Category: Photos

In the studio & Wanna be tagged?

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date May 14, 2007
17 Comments on In the studio & Wanna be tagged?

A watercolor in progress (about 1/3 done) on my watercolor table with my helpers standing by, waiting to help (or get in the way). This is a commissioned portrait of a house with the family’s 3 cats in the window.

An acrylic painting in progress on my easel in the opposite corner of the room.

If you click on the pictures to look at them on Flickr you’ll see little notes of what stuff is.

Tagged

Now, about this tagging business. This week I’ve been “tagged” by three different art bloggers. When you get tagged you’re supposed to list seven little known facts about yourself and then list seven blogs you like to visit and then tell each of those people they’ve been tagged. It’s sort of like a chain letter. Since I don’t know who’s already been tagged, and since I was tagged 3 times in 3 days, I have a feeling people are running out of people to tag…which makes me feel a little like I did in high school gym class where I was always the last to be picked for a team since I was such a klutz.

So instead of tagging other people, I’m going to invite people to be tagged. That way I won’t be imposing on anyone and won’t re-tag already tagged people. Will I get in trouble for breaking the chain? If you want to play and haven’t been tagged yet, just leave me a comment and I’ll toss you a tag…

Here are the 7 random facts about me:

1. I live in a house that used to be a duplex so I have 2 living/dining room rooms, 2 kitchens, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and 2 laundry rooms. (One living/dining room/kitchen is my studio and 1 laundry room is a pantry now.)

2. I have two cats who sleep on top of my computer monitor and tv with their tail hanging over the screen.

3. I love doing dishes and cleaning the cat litter box but dislike doing other housework because it takes too long.

4. I like to read manuals for computer software and electronic gadgets and I subscribe to PC Magazine.

5. I hate shopping for clothes but love shopping for art supplies and books.

6. I download books from Audible.com to my computer and iPod and listen to them while I watercolor (but oil or acrylic painting I listen to music).

7. I have a spinning bike (exercise bike) in my living room and I like to ride it while watching American Idol on my TiVo with the sound played through my stereo.

And here are links to the lovely artists who tagged me:

Claudia of Time Passages whose garden sketches are sensational!

Kerstin Klein of Snowflakes and Black Vampires who has been participating in the portrait party where people trade doing each other’s portraits.

Dinahmow (sounds like “Dynamo”) of Idle Thoughts of an Idle Woman whose printmaking and photography is stunning.

So, I know I’ve done this all wrong. I haven’t listed 7 new tagged people…but I’m tossing the ball to you and calling out TAG, You’re IT. If you wanna be tagged, just leave me a comment and I’ll link you in the next post.

Tags Acrylic Painting, Photos

Gardening Life in general Outdoors/Landscape Photos Plants Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Sister Spa Day

Watercolor & Ink in small Moleskine watercolor notebook
To enlarge, click images

Yesterday I treated my sister Marcy to a sisters’ spa day at the wonderful Osmosis Day Spa in Freestone, CA and then dinner at the Union Hotel in Occidental.

We started with a tea ceremony in their Japanese garden and then had enzyme baths which was the most relaxing experience I’ve ever had. After putting on lovely Japanese robes, we were escorted to a private room with a glass sliding wall facing another zen garden and pond.

In the room were two large cement tubs piled with fragrent cedar sawdust, soft rice bran and enzymes imported from Japan. After climbing in, we were each buried up to our chins with this warm, heavy stuff. It was like being in the most comfortable recliner ever, and like being in a womb. Beautiful music played while we relaxed and for once my mind went completely blank. Every five minutes our beautiful attendant arrived to refresh the cool washcloth on our forehead, gently wipe our faces with a cool cloth and give us sips of water. Because of the enzymes, the sawdust gets warmer and warmer until it’s time to get out after 20 minutes.

Thoroughly baked to just the right temperature, our attendant helped us out, brushed us off and then we showered before moving on to our heavenly 75 minute massages. Speaking of baking, across the street from the spa is the Wildflour Bakery, where Marcy bought a loaf of “Sticky Bun” bread which was hot out of the oven filled with rich, melting cinnamon and nuts.

After the massages we retreated to the zen garden and sat in the open air meditation gazebo (seen in the photo above). Marcy sat on the provided meditation cushions watching the Koi and meditating until she dozed off and almost fell over. Then she joined me on my bench where I was making the sketch at the top, of the view from the gazebo (photo below).

By then it was nearly four and since we’d skipped lunch we headed a few miles west to Occidental for dinner at the Union Hotel. The second sketch at the top is what was sitting on the bar in the cafe at the hotel along with several more large clay bunny statues. Then it was a lovely 1 1/2 hour ride back home through the most brilliantly green fields covered in yellow and white wildflowers. For city girls it was fun seeing all the horses, cows, sheep, lambs, llamas, a few deer, a squashed skunk, and many hawks out in the beautiful country.

“Pull over, I have to pet those horses,” Marcy said. So we drove down someone’s dirt road to pet the horsies, who were only interested in us long enough to determine we had no food for them and then went back to eating grass. The car above is in the side garden at Osmosis–a bit incongruous but I’m sure there’s a story behind it.

Tags Pen and Ink, Photos

Art theory Drawing Faces Other Art Blogs I Read People Photos Portrait Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Painting vs Preparing to Paint (& Portrait Request)

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date March 18, 2007
13 Comments on Painting vs Preparing to Paint (& Portrait Request)

Brown Micron Pigma ink and watercolor in large Moleskine Watercolor notebook
To enlarge, click images, select All Sizes

The other day I got a mysterious email from someone calling himself “Fake Dane.” He wrote, “Hey, I think your art is great. I was wondering if you’d be willing to sketch me from a picture. I’m assembling a collection that I’d post. Dane”

And he sent me his photo. If you want to draw him too, just click the photo below and select All Sizes when you get to Flickr and then you can print it out:

I wrote back, “Sure, why not?” and did the sketch above. I was going for caricature so I hope he’s not offended. (UPDATE: He replied and said he really liked it and put it on his blog. There’s some funny drawings of him as a vampire there too.) If you want to do a drawing of him and send it to him too, there’s instructions in the “Please Read” sidebar on his blog.

It was a fun, quick painting project on a day in the studio that was mostly spent at the computer, trying to sort out photos and compositions for upcoming paintings, something I don’t particularly enjoy doing. And that made me think about the differences between…

Alla Prima/Plein Air vs carefully planned painting

When I’m planning a painting I consider focus, value, composition, color scheme, etc. I do thumbnails and value sketches. If it’s something requiring exact proportions, such as a portrait of someone’s child, pet or home, I’ll start with a drawing and then work from a photo, tracing it onto the watercolor paper. But even with more carefree subjects like flowers and still life or landscapes, that prep work saves a lot of frustration once painting is underway. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way.

On the other hand, my understanding is that people who regularly paint alla prima (in one setting) or plein air make the prep work quick and intuitive and let go of exactitude, painting their impression of the subject rather than a careful rendering. I’ve done some and it’s a lot harder than people like Kris Shanks, Nel Jansen, Ed Terpening, and others whose blogs I enjoy visiting, make it look.

What I’m trying to figure out is how to combine the two approaches, or how to avoid all the labored pre-planning. Judy Morris, the teacher of the workshop I took in February, said that her favorite part is planning and composing from photos, not the actual painting. For me it’s the opposite — while I enjoy drawing, I love painting more and don’t really enjoy spending a lot of time photoshopping compositions and sorting through photos at the computer. (She does the prep work manually, working with black and white photocopies and enlargements of the subject and background, which she cuts out and assembles.
On the other hand, if I don’t do the pre-planning (especially with watercolor) the whole painting ends up being a study that has to be done over. I guess with acrylics and to some extent oils, one can just keep working on and changing a piece until it’s right, but I’m not sure if that’s a great way to go either.

I’m hoping to find my own way of working that incorporates the best of both worlds.

Tags Faces, Pen and Ink, People, Photos

Acrylic Painting Gardening Other Art Blogs I Read Outdoors/Landscape Photos

An Artful Life

I’m doing something different today, inspired by a visit to my best friend Barbara’s house today — I’m sharing some of her wonderful artwork and photos of her garden. She truly lives an artful life and every corner of her little house and garden has something to delight the eye and spirit.

Images can be enlarged by clicking them and selecting “All Sizes”

Left: Life size ceramic woman (celebrating retirement and gardening). Right: View from the front porch. Just beyond this is the lush vegetable garden.

When Barbara retired not too long ago, she completely redesigned the tiny rental cottage beside her 3-story house in North Berkeley, sold the big house, and moved into the cottage with her husband and teenage daughter. Barbara is an amazing gardener and artist.

Above: Cottage front. Barbara created this mosaic on the foundation of the cottage using broken pottery and her handmade ceramic chickens.

Left: Barbara’s mosaic studio she built herself from recycled doors, windows and other things. Right: Path in her garden

Two pretty corners in the garden. Left: A ceramic gardening woman holding a carrot and a tall mosaic garden mirror.

Left: Whimsical ceramic whistles in Barbara’s sunny kitchen and a graceful ceramic woman in the hallway window. She started by making ceramic whistles and then learned how to make Ocarinas. I wonder if the female sculpture was inspired by our figure drawing sessions.

Two canvas painted “rugs” on the kitchen floor by the sink and fridge. I have rugs on my kitchen floor in those spots too, but they’re ugly things from the hardware store.

Above: Even the laundry room is artful. The detergent is hidden inside a tapestry cover.

Two of Barbara’s acrylic cactus paintings from back in the day (after she was a fabulous silversmith making exquisite silver jewelry when we first met, but before she became a teacher). During her years as a teacher she stopped painting and focused her art on quilting. Now she’s painting on her ceramics and plans to start painting on canvas again too.

I’m looking forward to some time painting in her garden. It’s about as close to heaven as you can get in Berkeley, especially when it comes with her homemade lemonade!

Tags Acrylic Painting, Photos

Oil Painting People Photos Sketchbook Pages

Woman at the museum

Oil on canvas board, 12 x 16″
To enlarge, click images, select All Sizes

Thumbnail sketch (1.75×2.5″) in sketchbook for painting

Ink in small Moleskine notebook
(original sketch at SF Museum of Modern Art cafe)

A few weeks ago I went to see the Picasso and American Art exhibit at SFMOMA and was inspired by this woman’s thick, grey hair in a giant clip and the way the teeth of the clip separated her her hair. I also took a photo of her while I was there (below) but the view was different from my drawing so I didn’t end up referring to it when I made the painting. I’m still struggling with oils and acrylics but this one was a little easier because I stuck to black, white and 3 grays. I had intended this to be an underpainting and was going to glaze over it with the colors of eggplant and chocolate but decided to leave it because I like it the way it is.

I used Gamblin Chromatic Black for the darkest darks which is not a dead black pigment like most. From the Gamblin website: “Chromatic Black is black, but it has no black pigment in it. It is made from two perfect complements: Quinacridone Red and Phthalo Emerald.” For the grays I used Gamblin’s Portland Greys in light, medium and deep. So there was no color mixing, just a value study and an attempt to get some control with applying and blending oil paints.

Tags Pen and Ink, Pencil drawing, People, Photos

Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Photos

Always doing

In trying to catch up with email and blog visiting, I discovered Suresh Gundappa‘s site with some of the most amazing photos I’ve seen, especially the one linked here that so brilliantly illustrates his powerful essay on how Westerners are so busy and in a hurry all the time that they are “driving themselves mad with their activity…” which really hit home.

I often complain that there’s never enough time to do everything I want to do, and make long lists of things to accomplish on days off and vacations. I’m so glad that when I go to Mexico in two weeks, I will be disconnected from all activity except relaxing and painting and that it will be goal-less painting. A week of just being. I haven’t done that in years.

Sorry…no pictures here today, but I hope you’ll scroll through Suresh’s images and words…there are some really thrilling photos there.

Tags Photos

Drawing Flower Art Photos Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Starting Over

Graphite in 6×9 Aquabee sketchbook
(To enlarge, click images, select All Sizes)

I’ve been struggling with an oil painting of this image …

and finally realized that it wasn’t working because I hadn’t first done a value study and compositional sketches. So tonight I set aside the painting and started over with this sketch to simplify the image and study the values. I took the photo on a rainy day in December when the sun suddenly broke through and lit up these roses I’d just clipped from the garden that were still blooming despite the December storm.

As much as I love to draw, sometimes I’m impatient to get to the fun, juicy painting and so I skip the preliminary studies. Once in a while that approach works, but more often it ends up feeling like I’m wandering and lost in a maze, with no end in sight.

But if I start with a study or two first to determine what really interests me about the image, how I can simplify it, where I want the focus to be, where the lights and darks are, what I want to exaggerate or de-emphasize, and what colors I’m REALLY seeing, then I have a much better chance of success and hence a lot more fun with the paint. I might still get lost along the way, but I know my destination and how to get there.

I wonder if I should have one leaf overlapping the front of the bottle. If you see any compositional problems or have suggestions, I’d be happy to hear them. Sometimes I find it so hard to see the problems in my own work. Just looking at now in the post I can see I need to lengthen the stem on the top left rose as it looks a little too short to me.

I’m going to start over, using my new sketch as a reference so I can focus on the light, and the colors in the bottle which was what interested me in the first place. If I don’t get tired of it, I might try it in oil, acrylic (bought some acrylics today) and watercolor, just for fun.

Tags Pencil drawing, Photos

Animals Photos

While I was online tonight….

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date January 4, 2007
2 Comments on While I was online tonight….

I set aside tonight to try to catch up on visiting blogs, responding to email and reading this week’s Everyday Matters posts. While I was visiting Andrea and Andrea‘s blogs I noticed through the slightly open door to the bathroom that Fiona (my calico cat) was playing in the bathroom sink. I didn’t think that was too odd since she slept in the sink all the time as a kitten. When I got up to make some tea I discovered she had somehow opened the medicine cabinet door and pulled all the q-tips out of their little container and scattered them about in the sink. She loves to chew on q-tips and her other favorite bad thing is to get on my drawing table and pull pushpins out of my bulletin board and then play with them which really scares me.

This little mess was a perfect metaphor for my day, which was all about little frustrations and annoyances. I spent way too much time standing in line at the post office to mail a CD with files of some paintings to a London publisher who’d requested some images for a book on flower painting. Once I reached the counter and waited for the incompetent postal employee to sort out how it’s done, she determined I’d have to start all over with their packaging, not mine, a contact phone number and a form to fill out, which meant a trip upstairs to my office for the phone number and another wait in line.

Stupidly I had no pen or paper so couldn’t even sketch while waiting and instead just stood their anxiously since I should have been in my office working. Oh well. It eventually got sent and I stayed way late at work to make up the time. I would have sketched the Q-tips, but I really want to get caught up with computer stuff tonight.

Tags Animals, Cats, Photos

Animals Photos Sketchbook Pages

Photos from my world

Hi, welcome to my tall world. This is a picture of me taking a picture of my shadow. I am so easily amused…I guess that’s why I enjoy my own company so much.

Today was a long and busy day and now I’m too tired to draw so I thought I’d post some photos I’ve shot in the past week or so.

A lovely spider and her sparkly web.

A nice plump spider building her web–not quite so well organized as Spider Number One.

A neighbor’s garden.

Alcatraz as viewed from the sailboat, er…yacht last weekend.

And now it’s off to get some rest. Tomorrow I’m hoping will be a fun day of drawing, painting, and experimenting with monoprints.

Tags Animals, Photos