Jana Bouc, Artist

Playing with my flowers

White ink, gouache on black Canford paper 10″x8″ (larger)

I got home from work just as my painting group was arriving for our weekly painting session in my studio. I grabbed a quick bowl of shredded wheat for dinner, fed the cats and plopped this little vase of white flowers on my drawing table.

I looked at the dainty, delicate white flowers, and feeling a little rebellious decided to draw them with white ink (using my favorite white ink pen, a Uni-ball Signo) on black paper, with no idea what I’d do after that. This was a “let’s try this and that and see what happens” sort of thing.

Once I had the drawing I decided to fool around with adding a little gouache. Just for fun I stopped before I’d covered all the petals, leaving some random black spots.

What I discovered is how much fun it is to paint with gouache on a dark background, which I’d never done before. It reminded me of those cool coloring books I always wanted (but rarely got) when I was a kid where you painted with water and the painting appeared magically.

It might have been a “better” painting if I’d paid attention to value, composition, light, etc. but tonight I just felt like playing like a kid, not trying to make a good painting.

Here’s the drawing without the gouache:

Which do you like better?

Tags Drawing, flowers, Gouache, Painting, Pen and Ink, white ink

Oil Painting Painting Still Life

Avocado Study & Painting Fleas

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date May 19, 2008
10 Comments on Avocado Study & Painting Fleas

Oil on panel, 10×8″ (larger)

“Paint the dog before the fleas” is something that painting teacher Elio Camacho told me over and over again when I started painting details in a scene before I had the big shapes blocked in. After messing up a painting yesterday by getting lost in the tiny details too soon, I really tried to focus on big shapes and color today.

I read this quote today that reaffirmed what I wrote in my last post about assimilating knowledge. It’s by Marques de Lozoya in the book Joaquin Sorolla by Blanca Pons-Sorolla:

“There is a moment in every artist’s career which usually follows many years of strenuous effort, in which experiences are accumulated in an intuition of marvelous clarity; the artist’s vision becomes precise and clear; the paths that lead to success are firmly perceived and easily and happily pursued, without any effort at all…”

Sounds good, doesn’t it! It gives me hope. I’d occasionally felt that intuition, clarity and happiness with watercolor and I look forward to finding it with oils too. At least I’m more frequently understanding where I’ve gone wrong.

Click “continue reading” below to see the steps I took for this study today. (If the link isn’t visible below, just click on the image above and you can see the steps on Flickr.

Sketchbook Pages

Blake Gardens Redwoods & Assimilating

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date May 17, 2008
8 Comments on Blake Gardens Redwoods & Assimilating

Oil on panel, 10″x8″ (larger)

I’ve been playing hooky from my blog, while trying to assimilate what I learned at my painting workshop last week. (I checked Websters‘ online dictionary to make sure assimilate was the word I meant to use and it was perfect:

Assimilate:
a: to take in and utilize as nourishment: absorb into the system
b: to take into the mind and thoroughly comprehend

Friday when I was painting with my plein air group at Blake Gardens I felt like I was on the verge of a breakthrough. But I was shocked when I moved out of the shady grove where I was working to join the group for critique. I’d been in the “zone” while painting, feeling really good about my work but in the bright light it looked awful.

I put another two hours into it at home and liked it much better. Here are pics of the steps along the way:

Blah photo of the scene:

Initial blocking in of the big shapes, remembering my teacher’s saying: “You can tame a wild stallion but you can’t bring a dead horse back to life” — so start with vibrant color (while still trying to get the right temperature and value) and then tame it.

After two hours plein air:

Art theory Drawing Life in general Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Mothers’ Day Bouquet Snippet

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date May 11, 2008
14 Comments on Mothers’ Day Bouquet Snippet

Ink & watercolor 5.5″x3.25″ (larger)

I’m back from my week-long workshop with Camille Przewodek in Petaluma. It was a powerful learning experience and an incredible opportunity two learn from two masters, Camille and her husband Dale Axelrod. They studied for many years with Henry Hensche at the Cape Cod School of Art and are carrying on and expanding upon Hensche‘s and Hawthorne‘s work with color and light.

We painted in beautiful scenic locations from wetland marshes to the quaint village of Nicasio and the last day painted four models by the river that runs alongside Camille’s studio in charming and historic downtown Petaluma. We also did Hensche’s traditional colored block studies. All painting was done outdoors in bright sunlight and the weather couldn’t have been better.

I’ll write more about what I learned at the workshop when my paintings are dry and easier to handle, photograph and post. In the meantime, here’s just a corner of the huge Mothers Day bouquet my son Cody surprised me with before we went to Brushstrokes Studio, a cute little pottery painting place in Berkeley. Cody and I decorated catfood bowls while his significant other designed a beautiful cup and daughter M painted a plate with a beach scene as a memorial for her grandmother who recently passed away. Then it was off to Pyramid Brewery for a yummy Mothers Day dinner accompanied by refreshing Pyramid Hefeweizen Ale served with a wedge of lemon.

Tags Pen and Ink

Drawing Life in general Painting Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Beauty Parlor Still Life

Ink and watercolor, 9×6 (larger)

This was my view while I was getting my hair cut on Friday. The beautiful peonies were an apology gift to my hairdresser from one of her clients. I don’t know what the client had done wrong but I thought the combination of the scissors, hairbrush and flowers made an interesting still life.

I’m going to be in a painting workshop all week with Camille Przewodek in Petaluma and may not have a chance to post until I return. It should be an exciting and intense week of painting. It’s also a vacation from work (whoopee) and I intend to enjoy every moment!

Tags ink and watercolor, Pen and Ink, peonies, Sketch

Drawing Life in general People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Worked late, missed train, got to draw

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date April 30, 2008
10 Comments on Worked late, missed train, got to draw

Larger

Once everyone left the office I could finally concentrate on a complicated project. By the time I finished and headed out it was nearly 8:00 p.m. I arrived at the BART station just as my train was pulling away and the flashing sign said it would be 20 minutes until the next one. I was exhausted, hungry and alone on the platform with nothing to do.

Within a few minutes, more late commuters began to arrive, sit down and kill time. I grabbed my sketchbook and the 20 minutes flew by. I drew the people above while waiting (felt pen added at home because I liked the negative space) and the folks below on the train ride home.

Larger

Tags BART, Ink, Pen and Ink, People, sketches, subway drawing, Subway drawings

Oil Painting Painting Photos Plein Air Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Firehoses on 5th Ave (Oakland)

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date April 28, 2008
6 Comments on Firehoses on 5th Ave (Oakland)

Ink & watercolor (Larger)

Saturday I painted wtih the East Bay Plein Air Painters at the foot of 5th Avenue in Oakland. It’s an amazing little enclave of funky art studios, rusty old boats in a beat-up marina, and industrial buildings not far from Jack London Square.

I arrived very late, being unable to push myself this weekend to move quickly or arise early. I did this one little watercolor sketch sitting in the hot sun and took a lot of photos. I was fascinated by the many varieties of fire extinguisher equipment on all the old waterfront shacks (I’m easily amused, I suppose) and painted the oil below from one of the photos I took on Saturday, working from the image displayed on my computer screen.

Oil on panel, 8×6″ (Larger)

Here’s a photo from the 5th Avenue Marina, or, as it says in the photo, the “Oakland Riviera”:

Click image to enlarge and see the soldiers on the missile. I’ll be posting more of my photos and paintings from 5th Avenue soon.

Tags Pen and Ink, Photos, Plein Air

Sketchbook Pages

Roses – Kerchoo!

Oil on panel, 14×11″ (larger)

These roses were making me sneeze. I’d set up the still life last Monday and then ran out of time on the painting and left it set up all week. When I finally got back to painting today, the studio smelled like like a perfume factory. That might be a pleasant experience if I wasn’t allergic and didn’t dislike strong scents, especially roses.

My goal for this painting was to be loose, work quickly, trying to get some of the freedom I experience with my line drawing and watercolor wash, while secondarily trying to pay attention to color and light.

Here are the steps along the way: (to see the steps, please click “Continue Reading” below)

Drawing Life in general Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Living Alone Means Never Losing Your Socks

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date April 22, 2008
13 Comments on Living Alone Means Never Losing Your Socks

Ink & watercolor (larger)

I was folding my laundry and admiring my collection of wonderful SmartWool socks when it struck me: I haven’t lost a single sock since I began living alone. When I was married with kids, socks disappeared on a regular basis and I had a drawerful of one-of-a-kind socks.

My son still comes over to do his laundry but even so, only one sock temporarily migrated but he brought it back (a year later at the insistence of his girlfriend), along with a pair of my undies that had somehow ended up in his laundry.

There’s pros and cons to living alone, of course. One downside is that if you do lose something, you have nobody to blame for it. Even now, when something goes missing, my first thought is that one of my sons must have taken it. But my only available scapegoats are my cats.

Fiona the calico does like to steal my SmartWool socks (maybe they smell a bit like animals, being made of wool?). I try to keep them away from her, since she tosses them around and wrestles with them and when I find them under the bed they are shredded and holey.

At least she doesn’t eat them. My friend Marean has a beautiful Sheltie who eats her socks whole, and has had to have stomach surgery to have a “sock-ectomy.”

Tags being single, Cats, Ink, living alone, Pen and Ink, socks, Watercolor

Drawing Flower Art Gardening Glass Painting Plants Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Zen & First Spring Roses

Ink & watercolor, 9×6″ (larger)

When I picked these roses yesterday evening, they were heartbreakingly fresh, new and beautiful. I put them in a vase of water in the kitchen, planning to paint them today. This morning I found them laying on the counter where they’d obviously been without water too long and looked limp.

Either they jumped out of their vase or my cats had a hand (er… paw) in their escape. After a few hours back in water they plumped right back up and were a joy to draw. I only had about an hour and that was just enough time to make a happy ink and watercolor.

But why do I feel so sad seeing the beauty of my seven rose bushes and thick patch of irises all loaded with flowers? It’s as if I’m already mourning their demise, knowing how temporary their burst of color and vibrancy is before winter comes again.

Is it my enhanced awareness of the cycle of life and death as I approach one of those milestone birthdays this June? Or is that time seems to be moving so fast these days that I can picture the blooming season flying by like those time-lapse films where the flowers sprout, bloom, shrivel and die within moments.

Instead of feeling sad about their demise (and my own, for that matter), I need to remember the Buddhist teaching of being in the present moment, accepting that everything changes, everything dies; that desire and clinging cause suffering and that letting go relieves it.

So with that, I will allow my flowers to live and die as nature sees fit (as if I had any other choice!), and will enjoy them while they’re here. I’ll try to make the most of my own moments while I’m here too, with as much acceptance as I can. And maybe I’ll finally return to my Zen meditation practice which always brought me such joy and peace, and made all of life more vibrant.

Tags Cats, Glass, ink sketch, Pen and Ink, roses, Watercolor, Zen