Aletha Kuschan said something wonderful in her post, “There Are Bright Colors in the World” (and in her painting below). She starts the post by saying:
“I like color. Color is what made me want to be an artist. Just looking at the color….”
Watercolor Painting by Aletha Kuschan
And she says:
“I paint to look at things. And if my paintings say things, it is “look at this!” and “look at that!” The world is so amazing to look at. We ought to be looking at it all the time.
I read that and said “Yes!” Her artwork always inspires me with it’s freedom of expression and brilliant colors and her writing does the same. Do take a look and a read!
Sketching is such a great way to enjoy time spent waiting. In the sketch above I was waiting for someone during her appointment at the medical center. The lady on the left was dressed completely in Barbie pink from head to toe, including sweatshirt, purse and shoes. Even her cell phone was bright pink.
The little boy above spent his waiting time enthusiastically “reading” a book. He squealed with delight to his mom over each page. It was so nice to see a child loving a book even if he was too young to actually read the words.
BART Station Street Light, ink & watercolor, 7.5 x5.5"
When Casey was here visiting from France, I arrived early at the BART station to collect her and her family. While I waited I tried to find something interesting to sketch from my car but this was as good as got: concrete, pole and sky.
I spent the previous day visiting with them in San Francisco and was looking forward to showing them around Berkeley, which we capped with a fantastic dinner at Chez Panisse (thanks Casey and Michele!) Since Casey had her family with her, we didn’t get to sketch but I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with them. They are the nicest and most fun people. I wish we lived closer so we could play together more often! I plan to visit them in France within a year or so.
This is one of those zombie paintings that despite my best efforts to kill it, just wouldn’t die. I painted it again and again, changing the background colors, the shapes of the apples, the colors of the apples, the shadow shapes and colors. And in between painting sessions it sat there on my easel taunting me.
I was determined to finish it today no matter what. So I photographed it, imported it into Photoshop and experimented there with colors and shape variations until I found a scheme I liked. Then I applied those changes in paint on my canvas. (I was tired of the actual background colors which were the same as Apples, Delicious.)
Update 6/12: I asked a friend to be an innocent bystander and give me his honest opinion of the painting still on the easel. He said, “Uh, well…what are they?” When I said apples he said “Really? They don’t look like apples. But I like the red color.” FAIL? Yes.
It’s probably better to make many paintings instead of getting stuck painting the same one multiple times. But I get determined to figure out what is making me unhappy with a painting and to try to resolve the problems. Sometimes I discover there’s a fatal flaw in the composition or drawing that can’t be fixed with paint (and I fear this is one of those?). Then I just try to learn from that mistake for the next time and accept I’ve gone as far as I can.
I’d like to give the apples one more try (on a fresh canvas), to see if after all this practice I can do a fresh, quick painting that flows instead of lurches along in true zombie fashion.
It is bright and colorful with a large variety of Middle Eastern products and freshly made food. It was quiet there on a Tuesday evening so the gentleman manning the shop was fine with us sitting at the cafe tables in the back and roaming the shop to sketch. I got so drawn into the teapot that I only had time to do one sketch before they closed at 8:00. We usually sketch from 6:30 to 8:30 or 9:00 so it was a short evening.
Benicia Waterfront Street Light, ink and watercolor,7x5"
I accidentally overslept so when I finally arrived at our Benicia paintout at 11:00 I was an hour late. I didn’t see any other artists around. The wind was blowing so hard that I sat in my car to sketch, listening to NPR on the radio. Everything was going great, I was drawing with my favorite Lamy Safari Extra Fine Fountain pen and then painted with my watercolors set up on the passenger seat.
Benicia Waterfront, Ink and Watercolor, 5x7"
I turned to draw a different view, but when I reached for my pen it was gone. I searched everywhere, inside the car, under the car, nearby on the ground. No pen. I retraced my path when I’d gotten out of the car to look around and take photos. Nothing. I asked people walking by but nobody had seen my pen. I returned to the car and searched every nook and cranny again, twice.
An hour later I gave up and used a Pitt Artist Pen to do the drawing and added watercolor. I was so sad. I’d really come to love that pen. When I finished the sketch I used my iPhone to look up and call all the stationary and art stores in the Bay Area, but nobody had a Lamy with an Extra Fine nib.
Just then fellow painters Carol and Ling drove up and I told them what happened. They insisted on helping me find the pen despite my whining, “It’s hopeless, it’s just gone.” Carol checked under the seats and in the driver’s side door pocket. She told me to check the passenger’s door pocket. It was the one place I hadn’t looked (why I hadn’t looked there I can’t explain) and there it was! Yay! Joy!
I went from a sad loser to a happy finder and now every time I use my pen I get that happy feeling again. Definitely a keeper.
It was a cold and rainy night so we met indoors at the cosy Kensington Circus Pub (named for the traffic roundabout it faces in Kensington, on the Berkeley border. It’s a very pleasant place to sip a beer and sketch. After eating a delicious sandwich I spent most of the evening facing the bar and doing the sketch above. I wore my L.L. Bean flashlight hat to see to paint and it worked great.
Old friends plotting at Kensington Circus Pub, ink & watercolor, 5x7"
Then I turned to face the other direction and sketched these gentleman who were in a booth a few feet away but didn’t seem notice or care that we were drawing them. They were meeting to dine, drink and plot a business venture from what I could overhear.
It’s funny how a small apple on a small panel can look so big! In the lunch room at the office where I work, people bring in boxed lunches from a nearby cafe. The boxes always include a petite Delicious apple but nobody eats them, preferring the sandwich on homemade bread, chips, and giant cookie.
So the apples are abandoned on the lunchroom table and I take them home to use as still-life objects. I have about a dozen of them now (they seem to last forever) and like setting them up to interact with each other like actors on a stage.
Baby Hydrangea for EDM #112: Fresh, ink & Watercolor, 6"x4.5"
I’d never been able to sketch this hydrangea plant before because once the teensy little buds open they shed piles of equally teensy little petals and make a big mess. But this one was so fresh I was able to cut and draw it without the mess. (Although it did end up making a mess anyway when my cat ate one of the leaves and then delivered it later to the rug.)
EDM #120 Flashlight (Hat), ink & watercolor
The cue was to draw a flashlight. My favorite flashlight is my wonderful L.L. Bean Pathfinder Cap. It has two LED lights in the brim. One points straight down and is perfect for lighting your sketchbook when painting when it’s dark, and the other points ahead to light your path. You just squeeze a spot on the brim and it toggles between down, ahead or both. When painting in a dark pub it perfectly lit my sketchbook page but nobody could tell where the light was coming from. Someone came over to try to figure it out because it just looked like my page was illuminated.
Although I wasn’t a faithful follower of “Sketch Every Day in May,” it reinforced how much I enjoy drawing. Some of the cues sounded boring but I discovered that no matter how dull a subject may seem, drawing it rarely is.
Teddy Bear Fountain, ink & gouache on hot press paper, 6"x4"
Teddy bears hold hands in a circle in this wonderful, historic fountain* in North Berkeley on Marin Circle. We sketched there on a warm Tuesday evening as the sun was setting.
I did the one above very quickly at the end of the evening when just as I was about to pack up a worker came and switched on the fountain’s lights and adjusted the water so it sprayed up from the top. I had to give it one more try.
Teddy Bear Fountain, ink & gouache, 5 1/2 x6 1/2"
This one was done first and I spent a longer time with it—more than I should have probably, as it began to get overworked. My friend Cathy did several wonderful sketches while we were there, which you can see here.
*An interesting bit of history about the fountain: In 1908, a real estate developer came up with the idea to make Berkeley the state capitol and lobbied hard for his proposal. The Circle and the fountain were to be part of a grand entry to the new capitol building to be built nearby. The California Legislature passed the proposal and the governor signed the bill, but Berkeley was a dry city and the liquor lobbyists were successful in convincing the voters to narrowly defeat the bill.
Peet’s Coffee is selling coffee scoops in three sizes that measure exactly the right amount of coffee for their French press coffee makers. Although I was happy with my French press pot and coffee scoop, I couldn’t resist the promise of the perfect cup of coffee.
Haha. It holds exactly the same amount that I already use. And it’s too wide to dump the coffee into my little French press pot without some of it landing on the counter and the handle is too short to comfortably scoop out of the bag or canister. So, while useless in the kitchen it is earning its keep as a model in the studio.
Value study/under-painting for Scoop and Cork, oil, 5x7"
This week’s Daily Paintworks challenge is to do a value study using only burnt umber, and to vary the amount of dark, medium and light so that there is a majority of one, some of the other, and a smidgen of the other. This is done by applying a thin layer of burnt umber, wiping it down for mid value, painting in the darks using only burnt umber, and wiping with paper towel or q-tips dipped in mineral spirits for the highlights.
I was going for a majority of dark, some middle, and smidgen of light. Not sure if I accomplished that. It seems like there’s almost as much middle as there is dark. I’ve done plenty of value studies and monochrome paintings, but I’d never done it this way before and enjoyed it. I like the way the finished study kind of glows but used it as a the under-painting for the painting at the top of this post.
and then painted with my watercolors set up on the passenger seat.
Jana Bouc, Artist 