Despite the encouragement to leave this painting and “don’t touch a thing” I wasn’t satisfied with it and made some adjustments to the color. I’m much happier with it now, although I wish my photo was more accurate. In real life the color is less fluorescent than it is appearing on the screen, although the actual scene in person was so brilliant it nearly was fluorescent.
Lone Tree Park, a funky little waterfront spot in the funky little town of Rodeo, CA alongside the railroad tracks. Sunday I joined Benicia Plein Air Painters there for an afternoon of plein air painting. I was determined to simplify, find big shapes, get them down on my panel with bold color, and stop. It was so much fun, made even more so by painting alongside Leslie Wilson, an inspiring watercolor painter.
Today I finished the painting at home from memory (above). I had to work from memory because the photo didn’t even come close to capturing the colors from the setting sun.
Below is the painting on site, just before I filled the white spaces I’d left between shapes to avoid smearing as I worked.
And here’s my easel set up at the park. Since we were painting in the afternoon the sun began to set and glow with wonderful hot colors the last half hour of painting.
It was good practice to finish the painting (at least I think it’s finished) but it also felt good to do what I set out to do on-site, simplifying down to big shapes and colors.
It also felt great to be out painting from real life instead of from a photo as I’ve been doing for the book. I got permission to share some of the steps in progress which I’ll do soon.
The little known Hayward Japanese Garden is a lovely and a very peaceful place. I set up my easel inside one of the little structures sprinkled throughout the gardens as it had a good view and nice shade on a very sunny day last week. It was also a popular spot for wedding and family photos, as two different wedding parties came to take photos at this spot while we painted.
There were a number of challenges with this painting. First was the complicated scene I chose. Also painting under a roof in a shaded area looking directly at a bright scene was tricky.
I was attracted by the rhythm of the crisscrossing diagonals of the bridge, the building, the tree and the reflections. While I was pleased that I met my goal for this session: to focus on composition, I only got as far as an underpainting on site (after starting with thumbnails, value study and a fairly careful drawing). I worked on it some more today from a photo on my computer screen.
Now I see a few things I’d like to adjust (toning down the bright yellow greens, shrinking the rocks under the tree that somehow grew while I was painting, and adding some dark accents). But that will have to wait because…
Now it’s time to get to work on the first watercolor for a book commission that is due in two weeks. I’ll be making three paintings for another book about painting flowers in watercolor by my previous publisher. I love the first photo I was assigned to paint from and am excited about the project. It’s so cool getting paid to paint flowers! I’m supposed to photograph 6 stages of the painting and then ship it off to London for them to make the final photo, Then they’ll send me back the painting and the digital file.
I’m hoping I can post some of the steps here, but my guess is that since they get publishing rights, I probably can’t. Either way, first I have to get painting!
I have a theory about the paths we take in life, and how important it is to notice what I call “Angels Holding Up Signs” along the way. Sometimes those angels take the form of a person offering helpful information or silently pointing the way by example, an intuitive thought, or an unexpected turn of events that makes you pause. When I see or hear an angel holding up a sign, whether it’s “Yield”, “STOP,” or “Go This Way” with an arrow, I consider it a gift and give it serious consideration.
Disclaimer: I’m not a New-Age angels and crystals sort of girl. But I do believe there are angels all around us; good, kind, generous people, like Adam at Kragen Auto Parts today who helped me dispose of gallons of old motor oil and their containers that had been abandoned in my garage (long story; don’t get me started!). Thanks Adam!
…And like the angels who’ve held up signs in my art life lately, including Kathryn Law and Ed Terpening who’ve both helped me to a breakthrough in my understanding about why simplifying is important in oil painting, especially when painting plein air. I’m always attracted to details, and so I’ve fought against that principle, and then fought my paints trying to put those details into my paintings.
Then I saw these paintings (below) by Ed Terpening on his blog, Life Plein Air, made during a workshop in which the instructor, Peggi Kroll-Roberts, challenged the class to break the scene into as few large shapes as possible and paint those shapes with a large, fully loaded brush in one brush stroke.
Each study evoked in me a mood and my mind created a whole life story for each of these women. A mom at the beach trying to keep her kids in line; a sad, matron, wondering where her life had gone; a glamorous, young society lady at the country club watching a tennis game while sipping a martini….
How did so much come from such simple paintings? Leaving out the details left it to my mind to fill them in. This is something I so needed to learn: that simplifying and omitting detail doesn’t make a painting boring—it lets the viewer’s mind play and be creative, making for an exciting, rewarding experience. Thanks, Ed, for holding up that signpost!
Another sign-toting angel came via email this week: a request to purchase this plein air oil painting I made last summer at Lake Temescal. There I was at the crossroads, wondering whether to give up plein air oil painting, and this angel popped up with a sign saying, “You’re on the right path, don’t turn back.”
And now about my process with today’s painting. First I tried to simplify by painting large color shapes with the plan to create a color study for a work to be done in the studio. I also focused on the composition, picking a focal point, being careful not to divide the canvas in half as I have a tendency to do, making the subject (the water) the largest portion.
Here’s how it looked when I’d covered the whole panel:
I’d worked quickly, using a palette knife, going for big shapes of color. I should have stopped there and gone for a walk. But instead I messed around for another hour and muddied up the design and the colors:
But the great thing about palette knife painting is that it’s easy to scrape off passages and repaint them. So later that evening I put the photo of Phase 1 on my computer monitor side-by-side with a photo of the scene and worked on the painting until I was satisfied with it (as posted at top).
And I’m very happy with another breakthrough: the way I was able to enjoy the plein air painting process without worrying about making a Painting with a capital P while I was out there.
This isn’t the painting I made at Sunday’s plein air location in a funky old marina in Crockett, beside the Carquinez Bridge. I was mad at that painting so I did this one to get even. I worked from a photo I took on the Bay Trail near my house to give myself a chance to paint in easier circumstances (no wasps buzzing around my hands, no trains going by every half an hour only 10 feet away, no cars rumbling overhead, no sweaty heat, and light that doesn’t move).
Feeling a little more confident after that, I tried to fix up the painting I’d done under the bridge (where the only shade could be found on that hot day). What made me mad about the painting was primarily that I didn’t come close to meeting the goal I’d set for myself that day: to SIMPLIFY and also that it is just a stupid composition. The view was tricky as everything was in direct afternoon sun except the foreground which was in shade.
I will keep working on the goal of simplifying in my oil paintings, as I’ve had a major breakthrough in my understanding about why it’s important, which I’ll write about in my next post.
Today I spent the afternoon painting in the bright windy sunshine at Albany Bulb across the way from the Golden Gate Fields racetrack. I could hear the announcer calling the races while I painted. And I was visited by numerous dogs and curious children and the occasional art critic.
It felt so good to be out painting again–it had been too long. The only downside was that I was painting in the bright sun because I was too lazy to walk back to my car to get my umbrella. And it was so windy the umbrella probably would have blown away anyway. When the canvas and/or palette are in the bright sun it’s really easy to mix all the colors too dark.
So of course when I got home and took the painting out of its box everything was too dark. Although I’d taken photos, they were pretty boring so I mostly worked from my memory this evening to to make some corrections and add a bit of artistic license.
When we gathered for our critique on the patio outside the funky Warehouse Cafe, a biker bar at the end of Port Costa‘s main road, I thought I’d gotten my painting of the Bull Valley Restaurant off to a good start. It was a sunny Saturday and the quirky local residents of the little town had been very welcoming, chatting and joking with the plein air painters.
Just as the critique was getting started the old lady bartender turned up the rock and roll so loud that we couldn’t hear each others’ comments and suggestions. Someone went in and asked her to turn it down and she sneered, “This is a bar. We play rock and roll!” Although some of our group had bought lunch and beer (served in mason jars), I guess we weren’t exactly their preferred clientelle.
Their usual patrons continued to roar in on their Harleys and wanna be Harleys. Some were dressed in full leather or raunchy heavy metal t-shirts and black denim. At least half of them were over 50, the guys paunchy and bald and the women, with their dyed thinning black hair, looked “rode hard and put away wet” as I’ve heard it said.
Anyway, back to the painting. As you’ll see from my initial sketch below, my perspective was even further off than it ended up in the finished painting above.
I’m always amazed how often my eyes fool me. Sometimes I’m sure a line slants one way and then I hold up a pencil to check and the line slants in the completely opposite direction.
This is the point when I stopped painting on site, planning to finish at home from photos.
Once home I realized that I had a serious perspective problem with the way the roof line and the line where the building meets the ground were parallel to each other instead of coming towards each other to finally meet at a vanishing point. I worked on the painting for a couple of days and thought I’d fixed it (blind to what was in front of my face from seeing it for too long).
When I shared what I thought was the final painting with some artist friends, they generously pointed out a few things that needed adjusting, including continuing perspective problems. Below M. added lines in Photoshop to demonstrate for me how I’d gone wrong with the perspective. It’s so great to have that kind of support!
Diagram showing how the perspective should have been
In the end I decided I’d taken this painting as far as it needed to go and moved on to the next project. But I promised myself that next time I’d pay more attention to perspective.
Here’s the original photo of the scene.
When my sister looked at the original version of this painting (posted here) she told me her eye kept going to the bright area in the upper right. There was a lot that was distracting in that image, and I thought the ground was too dark and the two little patches of flowers on opposite sides of the path were distracting too. But now maybe I lost some of the sunshine by lightening the ground and darkening that corner? (see original below)
So it was back to the drawing board…er easel. I spent some more time working on it and I think it’s done now. Which do you like better? Or do you think the revised version needs more work and if so what?
Yesterday I was out plein air painting in the funky little town of Port Costa, and because I was painting buildings, spent more time drawing than painting to get the perspective right. (Which makes me realize I need to add one more point to my How to Oil Paint Plein Air List: # 5. “Get the drawing right!”). Today I tried to (but didn’t quite ) finish it. While I used to often spend a month or more completing a watercolor painting, for some reason I have the idea that an oil painting should be finished more quickly, like in one session.
Perhaps what bothers me is that when I paint plein air I work small, using a 9×12″ panel. It seems like a waste of time to work such a small painting for days afterward, putting in lots of details (because I like details, darn it, even though plein air oil paintings are supposed to be simplified).
Maybe the trick is to paint the plein air painting as a simplified field study and then if I like it, if it has life and soul and the subject still interests me, grab a bigger canvas and paint big where I can really get into things like reflections in windows and other crunchy details, instead of continuing to work on the study.
But for now, it’s back to overworking yesterday’s study since I just scraped off the bottom 1/4 of the painting and need to redo it before the paint dries.
After my flop of a painting on Saturday, I was determined to have another go at plein air painting. But first I wanted to put together a cheat sheet; a personalized “How to Paint Plein Air” based on what I’ve learned from teachers, books, experience, mistakes, successes and goals. I started jotting down notes as ideas and images came to me and then when the list felt complete, I typed it up and taped it to my paint box so that it will always be with me when I’m out painting. I posted another on the studio wall.
Then I went out to paint. First I drove to a site I’d been wanting to try out, a hillside cemetery in El Sobrante with what I thought would be interesting views. But once I found a spot where I could be off the road and away from mourners, it was so windy, and the view so boring, that I left and headed for Blake Gardens.
By the time I got there and set up, I only had an hour and a half to paint before they closed at 4:30. It was so serene and beautiful there and the weather was perfect, warm sunny and no wind. I worked as fast as I could, finished all of the main areas, and added the final touches at home.
It was a confusing scene with all sorts of trees and foliage, but not having enough time helped me to simplify rather than draw all the trees in the background. I took artistic license to move things a bit to improve my composition and to delete something that wasn’t working. I’m learning!
Here is my Oil Painting Plein Air Process Cheat Sheet. I imagine it will change as I learn and grow, but it definitely helped me with this painting.
If you have discovered other things that have helped you and are willing to share them, I’d love to hear about them. And if you’d like more information about any of the items on my list, let me know and I’ll do another post with more explanation and details.
Every time I go for a walk in my neighborhood this house always makes me stop and wonder. It’s painted a perfect Smurf blue and someone obviously puts a lot of care into keeping the juniper tams carved into moon-rock shapes amidst the sparkly white quartz ground cover. But why? Maybe so that one day someone like me would come along and be inspired to paint it. And so I did!
It also brings back memories of when I lived in a Smurf house of my own creating. We’d just bought a fixer upper in North Berkeley and while my husband and his brothers did all the really hard remodeling work, my job was to shop for the stuff they needed and keep the kids out of their way.
I was sent out for house paint and had in mind a nice Colonial blue. I found the perfect color and had many gallons mixed, not wanting to spend the money to buy a quart to test first. Major mistake! In a neighborhood of craftsman bungalows painted in tasteful earth colors, our little Smurf house stood out, and not in a good way.
It’s been a couple of decades since we sold the house and went our separate ways, but the house is still there, and the paint job is holding up nicely and hasn’t faded a bit.
Jana Bouc, Artist 