Category: Painting

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Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Photos Plein Air

Alpine Lake, Mt. Tam: Beautiful place, Ugh!ly paintings

Alpine Lake, Mount Tamalpais

It couldn’t have been a more perfect day, weather-wise, or a more beautiful site. Maybe it was the beauty and grandeur of the location that made it so hard to get a decent painting. Four of us met this morning on Mt. Tamalpais to paint and stayed until 6:00 p.m But despite the perfect conditions, nobody had a good painting day. Peggy threatened to throw her easel in the lake and take up singing instead of painting.

I’m posting the bad paintings because a reader asked me to show the ones I call “scrapers” before I trash them or scrape the paint off to reuse the panel. On my easel above, was the first layer–the blocking in–of painting #1, in which I “pushed” (exaggerated) the intensity of the colors I was seeing, knowing it’s easier to tone them down than brighten them in oil painting.

I liked the initial bright colors but wasn’t successful in taking it to the next stage, as you’ll see from the picture below. This was where I left off when I gave up after the sun moved and the light and shadows changed and I was just making a mess.

Alpine Lake, Mount Tamalpais 1

And this one (below) was even worse! The drawing is wrong and the silly, carrot colored-rabbit foot shaped hills on the left kept growing without my noticing and I lost all my darks. The third painting was so terrible I scraped it off on site.

Alpine Lake, Mount Tamalpais 2

Although I feel like I’ve taken a couple of steps backwards today, I will just assume that means that I’m going to have a big leap forwards soon. My paintings were complete rubbish but I was happy just being there. I found pleasure in small things: mixing a good color, the fresh paint thinner in my brush washer can, excellent company and no bugs, rain or wind so it was safe to use my umbrella without worrying about the wind pulling it (and my easel) over.

My only regret was not taking a hike like all the other people strolling by us. I felt envious of them when I heard them talking about the nearby waterfall and the wonderful trails.

I’m going to start taking a lunch time hike when I paint in beautiful locations. I think it will be good for my painting, my mind, and my butt, which wouldn’t fit into my painting jeans this morning! Must have been all the medicinal chocolate I ate the past few weeks to calm my stress at the day job.

Categories
Drawing Faces Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Life: NOT as Seen on TV

NOT as seen on TV

Ink & watercolor (Larger)

“Life is what passes you by while you’re watching TV.” I used to have a little sign on my TV with those words, but back then it was a reminder to my kids, not to me. Now I need it for me.

I was chatting with my friend Lin [View from the Oak] about our struggles to find time for everything. Lin manages to paint or sketch every day, post it on her illustrious blog AND leave wonderfully encouraging comments on countless other blogs, all while working a grueling schedule and making time for her husband, offspring and grandbabies.

It occurred to me later that day: I bet Lin doesn’t watch TV! It turns out I was right. Other than the art videos she watches while on her treadmill, she rarely watches TV. She said that sketching IS her TV, her way to relax.

I used to be like that too but somehow, over time, TV has insidiously infiltrated my life. I turned to it as a way to relax when my brain was tired from thinking hard all day at work. But it puts me in a stupor so I just watch another show instead of doing something more satisfying (or just going to bed when what I really need is sleep).

Now it’s time to pull the plug! I may even cancel my cable and TiVo subscriptions and go cold turkey for a while. I bet that not only will I gain time and save money (on cable and TiVo bills), I might even lose a couple extra pounds, since watching TV often leads to snacking on empty calories while burning none!

Have you successfully quit TV? If you have any tips, I’d love to hear them!

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

Plein Air “Grunts” with No Green for St. Patricks Day

Quick starts plein air

Oil on panel, 12″x16″,  (larger)

In Camille‘s class today we painted at Helen Putnam Regional Park in Petaluma. Our instructions were to paint four small, very quick (about 20 minutes) starts (sort of like rough drafts in oils) on one 12×16″ panel. If I understood correctly, we were to try to capture the color temperature of a bright sunny day, the relationships between the hues and values, and the relationships between the distant, mid and close up values and colors. And all of this without using green to paint the extremely bright and vibrant lime green hills.

I’m at the point now with this work where I feel like I’ve been living in a foreign country long enough (the land of plein air oil painting) that some of the words the natives (my teachers) speak are starting to be understandable. I still can only respond with grunts (see above “painting,” — definitely no more than a few grunts!) but I kind of get what my teachers are saying.
I’m starting to see the vivid colors in nature beyond the local colors (green tree, red apple). And I’m maybe starting to understand why you might paint a sky a pale yellow before over-painting it with very light blue, or a green hill orange first because it’s in the bright sun, and then modify that orange with something that, when compared to the color next to it, reads as green.

Categories
Gouache Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Vegetable Medley to Celebrate: Taxes Done!

Vegetable medley

Gouache on hot-pressed Arches paper, 7×5” (larger)

To celebrate E-filing my taxes tonight I wanted to paint something bright, cheery (and low calorie to make up for all the chocolate I ate while preparing the return). For years I fueled my tax preparation with a big bag of Mother’s Iced Circus Cookies that I stuck in the freezer and munched on until my taxes were done. I needed all that sugar to be able to do the math, understand the forms, and reward myself for doing such an unpleasant task.

This year I skipped the toxic cookies (loaded with artificial color, flavor and hydrogenated fats but oh so yummy)…and bought organic, fair trade chocolate at my neighborhood health food store, El Cerrito Natural. I waited a week to let the tax returns “simmer on the back burner” to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. Then tonight I reviewed everything and clicked “Submit.”

It’s much easier to do taxes these days: Turbotax does the math and I just have to gather and enter all the information. But I still experience all the same old fear and loathing plus resentment at where my tax money goes. But it’s done for another year! Woohoo!

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Oil Painting Other Art Blogs I Read Painting Still Life Studio

Red Onion, Wrench & Lighting Still Lifes

Red Onion & Wrench

Oil on panel, 8×6″ (larger)

My favorite part of this quick oil sketch are the little flag or wing-like thingees on the top of the onion. I had a variety of problems with this painting, some of which I solved and some I didn’t.

I still haven’t gotten still life lighting worked out. I was about to build a set up like I saw on Carole Marine’s blog here and here, but discovered that while the pvc pipe she used is very inexpensive, the fittings are not. It was going to cost around $50 for the fittings and pipe so I decided to go back to using my 3-sided cardboard box still life “stage.” But my overhead full-spectrum fluorescent lights are right next to the table beside my easel, so it’s hard to block out the overhead light to prevent light sources coming from different directions.

I’ve also been experimenting with different kinds of light bulbs to direct at the still life, from color balanced fluorescents and incandescents to halogen. I even bought some sheets of colored photographic “gels” to use as filters on the lights to create a warm or cool light. So far nothing has worked as well as painting outdoors;  Mother Nature is the best.But in my neighborhood near the San Francisco Bay where it’s often foggy and windy and the light changes constantly, outdoor still life painting can be frustrating.

If you have any tips on lighting still lifes, I’d be most grateful to hear about them!

Categories
Berkeley Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air

Mustard Grass Meadow, Albany CA

Mustard Grass meadow

Oil on panel plein air (mostly), 12×9″ (Larger)

After working at my “day job” most of Monday, a day I usually don’t work, I grabbed my painting gear and headed to this field covered in brilliant mustard grass. I’d driven by the field the day before and was desperate to paint it. By then it was about 4:30 and the sun, which had been shining brightly all day, had disappeared behind clouds on its way down. A chilly, foggy breeze blew in from the nearby Bay but the mustard grass was still glowing.

I set up in the parking lot of the Ocean View Elementary School in Albany, looking through a chainlink fence at the field. It is part of U.C. Berkeley’s Gill Tract, a 14-acre agriculture research field owned by the university. Until recently the field was a pine forest, but the university just cut down all 314 Monterey Pines because they were infected with pitch canker and were deemed hazardous.

Several children who were being picked up from after-school activities dragged their moms over to see what I was doing. One little boy told me that my trees looked “so realistic!” He made my day because I’d been thinking they were awful. Another little girl said she liked to paint too. I asked her what she liked to paint with (thinking watercolor? acrylic?) and she said, “purple….and orange….and yellow…you know, colors!” acting like I was really dumb to be asking that question.

With the light fading fast I packed up and went home after about an hour and a half. Tonight, with the workweek finally over I returned to the painting. From memory I made a few adjustments, lightening the hills a bit, adding more dimension to the field and trying to do a little something with the trees, which maybe I should have just left alone since they looked better before like the little boy said.

Categories
Art theory Faces Figure Drawing Oil Painting Other Art Blogs I Read Painting People Portrait Sketchbook Pages

Figure Painting Workshop Sketches

20080310_0131-Meri

20 Minute Sketch: Oil on panel 12×9″ Larger

I thought I would scrape off and reuse this panel but when I photographed it I found there was something about the rawness that I liked. It was the second sketch of the first day of my “Weekend Warriors” figure painting workshop with Randall Sexton, a talented and kind teacher. The model, Meri, was the best I’ve worked with…beautiful, voluptious, charming and a real professional. She is originally from Argentina and came to the SF Bay Area after working with artists in New York City for 10 years.

Below is another 20 minute sketch from day one. Again, I thought I’d wipe and reuse but since I kind of like the energy in it (and didn’t like the cheapo Aaron Brothers panel — way too smooth a surface) I think I’ll hang onto it. (Which means it joins the big stack of “learning opportunities” in my closet until I’m ready to dump them).

Oil on panel, 12×9″ (larger)

20080310_0136-Meri

Oil painting from a live model is sort of like plein air painting: time is limited and there are so many elements that need to be right (drawing, color , value, likeness etc.) for the painting to work. There is so much to see, discover, understand and interpret in 20 minute sprints of painting.

The model’s breaks between poses afford an interesting opportunity to walk around the room and see what others are doing. I was struck by how different each artist’s work was. There were some very accomplished local painters in this weekend class. I had the good fortune of setting up beside Iris Sabre, a local painter whose style and technique I greatly admire.

I started the larger painting below at the end of day one, with two 20 minute sessions. When we returned on Day 2 we had 3 more 20 minute sessions to “finish” up. This is nowhere near finished (but I wish I’d at least gotten around to fixing those giant hands!)

Oil on panel, 20×16″ (larger)

20080310_0125-Meri

This was the 20 minute warm up sketch at the beginning of day two:
Oil on canvas panel, 12×9″ (larger)

20080310_0128-Meri

This was the final painting on day two, about 2 hours and again, not close to being finished and suffering from chalkiness and my exhaustion:
Oil on panel, 20×16″ (larger)

20080310_0121-Meri

Categories
Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Painting People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

How NOT to Start a Workshop

Coffee spill

Ink & watercolor in Aquabee sketchbook (larger)

I’m taking a figure painting workshop this weekend from Randy Sexton in Crockett, CA. It’s two full days of painting a beautiful model both nude and clothed in exotic gowns. Although I was excited about the workshop, I was also exhausted and stressed after a very difficult week at work, topped off by spending Friday evening doing my taxes (ick!).

Early this morning I packed my oil painting gear into my rolling cart, stuck a big thermos cup of coffee in my backpack, and rushed off to Crockett. As I got out of my car I felt my back suddenly go into spasm. Across the street another workshop participant was unloading her supplies. As I waited for her I tried to stretch my back by doing a sort of Downward Dog yoga pose holding onto the handle of my cart.

I felt a searing hot pain go down my back. At first I thought it was another spasm and then realized it was hot coffee pouring all over my backpack, down the back of my light green shirt, and dripping onto my shoes. I’d forgotten the cup was in my backpack and worse, had forgotten to close it all the way.

I managed to enjoy the class today despite all of the above. We did multiple 20 minute paintings and then a couple 40 minute poses. It’s quite a challenge to do an entire oil painting in 20 (or 40) minutes from a model, but extremely good practice. Most of my pieces today were “scrapers” (scraping off all the paint to reuse the panel) but maybe tomorrow with longer poses I’ll have something worth saving (and posting).

Now to go take a painkiller and rest up for tomorrow’s class — which will start even earlier thanks to stupid daylight savings time!

Categories
Art theory Oil Painting Painting Plein Air Still Life

Citrus and Camelia Plein Air

Citrus & Camelia Plein Air

Oil on panel, 9×12″ (Larger)

You really have to work fast to do a still life outdoors in the afternoon. In less than two hours the sun moved overhead far enough that I had to stop because everything was in shadow. I’d gotten all the objects and their shadows well blocked in and probably should have stopped there, calling it a sketch or a study. But of course I couldn’t.

I had to bring it into the studio to “just touch up the edges.” Then I was going to do another quick painting. But I spaced out and before I knew it, overworked areas that I’d originally painted very freely, made more problematic since I’d forgetten exactly what the pattern of light and shadow was on the objects.

Someday I’ll learn to stop while it’s fresh. Nevertheless, I think I did capture the feeling of a bright sunny afternoon, which was my main goal.

Categories
Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Plein Air

Briones Regional Park, Plein Air

Briones Regional Park take 2

Oil on wood panel, 8×10″ (Larger)

Briones Regional Park take 1

Oil on wood panel, 8×10″ (Larger)

The last time we painted in this spot I had a terrible time with my paints and then stepped in dog poo as I was leaving (which of course I didn’t notice until AFTER I got in my car and drove off). Since the painting I did that day was total crap, it was a perfect end to a frustrating day. To make the suffering even worse, I continued to unsuccessfully work on that painting again and again at home (see post “Learning to Stop“]

Needless to say I was not overjoyed facing the same scene today, especially after only a few hours sleep last night. I’d gone to see The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a wonderful movie by artist Julian Schnabel, which I highly recommend. I’d come home feeling inspired and messed around in the studio, finally going to sleep around 1:00 a.m., with my alarm set for 8:00. For some unknown reason I woke at 6:00 instead (grrrr).

Expecting little, I just let myself just play with color, using a palette knife to push the paint around. I made these two paintings and enjoyed the day tremendously. The weather was beautiful: sunny, breezy and fresh. Friendly people, dogs, cows and horses wandered by as we painted. As usual in Elio’s class, I gathered new nuggets of oil painting plein air wisdom. I know I still have a long way to go, but it feels good to know that I’ve made progress too.