It’s been such a busy week that I haven’t had a moment for my blog until now. When my work week ended Friday afternoon it was time to prepare the studio for my watercolor class that started today. I’ve converted a second room to studio space for the duration of the class and I think everyone fit comfortably.
I feel so privileged to have such a great group of wonderful women artists in the class. And what troopers they were today, so determined to get the hang of doing flat washes, graded washes and glazing. By the end of the class everyone was doing beautiful, abundant, juicy washes.
I’d put out a couple of bowls of fresh fruit for class but nobody was hungry. So now I get to paint (and eat) all those yummy pears, apples and pomegranates.
After all the work on good paper today, I got frustrated by sketchbook paper that quickly muddies and doesn’t allow reworking. But I was so tired tonight it was either a quick sketch or nothing and since there’s been way too much nothing on my blog this week, here, at least, is something, as funky as it may be.
Tomorrow, rested up, I will try again on good paper.
The transition from work week to painting week is often difficult for me. I supposedly work only half a day Fridays but it usually turns into a whole day. So last night, to prod the transition along, I took a nice hot shower, put on my jammies and made a cup of Peets Downy Pearls Jasmine Tea.
The tea leaves come wound up into cute little balls a bit bigger than capers. As it steeps, the tea transitions too, from little balls to long spiky, stringy tea leaves that expand tremendously.
So I put some dry “pearls” in one plate, the ones that I’d brewed for my tea in another and my tea on the table and sketched and painted it, to reboot and ease into my art life. I just wished I’d drawn with pencil instead of pen since my drawing brain wasn’t really warmed up and ready to go.
For Tuesday night sketchcrawl we met at Ranch 99 Market inside the Pacific East Mall, an Asian shopping center. I spent most of my sketching time in the fish department, where shoppers can poke and prod a huge variety of whole fish, select the ones they want and hand them to the fish mongers to scale, wash, and carve them into steaks or deep fry them whole in their gigantic deep fat fryer.
Fishmongers, Ink and watercolor
I didn’t want to get in the way of shoppers (or have my fishy model sold before I could sketch it) so I moved down to the bins of fish heads to sketch. But even in the low rent department my models were being picked over and sold.
Cod Heads, Ink and watercolor
The catfish (below) had long whiskers that reminded me of Salvador Dali.
Salmon and Catfish Heads, ink and watercolor
We also sat on benches inside the mall and sketched diners at some of the restaurants. That made me hungry and it was getting late so I ordered takeout from Great Szechuan and we called it a night and went home. The dish wasn’t great, made worse by being slopped into in a styrofoam clamshell container instead of a traditional Chinese takeout carton and I didn’t even get a fortune cookie!
When I brought home today’s plein air oil painting, I spent a few minutes messing with it, tried to fix it, and then just wiped it all off. Then I painted the scene in watercolor instead (above). I’m getting really frustrated with plein air oil painting and I’m starting to reconceptualize how I might approach plein air painting in the future.
I love being out in nature looking closely at it, and trying to capture it in paint. I also really like hiking in these beautiful parks. But when I paint with oils I focus on painting and then when I leave, I’m often envious of the people who hiked past me as I stood there in one spot.
My new idea is to bring my watercolors, sketchbook and my camera and spend half of the time walking and taking photos and the other half making watercolor sketches. Then I can use those studies, photos and my memory and experience of the place to either make larger watercolors or oil paintings in the studio.
I so admire people who can make beautiful oil paintings plein air. I know that there’s nothing that can compare to seeing color and light and painting it right in the midst of nature’s glory. But maybe it’s time to accept that it’s just not my forte and focus on the things that I both enjoy and can do with some modicum of success.
Wonderful Pomeranian Lady at PetVet, ink and watercolor
A couple miles south of my house, is a high-priced pet shop that sells cashmere sweaters and designer collars for dogs. I don’t shop there. PetVet is a mile or two north of my house, in Richmond. They offer discounted food, medicine and vet services and draw a much less affluent clientele.
I shop there because they sell the prescription cat food Busby needs, but I usually try to avoid going during their weekend low-cost vet clinic. I don’t like seeing pets with people who seem unlikely to be responsible pet owners such as this group of young men and their pit bull puppies with cropped ears (a style from dogs used in fighting.)
Tough Dudes and their Pit Bulls, Ink and watercolor
When I arrived, the parking lot was full and people were waiting inside and outside for the first-come, first-served vet visits. After I stocked up on cat food I was intrigued by all of the interesting characters and dogs and wanted to stay and sketch. But I couldn’t find a way to do it surreptitiously.
I decided to be brave and ask if I could take photos of pe0ple with their dogs; surprisingly everyone was happy to pose. The dudes above dropped their tough guy stance and smiled nicely for me. I’d much rather be drawing from life, but it was still fun sketching from my photos.
Treats while waiting, ink and watercolor
I’d like to work on my dog drawing skills so that I’d have enough confidence to go back there and sketch the waiting dogs and owners directly.
Not a Pit Bull? Ink & watercolor
This young lady was quite a character. As she walked past me, she turned to a guy with a really wide pitbull and said to him “Your dog is FAT!” Then she told me her puppy wasn’t a pit bull, it was a brindle and would be bigger than a pitbull. [Except brindle is a mixture of color in a dog’s coat, not a breed.]
There were so many people there with puppies, and many of those puppies were pit bulls or pit mixes. It breaks my heart to think about how that will turn out. I know how much work it is to responsibly raise a good, healthy dog and that the shelters are full of pit bulls surrendered when the cute little puppy grew up and got to be too much trouble.
I will just try to hope that all of those people and their pets have what they need for happy, healthy lives. Meanwhile, I still have another half dozen pictures to make from the day.
When I’m sketching on BART on my way to work in the morning I’m always so delighted by how different each person’s features are. Yes they all have the same features but so many different nose tips, foreheads, lips. Some days everyone I can see is in profile like above.
BART People 2
Other days I can only see lots of backs of heads and a foot or two.
BART People 3
And then it’s all about the hair style (or lack thereof…hair…or style).
For last Tuesday night’s sketchcrawl, we went to Bridges Rock Gym to sketch people climbing on the rock structures and practicing “slack lining” (like tight-rope walking). When I arrived I sketched these sunflowers growing on a little garden plot besides Tin Roof Yoga, attached to the gym. The Assistant Manager, Jeffie, told me that the sunflowers were “volunteers” that sprouted up in the dirt they obtained for the plot by Annie’s Annuals.
Climbers at Bridges Rock Gym, ink and watercolor
Since I was hungry and we were sketching from the cafe on the loft’s balcony I enjoyed a plate of homemade hummos, veges and pita bread, and sketched the salt shaker while I waited for my food. The cafe was offering free samples of their homemade ginger cookies — best I’ve had! Then I tried to draw the moving targets of people climbing rocks (above).
Cathy worked quickly and did a great job capturing so much of the movement and action of the climbers and the balance of the slackline (like a tightrope only springy) walkers. Here are two of Cathy’s sketches:
Rock Gym Climbers by Cathy McAuliffeClimbers and Slackliners by Cathy McAuliffe
If you have a chance to visit the gym, be sure to look at their amazing photobook of the gym’s owner slacklining high atop peaks in Yosemite, from tree to tree in the Berkeley hills, and several floors above a Polish shopping mall. Visiting the gym made me wish I wasn’t scared of heights — it’s such a beautiful place, with great amenities and very friendly staff. Everyone is welcomed and the night we there we saw absolute beginners, a small group of children, and some very advanced climbers with amazing muscles.
When it was time to go, I was just starting to get the hang (no pun intended) of how to approach sketching the climbers, noticing that as they climbed or balanced on the rope, the movements were in patterns that kept repeating so it was just a matter of waiting a couple seconds and they’d be back in that frog-like position, for example. I’ll come back to sketch again and to try out their yoga studio.
I needed a new dust mop, a tube of silicon adhesive and some exercise, so I put them together and walked to Pastime Hardware, a large family-owned hardware store that has everything, including their famously helpful employees.
The sketch above actually closely resembles me when I’m out walking, with my green backpack that is so comfy, even when loaded with junk, my nifty purple cap, and old green shorts.
On the way to the store I called my mom on my iPhone, getting that task done as well. As she told me tales of her adventures with her new, and first computer, I stopped to draw some cacti I spotted along the way.
Cacti, ink and watercolor
My last stop was at the video store to pick up a copy of Local Color which never came out in theaters in Northern California and is finally available on DVD. Then I walked home with the mop over my shoulder feeling like I should be whistling a little tune.
At Tuesday night sketchcrawl last week we started at the top of Fairmount Avenue in El Cerrito. I went from sketching an empty storefront to a tree in a cemetery parking lot to a church facade as the sun went down. It was poignant being at the Sunset View Cemetery again, after attending a funeral there just a couple weeks ago.
For Lease, ink & watercolor
This is my sketchbuddy Cathy sketching from across the street on a hill in front of an empty storefront. On all of these I drew with a blue Copic Multi-liner and then added watercolor wash at home. I tried to mix a similar blue but got swayed by some purple.
The sun is setting so much earlier now; we’re going to have to move indoors soon for our after-work sketchcrawls. We’re making a list of places to sketch: a bowling alley, a bingo parlor, a new rock-climbing gym, Pastime Hardware and the library are at the top of my list.
St. Jeromes Church, Ink & Watercolor
It got too dark to finish drawing this church so we headed over to Fat Apples Restaurant for tea and Cathy shared her notes and images from an amazing workshop she took in Maine from Susan Abbott. I love Susan’s work and after seeing Cathy’s paintings from the week and hearing about Susan’s wisdom and generosity as a teacher, I am even more determined to get to New England and take a workshop from her next year!
Sunday I got into one of those funks where no matter what I was doing I felt like I should be doing something else. It was a beautiful day: I should be out painting plein air. But there were paintings in progress in the studio that were calling to me. And then there were shoulds about the medium to use: I should be painting in oil, no acrylic, no watercolor…I was driving myself nuts!
So I sat myself down at the drawing table and just started writing in my sketchbook journal all the shoulds I was hearing in my mind (but who was saying them–aren’t I the only one in there?). When all else fails I default to flowers. I picked a hibiscus, stuck it in a little bottle and started sketching. I got it wrong. I drew with a pen dipped in ink, I added wax crayon, watercolor crayon, rubbed it with a paper towel, rubber stamps, more ink, more crayon, and just kept angrily abusing the page, trying to dump the shoulds.
Attack of the Shoulds #2, Ink and watercolor
I wrote on the page: “Accept that it is all impossible.It will be wrong. It will be bad. It is pointless. And do it anyway. Because you can. And doing it badly is better than not doing it. Break the cycle. Stop the nonsense!” When there was nothing more to do the first page spread I started on the next, feeling freer. I tackled the hibiscus again, and did #2 above.
Attack of the Shoulds #3, watercolor and ink
For #3 above, I sketched with pencil, added watercolor and then outlined everything afterwards with a Pitt Sepia F pen.
Attack of the Shoulds #4, ink & watercolor
It was almost time to go to a dinner party but I squeezed in one more, which I mucked up a bit with too heavy outlining so added some fun scribbly white pen. The good news is that I did break the cycle, got over the shoulds and got back to having fun in the studio today.
Jana Bouc, Artist 