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Art theory Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Roses on Stage

Roses-on-Stage (FINAL?)Write

Oil on canvas 16×12″
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UPDATE 9/22/07: Please see my friend and painting mentor Nel Jansen’s painting of this subject and her step by step process. It’s really great!

I’ve been working on this painting for three weekends, painting, scraping off what I painted, and painting again. When I started I was working from life but I ran out of time, the flowers died, and I had to work from the photo. It just wasn’t as much fun. I was determined to finish tonight and I think I have. I may still touch it up a bit, so any suggestions are welcomed!

I read that it’s better for one’s learning with oil painting in the beginning to do 30 small, quick (an hour or two) paintings than to work on one painting for 30 hours. I can see why! So that will be my next step. My goal with oil painting is to mix the right colors the first time, put down the paint, and leave it alone but I’m not there yet as the following progression demonstrates:

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Categories
Gardening Painting Plants Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Funny tomatoes from my garden

Funny-tomatoes

Ink & watercolor on Arches cold pressed paper in 6×8 sketchbook
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I don’t know why some of my tomatoes are growing so strangely, with funny little noses and other appendages. Maybe they’re a little crowded? Or it’s just the nature of this type. I’ve got 5 plants of different types of tomatoes and these are the only ones doing this. I live in a normally foggy summer area and last year my tomatoes didn’t get ripe until the end of October. This year they’re doing great as it’s been lovely sunny weather all summer.

I’ve been trying to figure out whether it’s sunlight or warmth that makes tomatoes get ripe. I’m guessing it’s the sunlight but maybe it’s both. If it was hot out but dark all the time, or very bright and sunny but cold, they wouldn’t ripen. But what makes them ripen? I know I could just look this up somewhere but it’s more fun to try to mull it over and come up with theories… But if you know, please do tell!

I’m also curious if what makes tomatoes ripen is the same thing that makes peaches or plums ripen (they’re both reddish) but what about green things. Do they need to ripen to? I’ve never heard of ripe spinach or ripe lettuce.

Categories
Illustration Friday Painting People Portrait Watercolor

Wedding: Illustration Friday

Matt & Margot

Watercolor, 22″ x 15″
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Illustration Friday’s topic this week is Wedding. Usually when I participate in IF I create something new. I love the creative process of coming up with a concept for an illustration that is fresh, unique, and not the first thing anyone would think of (e.g. Paris = Eiffel Tower = trite). The second fun part is imagining and visualizing the image and then bringing it to life with pen and paint.

But this week I couldn’t resist posting this wedding portrait I did a couple years ago for my friends Matt and Margot, especially since this month is their anniversary and they’re expecting their first child in less than a month. Congratulations M&M!

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Art theory Glass Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Kelp Pickles & Creative Blogger Award

Kelp Pickles from Sitka Alaska

Watercolor & ink (black & white in label) on Arches hot press in 6 x 8″ sketchbook
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The Pickles
A co-worker who lives in Alaska part of the year brought back delicious treats, all made from seaweed. These crunchy pickles taste like sweet pickles except better–with a touch of the sea in them. I love anything tasting of the sea, including raw oysters. Eating raw oysters is like eating peaches: the texture is the same, the soft bite through, and then the sudden juiciness. They always remind me of my childhood in Southern California where I practically lived in the ocean, tasting that fresh salty flavor every time I dove or got knocked under a big wave.

The Painting
I painted this from life (well, from jar) with a light shining on it. I added a few highlights with Golden Absorbent Ground, a product that also allows you to cover and repaint problem areas in watercolor paintings. It creates an absorbent texture that doesn’t bleed or dissolve and is similar to the original texture of watercolor paper. It’s best to apply in thin layers if you’re using it to cover an area to repaint it so that it dries smooth.

The Creative Blogger Award
Two art bloggers and wonderful artists, Nel Jansen and Bonny Racca, both honored me by nominating me for this award. I wanted to acknowledge their kindness and admit that I’m a naughty Creative Blogger. When one receives the award one is supposed to pass it forward, nominating 5 others, who nominate 5 others, etc. For a number of reasons I’ve chosen to opt out of that part of the process, but do appreciate the nomination very much! I’ve also learned these kinds of “pass it on” awards and questionnaires are called memes and their definition on Wikipedia is quite interesting.

Categories
Art theory Oil Painting Other Art Blogs I Read Painting Photos Plein Air Sketchbook Pages

Treasure Island Marina, SF Bay, Plein Air

Treasure Island Marina, SF Bay
Oil on 9 x 12″ canvas board
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My plein air group painted on Treasure Island this morning, a former military base and site of the 1939 World’s Fair in the San Francisco Bay. There were some amazing views of the SF skyline, the Bay Bridge, and Port of Oakland but it was very foggy and windy (as usual for the bay) when we arrived so I chose to paint in a more sheltered location in the marina.

Here’s the scene when I arrived:
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And here’s a quick snapshot I caught of the sailboat in the foreground as it glided past me:
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These are the sketches I did when I arrived, trying to decide on the view and focal point.
At first I was going to do the SF skyline but after sketching it realized it didn’t interest me; the shape of the dip along the skyline of trees on the hill did.
Treasure Island thumbnails

I did some things right on this painting, after taking to heart the good advice from my wonderful oil painting mentor Nel (whose wonderful Everyday Paintings deservedly sell Every Day — I own two), from Katherine Tyrell‘s post about plein air painting, and from the comments here on my last plein air attempt.

This time I didn’t chase the light (changing the painting every time the light changed). Instead, I noted when I started that the light wasn’t interesting–too foggy–but guessed it would probably clear up at some point. So I decided to block in the masses–the big shapes of the hills, sky and water and as soon as the sun came out I would then add the light effects, which worked fine. I also remembered that boats are flat on the bottom because the water line is flat and level. I also liked the the way I did the tree tops against the sky.

A couple things I didn’t quite get right: I forgot that everything looks darker and duller when you bring it indoors–it looked so pretty in the bright sun but is actually a little too dark. Also last time I swore I wouldn’t “fix” things in the studio, but I hadn’t had time to finish the boats so I worked on them, which was fine,. But then I “touched up” the hills and lost some of the glowing edges I had originally.

It might not be great art, but at least I didn’t feel like I had no idea what I was doing, as I had a month or two ago.

Advice, critique, comments are welcomed!

Categories
Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Summer Corn

Corn

Watercolor on Fabriano Artistico hot press paper in 6×8″ sketchbook
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Yay! It’s the weekend at last. Today was about making a lengthy To-Do list and then checking things off, one at a time. I got halfway through the list but all the important stuff got done and I rewarded myself with a latte from Peets. By the time I finished cleaning up and organizing the studio I was too tired to work on an oil painting (which I do standing at an easel…with all those brushes to clean at the end). But sitting at my drawing table painting with watercolor and listening to a good book was just perfect.

First I drew with pencil, including every kernel, which was fun (thanks to the strong Peet’s coffee?). After I put a tiny dab of masking fluid on the kernels I painted every other kernel with a touch of the brush so that each kernel would dry separately rather than all blending together. I went back and added a darker golden color color to shadow each kernel and added some cobalt violet in the shadowy spaces between the kernels.

Categories
Art theory Oil Painting Painting Still Life Studio

Tomato Under Glass

Tomato Under Glass

Oil on gessoed Museum Board, 7.5″ x 9.25″
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I did this oil sketch from life in the studio yesterday evening. One of the “rules” of oil painting is to keep your darks thin, with no texture and you can see why on the background here. Those brushstrokes catch the light and draw attention to it. Here’s the preliminary sketch with the darks blocked in first:

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Categories
Painting Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Salad rubbish

Salad-rubbish

Watercolor on Fabriano Artistico hot press paper (in sketchbook)
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After I chopped vegetables for a salad today I looked down at the little triangular rubbish container/drainer in the sink. It was full of cucumber peels, red bell pepper core, radish ends, and mushroom trimmings. I thought it was pretty enough to paint. So I did. Happy Labor Day to everyone who has the day off today. Now back to my fun struggles with oil painting…

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

Sharing my learning process

Tilden Park Plein Air & Studio 3

Oils on 9×12″ canvas panel
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In the interest of sharing my learning process in oils, I’ve posted this painting and some of my teacher’s critique. There are so many problems with this plein air plus studio painting that it seems to prove Dee Farnsworth’s saying, “Plein air is French for ‘bad landscape painting.'” I like to think of plein air painting as being the outdoor version of figure/life drawing — you’re trying to capture a 3-D live subject in real time, but with changing light.

The biggest problem is that it’s a painting of nothing…that is, there’s no focal point. In fact, the thing that interested me the most about the scene (some interesting branches) didn’t even make it into the painting. The composition basically sucks: there should be a path of dark values for the eye to follow but instead there’s a bright path leading nowhere: your eyes go up the path where you can turn left or right but there’s nothing there to see.

The shadows on the road don’t work because they’re too lumpy — shadows should be flat with softer edges. The daubing paint application is basically the same everywhere (I was trying to make myself use more paint–I tend to be too stingy with oil paint and was trying to work thicker). The foliage should be painted as masses–clumps of different sizes and shapes that go from dark underneath to light on top–just as you’d paint an apple–to give them dimension and form.

My teacher thought the painting was better before I messed around with it in the studio. Here’s the original done at the park (below):

Tilden Park Plein Air 1st

I’d gone out painting with my friend Susie who is much more experienced at plein air than I. When we packed up she pointed out that when we set up to paint, the Eucalyptus trees were light against a dark background, but as the sun had moved, the scene had reversed and the foreground trees were now dark against light background trees. I hadn’t even realized that but had unconsciously kept “correcting” my painting as the afternoon progressed which was not a good thing for the painting. It was best at about one hour. After that it just got more and more mucked up. When I brought it home I decided to work on it some more in the studio and lost a lot of what I’d originally liked about the painting which I didn’t realize until I posted both of them.

About knowing when to stop…I’ve always loved this story by Danny Gregory:

“When Jack was in preschool, there was one teacher whose class always did the most amazing paintings. Each one was clear and sharp and intelligent, Picassos in a sea of muddy fingerpaints. I asked her what she taught her kids, what she said to keep their visions so pure. She replied, “I don’t tell them anything, really. I just know when to take their paper away.”

Categories
Drawing Other Art Blogs I Read People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Sketchcrawl 15 – Berkeley’s Fourth Street

Sketchcrawl15-peets

Peet’s Coffee. Larger

All are drawn in ink and painted with watercolor in small Moleskine watercolor notebook
Yesterday was Sketchcrawl 15 and I joined a friendly, talented group of artists (including Oakland artist Carrie, Sonoma county artist Natalie, Cathy from East Bay Plein Air Painters, and fellow art-bloggers Martha, Vern and Pete) on Berkeley’s Fourth Street to sketch. We had a good time sketching in nice weather, and met up again at the end of the day at Brennan’s Pub for drinks.

Brennan’s used to be a favorite hangout in my late 20s — a place to meet friends for drinks and partying back in the day. I hadn’t been there in at least 20 years so it was fun to see it was still virtually the same and to have a yummy Irish Coffee for old times sake. I learned today that Brennan’s will be demolished in the near future to make room for a new development but they will be moving to a historic, former train depot nearby.

Sketchcrawl15-lilly

Lilly. Larger
“Good Afternoon. Could you help me please?” “Good afternoon, could you help me please?” “Good afternoon, could you help me please?” “Thank you Jesus.” “Good afternoon, could you help me please?”

Martha and I sat on a bench across the street from Hear Music so she could draw their storefront. Just to my left was this cheerful and charming (and repetitive) blind woman soliciting money from the shoppers in this upscale area. For the half hour we sat there she continued her chant, while her sweet but old, grizzled male friend gave her quiet little cues about who was walking by, what they looked like and what they were doing. She was excited we were sketching her. I gave him my card and promised to send a copy of the finished sketch, which he liked. She also allowed me to take photos and I plan to do a painting of her as she was quite beautiful (which you can’t tell from my sketch, sadly.) We put a few dollars in her begging bowl (a quart-sized yogurt container).

Sketchcrawl15-gate

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The last sketch of the day in the little courtyard behind Sur la Table. Martha went inside and drew kitchen goods.

Sketchcrawl15-spengers

Spenger’s Fish Grotto
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This is the first sketch of the day I did while we waited for everyone to arrive. I painted it later at home from little color notes I penciled in to the sketch. Pete did a fabulous drawing of Spenger’s using a blue Copic fine liner and watercolor, so please be sure to visit the Berkeley Sketchcrawl website to see his drawings and Martha’s, and the cool photos Martha took of everyone sketching.