Categories
Flower Art Gardening Life in general Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plants Plein Air Still Life

Hydrangeas Plein Air & Creativity Interview

Hydrangeas plein air

Oil on panel, 6×8″ (larger)

It felt so good to get outside and paint this sunny afternoon, even if it was only for an hour on the side of my house by my trash cans where this small hydrangea is finally starting to blossom and grow.

Creativity Interview

I was interviewed by Creativity Coach, Liz Massey and she posted the interview on her blog today. If you’d like to read about my creative process, thoughts on inspiration, overcoming artistic blocks, etc., please stop by her excellent blog. While you’re there, check out some of her other interviews. I was especially intrigued by her post about “clutter-busting with one sentence journaling.”

Painting lessons learned the hard way

This week I’ve been mucking about in the studio trying to fix the compositional problems with my painting of the ladies at the farmer market. Today I gave up on it and moved on.

The struggles I had with it were a good reminder for me about how important it is to resolve compositional issues before starting to paint (like the area where you couldn’t tell hands from plastic bag from shopping cart handle).  Also a good lesson that if a painting’s initial framework isn’t working, it’s better to start over than to spend hours and hours trying to fix it. Although I really liked many parts of that painting, it just wasn’t working as a whole.

Inspiration at 87

My sister and I joined my vibrant and adorable 87 year old aunt and her two sons (our cousins) who I hadn’t seen for 30 years for lunch today. It was so inspiring to see how youthful my aunt is — she drives, goes bowling with her girlfriends, and takes long walks several times a day with her Border Collie.

Categories
Sketchbook Pages

New blog: Postcard A Day

I heard a story on NPR about a father who sent his daughter a postcard every day that she was in college — 1,000 all together. They contained random stories about his day, questions and advice. It occurred to me how much that was like blogging (a daily post) except that he was sending actual tangible items through the mail instead of posting them online.

That gave me the idea to do the same, except as an artist (he was a bus driver) I create my own postcards and send the messages to anyone I feel like, whether dead, alive or imaginary. Instead of Googling for answers to questions I send virtual postcards into the blogosphere and channel the wisdom of the recipients to send myself responses. Some days it’s just a “wish you here” note and picture from my world. Other days it might be a dream message. Who knows? Anything goes…

I’m still going to regularly post here on Jana’s Journal (my sketches, plein air paintings and work in progress) but my daily postcards will be on PostcardsaDay.

The picture above was posted it to J. J. Audubon on PostcardaDay.com with this message:

Dear Mr. Audubon,

Why is the robin called “Turdus Migratorius?” Turdus doesn’t sound very nice. And where do they sleep? Do they sleep in nests or just sitting on a branch int he tree? How do they not fall off? Probably the same way we don’t fall off our beds. Or do they sleep on the ground? If they fall out of the tree while they’re asleep do they fly in their sleep?

Love,
Jana

The very next day I received a message from J. J. Audubon and you can see it now on www.PostcardaDay.com.

Categories
Glass Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Better than Plastic: Blue Glass Water Bottle

Blue Bottles
(Larger)

While eating dinner, reading an art book and drinking water from this bottle I became fascinated by the bottle and had to immediately go paint it. The bottle came from from Trader Joes filled with sparkling water. It makes a great reusable water bottle. I washed off the label and just refill it with filtered tap water and a squirt of lemon from my lemon tree and then refrigerate it.

To avoid buying and throwing away tons of plastic water bottles (you’re not supposed to reuse them because they can’t be cleaned properly) I’ve tried a variety of lexan, Nalgene, and stainless steel water bottles. I like to use this glass bottle at home (it’s too heavy and breakable to be portable) and a Kleen Kanteen stainless steel bottle with a sport cap when I go out.

What did we do for water before water bottles and car cup holders? I guess there were thermoses but those weren’t for water. I remember carrying a large purse to middle school in order to carry my big can of hairspray, but I know I never carried water.

When I was a kid, doctors didn’t recommend drinking 8 glasses of water a day like they do now, but they did recommend cigarettes. One cigarette brand ran ads in medical journals with the claim that its cigarettes were “Just as pure as the water you drink.” One of the most infamous cigarette advertising slogans was associated with Camels:”More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.” That ad appeared in medical journals and the popular media for eight years.

About the painting: 6×8″ on Arches cold-press 140 pound watercolor paper in my handmade sketchbook. Mostly Winsor Newton paint plus the bright turquoise on the right side of the big bottle from Kremer Pigments. The funny shadow on the right actually looked like that but it made me happy because it reminded me of the amazing pot and shadow studies, which I adore on Alison’s blog, Scribbles Adagio.

Categories
Faces Oil Painting Painting People

Farmers Market Friends (Work in Progress)

Farmers Market Freinds
Larger

I’m really happy with the way this painting (from a photo I took at the Farmers Market) is progressing and since I couldn’t finish it tonight and it’s back to the office tomorrow, I decided to share it as a work in progress.

Questions for you:

  1. Can you tell that the woman on the left is resting her hands on her shopping cart handle and that there’s a plastic bag of stuff in the cart?
  2. Is the way her hands are mostly one light shape confusing?
  3. Is that area of hands/cart handle/plastic bag distracting? (Before I pointed it out.)
  4. Do you think I should leave their shirts alone or add the patterns that were really on their shirts?
  5. Anything you see that needs fixing (other than the list above and below)?

I still need to add paint to the truck in the background to get the color right, paint in the lettering and add some contrast to the lady on the right (and maybe adjust her face a bit).

Categories
Flower Art Glass Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting People Photos Plein Air Still Life

Farmers Market Diversity, Roses & Revised Painting

Roses Re-do

(Larger) Finished but not satisfied…

Saturday I walked to the Farmers Market at El Cerrito Plaza with the plan to make some watercolor sketches. After half an hour exploring, taking photos and trying to find a spot to sketch I realized I needed to get out of there.

That happens to me sometimes; one minute I’m enjoying the sights and sounds somewhere and the next I just have to leave. Maybe it’s a blood sugar thing—it was time for lunch—or I’d just had enough of crowds and sun and wanted to get back to the studio. Since it’s my Birthday month to do whatever I please I didn’t push myself to stick it out and get a sketch; instead I headed to Peets Coffee for an iced-latte and a nice long walk home.

I took photos of the glorious produce displays at the market, but I couldn’t resist sharing this photo that captures the wonderfully diverse womanhood in the Bay Area. I wish I knew what the rest of her pants say:

Diversity @ Farmers Market

New Camera

I got some great photos at the Farmers Market (that inspired two paintings in progress) with my new camera that is quite compact but has 10x optical zoom. A few years ago I bought a similar camera but for twice as much money and it’s four times bigger and heavier and less competent. I find it amazing how some technology just keeps advancing exponentially while others, like cars, just keep chugging along, not that much more sophisticated all these years later, than Model Ts.

Revised Painting:

Below are a couple or previously posted plein air paintings that I decided to try to finish up (or finish off, as the case may be) in the studio.

Continue reading “Farmers Market Diversity, Roses & Revised Painting”
Categories
Life in general Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Asparagus, Peach & Painting with Children

Aspargus & Peach
Larger
The kids next door brought over a plate of delicious Mexican-style barbeque tonight courtesy of their Papa who’d cooked it. I invited them to come back after dinner to join me in the studio. Now that they’re a little older (2nd grade and 6th grade) I decided to let them try acrylics instead of just watercolor.

I covered the table, put out the supplies, including gloves for each of them (I get Costco’s “Nitrile Exam Gloves” in quantity). Then I turned on some music and went to my drawing table to work on this little sketch.

The next time I checked on them, Y had painted my cat (I mean a picture of my cat), a rainbow (standard little girl stuff) and then made a paper airplane which she was painting while E was decorating a little wooden car he’d made in school. They both made Father’s day and birthday cards for their dad too.

They really liked the acrylics since they were brighter and bolder than the watercolor, but what a mess! Fortunately kids, floor and furniture cleaned up easily.

About the painting:
Pentel Pocket Brush Pen to draw, then watercolor and then some Schmincke Chinese White to tone down some of the shadows. I’d be happier if I’d stopped before it need to be toned down. This is in my 6×8″ handmade sketchbook on Fabriano Artistico hot press paper.

Categories
Flower Art Glass Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Roses & a freshly cleaned house

Rosy Glow
(Larger)

I gave myself the pre-birthday gift of a professional house cleaning today, by the most fabulous house cleaner in the universe. She cleans things that have never even occurred to me to clean, and when she’s done the house seems to sigh and say “Thanks, I needed that!”

When I walked in the door this evening there was a palpable feeling of clean and everything seemed to glow. These roses from my garden were perched on the dining room table, adding to the feeling of fresh and sweet.

Having my house cleaned is a special treat for me; a gift I give I’ve recently started giving myself twice a year, for my birthday and for New Years. Those are both times of reflection and renewal for me so it seems fitting to create an environment that is also renewed and has a sense of space and possibility.

About the painting:
Drawn with brown ink on 8×6″ hot pressed watercolor paper in handmade sketchbook; painted with watercolor plus a little Chinese White added at the very end to soften the table top color.

Categories
Flower Art Landscape Oil Painting Painting Still Life

Birthday & Benicia’s Matthew Turner Park

20080601_1040-Benicia-MTurnerPark
Oil on 12×9″ panel (Larger)

Yay! First day of June, and I get to celebrate my (mid-month) birthday all month long. Because it’s a really big birthday, this year I’m going to celebrate all year instead of “just” all month! It’s also the birthday of Jana’s Journal and Sketch Blog, now entering it’s third year.

To kick off my wonderful yearlong celebration, this morning I went to a paintout at Matthew Turner Park in Benicia followed by a visit to the opening of the Outsiders show at Arts Benicia Gallery. Today’s paintout was organized by the Benicia Plein Air Painters, also known as “Da Group.” Da Group is led by Jerry Turner, one of the founders and a prolific member of the Outsiders. It was a very well-attended opening, and a terrific show. There are photos of the paintout and the opening here.

In my painting above a windsurfer scooted by as I was finishing (well, running out of time, actually) so I stuck it in the painting. I’m not sure you can tell what it is, and whether it should be better defined. There’s lots more I could do to the painting, but I’m finding it pleasurable to call plein air studies done without trying to perfect them back in the studio; just appreciating them for the studies they are and all the wonderful sights, sounds, scents and memories of the experience that they contain.

Here’s my first block-in of the scene. My focal point was the orange hill with a little house on top across the water. Those black spots are little bugs who nose-dived into the wet paint (or were blown in by the strong winds today).

20080601_0940-Benicia-wip
(Larger)

Here’s a photo of the scene. You can barely see the little house on the hill.

20080601_1022-Benicia-photo
(Larger)

I wrote about this great little park and posted an earlier painting I did there last December here. I remember how much harder it was to paint that day, and how much more I understand now. Progress! Yay!

Categories
Art theory Flower Art Oil Painting Painting Still Life Studio

Passable Painting Passages

Roses detail

(Larger)

Garlic detail

(Larger)

I’m learning to appreciate the bits of paintings that work while letting go of the parts that won’t/can’t be fixed. These two sections pleased me, even though the original paintings as a whole were not successful. In both cases I started off boldly, got the big shapes blocked in and immediately painted the two segments above.

Then I got tired, the sun went down and the room in the light changed, the flowers opened in the heat, the floodlight I was using burned out and I didn’t have another, the setup got moved (thanks kitties…see below) and although I tried to fix both paintings over and over I finally decided to cut my losses once again and move on.

I learn so much with each painting, whether it works as a whole or not. I’ve started putting labels on the backs with the year, a serial number and a few words about what worked, what didn’t and what I learned. It will be fun at the end of the year to review my progress.

Fiona taking up modeling:
Fiona wants to be a model

Rose set up day one (and on my bulletin board art by Pete, Alison and John Sonsini‘s wonderful portraits):
Rose setup day 1

Categories
Landscape Life in general Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air

Cemetery Painting on Memorial Day & War Euphemisms

View of Benicia from Alhambra cemetery

Oil on panel, 9×12″ (larger)

On Sunday I painted at the small, historic Alhambra Cemetery in Martinez, where we had an amazing view of marshes and Benicia across the Carquinez Straits. An elderly Japanese church group and their pastor were  holding a memorial service for the fallen soldiers buried there but didn’t mind us painting among the graves. Since the residents were buried between 1851 to 1999, I’m sure they “fell” in many different wars.

War Euphemisms
I hate all the euphemisms used about war that gloss over the the sacrifices and suffering. The two that particularly irk me are “in harm’s way” and “fallen” soldiers.

When I hear politicians talking about soldiers “in harms way” I can’t help but thinking, “Yeah, and you sent them there!” “In harms’ way” is in passive voice which removes all responsibility from the phrase. It sounds as if they just ended up there by accident, like “I was taking a walk and found myself on Harms Way when I meant to be on Walnut Way.”

The same is true of “fallen soldiers.” No verb or anyone taking responsibility there either. The soldier just accidentally wandered onto Harms Way and then, Oops, down he fell.

G.I. Joe
When my son Cody was in Kindergarten he desperately wanted a G.I. Joe lunch box. We were walking through the supermarket and he saw them on the shelf and started whining and begging for one. I grabbed the plastic box, showed him the explosive picture on the cover and began ranting: “You see this? That’s a bomb going off! You see this G.I. Joe guy? That bomb is about to kill him and tear him to shreds! That guy has a mommy and his mommy is going to cry and cry forever because her little boy got blown up by a bomb. And no, I’m not going to buy you a lunch box with a picture of someone’s little boy getting killed on it!”

I still have my “War is not health for children and other living things” pendant and poster from the Viet Nam war, which destroyed so many of the boys I knew in high school. I feel such sadness and compassion for the soldiers and their families whose lives are being destroyed by our current war.

This isn’t meant to be a political blog so I’ll stop my rant by offering a prayer for peace and for healing for all those who are suffering because of war, regardless of which war or what side they’re on.

About the painting and the site: To get into the cemetery you have to first stop by the the Martinez police department to pick up the key to the entry gate which is kept locked. Although I ran out of time and hadn’t fully developed the bottom 1/3 of the painting, the sky, or the water, my other plein air group members said they liked it as is and to leave it, so I did. What interested me about the scene and what I wanted to paint was the pinky-golden hills and I was actually happy with the way they turned out — a first for me and hills.

I’m learning to appreciate and treasure the smallest passages that succeed in my paintings, even if the painting as a whole doesn’t work. They give me hope and a glimpse of successful days to come.