Jana Bouc, Artist

BART Subway drawings

All are ink in small Moleskine sketchbook. This guy (above) had huge fleshy ears and his headphones barely covered them. He got off really quickly or I would have done more studies of his ears which enthralled me (I’m easily amused).

She slept the whole way home. I always wonder whether soundly sleeping people miss their stop. We were all tired on that car since it was 7:00 p.m. and I guess we’d all worked late. Almost everyone was sleeping .

I wish it wasn’t so late and I wasn’t so tired tonight because I’m excited about going out plein air painting tomorrow morning with one of the three groups in my area that I found and joined and I’d love to say more about that. But today was really busy and then I just spent a couple hours packing all my art supplies to make sure I had everything I needed for both oil painting and watercolor sketching in my cart. Then I tried to touch up a couple of pretty bad plein air practice paintings I did this week (in my backyard), thinking I’d post those but they’re not ready. So all I have to post tonight are a couple very quick sketchy sketches from my ride home from work on BART this week.

Tags Pen and Ink, People, Subway drawings

Life in general Painting Plants Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Remains of the Day

Watercolor in Moleskine large watercolor notebook (Larger)

I picked up this feather and some sort of dingleberry/pod that fell from a tree on a walk by Lake Merritt (which has a bird sanctuary). I actually collected several feathers of different sizes, textures and colors that I wanted to draw. But trying to keep the cats away from the feathers got to be too much trouble so I put the others away. After repeatedly removing the cats from the drawing table I gave up and put this one away too, switching to drawing this little pod thingee.

Tonight my painting group got together at my studio after several weeks of not meeting and it was so nice to see everyone again and catch up on each other’s art, work, life, and families while we all painted. We’ve been together for at least 10 years (nobody can remember when we actually started), and though we’re all very different we’ve become a wonderfully close, supportive, loving little family. Together we’ve survived divorces, deaths of loved ones, romances (failed and successful), surgeries, cancer, teenagers, empty nesting (and kids who won’t leave home) and more. And all the while we’ve kept painting, learning, and growing as artists and friends. I’m so lucky to have their support and friendship.

Faces Oil Painting Other Art Blogs I Read Painting People Portrait

Francis: Work in progress, oils

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date July 31, 2007
3 Comments on Francis: Work in progress, oils

Grisaille underpainting, oil on canvas, 9×12 (larger)

Francis is a little boy I photographed (with his mom’s permission) in the cafe at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco. Something about his red hair and sweet, wise nature made me want to paint him. This is a second attempt–the first got tossed. I’m trying a technique I recently saw demonstrated at the California Watercolor Association meeting. The goal is to end up with strong darks, high contrast and glowing skin. The artist who demonstrated the technique started her demo by showing slides of Caravaggio‘s paintings. He is known for strong contrast of glowing light in an otherwise dark scene, known as Chiaroscuro.

Once this layer dries I will be painting over the underpainting with a thin layer of color, trying to allow the darks and lights to remain and show through.

(above) First I started by toning the canvas with a thin wash of acrylic burnt umber paint. Burnt sienna would have been better though–this color is too dark and not warm enough. Then I used Saral transfer paper to trace the enlarged photo onto the canvas. Portraits are the one subject that I still do that kind of transfer instead of drawing freehand when I want to be sure to get a resemblance with all the features the right size in the right place.

(Above) Next I started blocking in the dark shapes and lines I saw using burnt sienna oil paint thinned with Gamsol Odorless Mineral Spirits.

(Above) Once I had the shapes blocked in I was ready to start adding the black paint, trying to keep it thin so some of the burnt sienna would show through.

(Above) Then I started adding white paint, trying to make smooth transitions between dark and light. And this brought me to the finished grisaille underpainting at the top. Now I just need to let it dry and then start adding the thin layer of color and see what happens.

Tags Faces, People

Glass Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Clover Honey Bubblebath and Bath Brush

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date July 28, 2007
11 Comments on Clover Honey Bubblebath and Bath Brush

Watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor sketchbook
Click here to see larger

These lovely items were my birthday gift from my office and I’ve been dying to paint them. I’m probably going to do it again as a “real” watercolor too, not just a sketch like this one. I might give it a shot in oil too.

The bubble bath in the bottle is thick as honey and looks and smells like it too. It’s full of other wonderful things from the garden: lettuce, celery, sage, clover, bilberry, cucumber, rosemary and avocado oil. It’s called Gardener’s Greenhouse Bubbling Bath Clover Honey. It’s the nicest bubble bath I’ve ever had and the bath brush is lovely and soft. I used them last night for the first time and it was heavenly.

My cats had never seen bubble bath before, and being fascinated with anything watery, were transfixed. While I lay in the tub and read, they fished for pawfuls of bubbles, tried to eat them, which I discouraged (I tasted it to see if it really tasted like honey and sadly it didn’t–soap!) and chased them around when I fluffed some onto the floor for them.

I woke up at 4:00 a.m. with a headache today and had a really busy day, including practicing setting up for plein air oil painting by assembling everything and then painting in my own garden. I picked a perfect spot — my Japanese Maple glowing in the light–but by the time I had everything together, it was in the shade. I painted anyway, and the painting turned out fairly icky. But it was all about rehearsing and hopefully I found all of the problems and things I still need to make this set up work. More about that later…for now it’s time to catch up on the sleep I missed last night.

Tags Glass

Art theory Life in general People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Art Shows on TV & Subway Drawings

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date July 25, 2007
11 Comments on Art Shows on TV & Subway Drawings

Above, on the train to work in the morning, 5 minute drawing.
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All are ink in Moleskine sketchbook

Above, waiting for the train on the platform, 3 minute drawing

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Above, people on the train to work, probably 3 minutes each (my trip is only 13 minutes)

I’m sooooo tired tonight. I think I used up all my brain juice at work today which seemed more intense than usual, multi-tasking, solving problems, meeting needs, responding to questions, ticking one thing after another off the bottom of my to-do list as more things piled on top of it. At the end of the day I had 48 work email messages I still hadn’t dealt with yet, some left over from Monday. I get about a hundred a day, most needing me to do something. Thank goodness tomorrow is Thursday and Friday starts my weekend. How did I ever manage a 5-day work week? It’s only 8:15 and it feels like 10 p.m. so I’m going to go watch some mindless TV and then go to bed.

Art History Shows
I’ve TiVo’d and have been gradually watching the Simon Schama series, The Power of Art, on PBS. It’s really weird. Each week a different seedy-looking British actor portrays another famous artist (most of whom weren’t British) while Schama narrates bits of history, trying to make everything sound as lurid as possible. The actors dramatize the artists’ darkest, most desparate moments of depravity, criminality, mental illness, illicit affairs, and bizarre behavior, focusing not on their most famous work, but the work they were most infamous for. It’s kind of like the Jerry Springer/National Enquirer/tabloid TV show version of the world of art. Some of the scenes are really disturbing such as Van Gogh squeezing tube after tube of brilliant oil paint into his mouth and swallowing it. Yechh!

I’ve also TiVo’d a CPB show, “Art of the Western World” with another British guy narrating the history of art, period by period, with just the opposite approach–a bit on the “good for you” but boring side. It was originally made as a college course, I think. I love my TiVo, by the way. It’s easy to use and I can set it to record every episode of a show with one click of the remote, and search for shows about art and painting and click to record them (which is how I found these programs). One more excellent program is American Masters on PBS. Recent episodes have featured David Hockney: “The Color of Music” and John James Audubon: “Drawn from Nature.”

Painting How-To Shows
Another show I’ve been enjoying is Your Brush with Nature. Each week the host, Heiner Hertling, paints a plein air oil painting on site in different locations. It’s not corny like some painting shows and he’s a good teacher, thinking out loud as he tackles the challenges of painting outdoors. There are two watercolor painting shows I record: Terry Madden’s Watercolor Workshop and Gary Spetz’s Painting Wild Places. I’ve gotten a little tired of Spetz because he does SO MUCH detailed masking with masking fluid, but both Madden and Spetz make attractive paintings and demonstrate techniques worth knowing about. For acrylics, Jerry Yarnell demonstrates how to paint what look like traditional oil paintings but using acrylics. I was having a really hard time figuring out acrylics and watching his show really helped to understand. I tried watching the ubiquitous Bob Ross oil painting shows on PBS but just couldn’t stomach them because they were way too gimicky and not at all about painting what you see (“here’s how to paint happy little trees”). I do love his voice though.

I’ve recently discovered an art video rental company like Netflix only for art videos called Smartflix. I haven’t rented from them yet (it’s a little expensive–$10 a video rental) but it seems like it might be worth it–cheaper than taking classes (though without the teacher feedback on your own work) –to see masters at work whose books I’ve read but seeing them work adds another whole dimension.

Tags Pen and Ink, People, Subway drawings

Drawing Life in general Outdoors/Landscape

Sausalito Sailboat Birthday Party for Robin

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date July 22, 2007
12 Comments on Sausalito Sailboat Birthday Party for Robin

Ink in Moleskine sketchbook
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The short version:
It was very crowded on the sailboat and there were many interesting people to talk to, so I even though I brought art supplies, didn’t get to draw anything until we left. My sister parked at a nearby upscale grocery store to grab a cup of coffee for the ride home. I pulled out my sketchbook and did this quick sketch while Sophie and I chatted and waited. I’d realized I’d never really “seen” a palm tree until I drew this one.

Tags Ink, Pen and Ink

Landscape Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Towata Park, Alameda

Ink and watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor sketchbook
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Thursday night was a 2-hour plein air paint-out on Alameda Island that was part of the Frank Bette Art Center’s annual invitational weeklong event that culminates in a show and a fund-raising auction in the park Saturday. Susie and I went there straight from work and had a very enjoyable time looking at all the accomplished plein air painters at work spread out over about a half-mile square area. It was warm, very windy and the sun was setting on the water, creating glare amidst views of a marsh, the bay, a small boat harbor, San Francisco across the bay, and a huge old concrete bridge with rush hour traffic flying across it a very short distance away. Despite all these challenges, the artists were doing some amazing work. After we’d admired all the interesting styles and techniques we found a spot where we could sit and draw too.

We’d both been attracted to the funny little boat to the left of the picture so we both drew and painted the same scene (but quite differently) in about 20 minutes. Then we took another walk around to see the finished pieces and left as the artists were setting up their paintings in a circle so that they could vote on the winning painting. While we were there, I got to see Ed Terpening, a fellow blogger, in action (the painting he was working on last night can be seen by clicking his name), and met Tom Zephyrs, a fantastic artist who is the brother-in-law of a childhood friend. Susie and my favorite was a large pastel in brilliant colors of the imposing bridge by artist and blogger Ann McMillan. She won first prize at last year’s event and that pastel is featured on the Frank Bette’s website page about the event.

Two nights in a row of painting inspiration and two nights in a row of dreaming about painting…until the earthquake hit at 4:42 this morning, putting an end to lovely dreams for the night. Fortunately it didn’t create any problems and was short enough that I didn’t even have time to do my usual earthquake reaction: panic and try to remember what it is I’m supposed to do during an earthquake. It felt like someone had taken my one-story, rectangular house that is much longer one way than the other, and picked it up at one end and snapped it, like you do with a sheet when you’re opening it and laying it on the bed.

Tags Plein Air

Art theory Landscape Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Outdoors/Landscape Sketchbook Pages

Snow Park, Oakland

Ink & colored pencil in small Moleskine notebook
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I drew this sitting on a wall in front of the building where I work, waiting for a ride after I witnessed something disturbing and weird this evening that changed my plans for the evening. I left work and headed to BART to get home and meet Lea to go to the California Watercolor Association meeting where Jody Mattison was going to be demonstrating painting using a grisaille technique in black and white oil painting over an acrylic underpainting in burnt umber, and then glazing in color in oils (odd for CWA which is usually all about transparent watercolors, but serendipitous for me since I wanted to learn that technique).

I saw a boy in a small group of middle-school age skateboarders being attacked by a huge security guard half a block from my building. The security guard looked and acted just like Forrest Whitaker as Idi Amin in the Last King of Scottland. The boy couldn’t have weighed 100 pounds and the enormous guard must have been 6’4″ and 280 pounds. They were fighting like kids in a school yard shoving each other and yelling. The guard shoved the boy hard who threw his skateboard at the guard, who then pushed the kid down in a raised planting bed and began choking him. He finally let the kid up with a viscious crazy laugh and the two began yelling at each other again. People on both sides of the street and driving by in cars looked stunned. The guard kept roughing up the kid, pushing him down, strong-arming him and yelling madly. Two cars pulled over and tried to intervene but the guy ignored them, and I could see people calling 911 on their phones. Occasionally the guard would talk into a radio and then go back to acting crazy and aggressive with the kid.

I started to leave and then just couldn’t. I walked over to them and said, “Excuse me sir, do you work here? This is totally inappropriate and unprofessional behavior.” He said he worked for the security firm hired by the building. The kid was saying, “Did you see him attack me? He was harassing me…” and his buddy said “I have it all on my camera!” He showed me the film on his little digital camera and it clearly showed the guard’s aggressive behavior and the kid defending himself. I asked them if they would all follow me back to the building where I knew the building security guards who staffed the front desk would be more reasonable. Surprisingly they all agreed to follow me as did several witnesses. Inside the building the guard said the police had already been called and everyone agreed to wait for them or left their names and numbers for the police.

Meanwhile I realized I’d never get home in time to meet Lea so I phoned her. She offered to bring me dinner so that we could go directly from my office to the meeting. Finally the police came, interviewed everyone separately. From what I heard while waiting, apparently these kids regularly skateboard by the building because the boy who got attacked’s mom owns the Togos Deli in the building and the guard regularly harasses them about skateboarding, even though they stay on public property, not on the building’s grounds. And the guard claimed the kids harass him. I told him that he still had no business behaving that way and I told the boys that they were asking for trouble, knowing that this guy was wacked but still tempting him by skating nearby but that still didn’t give him the right to harm them.

Finally I left everyone in the building with the police and went out in front and did this drawing of the sunset view of the park across the street with the huge herd of geese (it’s too big to call it a flock) that hang out there, Lake Merritt in the back to the left, and a tall, glorious Art Deco apartment building behind the trees. Lea arrived with a wonderful dinner for me, and drove us to the meeting for the demonstration which was terrific!

Tomorrow when I go to work I’m going to talk to the building management to tell them that guy should NOT be working there.

Outdoors/Landscape Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Colusa Circle’s Kensington Bistro

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date July 16, 2007
18 Comments on Colusa Circle’s Kensington Bistro

Ink and watercolor in small Moleskine notebook
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I supposedly work half a day from home on Mondays so that I can get out and paint in the afternoons. Unfortunately I often have trouble turning off the work email and end up working most of the day. Today I forced myself out the door around 3:00 for a walk and a visit to my favorite produce market, Colusa Market in Kensington. I parked at the Colusa Circle, took an enjoyable walk, and then came back and sat on a bench in front of the pub called the “Kensington Circus” and drew the Kensington Bistro across the traffic circle. The little peaks on the building are all wonky but I just couldn’t make myself get out a ruler and use 2 point perspective. I just wanted to draw so I did. The bistro is situated on a slight hill so the building does slant downhill from left to right…but still…

Tags Pen and Ink

Art theory Oil Painting Painting People Photos Portrait Puerto Vallarta

Work in Progress: Puerto Vallarta Cowboy in oil

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date July 15, 2007
6 Comments on Work in Progress: Puerto Vallarta Cowboy in oil

Oil painting IN PROGRESS – 22 x 28 inches
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I started this oil painting today from a photo I took in Puerto Vallarta a few months ago (see bottom of this post for the original photo). I thought I’d track my process and progress and post the results as I go.

(Clicking on any of the pictures below will take you to Flickr where you can click All Sizes to see larger)

Above are the thumbnail sketches (each about 2″ x 3″) that I did first, trying to work out the composition and colors. I needed to make the sketch match the dimensions of the canvas. Unlike watercolor paper that you can cut to any size, with canvas you either have to stretch it yourself (been there, done that) or use standard sizes.

Above top right: I used grey markers to work out the values but I didn’t change the composition from the photo. Above bottom left: In this grey marker sketch I moved the cowboy to the right, adding more wall between him and the door and added some white gel pen to put back light I lost. Above bottom right: I used gouache to work out the colors.

(Above left) I placed the original photo in InDesign so I could print it out in grey scale in”tiled” pieces and then I taped the printed sections together so that it would be the same size as my 22×228 canvas. Then I printed just the cowboy in color and stuck him where I wanted him on the large printout. I could have done this in Photoshop but decided it was quicker to do manually. It’s placed over the canvas in this photo.

(Above right) I toned the canvas with acrylic paint mixed to a sort of orangey-brown. I used a sponge brush and kind of messed it up, going over an area that was partially dry, which took off paint instead of putting it on. Fortunately it was in an area where there’s a textured wall so it didn’t matter. Then I put a sheet of Saral graphite “carbon paper” between my enlarged printout and the canvas and using a stylus originally designed for using on a Palm Pilot PDA, drew (invisibly) along the outline of the shapes on the enlarged photo. The Saral paper transfered those lines to the canvas. Unfortunately I didn’t notice the enlargement slipped so I had to retrace the guy again, half an inch to the left which left a lot of confusing double lines. The main reason I wanted to trace was to get the shapes on his face right and they were totally messed up. So I redrew him over the graphite lines with a fine point Sharpie instead of tracing, which worked OK.

Above: I scanned my thumbnail value sketch, enlarged it to 8×10 and printed it out and stuck it on my easel along with the reference photo and then….

Above: Using black acrylic gesso I referred to my value sketch to make a grisaille or monochrome underpainting over the orange. Now that I’m looking at this I realized I forgot to put the grey rectangle behind his head that will have the text on it and the orange is looking paler than it really was.

Above: I was having trouble with the face so I enlarged his face and printed it, then turned the canvas and the printout upside down and tried to get the shadows and value patterns right on his face.

Then I blocked in the first layer of color with oil paints over the underpainting (picture at top of post). Once it dries I’ll paint another layer. I plan to work loosely, avoiding overworking, especially the door on the left which I like just the way it is.

Below, the original photo. Isn’t he wonderfully macho?

Tags People, Photos, Puerto Vallarta