Category: Painting

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Bay Area Parks Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Painting People Places Sketchbook Pages

Bagpipes and Badger Bags: Scottish Tartan Festival at Ardenwood

Macintosh Pipe Band Drummer, ink & watercolor
Macintosh Pipe Band Woman, ink & watercolor in small WC Moleskine

When the Scottish Tartan Festival came to Ardenwood Historic Farm in Fremont, Cathy and I arrived at the start of the festivities to sketch. We were greeted by a royal retinue of people in full costume. They stayed in character all day, acting out scenes from Scottish history. Along with the re-enactors there was a bagpipe band, booths for clans, beer, food, craft vendors, demonstrations of kilt wrapping, and pole-tossing competitions.

Macintosh Pipe Band, ink & watercolor in small WC Moleskine
Macintosh Pipe Band Woman, ink & watercolor in small WC Moleskine

I’d filled my last handmade sketchbook and didn’t have time to bind another so I was using a small watercolor Moleskine and my fountain pen. I wasn’t used to such a small page and it was a bit of a struggle with a too thick line on a very small page.

Sporran: Furry man purses worn with kilts
Sporran: Furry man purses worn with kilts (two sketchbook pages assembled in Photoshop)

All of the men in kilts were wearing frontal fanny packs made of fur or leather called “Sporran” (roll those r’s). I had to take a photo (pasted into sketchbook above) of one gentleman’s sporran made from an actual badger! People were very friendly and happy to explain things to us and didn’t mind us sketching them.

Macintosh Bagpiper and Drummer
Macintosh Bagpiper and Drummer

I was fascinated by the bagpipes and drew them repeatedly until I understood what I was seeing. They looked like brown corduroy vacuum bags with a bunch of pipes sticking out of them. The bags are lined with leather or Goretex but used to be made from sheep or goat stomachs.

Bag piper contestant
Bag pipe contestant

There were judging stations set up around the park where young pipers performed and judges carefully rated their performances. This guy (above) left before I’d finished drawing him but I like the sketch anyway. Most of the pipe band members appeared to be of retirement age. I asked one when he started playing bagpipes (glad my kids never wanted to learn bagpipe!). He said that he started in his 50s and most of the band had started playing as adults too.

Pipe Band and Dancer
Pipe Band and Dancer

There were some lovely young dancers performing on the stage while the pipe band played but I was so intent on drawing the pipers I nearly missed seeing the dancers.

I thought it was interesting that ALL of the bagpipers wore earplugs.

Next time I’ll post my sketches of the people in period costumes.

Categories
Art theory Oil Painting Painting People People at Work Portrait Series

Amtrak Conductor, Capitol Corridor: People at Work Series

Capitol Corridor Amtrak Conductor, Oil on stretched canvas, 16x12"
Capitol Corridor Amtrak Conductor, Oil on stretched canvas, 16x12"

When my Urban Sketchers group took the train to Sacramento for some sketching (posted here and here) I made a pest of myself taking pictures of our conductor, chasing him around the train and station. A train conductor for over 40 years, he kindly put up with me.

The painting above is my second attempt at painting the conductor (after working and reworking and eventually abandoning a previous canvas). I painted this in one day, intending to return and finish it after putting in my time at my “day job.” When I returned to the studio I realized that I’d said what I wanted to say with the painting and had nothing more to add. I was done.

This was really thrilling as it helped to reinforce my recent discovery that the path I want to follow in oil painting is to work directly, alla prima (all at once).  I find it so much more fun than fussing around with many layers, for many days, until everything is “perfect” (otherwise known as overworked, over-detailed and ultimately, boring to look at it because there’s nothing for the viewer’s mind to contribute).

Below is my unfinished, abandoned first attempt (scraped and repainted multiple times) from a dim, blurry bad photo shot with poor lighting inside the train.

Incomplete first attempt, oil on canvas 16x12"
Incomplete first attempt, oil on canvas 16x12"

I included way too much of the train in the composition because I was interested in the light and reflections on the ceiling. But painting all those seats was really boring. Eventually I figured out this version just wasn’t going to work and I started over with a better photo, cropped in more closely, for the painting at the top of the post.

I’ve been taking photos of people at work in my neighborhood that will be part of this series. Next up the butcher and the coffee barista.

Categories
Berkeley Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Interiors Painting People Places Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Picante Sketches with Strange Lights

Picante Cocina Mexicana's Mask Lights, Ink & watercolor
Picante Cocina Mexicana's Mask Lights, Ink & watercolor

Last week the Urban Sketchers Flickr group had lighting as their theme so our Urban Sketchers group focused on lighting too. When I walked into Picante the first thing I noticed was the way the wall sconces shined up at wonderfully bizarre masks all around the room.

Picante Mask Lights, ink & watercolor
Picante Mask Lights, ink & watercolor

Along with the great masks, the ceiling is festooned with row after row of vibrantly colored hanging Mexican cut-paper art work.

Several different diners and children stopped at our table to complement our sketches. The children were particularly enthusiastic. And (as usual) everyone told us they can’t draw. And as usual we told them that anyone can draw if they just practice and that it doesn’t have to be good, just fun.

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Ink and watercolor wash Outdoors/Landscape Painting Sketchbook Pages

Lively Day Sketching at the Cemetery

Mountain View Cemetery, ink & watercolor
Pointing the Way To...? Mountain View Cemetery, ink & watercolor

I had planned to oil paint with my plein air group at Mountain View Cemetery but there were just too many interesting sights to explore to plant myself in one spot with an easel. I switched to ink and watercolor which is so much more portable.  I wonder what the statue above is supposed to be pointing towards?

Mountain View Cemetery Entrance, ink & watercolor
Mountain View Cemetery Entrance, ink & watercolor

The entrance and central plaza is planted with thousands (?) of tulips. I hoped they would be in bloom but I only spotted one early bird. This cemetery is such a beautiful and historic place (as you can see in this photo slide show).

Weeping Willow and Pond, Ink & watercolor
Weeping Willow and Pond, Ink & watercolor

This pond and little waterfall beneath a gigantic weeping willow tree (above) is one of my favorite spots in the cemetery, hidden just behind the entrance gate. I’ve tried to paint it before and have yet to get it right. Maybe next time.

Mountain View Cemetery Statues, ink and watercolor
Mountain View Cemetery Statues, ink and watercolor

After the group left I stayed behind to draw a couple more of the statues. The life-sized angel on the left was bunching up her robes, looking off into the distance. The one on the right is yet another female statue pointing at something in the distance.

I’m curious about how people chose or designed their statues in the 1800s. Were they built to order or were there standard designs they could buy? Why are they almost all women? I suppose in death, like birth, a mother watching over us is comforting, even if she’s looking or pointing at something else.

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

Cape Town Company Gardens (Virtual Paint-Out)

Capetown Company Gardens, South Africa, oil on panel, 9x12"
Capetown Company Gardens, South Africa, oil on panel, 9x12"

During a very rainy week it’s been wonderful to have this sunny view to paint from Google Street View for Virtual Paintout‘s March location of Cape Town, South Africa. It will be interesting to see how (and hopefully if) my winter practice with landscape painting in oil carries over to painting real landscapes outdoors. Now that the rainy season seems at last to be over I will soon find out!

A note about the color in the photo: despite my best efforts, I couldn’t get the foreground shadow on the path to perfectly match the color in the painting which is a little more purple and a little less bright.

Here’s the original Google Streetview image:

Google Streetview image: Capetown
Google Streetview image: Capetown

If you’re interested in the actual location, just click here for the map. And if you’d like to purchase this painting for $100, just click here.

Categories
Animals Ink and watercolor wash Places Urban Sketchers

Amusement Park and Circus Museum: Playland Not At the Beach

Detail of Playland Diarama, ink & watercolor
Detail of Playland Diarama, ink & watercolor

Playland Not At The Beach Museum of Fun is an amazing place created by a group of volunteers and artists who are passionate about the circus, history, carnivals, and a San Francisco amusement park (now long gone) called Playland at the Beach.

Laughing Sal, ink, gouache & watercolor
Laughing Sal, ink, gouache & watercolor

Hidden away behind a nondescript storefront in El Cerrito, Playland Not At The Beach is both a museum  and a place to play carnival, penny arcade and pinball games (including historic and 3-D pinball machines), watch movies, see magic shows, have parties, explore the world of the circus and the world of Charles Dickens in miniature and much more, with room after room of visual delights, each surpassing the next.

Circus Diorama Detail, ink & watercolor
Circus Diorama Detail, ink & watercolor (the actual scene had about 3 times as many characters, but with so much to capture in 2 hours, I picked my favorites for this sketch)

The circus dioramas contain 300,000 hand-carved and hand-painted realistic figures of every kind of person, animal and behind-the-scenes activity (even including the cooks carving up big fish for dinner and the separate men’s and women’s dressing tents with performers washing up or changing clothes) and all the acts under the big top, all created by a man who joined the circus at 14 and his father, who were both lifelong circus lovers. It took a month just to create one elephant, which were each carved from a separate block of wood and are about an inch tall.

The creativity and dedication to follow one’s passion that went into making the circus dioramas brought tears to my eyes and left me intensely inspired.

You can see the wonderful sketches made by my buddies on our Urban Sketchers blog here. We plan to return to Playland Not At The Beach as soon as we can!

Categories
Art theory Oil Painting Painting Still Life

Apple Can Brush (huh?)

Apple Can Brush, oil on panel 8x8"
Apple Can Brush, oil on panel, 8x8"

I know the title sounds like random word salad but since the still life objects are equally random I think it is fitting. The tin can in the painting is from a can of Trader Joe’s Split Pea Soup.

I was fidgeting with the can while the soup was warming in a bowl in the office microwave and in the process removed the label. I was struck by how pretty the can was and so to my office mates’ amusement, I washed out the can to take it home and paint it. It needed companions in the composition; an apple was handy as was a paint brush.

Apple Can Brush, drawn on panel with pastel pencil
Apple Can Brush, drawn on panel with pastel pencil

I focused on seeing planes values, and putting the paint down and leaving it. The picture above shows the way I sketched out the composition with the planes on the panel with pastel pencil before painting.

I really enjoyed the process and the results. Can’t ask for more than that!

Categories
Art theory Daily Paintworks Challenge Oil Painting Painting

The Color of White (Warm)

White Pitcher on Provence Pattern, oil on panel, 7x5"
White Pitcher on Provence Pattern, oil on panel, 7x5"

The Daily Paintworks folks are hosting weekly painting exercises that offer an opportunity to practice a particular painting challenge. Last week it was painting a white object sitting on a patterned fabric using only primary colors and white.

I’d found this funny, funky (chipped) pitcher at my local thrift shop and thought it would make a good subject for this exercise, along with a Provencal print tablecloth.

White pitcher preliminary sketch on panel
White pitcher preliminary sketch on panel

I sketched in the shapes with pastel pencil onto my Gessobord panel and then used some thinned Ultramarine Blue to block in the shadows on the pitcher. I like the way this looks so nice and sketchy.

This was another fun painting. I love how oil painting is getting to be more fun and less of a struggle (less of, but not without, that’s for sure!).

Since I tend to lose interest if something is too easy or there’s nothing more to learn, knowing that painting will always provide a challenge and there will always be more to learn, is a good thing.

If you’d like to buy this unframed 7×5″ painting for $60, just click here.

Categories
Daily Paintworks Challenge Oil Painting Painting Still Life

The Color of White (Cool)

White teapot on wrapping paper, oil on panel, 6x6"
White teapot on wrapping paper, oil on panel, 6x6"

The Daily Paintworks‘ challenge last week was to paint a white object sitting on patterned fabric using only primary colors and white. For this attempt I decided to use some turquoise, patterned wrapping paper instead. The wrapping paper had clever little snowmen all over it but after giving one snowman a try, I realized I didn’t have the patience or interest to try to paint all the details on them (top hat, scarf, etc.).

So I gave myself permission to abstract the snowmen into the circular, swirly shapes I saw reflected on the teapot. Since it was meant to be a painting exercise, I didn’t get too concerned with perfecting the painting. I just wanted to experiment with seeing reflections and building the form of a white object on a cool background.

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

Capetown South Africa: Virtual Paintout

Table Mountain View, Cape Town. Oil on 5x7" panel.
Table Mountain View, Cape Town. Oil on 5x7" panel.

This month’s Virtual Paintout is in Cape Town, South Africa. What a beautiful country! I needed a project I could complete in an hour or two so I chose a simple scene and a small panel to paint on (5×7″).

But I think I spent as much time tooling around South Africa on Google Streetview than I did painting.  And tonight I had such a hard time getting the color right in the photo (the sky in the painting isn’t turquoise, it’s a warmer blue) that I’ve probably spent an equal amount of time trying to fix the photo and get this blog post finished!

So I will let it be. As my boss always says, “…good enough for jazz!” She knows I can be a perfectionist and has taught me that little mantra so that I don’t get stuck finessing one little thing while all the other work stacks up.

Here’s the original photo from Google Streetview:

Cape Town Milner Road, Southern Suburbs
Google Street View: Cape Town Southern Suburbs