Happy Boy Farms Tomatoes, Oil on Gessobord panel, 12×12″
Happy Boy Farms Tomatoes, Oil on Gessobord panel, 12×12″
My friend Barbara said this painting made her want to lick the tomatoes right off the panel. That was her positive feedback when I got stuck and asked for advice at an earlier stage of this painting. The constructive criticism was harder to hear but helped me get to the final painting above. The earlier stages of the painting and her advice are below.
Preliminary thumbnails and watercolor sketch
When I set up the still life I hung a light yellow-green cloth as a backdrop and piled the tomatoes into a thrift shop silver basket. I thought I’d use the folds in the cloth to divide up the green background.
Bachelors Buttons (I think), ink & watercolor, 8×5″
Just days before the city mowed down all the “dangerous” wildflowers on Carlson Boulevard for the second time, finally killing them, I walked along the narrow median strip with cars zooming by, and snipped specimens of each to paint. (I previously wrote here about why they were dangerous. They grew back after that first trimming.)
Pink Wildflowers, ink and watercolor, 5×8″Pink wildflower sketch with photo
I took them home and went wild, putting them in pretty bottles and vases, then sketching and painting them all day long.
Pink & Yellow Wildflowers, ink and watercolor, 5×8″Pink and yellow wildflowers with photo
My goal was to make free and fresh sketches of each flower that captured its personality while keeping composition in mind.
Little Daisy-Like Wildflowers, ink & watercolor, 8×5″Little Daisy-Like Wildflowers with photo
I postponed posting because of the time it would take to prepare the many sketches, scans and photos from that glorious day. I finally made the time; I didn’t want to be posting spring wildflowers in the Fall!
Lacy Wildflowers in Blue Bottle, ink & watercolor, 8×5″Lacy Wildflowers in Blue Bottle with photo
Do you know the names of any of these flowers? If you do, please leave a comment and tell me and I’ll change the captions with the correct names.
There are many more wildflower sketches to come, which I will post in Part 2.
My three wonderful next-door neighbor children bring me flowers every year for my birthday. This year the bouquet lasted so long I got to make two paintings from it. They come to my door, hand me the flowers and then each one shyly gives me a hug and says “Happy birthday.” I love that they’re still doing it at 10, 13 and 16.
When they were little they would come to the studio and make brilliant expressive paintings. Then school got the better of them and they started drawing the archetypical house under a rainbow with 2 windows, a door and smoke coming out of a chimney).
Birthday Bouquet #2, oil on linen panel, 8×8″
When I try to work too fast or am tired, I start generalizing, which rarely turns out well, whether in painting or drawing. It’s too easy to do like my neighbor kids and just make a generic house or bunch of flowers rather than these specific ones. I enjoy the process and the results much more when I go for accuracy in drawing, color and value.
Some people are great at simplifying and whipping out gorgeous, impressionistic art. But for me, it’s the individual personality of my subject that interest me; the specifics that make it that particular rose, place or person.
That was the discovery I made when painting these, so they are two more “almost” paintings (see previous post). Each one is just a stepping stone on the long and joyful path that is painting. (And some paintings really are better suited to use as stepping stones in the garden than hanging on the wall!)
Tea and Lemon on Lavender, oil on linen panel, 8×8″
I make a lot of “almost” paintings: they are almost what I intended; I almost like them, if only… (insert painting problem here). I’ve learned to appreciate the learning process and the parts that work and learn from my mistakes. But I haven’t yet learned to leave “almost” paintings alone and start another one.
Instead I keep working them until I reach the point where the underlying problem (e.g. poor composition, icky colors of background or subject, bad drawing, too overworked, or just not enough skill to pull off what I was going for) becomes insurmountable. Then I make a note of what I discover and what went wrong and give myself an assignment of something to study and practice on the next one.
With Tea and Lemon, I was happy with almost everything except the background which I reworked several times. I’m tempted to mess with it some more so I’m posting it to make myself stop.
With each painting I do I’m getting closer to finding my way, or I should say myway. I am attracted to so many styles and ways of painting, from tightly rendered realism to loose and sketchy and everything in between. Some require more time and patience then I have; others are fun to paint but the results don’t interest me.
I painted this one a couple months ago (I’m so behind on posting!) at the beginning of this honing in period (or is it homing in?). As I catch up on posting the paintings and sketches I’ve done since this one, I’ll be sharing the process and work that has helped me to sort out what and how I enjoy painting and what I don’t; what I do well and what I need to learn to improve.
After chasing so many different approaches, sometimes in circles, it’s exciting to get close to finding my way, which was probably there all along waiting for me to come back to it.
Stumpy Carrot Study #2 with Apple, oil on Gessobord panel, 8×8″
A fresh bunch of colorful, stumpy, little carrots with greens still attached: a great still life subject, I thought. But after two days of painting carrots I had my doubts. I was happier with the one above, my second attempt.
Stumpy Carrot Study #1 with Olive Oil Jug, oil on Gessobord panel, 8×8″
After the first try (Study #1) above, I wasn’t so sure. I tried and tried with the first one but it just wasn’t happening. In a rare moment of painting sanity, I decided to abandon the first one and try another composition (Study #2 at top).
I questioned whether to even post the first study since I’m not happy with the carrots. What do you think? Is it interesting or helpful to show the ones I don’t like? Or should I only post my best work that I’m proud of?
I don’t know if it was their hours under the lights or my hours struggling with them, but by the time I finished the carrots were looking an awful lot less appealing to me. I ate them anyway. Sliced and steamed with a little butter. They tasted better than they painted.
There’s a mysterious house on my block that has been empty but well maintained for several years. The mailman delivers mail and the gardening service keeps things nice and neat but I never see anyone go in or out.
Their roses and fruit trees are blooming but there’s nobody home to enjoy them. So I stopped by with my scissors to give the roses a little respect by painting them, even if it means stealing them (as I’ve done before). These were yummy fun to paint!
Dandelions and Wine, Oil Painting on Gessobord, 10×8″
It was time to take a break from portraits and do some still life painting after ten failed attempts at painting a friend from a not-great photo. I gathered some dandelions from my neighbor’s yard (I’m sure he didn’t mind) and stuck a few in my favorite old French Cognac bottle (that I found in the street years ago). With the addition of a bottle of Spanish wine, I had a still life ready to paint.
Dandelions & Wine, Watercolor, 7.5″x5″
But first I did this watercolor sketch. Even if I plan to finish an oil painting in one go, it always helps do a sketch first to get to know my subject. And since I’m eager to get started with the oil painting, I work quickly which keeps my watercolor fresh and not overworked.
It was a relief to turn out something I liked after my frustrating journey with the portrait. But I haven’t given up on it. There are still two failed canvases facing the wall, waiting for me to make them work (or smash them to bits!)
Art supplies and tea on right side of table & sketchbook, ink & watercolor, 4x6"
These are some of my special drawing table items: my cigar box supply holder, my watercolor brushes and pens, and a coaster under my cup sent to me by illustrator Mick Wiggins in response to a fan letter I sent him about the series of posters he designed for BART, our subway system.
Lamp and squash on right side of table & sketchbook, ink & watercolor, 4x6"
And here’s the left side of the same drawing table with my funky little table lamp for lighting still lifes, the wall grid for hanging supplies with paper towel holder, and the base of two combo lamps at the back — and some squash for sketching that are still (a month later) awaiting cooking.
Table still life, full spread in sketchbook, 4x12"
Here’s the full spread as it appears in the sketchbook. I drew the cup twice because I wanted to practice ellipses. I feel a little sad looking at the pictures because that much loved studio is no more. It’s under construction to become a studio apartment instead.
My new studio is wonderful and almost done. Just need to move in my flat files and painting/canvas storage rack, which hopefully will get done this weekend. Then just a little more work on house, apartment and studio and I’ll be able to get back to my happy rut of living to draw and paint instead of living in topsy-turvy world
I’ve been trying to eat a healthier diet and choosing produce and meat that has been sustainably grown. Unfortunately, while the farming may be sustainable, often the prices aren’t.
I bought one dozen eggs from a Marin County farm at the local farmers’ market. The vendor explained how the chickens were totally free-range and so got to eat greens and bugs along with their organic vegetarian feed.
“In fact,” he bragged as he took my money, “the chickens follow the cows around and eat the maggots from their dung!” Yum! Protein!
Despite their fine, buggy diet, these eggs seemed neither fresher nor tastier than the free-range organic eggs I get at Trader Joes for less than half the $8.00 I paid for this dozen.
To try to get a little more value out of my investment, I made one of the pretty light blue eggs pose for a still life. I like the way that the lighting coming from below gives the painting a slightly spooky look.
Jana Bouc, Artist 