusas and Desayunos; oil on panel, 8x10"
Pupusas and Desayunos; oil on panel, 8x10"

The next Saturday afternoon we returned to the same corner. It was hot so I set up in a shady spot under this tree in front of a used car dealership and painted the Pupusas place across the street. Rebeca Garcia-Gonzalez also painted the Pupuseria, except she worked on an enormous canvas (maybe 24×30″) and her painting was fantastic! She also tells a funny story here about the day and the idea behind painting nothing-special spots.

While we were having our critique in the shade of the Fish and Chips place, one of the artists who’d left her chair and easel set up across the street by the pupusas shop just happened to look over her shoulder. She saw a guy jump out the side door of a van and pick up her folding chair. She started yelling at him, ran across the street and grabbed it back before he could stick it in the van. He took off and returned to our critique.

Categories
Building Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Places

TOOL Adult Books and Movies, an Urban Oil Painting

TOOL Adult Books and Movies, oil on panel, 10x8"
TOOL Adult Books and Movies, oil on panel, 10x8"

The signage and awnings on this corner in El Cerrito caught my eye, being an interesting eyesore. Only the icky Golden Gate Adult Books and Movies store still exists, just the signs remain for “Shirt Laundry &” and “TOOL.”

The “Tool” sign made me laugh since it has many connotations including one I’ve heard  used lately to mean a dorky, loser of a guy (e.g. “What a tool!”)

Categories
Building Landscape Life in general Oil Painting Painting Photos Places Virtual Paint-Out

Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, NY (Virtual Paintout)

Bleecker and Sullivan Streets, New York; Oil on Panel, 8"x10"
Bleecker and Sullivan Streets, New York; Oil on Panel, 8"x10"

When I saw that this month’s Virtual Paintout was taking place in Manhattan, I wanted to paint the Lower East Side tenement where I lived when I made my big move to New York City from San Diego, California at the age of naive and tender age of 19, chasing my dreams.

I couldn’t find the building where I lived on East 13th Street between Avenue A and B (possibly torn down and replaced by a small community garden) using Google Street View but I could see that now it’s fluffy with foliage and yuppified with yoga studios. There were no gardens or trees on East 13th Street when I lived there, just trash cans, junked cars and the occasional group of men playing dominoes on card tables in front of their storefront church downstairs or throwing dice on the corner by the drug store.

East 13th Street between Ave. A & B, 1969
East 13th Street between Ave. A & B, 1969

Next I looked for my favorite Greenwich Village cafe back then: the historic Le Figaro Cafe (New York Times article) which survived 50 years before closing down in 2008. It had famously been the haunts of Bob Dylan, Lenny Bruce, Dave Van Ronk, and Jack Kerouac.

During that year in NYC, I visited Le Figaro weekly for a little taste of home: their California Burger contained actual lettuce and tomato, unlike all other NYC burgers that were just bun and meat.  They also served great espresso that you could sip while playing chess or people watching. (Although to be honest, at 19 I was more interested in their ice cream floats than espresso.)

I couldn’t find Le Figaro so I painted the next corner, Bleecker and Sullivan, which interested me as a subject. It turns out I gave up looking too soon, because in writing this post I actually found the remains of Le Figaro on Google Street View:

Le Figaro Cafe
Le Figaro Cafe, Bleecker and MacDougal, NYC
Categories
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?

Categories
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.