Jana Bouc, Artist

Waiting for the doctor

Ink in Moleskine sketchbook

Just a quick sketch while waiting in the doctor’s office (after studying all the charts of spines and wrists and skeletons). I was really enjoying drawing and hoping he’d be delayed but he wasn’t and then I had to return to the office. Nobody could focus this afternoon after an all-morning meeting and then a holiday gourmet pizza lunch complete with first visits from two co-workers who are out on maternity leave and their beautiful new babies.

We all took turns holding and rocking these little miracles while we played “Dirty Santa” (Everyone brings a gift, then we all draw numbers and pick gifts in order of our numbers. Each consecutive person can choose to “steal” the gift a previous person has opened until every gift has been opened and everyone has one.)

I brought as a gift Maira Kalman‘s wonderful new book of illustrations in gouache of her every day life and thoughts (always quirky and unique), The Principles of Uncertainty. I love Maira Kalman and highly recommend the book. Last year the hit of the party was my gift of her previous book, the The Elements of Style Illustrated (Strunk & White).

Not much work got done when the party ended at 3:00. Everyone was in a daze from the fun, pizza and desserts (including fudge–hadn’t seen any of that for years!).

Tags Pen and Ink

Landscape Oil Painting Painting

Flower Stand at Night in Oils

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date December 11, 2007
10 Comments on Flower Stand at Night in Oils

Oil on panel, 9″x12″ (larger)

This is the same scene I did a few days ago in watercolor last week. I’m not sure if I’m done or not, but it’s time to set it aside and give it a week to see what if anything is still needed. It’s interesting how much better I like it when viewing it from a few feet away instead of a close up view like this.

Several times today I thought I was nearly done and then took a break, sitting in a chair across the room with a notepad, writing down all the little things I spotted that needed adjusting and then went back to the painting and checked them all off.

Here’s the original photo reference I took the night before Thanksgiving:

Photo (Larger)

I also got out and did some plein air painting with Elio‘s class on Sunday. He seems to be charmed as we have had no rain on Sundays now for three months of classes…or maybe it’s global warming? But it is pretty amazing being out painting in a sunny meadow in the middle of December. I dug out my longjohns and gloves from my skiing days and a Lifa turtle neck from my sailing days and dressed in several layers, which worked just fine in the mid-50 degree weather. Now if I can just get all the mud out of the crevices in my boots!

Tags flowers, night painting, Oil Painting, urban landscape

Cartoon art Drawing Dreams Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Painting People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Dream Journal: Film Crew Dinner & Sleepless Sleep Over with Laundry

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date December 7, 2007
13 Comments on Dream Journal: Film Crew Dinner & Sleepless Sleep Over with Laundry

Ink and watercolor in sketchbook (Larger)

I did these dream drawings right after I woke up, sitting in bed with a special SAD light (see previous post) propped up on my lap, shining on my face. My friend loaned me her spare light to see if it helped. I’m not sure if it was the lights, the sunny day, the hour at the gym and walk in the sun afterwards, but I’ve definitely been in a much better mood today than I’ve been in weeks.

Last night’s dreams were quite strange. The one illustrated above was about a dinner party with a film crew, including the director (at the head of the table) and two Amazonian Indian women who had just participated in a ritual that the crew filmed for a documentary.

One woman was displaying the scratches/lashes on her back she proudly received during the ritual. The other was mostly just displaying her boobs.

Maybe I’ve been watching too much of the TV show Bones on DVD about a forensic anthropologist? Or maybe it’s from listening to the National Public Radio series about the Ganges River (that I converted into the Amazon) and combined it with the interview on NPR’s Fresh Air with film director Jason Reitman and scriptwriter Diablo Cody.

Ink and watercolor in sketchbook (Larger)

In this dream I invited Martha over for a little slumber party (huh?) and then remembered that I needed to vacuum because there was cat hair everywhere. I was still cleaning when she arrived so she hung out downstairs helping my mom plan some wonderful menus involving roasted pork. (I have no upstairs, my mom doesn’t live here, and she doesn’t cook, especially not pork.)

I still hadn’t finished vacuuming but realized there was laundry everywhere and so started piling it up on the spare bed to get it out of the way. Finally we said goodnight and Martha went right to sleep. I didn’t.

This dream happened right after Kate and I talked about meeting in person the next time she comes out to San Francisco (Kate turned into Martha in my dream). Having guests always seems to bring up those darn insecurities about not having a fancy home and other general unworthiness (that I can usually overcome with a little pep talk to myself).

In reality, my house is usually tidy, organized and there are no piles of laundry. There is the cat fur problem though, which I tend to ignore longer than I should…but I just warn people not to wear black to my house since it’s a cat-fur magnet.

Tags Cats, Dreams, Pen and Ink, People, sketchbook, Watercolor

Flower Art Life in general Outdoors/Landscape Painting Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Flower Stand at Night

Ink & Watercolor in Canson 7″x10″ Sketchbook (Larger)

This little flower stand looked inviting and yet so forlorn all by itself on a dark, lonely corner in downtown Oakland the night before Thanksgiving. On my way home from work I stopped to take a few photos using a postbox as a tripod and was lucky enough to get some good shots.

I did this quick ink sketch with watercolor from a photo as a study for an oil painting. I especially like the way this appears on the monitor since it enhances the feeling of light glowing out of the dark.

I’ve been feeling a bit of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) lately — grumpy and craving light. I know that it’s a common affliction and just a physical reaction — that things are just as fine in my life as they were a couple weeks ago before SAD hit. A friend of mine recommends sitting in front of special lights designed for this purpose and says they really help her. I know exercise helps mood so I’ve been trying to do more of that, especially outdoors when it’s sunny, but I think it’s time to explore SAD lights.

As much as I love to occasionally spend a good rainy afternoon listening to Mozart’s Requiem and wallowing in melancholia, generally I prefer feeling cheery.

Tags dark, flower stand, flowers, Ink, night, Pen and Ink, sketchbook, Watercolor

Landscape Oil Painting Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air

View of Mt. Tamalpais from Pt. Pinole

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date December 3, 2007
7 Comments on View of Mt. Tamalpais from Pt. Pinole

Oil on canvas panel, 9″x12″ (Larger)

I started this painting at Point Pinole last month but it had so many problems that I put it aside and never posted it. Today I decided to give it a do-over. It was either that or reclaim the panel by covering it in gray paint and using it for another painting.

When I compared my photo of the scene to my painting I could see how far off I really was — I’d both enlarged and shrunk the scene and painted distant details I couldn’t really see. So I did some redrawing, repainting, and I’m happy with the progress I’ve made and the understanding I’ve gained since the first version.

Of course there’s a huge difference in the level of difficulty between painting in the studio vs. painting plein air where the day’s changing light makes the scene change constantly. Even so, I’m missing painting outdoors and have vowed to get out there again next weekend, no matter what the weather. I wimped out this weekend while we were having a cold snap (for the SF Bay Area — frost in the morning and then temps in the low 50s during the day).

Tags Plein Air

Art theory Oil Painting Painting People Portrait

Surveyor Again

Oil on canvas panel, 12″ x 9″ (Larger)

I wasn’t satisfied with the way this painting turned out the first time I declared it done so I worked on him again. I fixed some drawing problems (as much as they could be fixed this far along), lightened the street, darkened the background and the street signs, and worked on his face again. It’s not perfect but it’s enough better that it won’t keep bugging me to finish. Now I can move on to the next painting.

Here’s the way it looked before:

(Larger)

Before I had a blog I’d work on paintings for a long time, adjusting them until they were as perfect as I could get them. Since blogs require constant feeding, and because I’m trying to do lots of paintings to get more practice, I tend to declare paintings done and ready to post maybe sooner than I should, since I go back and work on them again. Perhaps I should just call them all “works in progress.”

On the hand, since a painting can be worked on endlessly (especially oils), I suppose it would be possible to redo the same painting over and over, learning a little more with each attempt, until you eventually were a skilled painter who’d made ONE really good painting. Certainly authors do that with books: they’re only done when they’re published. I’ve heard artists say that a painting is only finished when someone has bought it and it’s left your studio.

Anyway, this one is done and I’m excited about the next painting. One more to add to my stack of learning opportunities!

Tags People

Drawing People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Random Subway & Cafe Sketches

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date December 1, 2007
10 Comments on Random Subway & Cafe Sketches

Ink in Moleskine sketchbook (Larger)

Usually I sit in an inconspicuous spot when I sketch on BART but the only available seat was the kind where two passengers sit facing two others. This lady at first seemed annoyed at my sketching her — since our knees were nearly touching I couldn’t hide what I was doing — so I tried sketching the guy below a few feet to my left who had a big nose ring like you’d put in a cow. But he got off so I went back to her. She eventually ignored me and I was able to draw for another few minutes until I reached my stop. (5 minute drawing),

Sepia Memory Brush Pen (felt pen with a brush-like tip) in Moleskine sketchbook.

I took a walk to the Peets Coffee in my neighborhood and forced myself to slow down and draw for a little while. I’m also in such a rush to get to the next thing, which in this case was painting in the studio. This old felt tip brush pen was running out of ink.

Ink in Moleskine sketchbook on Veteran’s Day

I overheard him saying, “Today is a very sacred day. I’m glad to be alive and have survived Viet Nam and the military government.”

Tags Ink, Pen and Ink, People, Subway drawings

Berkeley Drawing Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Painting People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Eavesdropping without consonants

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date November 28, 2007
13 Comments on Eavesdropping without consonants

Purple ink and watercolor in small Moleskine watercolor notebook (Larger)

I love overhearing snippets of other people’s conversations and how they flavor my sketches in cafes. I’ve drawn and scribbled overheard conversations at Peet’s Coffee’s 4th Street shop in Berkeley before. When I saw Pete Scully ‘s fantastic sketches with conversation snippets I thought I’d try it his way with the words in little boxes. But I’m not as tidy at printing as he is.

Purple ink and watercolor in small Moleskine watercolor notebook (Larger)

So on this one I wrote the words I overheard on the newspaper above. Maybe the passerby didn’t really say, “…and I got all my potatoes back, you know…” – my hearing isn’t what it used to be so sometimes my imagination fills in the blanks with things that make me laugh. I can hear the words but the consonants aren’t clear.

It’s amazing how one wrong consonant can change the meaning of a sentence. (He says, “Hey, guess what! I got a hog!”…so I’m thinking…he got a pig?! oh maybe he got a Harley motorcycle, they call those “hogs”….and then I realize as he goes on talking that he said he got a DOG, not a HOG and he said it was BIG not a PIG!)

Tags Berkeley, Ink, Pen and Ink, People

Oil Painting Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

What is a Persimmon?

Oil on panel, 6″x8″ (Larger)
(painted on top of a small plein air landscape that didn’t work)

At my favorite little produce market, Colusa Foods in Kensington, I asked one of the expert produce guys which fruits were good right now. He recommended Satsuma tangerines and Persimmons. I’d never eaten either of these fruits and decided to give them a try. The tangerine was amazingly delicious, tasting like childhood favorites Creamsicles (orange popsicles filled with vanilla ice cream) and Orange Julius (an orange-flavored milkshake). But the persimmon perplexed me.

Watercolor on cold pressed paper, 5″x7″ (Larger)

I’d never eaten a persimmon before, didn’t know how to spell it let alone how it should be eaten or what it would taste like. Of course I checked the internet and learned that one peels it and then eats the inside. From what I read it sounded like the inside might be mushy, which didn’t sound too appealing but it felt pretty hard from the outside. I had no idea what I’d find when I cut into it. I decided to make it an adventure, first doing some paintings of the persimmon whole (above in oils and watercolor) and then painting the cut open fruit.

Watercolor on cold pressed paper, 5″x7″ (Larger)

I cut the top off, per the instructions I found and then cut it down the middle, hoping for a pretty seed pattern. Unfortunately I cut it on the wrong middle and the only thing visible was a faint line down the center. So I cut it in half the other way and discovered a beautiful sand dollar sort of design. But since I’d cut it the other way first I didn’t think it would make a great composition so I decided to eat one of the quarters. YUM!!!! It was sweet and crunchy and different — a new taste entirely! The only way I can describe is that it tastes happy and bright. I just ate the last quarter, leaving the skin on, and that was OK too–more like eating an apple only better. Wowee.

Art theory Landscape Oil Painting Other Art Blogs I Read Outdoors/Landscape Painting Photos Plein Air

View from Viansa Winery

Oil on Canvas Panel, 12″x9″ (Larger)

On November 3 I went to Viansa Winery in Sonoma County with my plein air painting group. It’s a beautiful estate in the wine country with wonderful views in every direction. I painted the first layer of this painting on site and then today at home I painted another layer, correcting the original plein air sketch. I set my timer for one hour and completely redid the whole painting in about 45 minutes. Then I had dinner and when I came back I forgot my plan to do a one-hour painting and spent another two hours fiddling around with stuff I could have left alone.

As Karen suggested in her comment here a couple days ago, it’s good to focus on one goal per painting. I did that with this painting. My goal was to create a sense of distance, and I think I accomplished that. (Yay!) What’s interesting is that even though it’s only been three weeks since I started this painting, I see how much I’ve learned just in that short time…or maybe how much of what I’ve learned in the past year is starting to sink in and take hold. The on-site painting was out of proportion and very flat–no sense of depth or distance. But it was colorful which was my focus on that day — getting some color into my painting.

As I worked on this tonight I was thinking about two things my teacher recently pointed out to me that applied to the problems I’d had with this painting:

Paint the dog before the fleas (in other words, get the big shapes in before starting on the little details)
When you have man-made objects in a painting, such as buildings or fences, they have to be the right size or the whole painting will look wrong because we know what the object is and what it’s size is.

Here’s the photo I took of the scene:

Larger

In the original version I got really involved in painting the little building in the front left and the bigger one halfway back on the right. But I’d made them bigger than they should have been so I could paint the details. And they were definitely the fleas, not the dog!

Tags Photos, Plein Air