Category: Painting

Categories
Ink and watercolor wash Painting Plein Air Still Life Watercolor

Bananas in a Debbie Meyer Green Bag

Bananas in a Bag, Watercolor & acrylic on hot press paper, 6x8
Bananas in a Bag, Watercolor & acrylic on hot press paper, 6x8"

I’m usually skeptical of anything that says “As Seen on TV” on the label, but I heard someone raving about how “Debbie Meyer Green Bags” keep fruit fresh longer and decided to give them a try. They actually do work. I used them during the summer with tomatoes from my garden and very few of them went rotten. They seemed to last for weeks without putting them in the refrigerator. I used the bags successfully with bananas and peaches too.

They supposedly can be reused 8 to 10 times but I’ve found that each time you reuse the bags they seem to have less potency.  The package says they are “made with a “a natural mineral ‘Oya’ that absorbs and removes the ethylene gases that cause normal deterioration.” Oya is made from zeolite, a kind of clay found in Japanese caves.

You do have to keep the contents of the bags dry and I found putting them in the refrigerator means they get moisture inside and you have to keep wiping the inside of the bag. I hope I don’t find out later

About the watercolor:

I wanted to use masking fluid to preserve the white highlights and shiny spots on the bag but when I opened my bottle of masking fluid I found it had turned into a solid lump of white rubber. So I tried using a white colored pencil as a resist on the white areas, but when I painted over it it didn’t repel the paint. I could have drawn the whole thing out really, really carefully and saved the white areas by painting around them, but I didn’t have the time tonight.

So I just painted, planning to use my white gel pen for the highlights but discovered it too had dried up.  In the end I made the highlights with liquid Golden acrylic, drawing straight from the little squirt bottle of paint, blobs and all.

Debbie Meyer Green Bags
Debbie Meyer Green Bags

P.S. WordPress rolled out it’s new version today with a beautiful, pwerful and simple new user interface that makes blogging a joy! Yay WordPress!

Categories
Life in general Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape People

Lake, Little Girl & What Makes You Happy?

Little Girl at Lake Temescal (Revised)
Little Girl at Lake Temescal (Revised)

Updated: I worked on the painting and tried to make the little girl sunnier (ABOVE). When I compared the finished painting to the original photo I discovered that the girl and the ducks were way too big compared to the actual scene. Oh well.

The original is BELOW:

Little Girl at Lake Anza, Oil on Gessobord, 8x8"
(Original) Little Girl at Lake Temescal, Oil on Gessobord, 8x8" from photo

When I woke up this morning I was feeling grumpy because it was my last day of vacation and I’d hoped to accomplish more in the studio than I had. I tried to think of an antidote to grumpiness so I didn’t ruin my day. I decided to write down everything that makes me happy and was surprised that it took three pages in my  journal. When I finished writing I was feeling much more cheery.

I’d be interested to hear what makes you happy.

About the painting: I took the photo when I was painting at Lake Temescal in Oakland last month and cropped it to experiment with a square format. I pretended like the image on my monitor was a plein air scene and tried to paint as if I was outdoors. I must admit I didn’t really fool myself, and knew the light wouldn’t change and the little girl wouldn’t move.

What makes me happy: (in the order it occurred to me this morning):

A nice walk, fun in the studio, a good meal, a beautiful rainy day being cozy indoors, an enjoyable movie, a snuggly cat or dog, comfortable clothes, good art supplies, loving friends and family, a good book, a day to myself, learning something new, a new art magazine in the mail, days off work, a hot bath or shower, unscheduled time, bursts of creativity, being pain free, comfortable shoes.

A warm beach, windows into other peoples’ lives, my guardian angel (don’t ask), great art, beautiful art books, libraries, book stores, art supply stores, wearing colorful bandanas, finding the right shade of lipstick, looking and feeling cute, tall men with strong arms, drawing people, drawing anything, the flow of watercolor on paper, a successful painting.

A clean house, a toasty warm bed on a cold night, doing dishes, scooping the litter box (I know, I’m nuts), a speedy computer, learning to see colors accurately, my framed art hanging on the wall, a good workout, a small garden, smooth stones, shells from the ocean, the scent of the sea, eating fresh oysters.

Remembering my Grandma, seeing my sons happy and healthy, a hug from my sister, a good laugh, a hike and catch up chat with a friend, organizing things, an air conditioner on a hot night, a refreshing drink when I’m thirsty, a latte made with love (and Peets coffee), a smooth road without potholes, competence, a good teacher.

Good news for a change, financial security (someday), walking instead of driving, people who work for common good, generosity, kindness, puppies, kittens, rain, having someone say “God bless you.” My GPS (not getting lost anymore), my spunky little Toyota RAV4, my Soltek easel and plein air cart, my fuzzy slippers and ratty sweatshirt, my closet for storing canvas, my washer and dryer, owning my own little house.

My neighbors, the internet, my iPhone, good healthcare, a nice cup of tea, writing and/or sketching daily in my journal, a fridge full of fresh healthy food, silly kitties, a massage and sauna, my special black-handled cereal spoon (was my mothers from her 1950s kitchen).

What makes you happy?

Categories
Art supplies Art theory Life in general Oil Painting Painting Still Life

Procrastination & Painting Pomegranates

Pomegranate and seeds, oil on Gessobord, 9x12
Pomegranate and seeds, oil painting on Gessobord, 9x12"

I never thought I was a procrastinator but after a week’s vacation meant to be spent painting but rarely getting into the studio until early afternoon at best, I began to look at how I’ve spent my time this week and had trouble figuring out where it had gone.

Then l saw this incredibly creative and well-made four-minute movie on YouTube entitled “Procrastination.” I could see myself in every single scene (except maybe smoking).  If you’ve ever procrastinated getting started on a creative project out of fear of failure, perfectionism, artist’s or writer’s block or any other reason, this video and will make you laugh (or cry).

About the painting:

I discovered Gessobord this week and fell in love with the wonderful surface of these panels. They’re smooth but have a texture that sort of bites into the paint and grabs it, as well as enhancing the colors of the paint. It’s really amazing and is a total pleasure to paint on with oil paints. I wish they were less expensive, but they’re still cheaper than pre-stretched canvas, especially when purchased on sale online.

Instead of trying to do a one or two hour painting and finishing this still life in one chunk, I had to do this one in several short sessions over a period of a few days (because of procrastination and various holiday events and other responsibilities).

I paused and studied the painting, and saw that I needed to improve the composition and values:

Stopping point before analyzing and improving value contrasts
Stopping point to analyze problems

I looked at the painting and the set-up through a piece of red plastic (which elimates the color, emphasizing values) and could see that I needed to darken the background and the inside of the fruit on the left side. I also added the seeds and stains on the cutting board to avoid so much empty space and lead the eye into the painting.

The pomegrantate (already less than fresh when I started) got less attractive and eventually I had to stop and call the painting finished.  I think it will serve as a good stepping stone to the next as I try to put more “miles” on my brushes. And now to stop procrastinating and focus on starting that next painting!

Ooops…when I posted what I thought was the “finished” painting (at bottom) a few minutes ago and then posted this photo of the set-up from day one, I could see that the color of the pom needed to be warmer and the background cooler so I just applied a dark cool glaze to the background and a warm red glaze on some of the pom and posted the finished picture at the top of the post. Now I’m done (I think).

20081130_2566-pomegranate-photo
Photo of set-up on day one
Pomegranate and seeds, oil on Gessobord, 9x12
Thought I was finished but more work needed
Categories
Drawing Life in general People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Life Without Coffee

Life Without Coffee, ink & watercolor in sketchbook
Life Without Coffee, ink & watercolor in sketchbook

This is what I look like far too often these days as I’ve gradually been reducing my caffeine intake. I’m down to one cup of 25% caf & 75% decaf in the morning and then nothing but decaf after that.

My painting ritual had been to make a cup of coffee before heading into the studio and bringing an entire vacuum pot of the stuff when I went out plein air painting. The extra energy from caffeine not only kept me painting when I should have been sleeping, but it also fueled my late night blog visiting and email answering.

It was fun having that artificial boost, but burning the candle at both ends was doing bad things to my health. While I miss the energy, I am sleeping at night now and waking up feeling alive and ready to go instead of feeling like my head is full of mashed potatoes.

It reminds me of something Maya Angelou said her grandmother told her:

“You don’t always get what you pay for, but you always pay for what you get.”

Yes I was squeezing extra hours out of the day but I was paying for them with being constantly sleep-deprived.

I asked a friend who doesn’t use caffeine what you’re supposed to do when you’re tired if you can’t drink coffee, thinking she’d have some other trick for keeping going. She looked at me perplexed at what seemed like a silly question.

“You rest!” she said. What a novel concept!

Categories
Art theory Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air

Plein air painting: What’s it good for?

Lake Temescal Backlit, Oil on panel 9x12"
Lake Temescal Backlit, Oil on panel 9x12

An artist friend once said that in her opinion, the definition of ” plein air” is “bad landscape painting.” While I have seen some really great plein air landscapes, I’m finding that its challenges often lead to results that look clunky and kindergartenish. It takes a lot of practice to be able to successfully capture a scene in the two hour window you have before the light changes and everything looks completely different.

When starting a plein air painting (or any painting for that matter) it is recommended to first simplify the scene down to its most basic elements, the largest shapes of value and color. However, because I love detail so much, something inside me often rebels at simplifying and then I find myself with an incoherent mess.

I like to think of plein air painting as akin to figure drawing, rather than a way to achieve finished works of art: It’s good for you, but not an end in itself. But if I spend my painting time mostly working plein air, I end up with lots of crappy paintings and frustration from working small. And that leads to messing around with  the painting at home instead of leaving it alone.

Painting process

Below is the sketch that I painted at Lake Temescal on Sunday. It was a gorgeous day and although the lake was smooth and reflective and beautiful, the backlit trees along the lake were calling out to be painted. Below is the original version of the scene painted plein air.

Original painted plein air
Original painted plein air

When I brought it home I broke my rule (that I have yet to follow): Leave plein air paintings alone, call them sketches and move on.  Instead, after dinner I started messing with it, using a photo reference.

Today I studied the painting, still dissatisfied, trying to figure out what was wrong. I converted photos of the scene and my painting to “grayscale” in Photoshop and compared them. Immediately I could see that the photo had strong value contrast and that my painting did not. I worked on it some more, adding some dark accents. Here are the photos:

When a painting isn’t working I turn it into a little laboratory for learning, pushing it until it’s total crap or I’ve learned what I was trying to learn, or both. I think I should have just left this one as a happy color study.

Categories
Oil Painting Painting Still Life

Pomegranate on Velvety Scarf

Oil painting on panel, 6x8"
Oil painting on panel, 6x8"

I am not a party girl. I much prefer my time with friends spent one on one. But today I was scheduled to go to two parties. I was supposed to be at a housewarming party in San Francisco anytime from 11-3 and then at my son’s housewarming party in Pinole from 3-6.

One thing after another delayed my departure, including my own procrastination (and ambivalence since I also wanted time to paint). Finally I was showered, dressed, face made up, the gift wrapped and I was ready to leave when my son arrived at the door.

I loaned him the folding table he needed for his housewarming party and gave him some advice about his achey back. Then I packed up all my junk for the party and the hike and sketching I planned to do in Golden Gate Park after I left the first party. (The latter being completely unrealistic time-wise, but I have only the slenderest hold on the reality of time.)

Walking out the door I looked at my watch and realized it was already 2:00. My GPS unit in my car said I would arrive at my destination at 2:30. I figured showing up for half an hour was better than missing it entirely and I took off. The traffic on I-80 slowed to a crawl and my GPS started showing more and more traffic delays. After driving for about 15 minutes and still not reaching the Bay Bridge, the arrival time had changed from 2:30 to 2:56, 4 minutes before the party was to end. I gave up, got off the freeway and went home.

That left me an hour to finish this little painting I started last week. Fortunately the Pomegranate held up for the week and if anything, got a little more character in its lumps and bumps.

But now I’m late getting ready for my son’s party. Fortunately my clothes are ready to put on, and I already gave him a housewarming gift, so I can just get dressed and walk out the door.

Categories
Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Other Art Blogs I Read Outdoors/Landscape Painting People Plein Air Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Sketching at Martinez Waterfront Park

Martinez Hot Dog Depot, Ink & watercolor
Martinez Waterfront Park, Ink & watercolor in watercolor Moleskine, 5x7"

I arrived late and lazy (due to my efforts to decaffeinate myself) for our paint out at Martinez Waterfront Park today and decided to sketch in ink and watercolor instead of setting up my easel and oil paints. It’s a great park, with a marina full of boats on the bay, fields, trees, ponds, an historic train station and old train (pictured above), a nearby river and marshlands and much more. It’s right on the edge of the older part of town and the Amtrak train station is just outside the entrance to the park.

I sat on a very hard stone bench at the old train station about 20 feet from the tracks.  On the sketch above, I drew without much of a plan, just picking things I saw that interested me and sticking them somewhere on the page, drawing in ink and hoping it would all fit together somehow. I added the watercolor on site.

The two artists in the sketch were standing between the west and east Amtrak tracks. Every 15 minutes a train would roar by about 2 feet of where they were standing, sounding it’s horn so loudly it was painful, but they stood their ground like the dedicated plein air painters that they are.

Martinez Hot Dog Depot, Ink & watercolor
Martinez Hot Dog Depot, Ink & watercolor in Moleskine watercolor sketchbook, 5x7"

I turneda bit to the left at the end of the day and quickly sketched this wonky old Hot Dog Depot (named because it’s adjacent to the train depot. The perspective is all wonky but so was the building. It has a weird corner section where that second smaller window is. So the building isn’t a rectangle, it’s a pentagon (5-sided). I didn’t have time to worry about perspective as the group was convening for a critique and I had to hurry to finish this at all.

Categories
Life in general Oil Painting Painting Still Life

Toilet Paper Roll in Lovely Light

Toilet Roll in oils, 6x8"
Toilet Roll In Lovely Light, oil on board, 6x8"

You know how in movies when someone has a black eye they always say they got it from walking into a door? I could never figure out how that could happen until I did it myself last week during the night and then forgot about it when I woke up.

Yesterday I was trying figure out what a sore red bump on my forehead was—a sort of vertical red line. I thought of all kinds of scary possibilities, going from pimple to blood poisoning to brain tumor. Finally, this morning I remembered that when I was sick last week I was hurrying to the bathroom in the dark and walked right into the open door.

What I hit my forehead on was the narrow side of the door, not the front or back of the door. I’d always pictured people walking into a closed door and it seems like that would make it difficult to bump your face on, since your feet would hit first. But the side of the door was easy; my feet were on either side of it. Fortunately I don’t have a black eye, just a red stripe up my forehead.

About the painting:

With all the nose blowing and drinking vast quantities of fluids while I was sick, this was a sight I saw frequently over the past week.

My bathroom has a large glass block window that shines the most lovely morning light on the less lovely items in the small bathroom. Since it’s such a small room it would be hard to get an easel in there so I took a few photos and worked from them.

Categories
Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Summer Leftovers #2: Avocado & Apricot Pits

Avocado & Apricot Pits, Watercolor on coldpress paper, 6x8
Avocado & Apricot Pits, Watercolor on coldpress paper, 6x8"

I thought that these apricot pits and this avocado pit, still in a bit of it’s outer papery sheath would be a good subject for using my set of Kremer Pigments’ pan watercolors.  The Kremer watercolors are unusual in that they’re so highly pigmented, mostly opaque and mostly sedimentary. They are quite stable when applied: the colors don’t charge or bleed much into each other, unlike the more volatile quinacridone and other synthetic pigments.

But I found that those qualities make them less suitable for glazing because their opacity and and saturation mean that one layer hides the one beneath it. Half of the colors in my 14-color palette are muted shades of red, brown, gold, green; a few are more brilliant, but so richly colored that they have to be thinned way down to appear transparent.

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not as familiar with how these colors work together as I am my regular palette of mostly Winsor Newton tube watercolors. It takes practice to have control over one’s media and I felt pretty out of control with these but enjoyed playing with them. I’ll try them again for the next summer leftovers.

Categories
Life in general Oil Painting Painting Still Life

Green Fig (Minus One Bite), Rock Tours, Guardian Angels

Green Fig, Oil on panel, 8x6"
Green Fig, Oil on panel, 8x6

I took one bite out of my last green fig and was treated to an explosion of taste and color so brilliant I had to paint it. I gave myself the length of a Tom Waits live concert podcast to paint it. I finished before the concert did. It’s still playing and is fantastic! It’s one of many of NPR’s “All Songs Considered Live Concerts” that can be listened to directly on their website or downloaded from iTunes.

The back up musicians are incredible (love that sax and drums) and there isn’t a boring or annoying song in the whole 2 hour performance. Of course Tom Waits is not for everyone. He trained his voice when he was young to make it sound like a gravelly-voiced old man and it stuck that way. His songwriting is eerie and strange and some might be offended by his more irreverent themes. “Glitter and Doom” is the name of his 2008 tour and it fits the music perfectly.

2007: The Oil Slick Tour

I’ve always been jealous of how musicians get to name their tours, like Madonna’s “Sticky and Sweet Tour,” (yuck, gross) Elton John’s “Red Piano Tour, ” U-2’s “Vertigo Tour.” I love the idea that for a period of time you name your “tour.” I think I’m going to start having tours instead of years. I could call 2007 the “Oil Slick” tour, as I’ve worked hard this year to learn how to paint in oils, with lots of slipping and sliding along the way.

Now it’s time to plan my tour through 2008, and gather my roadies and back-up singers. Hmmm, what shall I call the tour? I’m thinking maybe the “Anchored Angels Tour” based on some helpful advice from two friends about completely unrelated issues:

Setting Anchor

I’ve been trying to get to bed earlier but my caffeine habit makes it hard to do that. So my friend Ree told me that she never drinks coffee after a certain time in the afternoon. She thinks of that time of day as setting an anchor, putting in to harbor for the day. Then she’s able to get to bed at reasonable time and wake up rested instead of being kept awake by the caffeine into the wee hours and waking up in need of another jolt of java.

Guardian Angels

Another friend said “Don’t fly faster than your Guardian Angel.” I loved that saying since I’m often doing a dozen things at once, trying to get more than is possible done, and can barely keep up with myself.

If I were rich I’d have a full time personal assistant/personal trainer/life coach/personal chef. But since I’m not rich, I have to do all those things for myself, and sometimes I can be quite incorrigible. So maybe if I adoped a Guardian Angel (and not just the wind-up Parking Karma Angel on my dashboard) she could tag along and fill in for that personal trainer/coach/etc. All available Guardian Angels, please apply within.