Categories
Animals Life in general People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Cat Attack, Bomb Threat & Happy Birthday

90th Birthday Party

Larger
Ink and watercolor in small Moleskine watercolor sketchbook

My mom’s visit started with a cat attack and ended with a bomb threat at the airport (which extended her stay an extra day). My sister picked her up at the airport and as they walked in her door, Marcy started to tell my mom not to touch her grouchy, unpredictable cat. She was a moment too late: mom reached out to pet him and Bob the Cat sunk his claws into her hand. Next stop was a visit to the hospital where the nurse there washed her finger and put a band-aid on it and gave my mom a tetanus shot. After that she proudly showed off her band-aid and told the story to anyone who would listen.

Today, my poor sister again did airport duty, since she lives near the airport. When they arrived at the airport it was shut down due to a bomb scare. Marcy brought Mom back home, where she decided to stay another night. Now she’ll have lots of exciting stories to tell when she gets home.

In between, we attended the 90th birthday party(pictured above) of my great aunt in a country club. There were about 75 people people who came to show their love and respect to this feisty, vivacious 90 year old. It was nice seeing my cousins for the first time in years and their grown kids and their 2 year old twin boys and all the lovely old ladies dressed to the teeth for this special day. I drew this surreptitiously at the table while people were making speeches about my aunt. The perspective is a little confusing as the man on the left was at my table and the ladies behind him were at the next table.

Reading this was probably about as interesting as watching someone else’s vacation slides. I’ve got lots of exciting art stuff to share too, but most of my energy the past week has been devoted to family. Now it’s back to regularly scheduled programming: painting!

Categories
Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Cat Toys and Endings

Cat toys

Ink and watercolor in Aquabee sketchbook
Larger

To preserve my sanity I squeezed in a quick sketch in the half hour before I had to leave for my great aunt’s 90th birthday party at her club. I should be primping and trying to make myself look like I belong at a fancy country club in an expensive suburb but this was more important.

I’m a pretty solitary person, needing at least as much alone time (if not more) than social time. Days of family events and spending time with extended family during my mom’s visit can get me pretty overwhelmed so I have to carve out moments like this one. I grabbed the first thing I could find to draw, put on a CD, and got to work.

Now I have to decide whether to wear my white pants since it looks like a summer day today (which no doubt will horrify all the ladies as it’s after the official deadline for white) or be nice and wear something more seasonally appropriate. And now I only have ten minutes to shower, makeup and dress before the hour-long drive so wish me luck.

Meanwhile, here’s a link to Ronell’s blog post, “Endings” where she writes exactly what I’m feeling about the end of summer, the end of peaches, and time marching on, made even more poignant by mother’s approaching 84th birthday and my great aunt’s 90th. I wish I could have written her beautiful post but instead I’ll just say, “What she said….”

Categories
Drawing Faces Other Art Blogs I Read People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Subway Drawings & Mom Visit

Subway Drawing -bart41

Chubby cyclist. He was so stuffed into his clothes it must have been uncomfortable — but I give him lots of credit for riding his bike to and from the BART station instead of driving there like I do.
All drawings Micron Pigma pen in small Moleskine notebook

Subway Drawing -bart39

Sound asleep and resting comfortably after a long day.

Subway Drawing - bart40

She figured out I was drawing her and gave me a big smile as she got off. I didn’t have time to finish her bearded partner though I wished I did. He had a lovely gentle face.

It’s been a crazy week at work leaving me no energy to draw or paint in the evening. My mother ( see her artwork from the 50s here) arrives tonight for a nearly weeklong visit. I’m hoping to do some drawing while she’s here and I start a plein air painting workshop on Sunday with Elio Camacho.

Categories
Oil Painting Painting People Puerto Vallarta

Work in Progress – Puerto Vallarta Cowboy

Puerto Vallarta Cowboy 10 (WIP) – – – Puerto Vallarta Cowboy 11 (WIP)
Larger — — — — — – — — – –(Revised version)- Larger
(Earlier version w/charcoal lines)

I knew there was something wrong with the composition of this painting in progress that I started in July but I wasn’t sure what the problem was. I studied it yesterday and realized that my eyes kept going to the blank area on the ground between the brick column and the guy’s feet. I was thinking about adding a box or something to the painting in that spot but then Elinor stopped in with Robin and pointed out that the problem was the weak contrast around his head where it’s all white against white and doesn’t draw your attention and is competing with the strong red area and contrast at the bottom of the wall where a white crack serves as an arrow to the ground.

To fix the painting, I decided to add more contrast around the guys head and break up the space/negative shapes in the composition. I experimented by drawing lines in charcoal seen in the picture on the left. Then I painted the blue square behind his head (that will have white lettering added to it instead of the blue lettering on a white wall in the original photo) to add contrast and make his face the focal point it should be. I also added a second column of bricks, lowered the red paint area on the wall and added an ochre band on top of it, and lightened the sidewalk.

I have a hard time finding the problems in my own paintings though I can usually spot them a mile away in someone else’s. I need to make a checklist of questions to ask myself about a painting when I have that uneasy feeling and don’t know why. Any suggestions welcomed as there’s still a way to go on this one.

Categories
Art theory Painting Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Working on Cars in My Driveway

Car Repair 2
Larger
Sharpie pen and watercolor in Aquabee sketchbook

Cody Car Repair 2
Larger

Just as I finally was ready to start painting today, both my sons came over to work on their cars in my driveway (right outside the studio). It was a beautiful Indian summer day and I wanted the door open. But Cody was running a compressor and a power tool that made horrible noise as he removed the bolts holding all the wheels on the car. I made lemonade out of the lemon by drawing them (very quickly — they kept moving) and then turning up the stereo really loud.

I spent a lot of the weekend preparing for a new series of paintings  — sketching, making notes and digging up reference material and also thinking about next steps for a painting in progress. I’m trying to wait until I have a plan of action before I put brush to canvas so that I don’t spend half of my painting time dabbling and the other half wiping off the dabbles.

When I’m in that “between paintings” stage I can get very grumpy and frustrated. But for once I took advantage of the lull and cleaned up the studio; organized my cabinet full of glassware, fabrics and still life objects; and cleared off the studio kitchen counter which had been piled with random stuff waiting for a home. When I finished I was ready to start the sketch of the first of the new series and finally knew what I needed to do to the paint in progress (more about that tomorrow).

Categories
Faces Other Art Blogs I Read Painting People Portrait Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Portrait Swap – Ujwala in Watercolor

Ujwala, Watercolor

Watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor sketchbook from color photo
Larger

Ujwala, Monochrome

Watercolor (Ultramarine Blue & Indigo) in large Moleskine watercolor sketchbook from black & white photo
Larger

Forgive me Ujwala; I fear I haven’t done you justice but I thoroughly enjoyed painting your beautiful and expressive face. Thank you for allowing me to draw and paint you.

Update: Casey just posted her drawing of Ujwala too. Check it out here.

Quite awhile ago my friend and fellow art blogger Ujwala in Bangladesh invited me to do a portrait swap with her to be posted on Illustrator Rama Hughes‘ Portrait Party blog but I got sidetracked. She reminded me again recently when I was commenting on the wonderful series of portraits she’s been working on. The Portrait Party blog is really fun. It’s all drawings, paintings, and cartoons done by pairs of artists of each other. Rama recently posted pictures my friend Judith and I did of each other and when Ujwala finishes mine we’ll send them to him. If you want join the portrait party, just follow the instructions on his blog.

When I agreed (again) to do the portrait swap (which just means I paint you and you paint me), she promptly emailed me two great photos. It took me another few weeks to get around to sending her photos. I took pictures of myself at midnight in my old plaid flannel pajamas, holding the camera at arms length under bright light in the studio. The resulting photos showed every wrinkle and magnified my nose since I was holding the camera so close. I decided to forget about vanity and just send her the photos so we could get started.

Categories
Drawing Faces People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

“Pitty” Tail – Tuesday Subway Drawings

bart37

Ink in Moleskine notebook.
On my ride to work this morning, he looked so jaunty, with his perky cap, sunglasses, outdoorsy jacket and wearing what my sister calls a “pitty” tail — those skimpy little gray ponytails that balding men trying to hang onto the last bits of their wilder youth wear.

bart35

The morning light was shining in from the window onto his face. He was only there for a minute and then he got off.

bart36

On my ride home the train was very crowded and he was sitting on the floor cross-legged reading. I gave myself room in my sketchbook to draw all of him but he got off before I could.

bart38

He was sound asleep on the seat in front of me, less than two feet away when I got on at 6:45 p.m. He was still asleep when I got off. I hope he didn’t miss his stop. I had a feeling that the woman on the seat beside me was watching me draw. I was imagining what she might be about to say to me (“you better not draw me” or “nice drawing–it looks just like him” or “do you think that’s right drawing somebody who’s sleeping?”) but when I stole a glance in her direction, she was also sound asleep.

Categories
Art theory Flower Art Glass Oil Painting Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Wax On, Wax Off (Breathe In, Breathe Out)

Rose in a Jar

Oil on panel, 12×9″
Larger

The title of this post refers to words from the 1984 movie Karate Kid and also my process in this painting except for the painting it would be more like “Paint On, Wipe Off (Breathe!) Paint On, Wipe Off… ” (click on “Keep Reading” below to see photos of the steps). I’m not happy with the front flower but I’m ready to move on to the next painting. With each one I learn so much more, including how much more there is to learn!!!!

I had two main goals for this painting/learning experience:

  • Think in terms of “Whole Canvas”
  • Keep trying to understand how to work with oil paint so that I’m taking advantage of its wonderful qualities rather than fighting them. (I’ll keep trying!)

In my many years of watercolor painting, I worked hard to capture what excited me about my subject. I often worked close focus without much background, or just using the lovely white of the paper as my background to set off the glittering glass or glowing flowers I was painting. If the composition didn’t quite work out–no problem, just crop as needed with a mat and frame.

In oil painting the background has to be an integral part of the painting–you can’t just leave the glaring white of the gessoed canvas as your background. And you can’t crop a stretched canvas or panel like you can paper. I was struggling with this concept and finally it clicked. It’s just another way of seeing and, like peeling layers of the onion, the haze peeled from eyes and I could see that a painting is not subject & background — they fit together to complete the picture, just as night completes day. While an object that interests me enough to paint it is the focal point, I need (for now) to think of the PAINTING as the subject.

Continue reading “Wax On, Wax Off (Breathe In, Breathe Out)”
Categories
People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

After a long day at work

Waiting for BART 31

Ink in Moleskine

I didn’t leave work until 8:30 p.m. Thursday night so I had a longer wait than usual for a BART train, since it was after regular commuting hours. I saw this guy waiting too and had to sketch him. I don’t know what he could have been doing with his phone but he was completely mesmerized by it and didn’t move at all for the five minutes I was drawing him before the train came.

Once onboard I drew these guys who each stood in the same spot, rode one stop, and got off, to be replaced by the next guy. So I guess these were about about one to two minute quick sketches.

BART Rider 33 BART Rider 32

BART Rider 34

I’m feeling a little rusty sketching on BART because for the past couple of months I’ve been using my 13 minute subway ride to read books on oil painting and composition and haven’t been sketching as much. It was good to get back to it.

Categories
Art theory Other Art Blogs I Read Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Egg Cup with Mushrooms

Egg cup with mushrooms

Watercolor on Arches cold pressed paper, 6″x5″ in sketchbook
Larger

I was at Berkeley Giclee on 4th Street in Berkeley on Monday to approve a test print of a painting I sold before the final giclee was made. The photographer/printer, Tony Molatore is a genius and so great to work with. The print is the same size as the original painting and it’s really hard to tell them apart.

While I was on 4th Street I stopped at the Crate and Barrel Outlet and bought some inexpensive goodies to use in still life setups including this little egg cup and periwinkle colored square plate. I’m going to paint this in oils too, but tonight my painting group was here and I wanted to join them with watercolor.

In my many years of painting in watercolor I focused on accurately capturing what I was seeing and on watercolor technique. Now that I’m also painting in oils I can’t just leave the white of the paper as background, or easily crop paintings when they’re done. Overall design and composition become very important so I’ve been trying to relearn all those elements from classes I took so many years ago. I tried to apply a couple of “rules” of good composition here:

1. Never “float” a still life. Make it go off the page on two sides or more (Told to me by Nel Jansen who learned it from another artist.)

2. “Never make any two intervals the same.” In other words, no equal divisions of space or equal quantities of dark/light, warm/cool, color, hard edge/soft edge etc. in a painting (The Simple Secret to Better Painting by Greg Albert — a good basic book on composition).

On the other hand, I’m noticing I have a foreground with nothing in the middle ground or background which seems a little odd and a few hard edges that should have been softened (which I will do later).

And on the other, other hand I had a wonderful time painting and being with my dear painting buddies tonight and seeing the lovely colors and shapes in the things I was painting.