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

Point Isabel Dog Park & a painting breakthrough

Point Isabel Dog Park Plein Air

Oil on canvas panel, 6″x8″ (Larger)

We’re expecting a series of big storms for the next week but the weather today was comfortable, no wind and in the 50s. Although I’ve been working on another painting and wanted to keep going on it, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to get outside and paint before the storm hits.

I headed down to nearby Pt. Isabel, an enormous park along the bay that is designated as an off-leash dog park. It has spectacular views of the Golden Gate Bridge but smog, fog and clouds made the visibility so bad that I picked a closer view.

I’m really excited about the breakthrough I had yesterday with oil painting, and how I was able to apply it to this little painting. Up until yesterday I’d been using various oil painting mediums to thin the paint and what I kept ending up with was thin, washed out, chalky, greyed, paint; stickiness and smell from alkyd mediums and smell (and toxins) from turpentine. I’d heard people say they used little to no medium and I couldn’t understand how that was possible. It seemed like the paint would be too thick and hard to manipulate without first thinning it down.

I finally tried it and was shocked to discover it works! Of course it means using a lot more paint, especially on this coarser canvas, but I was able to put down one layer of paint, and leave it. If I made a mistake I could scrape the paint off of that section and repaint it, no problem. Before when I tried to do that, there wasn’t really anything to scrape off because my paint was sooooo thin.

I did this painting in about an hour. I know the dogs look a little dorky, but it’s just a little oil sketch, so who cares. Then I was able to go home and continue working on the painting in progress in my studio. That painting is almost finished and I’m just so excited that after all the work and study I’ve put into oil painting it at last feels as if I’m getting somewhere. And I still have 5 more days of vacation!

Categories
Art theory Drawing Glass Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Happy 2008! Prosperity and Art Goals

New Year 2008 - Change Jar

Ink & watercolor, 5.5 x 7.5″ (Larger)

I heard Nigela Lawson on the radio talking about New Year’s dining traditions in different cultures that all included eating round things (the shape of coins) to create prosperity in the new year. It inspired me to finally paint this former candy jar where I put the change I find in the dryer and washer after my son does his laundry at my house. The jar never fills, so I assume he also makes withdrawals.

The foods included lentils, grapes and sliced salami. One tradition said to eat 12 grapes, one for each month of the year. If the third grape was sweet it meant March would be prosperous; if it was a sour grape, March wouldn’t be good.

I’m usually more concerned with peace and health than prosperity, but after watching an insipid Suze Orman TV special about women and money last month, I decided that prosperity would be nice too. She emphasized that women often feel they have to apologize for having money, or feel guilty if they are have anything for themselves before everyone else has their needs met.

But of course the key to prosperity is very simple:

Want what you have; Don’t want what you don’t have

Easier said than done, especially in the U.S. where overconsumption is considered to be patriotic.

Art Goals

My art goals for 2008 are also very simple: to enjoy myself by exploring whatever directions I find interesting, challenging, exciting, pleasurable, fun. In other words, learn, practice, grow, but do it in ways that are good for me, that are satisfying and healthy. No lists of shoulds, no rules other than play, practice and enjoy the journey. Be prosperous in the pleasure and enjoyment of the process.

My hope is that by this time next year I will have earned enough competence with oils that I can comfortably and freely work in the medium most fitting to the subject or idea I want to express, whether it be ink, watercolor, oils, goauche, or monoprint.

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

Learning to Stop (making ugly paintings)

Plein Air - untouched in studio

Oil on canvas panel, 9×12″ (Larger)

The painting above is not great, but it’s loose and free and painted plein air with no touching up in the studio.

I’ve been painting and repainting the formerly plein air painting below over the past few days and it’s been both a good learning experience and discouraging. Mostly what I’ve learned is NOT to (re)do it. When I try to “just fix one little thing” I end up working for hours (days in this case), completely losing the freshness of the original plein air painting and, at the end of the day, finding myself right back where I started from, with dull, overworked paint.

This is the final version and I hereby VOW to not touch it again (other than to throw it in the trash!) I thought I vowed that yesterday and yet today I found myself trying one more time:

Briones again...the end

At several points in the process I had a good painting but just kept on fixing one more little thing until…well…it’s like scratching mosquito bites…I just keep scratching at until it bleeds and then I’m sorry. The original before messing with it appeared on my easel in my post about my studio here (first photo).

This was yesterday’s version:

Plein Air - finished in studio

Part of the problem with retouching in the studio is that the reference photos rarely capture the colors and memories of the scene. This one sure didn’t and yet I continued to work from it and wondered why everything looked so dull!
Briones photo ref

(above: the bad reference photo)

Photoshopped photo reference

(Above) I even tried painting over the reference photo in Photoshop to try to use that as reference instead but I still ended up with mud.

So here’s what I’ve learned (AGAIN!):

  1. Stop! Don’t waste time. Make progress by painting more paintings not the same one over and over
  2. Use more paint and less medium.
  3. Mix the right color, put it down and leave it alone.
  4. Messing with a hopeless painting forever is not art, it’s OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). I need a painting alarm like those car alarms that say, “Step away from the painting…” or a Sister Mary Catherine to smack my knuckles with a ruler and snatch the canvas away from me…
Categories
Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air

Benicia Plein Air Sketch and the Goose Lady

Benicia Plein Air

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

Last weekend the two plein air groups I belong to combined and met at Matthew Turner Park in Benicia on San Pablo Bay. It was a gorgeous, sunny crisp day and a nice switch to be meeting in the afternoon instead of first thing in the morning.

There were a number of odd characters around entertaining us. A middle-aged woman sat in her car nearby us calling her dog (“Dog…dog…come here dog!”). Except there were no dogs anywhere in sight. There were lots of geese though, including one that seemed to be wearing a white, ruffled feather tu-tu.

She kept up her patter and eventually the geese wandered over to her car. For the next couple hours she barked commands at the geese, still calling them “Dog.” She lectured them about being too greedy, warned them they better start sharing nicely, and threatened to leave if they didn’t behave. It reminded me of when my parents used to threaten my sister and I when they were driving and we were misbehaving in the back seat, “If you don’t stop it I’ll pull over and give you both a spanking!”)

Then a man with a grey ponytail arrived and started talking to the geese and feeding them too. He claimed to know each of their names and their histories. The geese were apparently used to this treatment and were quite demanding, pecking at the feet of some of the artists when we first arrived before their benefactors got there.

I’d planned to finish and touch up this painting in the studio, but I’ve learned my lesson. After wasting the past few days trying to “finish” another plein air painting, I’ve decided to leave plein air sketches alone. I’ll make another post about that tomorrow with before and after pics.

Categories
Animals Cartoon art Drawing Dreams Illustration Friday Painting People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Illustration Friday: Soar – Flying with Whales

Flying with Whales

Ink and watercolor in 5.5″ square dream sketchbook (Larger)

I love my flying dreams. In this one I was flying over the ocean and saw some whales frolicking below. I flew down and was playing with them when one bit my arm hard. I knew he meant no harm though, so once he let my arm go, I stayed and played with them some more.

The next dream wasn’t as much fun. I went into San Francisco to visit my boss (unbeknownst to her), planning to phone when I got there. But my cell phone had no reception and then I dropped it and it fell apart right over a sewer grate. I finally retrieved all the pieces and then a block away, drop it again over another sewer grate.

Then I realize I’ve forgotten my shoes and am barefoot and it’s dark and cold and I’m in a bad neighborhood. But I remember I love to run barefoot in the dark (huh?!!!) . So I run up and down the hills of San Francisco, trying to find my way to downtown Hollywood where I can catch a bus home. It goes on and on, but the rest of the story is likely to amuse only me so I’ll stop there.

I woke up with the idea that I needed to replace my cellphone and then wasted the morning researching the latest phones until I remembered that my phone hadn’t really fallen and broken and does still get reception and that I had no excuse for considering buying an iPhone, no matter how cute they are.

Categories
Oil Painting Painting Still Life

Christmas Citrus & Saint Nicholas

Christmas Tangerine

Oil on masonite panel, 6″x6″ (Larger)

Although I personally don’t celebrate Christmas, I thought a bright orange tangerine would be a fitting tribute to the day (see below about the tradition of oranges and tangerines as stocking stuffers).

My sons and my dear friends and family are all with their significant others and families and knowing they’re all having a lovely Christmas day, I’m exactly where I want to be: in the studio.

I hope you too are safe, warm and happy today, whether you celebrate Christmas or not!

St. Nicholas traditions in America

Immigrants brought St. Nicholas holiday traditions to the United States. Over time these have melded into some common practices.

StockingsChristmas stockings by the fireplace
And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there, goes the oft repeated Christmas rhyme. In the story of Nicholas rescuing the poor maidens from being sold into slavery, the gold dowry money, tossed in through the window, is said to have landed in stockings left to dry before the fire.

OrangeOrange or tangerine in the toe of filled Christmas stockings
The gold Nicholas threw to provide the dowry money is often shown as gold balls. These are symbolized by oranges or even apples. So the orange in the toe of the stocking is a reminder of Nicholas’ gift.

Categories
Cartoon art Drawing Dreams Painting People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Blogging about Dreams; Dreaming about Blogs

All are drawn in ink and then watercolored in 5.5″ square sketchbook
(Larger)

(Above) Dreamt my hairdresser shot someone and was going to jail.
The really bad part was that I was going to have to find another hairdresser.

– – –

Hillary forgot to shave her legs
(Larger)
(Above) Dreamt that Hillary Clinton was visiting her OB/GYN. The doctor left the door unlocked so a bunch of reporters and photographers opened the door and took pictures.
Hillary was horrified because she’d forgotten to shave her legs!
Then Kate wrote the story up and Laura published it in the S.F. Chronicle.

– – –

Gay line dancing church

(Larger)

(Above) Dreamt that a cute guy at a dinner party invited me to visit his church called “J.O.H.N.”.
It was for gay men who loved women, and lesbians who loved men, and where they did line dancing dressed as sailors from the 1940’s. The women had those big poufed-up, pinned-up 40s hairstyles and were wearing military uniforms.

– – –

L's Paris Car Repair Shop

(Larger)

(Above) I dreamt that my ex-husband was starting a blog about a car repair shop he was opening in Paris (huh?!) and he asked me to paint something representing Paris to use on the blog. First I thought of the Eiffel Tower, but knew that was trite and would be hard to draw so I decided to paint a fountain. I was working on it in my dream, trying to paint Paris fountains like Laura, and the painting wasn’t going very well.

I just realized that not only am I blogging about dreaming, now I’m dreaming about blogging! I’m so glad I’m on vacation now — I need it!

Categories
Animals Drawing Dreams Painting Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Kiwi-Colored Cat Dream

Ink & watercolor in 5.5″ square sketchbook (Larger)

Last night I dreamt that I found a lime-green, kiwi-colored tabby cat in the rainforest jungles of England (huh?). It laid on on it’s back purring, wanting it’s fuzzy tummy rubbed. This was a nice dream to wake up to, after the terrible one I had before it for most of the night. Since this is a time for peace and joy on earth I won’t share all the scary stuff from that dream.

One and a half more work days until my two week winter vacation!

Categories
Studio

A visit to my studio

Welcome to my newly reorganized studio. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee? My sister Marcy Voyevod, an interior designer with an amazing sense of spatial relations, came over last Wednesday night to give me some suggestions on how to rearrange things in my studio. I’d told her I wanted to move my easel so that it wasn’t in front of a window. I also wanted to be able to see my computer monitor from my easel so that if I was going to paint from a photo (or finish a plein air painting at home from a photo as I’m doing here) I could work from a more life-life image than a printed photo. As you can see from the above photo, we did it!

I was amazed when she started actually moving furniture around and coming up with one brainstorm after another. She advised me to clean out a closet in the next room (where I was storing random stuff and old clothes I don’t wear but was mostly used my by my cat for quiet napping during the day) and use that closet for all the canvases that were stacking up in the studio. Of course closet cleaning lead to the two of us trying on old clothes, deciding what she’d take and what would get donated, and lots of laughs.

Now the studio feels spacious again (without the extra furniture and clutter) and everything is organized and tidy. Click “Continue Reading” below to see more…

Continue reading “A visit to my studio”

Categories
Drawing Other Art Blogs I Read Outdoors/Landscape Sketchbook Pages Studio

Payless Shoes from Peets Coffee


Ink in Moleskine sketchbook (Larger)

After taking a huge load of stuff to Goodwill and the recycling center (that came from three days of reorganizing the studio, which led to cleaning out my closets, cabinets and the garage) my reward was a latte at Peets (and what feels like a fabulous new, spacious studio!).

Now that I’m nearly done with this organizing/rearranging project it was great to relax and just draw what I could see out the window while I sipped my coffee.

This is another sketch inspired by Pete Sculley’s drawings with incorporated overheard snippets of conversation. (overheard: “I know you can’t make any decisions.” “My parents are here and I can’t just send them home.”)

Next time I’ll post photos of my newly organized studio.