Category: Painting

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Acrylic Painting Art supplies Landscape Outdoors/Landscape Painting Places Virtual Paint-Out

Virtual Paintout Norway & Golden Open Acrylics

Norway farm landscape painting, Acrylic, 9x12"
Norway farm landscape painting, Acrylic, 9x12"

This month’s Virtual Paint-out is taking place in Norway. When I picture Norway it’s always snowing—silly me. I was amazed to wander the roads and see the beautiful summer light and perfectly maintained buildings and fields. There was so much gorgeous scenery it was hard to pick, but I couldn’t resist all the different greens in this scene.

Here is the original scene from Google Earth. I used Windows 7 cool “Snipping Tool” that lets you select an area of the screen to copy and save:

Google Earth photo with address
Original Google photo

If you click to enlarge the image you will see the address of this farm in the top left. I played around in Photoshop to compose and crop the scene. Then I used the “Content Aware Scaling” feature in CS4 that allows you to compress a scene without distorting elements such as buildings or people. I wanted to fit the image on a 9×12″ canvas:

Scaled in photoshop
Cropped/Scaled in Photoshop

What’s really exciting to me about this painting is that I used Golden Open Acrylics to paint it. I am in love with these paints! [SEE less enthusiastic UPDATE AT BOTTOM]. They have all features that I love about oils and acrylics with none of the features I don’t like. I’ve been struggling with both those mediums for months and was going through an artistic crisis, considering giving them both up.

The problem with acrylics

I couldn’t stand working with regular acrylics because I like to layout a palette of paint and work intuitively, mixing as I go. Acrylics dry too fast to do this. (Yes I know you can mist the paint regularly and that there are special stay-wet palettes but I found they turn the paint to soup and smell bad after a couple of days). I also like to blend colors on the canvas and to be able to wipe off a passage if it’s not quite right. None of this is easy to do with regular acrylics.

The problem with oils

Because I try to use solvents as little as possible with oils due to their toxicity and smell, I can’t start with juicy washes for the first layer as I like to do when sketching out the composition with oils. And even with the minimal use of the least toxic odorless solvent (Gamsol mineral spirits) I found there was an odor (probably from linseed oil going rancid that was left in the solvent) that bothered me anyway. And then there’s the cleanup up dozens of brushes after a painting session.

Why I love[d] Golden Open Acrylics

Golden Open Acrylics do not smell, stay workable about as long as oil paints [update: they don’t really], can be diluted with medium and/or water, clean up with water, do not dry on brushes (for 24 hours at least), blend nicely and are just a dream to work with. When I quit painting last weekend I stuck a small, damp sponge on the palette, and closed my Masterson “Palette Seal” box. I opened it today, a week later, and the paint was still in perfect working condition, better than oil paint would have been.

While I admire thick, expressive, brush strokes in paintings, it’s not really my thing. I prefer working more thinly and that’s just the way Golden Open Acrylics are meant to be used: in layers less than the thickness of a penny. They can also be mixed with regular acrylics to modify the texture or the drying time. Or they can be combined in different layers, although it’s suggested to use regular acrylics as the first layer(s) before adding the Opens or waiting for the layers of Open Acrylics to thoroughly dry (2 weeks) before applying a layer of regular acrylics.

I think these paints are also  going to transform my plein air painting. [update: they didn’t work for plein air; got tacky too quickly] I won’t need to bring solvent or a slew of brushes. I haven’t figured out what to carry for a water container or how much water I will need to carry for brush washing between colors.

Our first plein-air session of the new season is next Friday and I’m looking forward to playing with my new medium in a Non-Virtual paint-out too.

UPDATE June 30, 2010

After working the Golden Open Acrylics for three months I’m considerably less enthusiastic about them. The deal breaker is that the paint dries darker (about 10%, varies between colors) which requires guessing when mixing paint how much lighter to make it and makes it impossible for me to try to match colors I’m seeing . Other problems are the drying time which depends on the humidity and wind which makes painting outdoors with them next to impossible in my area. Unless there is no breeze and high humidity, even indoors, you have to work quickly before the painting starts getting tacky within an hour or so. But then it can take a really long time for the paint to dry completely. When trying to glaze on top of a seemingly dry layer, I’ve ended up lifting the previous layer instead and had to give up glazing.

I’ve now switched to Holbein Duo Aqua water soluble oils and so far and am finding them the best of all worlds. No color shift, artist quality pigments and pigment load, no toxics, no smells, easy clean up. I write about them here.

Categories
Berkeley Drawing Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Interiors Painting People Places

Sketching at Bread Workshop, Berkeley

"Packing bread," ink & watercolor & collage
"Packing bread," ink & watercolor & menu snippet

The Bread Workshop is a combination café and artisan bread bakery in Berkeley. They focus on seasonal, sustainable, organic, healthy and delicious foods served in a comfortable atmosphere.  From our table we had a view of the small team of bakery workers, hustling to get hundreds of loaves of bread packaged and ready for next morning delivery to local restaurants.

Sawyer and Oven, ink & watercolor
Sawyer and Oven, ink & watercolor

We sat beside a table of young medical students (including the above guy named Sawyer) who were studying and discussing gastroenterology and what symptoms equaled which diseases—not the most appetizing dinner conversation, but interesting nevertheless.  The back of the large “Inferno” oven faced the café and was sparkly clean and  decorated with little lights beside a bulletin board.

Bread and Snacks Counter, ink & watercolor
Bread and Snacks Counter, ink & watercolor

I stood in front of the counter where you order (above) to sketch and then painted it at our table. This was really fun to draw.

Dinner at Bread Workshop, ink & watercolor
Dinner at Bread Workshop, ink & watercolor

My grilled chicken breast had been marinated in a yogurt sauce first and it was spicy and delicious, the grilled veges were fresh and tasty and they even had brown rice.

A great evening of sketching and dining!

Categories
Berkeley Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Interiors Life in general Painting People Places Sketchbook Pages

Sketching on a Stormy Night at Au Coquelet

Au Coquelet, Ink & watercolor
Au Coquelet, Ink & watercolor

It was a dark and stormy night when Cathy and I met at Au Coquelet Cafe to sketch while listening to people debate the existence of reality and/or study English in Chinese.

I started by sketching the guy in the middle with black hair and just kept on going, seeing more and more stuff to draw. At one point he walked by our table, saw what we were doing, pulled out his cellphone and took photos of our sketches of him. That was a first! But it seemed a fair trade.

A group of four (perhaps retired professors from the university) seemed to have gathered for the sole purpose of defining reality, or proving it’s existence, or both, punctuated regularly by “huh?” “what did you say?” as one of the gents was hard of hearing (but not hard of “talking” as he blathered on and on).  On our other side were Chinese college students studying English, but mostly in Chinese, with the occasional English phrase thrown in such as “I am a pretty girl” and “I am eating an apple” (which she wasn’t).

Au Coquelet is a perfect place to sketch.  It’s large, open very late, has a couple of rooms,  and counter service only so you don’t have to worry about waiters.  There’s lots of wood, bricks, brick-a-brack and plants, design left over from the hippie days.

I have fond memories of sketching there on another stormy night, New Year’s Eve 1997, when I was supposed to be in Yosemite National Park but had canceled the trip due to rain. And it was good I didn’t go: the next day Yosemite had the worst flooding in 100 years, with roads and bridges so damaged that people were stranded there for weeks without sanitary facilities or food.

So with no plans for the evening, I headed up to the café to draw people who did have plans, partygoers coming in before and after their parties. After a while, a tall, handsome artist sketching at another table came over and joined me. We sketched together and talked, and ended up dating for a few months until I decided that the tales he told were too good to be true.

Categories
Art supplies Bookbinding Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Painting Sketchbook Pages

Testing Paper for Journal Bookbinding + Junk Drawer Still Lifes

Junk Drawer #1, Legion Multi-Media Paper, ink & watercolor
Legion Multi-Media Paper, ink & watercolor

I used random items from my junk drawer as still-life subjects to test paper for binding my next journal.  The paper I’ve chosen is Legion Multimedia Aquarelle 300 gsm (a little thinner than 140 lb). An employee at my local Artists & Craftsman store suggested it when I was unsuccessfully seeking the Fabriano Soft Press 140 lb recommended by Shirley of Paper and Threads.

Legion Test #2
Legion Test #2

Legion Multimedia/Aquarelle

I was delighted to find that the texture of the Multimedia/Aquarelle  paper is perfect for writing on with the finest of pen points (unlike my current journal’s Arches CP paper). It took watercolor washes and multiple layers of glazes beautifully without buckling, pooling, or pilling. Color lifted off easily when rubbed with a damp brush.

The paper is nicely sized to prevent the paper from soaking up the paint, but not so extremely sized as the Arches 90 pound cold press that practically resists the ink.

It has two deckle edges and is relatively inexpensive. The Legion Multimedia/Aquarelle paper cost $2.69 a sheet at my Blick store while the Fabriano Soft Press 140 lb paper was $4.99 a sheet. Unlike the Fabriano, this paper is also available in 90 lb weight which I will try next, but I think that will have to be a special order through Artists & Craftsman since Blick only carries the 300 gsm paper.

Dick Blick’s website says about the Legion Multimedia paper:

“Use any painting and drawing media you choose on this fine quality, crisp white paper! Multimedia/Aquarelle Paper consists of 100% cotton fiber, is acid-free, and has a neutral pH. The paper is 140 lb (300 gsm) weight, and has an uneven textured surface. Available in two different surfaces — Cold Press and Rough. Cold Press is available in sheets and pads, Rough is available in sheets only, and comes in 200 lb (380 gsm) weight.”

I tested the paper for grain direction and it runs the long way, making it possible to tear it down for a journal just the size I like: 5.5″ x 7.5″, with no waste, which is not possible with the Fabriano whose grain runs the short way.

I finally was able to buy a sheet of Fabriano Soft Press (which has a similar surface texture, between hot press and cold press) and tested it too:

Fabriano Soft Press 140 lb: Test #1
Fabriano Soft Press 140 lb: Test #1

Fabriano Soft Press

The Fabriano Soft Press paper had some things in its favor but ultimately the cons outweighed the pros in my mind. It seems like good sturdy paper, and the paint lifted OK without surface damage, but it was slightly less pleasant to write on with a fine-point pen, even though the surfaces of the two papers are very similar.

Since the grain runs the short way (which means the pages will need to fold the short way) you either end up wasting some of the paper or have fewer size options for the book. Also, the paper is thicker and stiffer, which means fewer sheets per book or a thicker, heavier book. And it is more expensive.

But what bothered me the most was the sizing. According to Blick:

“Fabriano papers are synthetically sized both internally and externally so that no animal by-products are used.”

In fact, Fabriano uses an acrylic sizing as opposed to the organic sizing (gelatin) that other companies use. I found that juicy washes on this paper took forever to dry and I assume it has to do with the non-porosity of acrylic sizing.

Fabriano Soft Press Test #2
Fabriano Soft Press Test #2

Despite waiting and waiting and finally using a hair dryer before adding the next layer of glaze, the paint still wasn’t dry and glazes bled into each other.

I also tested the Arches 90 lb Cold Press in my journal (below). Washes, glazing, lifting worked fine, but just isn’t pleasant to use with a fine point pen.

90 lb Arches Cold Press test
90 lb Arches Cold Press test

I’m looking forward to binding my new book and then giving the Legion Multimedia Aquarelle paper a true test of its journal-goodness and whether it really is the “perfect” watercolor journal bookbinding paper for me.

Categories
Drawing Gardening Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Painting Plants Sketchbook Pages

Hydrangeas (and me) in Progress

Hydrangeas in progress, ink & watercolor
Hydrangeas in progress, ink & watercolor

We had a sunny day after months of rain, so I took a walk around my garden. I was happy to see the hydrangeas coming back after having been cut down to little woody stalks. The three I’d planted after the comical hydrangea planting fiasco were all sprouting and there was a new one, a volunteer that appeared on its own volition.

And I too feel cut down to my woody stems, stretched thin by all I try to do.

So I’ve been thinking about who I am as an artist, who I want to be, what work brings me the most joy or the most suffering, my artistic strengths and weaknesses, and how I can make the time I spend on art as satisfying as possible.

I’m so grateful for artist friends like Barbara and my sister, who are good listeners and understand the challenge of having so many (too many?) interests and artistic pursuits to follow. Or, as Barbara writes, we’re “Never Bored” (or “Never B-ed” as she spelled it, for reasons she explains in her blog post).

Ultimately my goal is a more balanced life; I know that to stay healthy, along with time for art, I need to make more time for exercise, relaxation and play. (And some of my best art-making has been play; it just doesn’t have to be so darn serious!)

And like my hydrangeas, some good ideas are starting to bud and bloom about how I can nurture my most rewarding art pursuits now, while putting off or letting go of the others until more of my time is my own.

Categories
Art supplies Bookbinding Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Outdoors/Landscape Painting People Pinole Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Pinole and Pen, Paper, Ink Tests

Pretty Pinole from Peets, Ink and Watercolor
Pretty Pinole from Peets, Ink and Watercolor

Warm sun, green hills, blossoming trees and a great Peet’s cappuccino to sip at an outdoor table while sketching was made even better by a pen that actually worked in my sketchbook. After struggling to find a pen that would not skip, scratch, smear, show through or bleed on the Arches 90 lb cold press paper I’d bound in my journal, I discovered that my Lamy Safari fountain pen was just right.

Pens

All of the pens I normally use were giving me problems. The Sakura Pigma Micron skipped, scratched over the textured paper when drawing, and was even worse for writing in the journal, whether I used my favorite .01 or a fatter-tipped .05.

Pitt Artist Pen and Sharpie tests
Pitt Artist Pen and Sharpie tests

I tried using an Ultra-Fine Point Sharpie since it would at least produce a strong line (above). But I found that the ink flowed too quickly, bleeding and spreading if held in one spot and worse, showed through to the other side.  I also tried the Pitt Artist Brush Pen on this page, which worked OK but was a thicker line than I like for general sketching. The black ink in the finer-point Pitts seemed paler than the Microns, but it might also be that they resist the sizing on the paper more.

Testing Prismacolor .05 Pen
Testing Prismacolor .05 Pen

Prismacolor Illustration pens are similar to the Sakura Pigma Micron and Pitt Artist Pens and are very nice and comfortable to hold. But they too performed poorly on the Arches CP. In the sketch above I was trying to do a contour drawing of what I saw on the BART train but my lines were barely visible until I redrew them with a Sharpie.

Testing Noodlers & Carbon Platinum Ink
Testing Noodlers & Carbon Platinum Ink

Then I tested my Lamy Safari F-point fountain pen and was delighted to see that it was a pleasure to write and draw with on the Arches CP paper.

Ink

I’d last filled the Safari with Noodlers Black Bulletproof ink, which is supposed to be waterproof but actually bleeds a fair amount when a wash is applied after it’s dry. I used a dip pen to test Platinum Carbon Ink and it held up better, barely bleeding at all.

So I squirted out the remaining Noodlers in my Lamy and refilled it with the Carbon Platinum ink. I’ve been a happy sketcher ever since. The ink is a rich black, doesn’t bleed, is great to write with on this bumpy paper, and is comfy to hold. Yay!

Paper

Now that I’m halfway through my journal it’s time to prepare for binding the next one. I’ve been testing papers and I think I’ve found the one. When I finish my tests I’ll post them. I have a feeling I might have found the perfect paper for ink and watercolor journaling.

Categories
Berkeley Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Life in general People Sketchbook Pages

Pyramid Alehouse Sketches

Blackened Salmon at Pyrramid Ale House, Ink & Watercolor
Blackened Salmon at Pyramid Ale House, Ink & Watercolor

Pyramid Alehouse in Berkeley is a lively, fun place for good food, good beer and sketching too. My blackened salmon was delicious and a real challenge to wait to draw and paint before eating. After dinner we planned to sketch the brewery area visible from our table. But mid-meal they turned the lights off in the brewery so we went upstairs to check out the view.

Pyrmaid exterior & "Brainstorm" Players, ink washes and watercolor
Combined 2 partial sketches (one exterior, one interior) with a pasted in bit of event calendar

Upstairs there was a crowd of people playing Pyramid’s version of trivial pursuit “Brainstormers Pub Quiz,” with an announcer reading off the challenges that teams try to solve. The teams with the most points win more beer.

I assume there is an honor system that prevents people from getting the answers on their smartphones. I couldn’t play trivial pursuit unless answers like, “You know, it was that guy who was in that movie with that blonde…” would win a prize.

Kitchen from above & Beers on Tap
Kitchen from above & Beers on tap, pasted in stuff

While we were upstairs I (tried to) sketch the chef in his galley kitchen. The perspective was challenging. Then we went downstairs to the bar area. I loved the whimsical handles on the taps, each reflecting some feature of the specific beer. They had 17 beers on tap that night.

I just noticed my color-scheme on these pages: they’re all predominantly beer colored.

Categories
Animals Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Painting Sketchbook Pages

Sketching Parakeets at Petco

Parakeets at Petco, ink & watercolor
Parakeets at Petco, ink & watercolor

After we finished sketching the laundromat, we moved on to Petco. I can’t wait for longer days so we can do our Tuesday night sketchcrawls outdoors again. But it was fun drawing the parakeets. They were holding pretty still, puffing up and preparing for beds. I worried about them, hoping they have happy lives.

Albino Guinea Pig, ink and watercolor
Albino Guinea Pig, ink and watercolor

This little guy was kind of cute in a spooky, red-eyed sort of way, but even on sale I wasn’t tempted. When my sons were young,  I bought an adorable pair of long-haired calico guinea pigs and we had such fun playing with them…for about two weeks. And then there was the years of caring for them….

Medium Male Rat, ink & watercolor
Medium Male Rat, ink & watercolor

He looked way too much like the kind of rodents you do NOT want to see in your house. I’ve seen pet rats that had some charm, but this guy just looked way too big and ratty. My sister had a rat that I babysat when she went on a trip. The rat was in a cage beside my son’s bed and it pulled the wool blanket that was my Grandma’s from the bed into the cage, bit by bit, and chewed off the corners for nesting material.

Then a couple of years ago, when Alison of art blog Scribbles Adagio was creating a multi-media work that included scraps of old blankets, I sent a 12″ square of the blanket to her in Australia. She sent me back one of the finished pieces that now hangs over my bed, a keepsake partly composed of my Grandmother’s blanket.

And I still use that old blanket to keep warm and cozy when I watch TV, even though it’s full of holes, missing corners and a 12″ square.

Categories
Ink and watercolor wash Painting Places Shop windows Sketchbook Pages

Sketching at the Plaza Coin Laundry

Plaza Coin Laundry, Ink & watercolor
Plaza Coin Laundry, Ink & watercolor

Tuesday night sketchcrawl was at  the El Cerrito “Plaza Coin Laundry” (where the machines do not accept coins, just cards and dollar bills!). The sketch above was my last for the evening, done in my car after my sketch buddies had departed. I had struggled mightily with perspective and repeated shapes while we were sketching so it felt good to sit quietly in my car and make one final drawing that worked.

Folding Forever, Ink and watercolor
Folding Forever, Ink and watercolor

She was there folding clothes the whole time we sketched while her adult son hung around chatting on his cellphone and not helping.

Making use of a bad sketch
Making use of a badly sketched page

Above is a page where I totally messed up the sketch so instead of just leaving the ugly drawing, I used the page to write notes to myself about how to improve my sketching. Then I painted over it for fun. It’s still messy, but not wasted.

Perspective and pattern
Perspective and pattern

This is what I’d been trying to draw in the previous “bad” sketch. I’d totally messed up the perspective the first time, not believing what I was seeing, but did better on the second try. I also had trouble understanding and drawing the odd shape of the dryer doors on the back wall. Cathy solved that problem by drawing the row of circles first so they were all the same and then adding the trim afterwards instead of starting with the oddly shaped trim like I did.

Categories
Oil Painting Painting Still Life

Junior High Pear-ings

Junior High Pearings, Oil on Gessoboard, 9x12"
Junior High Pearings, Oil on Gessoboard, 9x12"

I’m guilty of anthropomorphizing when I draw or paint. I always seem to see human shapes or body parts in inanimate objects. I see tongues, hips, elbows and other body parts in flowers, plants, fruit or even lampposts.

So when I set up this still life, the two paired pears with one alone behind them reminded me of junior high, when two girls would whisper to each other about another, who would be left out of the conversation. Sometimes I was one of the gossipy whisperers; just as often I was the one left out.

Girls having a sleep-over would phone a friend and try to get her to say mean things about someone who was there, secretly listening in. Then after she’d said, “Mary’s butt is too big,” Mary would speak up and say, “Hi, This is Mary. Thanks a lot!” The next week it might work the other way around.

I learned the hard way not to say things about people which I wouldn’t want them to hear. The lesson gets reinforced regularly by a weird sort of karma that happens to me. It almost never fails that if I do speak about another, they unexpectedly appear, often from behind me, just like in the painting.

About the painting

I painted this on a day when I just had a couple hours and wanted to paint with oils. I didn’t take time to plan the composition and did very little with the set up, originally using my black light box as the background. This is how it looked originally before I revised the background, made some adjustments between the two front pears, and glazed the painting with Indian Yellow.

Pears-Original painting
Pears-Original painting

I thought the original version seemed cold and uninviting. I like it better now, with the softer, warmer feel and the rounded shape of the “table top” instead of the harsh horizontal line.