technique

Sequoia Art Group

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I was invited to do a demo at the monthly meeting of the Sequoia Art Group last night.  The organization is a lively and friendly group of 25 or 30, and it was a great time.

I started the demo around 8 o’clock and painted until about 9:30.  I didn’t quite finish the painting, but will probably only take me another hour or so to complete.  The demo was a 16×20 seascape of the Big Sur coast around Garrapata State Park.  Below are a few pictures from the evening.

I had blocked in the basic composition and painted the sky in my home studio before the demo.  Starting the demo–

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Here is a picture of the group during the demo–

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Some of the group crowds around to watch–

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Towards the end of the demo–

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I’ll try to finish the painting in the next couple of days and post an image of it.  Thanks to the Sequoia Art Group for having me, and I hope they took away something from the evening!

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Of Big Sandy, TX and Water Soluable Oils

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I just returned from a week long trip to Big Sandy, Texas. I visit fairly often as my parents and sister live there. My last visit was December of last year to dedicate a painting I donated to a local church there.

I had been experimenting with water soluble oils recently and brought those on this trip. Sometimes when I travel, it is too inconvenient to find turpentine at my destination, so many times take acrylics, which I recently did on our cruise to Alaska.

Many of you know I spent 15 years in East Texas from the time I was about 13 years of age. I started painting while there, and at the time painted from other peoples photos such as calendars, etc. of far off spectacular places. Didn’t seem like there was a lot to paint in my local area. Now that I go back, I find good painting subjects everywhere! I think the mark of a good artist is to make the seemingly ordinary and mundane into something of beauty.

With visiting family and friends, I only took one morning to paint. It didn’t take me long to find a nice pasture and pond just south of Big Sandy close to the Sabine River. I brought only minimal equipment and ended up using the hood of the car as my easel. It was somewhat cloudy, but the pink of the early morning sun was wonderful. However, it soon began to rain, so I had to stop as the water soluble paints were smearing all over the canvas! I will continue to experiment with these paints.

Below is a picture of the scene. You can see the painting in progress on the hood of my car–

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Stick to Your Original Plan

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When doing plein air work, it is usually wise to stick to your original plan. Sometimes the light may change, but if you change a painting along with it, the entire thing may not work. I affirmed this lesson the other day…

Alum Rock Park, founded in 1872, was the first municipal park in the U.S. state of California. Located in a canyon in the Diablo Range foothills on the east side of San Jose, it is fairly close to my home. The Los Gatos plein air group was painting there today, so joined them.

The park has many things to paint. Penitencia Creek winds its way through the canyon, and there are plenty of century old bridges, rock formations and hillsides. It was cloudy, but the sun would peek through occasionally lighting the distant hill side. I decided to paint one of the foot bridges in shadow with the sun catching the hillside behind it…

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The painting started out well, but as soon as I finished the lit hillside and was halfway done with the bridge, the cloud cover lifted, and the bridge was now bathed in light…

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So, I changed it. Bad decision. The bridge just didn’t look right. So, I scraped it off and repainted it in shadow. The entire painting is probably a scraper, but it also taught me a lesson. Below is a quick snapshot…

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And one final picture of some of the Los Gatos painters.

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Use Big Brushes

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I have long been an advocate of the bigger the brush you use the better. For most of my paintings, even the smaller ones, I use a #10 bright, which is about 3/4 of an inch wide. To quote John Cogan, “get the largest brush you can possibly use for the job, then use the next size higher”. (John is one of my favorite artists, and definitely my favorite acrylic artist.)

The last few weeks I have been working on a large commission, using primarily a #12 bright. Yesterday, I took a break and continued working on a series of Yosemite paintings. I used the same #12 bright, which is about an inch wide, and painted an entire 16×20 using only the one brush. (I did use a #12 round for just the sky in order to have softer edges.) Although it is painted in a fairly loose style, I had no problem painting to the level of detail wanted. Although I might touch it up a bit, below is the resulting painting.

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Morning Light on Glacier Point * 20×16

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Menlo Art League Demonstration

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Just returned from doing a demo at the Menlo Art League in Menlo Park, California. I had been invited to do the demo quite awhile ago, and tonight was the night.

Been debating on whether to paint a California seascape or a Lake Tahoe scene. Just before New Years, James Harold Galleries called, said they were selling, and wanted more of my works…see this blog post. So, that made my decision…paint Tahoe!!

It was a small, but good crowd, maybe 20 total showed including a handful from the Peninsula Outdoor Painters, whom I paint with occasionally on location. They had learned about it either indirectly, or directly from one of my emails….yes, emails work sometimes!!

I had about 90 minutes to work on the painting. As usual, I blocked in the basic painting prior to the event. When I demo, I try to use a fairly large panel so the audience can readily see it, usually a 16×20 (as this time), a hard canvas to cover in the allotted time, but I go for it and see what happens.

It went smoothly, but with the positioning of lights in the room and where my easel was set, I had a little trouble with matching the color on my palette with what I wanted on the canvas…not unusual in an outdoor environment!!

I got the painting about 60% complete, as I wanted to jump around to various parts to show my technique and how to do in certain areas.

Josie took the below photos.

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A Handy Tool

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I have never really been into ‘view finders’ when plein air painting. These are usually square cutouts you hold up to frame and isolate the scene so you can get a better handle on the composition and how to paint it. Many artists make their own just by cutting a square out of a piece of cardboard or matting board. Here is some info on using a viewfinder. While in the field if I need an aid, I usually just hold my hands up or use my camera as a viewfinder.

When I was at the PAPA paintout several weeks ago, Kevin Macpherson was using a viewfinder which I thought was really worth getting…well actually, I just had to have one!! It is made by Artwork Essentials. It comes with a dry erase marker, so you can actually draw your scene on the viewfinder as you hold it up. It also has a value bar with three peepholes to better isolate and judge values in the scene. It comes in two sizes, a 6×8 and a 3×4, so I ordered both.

I tried it out yesterday at Elkhorn Slough and it worked great! I did find if you are sketching on it, you need to prop it on the top of your easel or other support to get a good sketch.

One of the other features I especially liked was the hairline partitioning of the viewfinder. The hairlines partition the scene by thirds both horizontally and vertically. On the larger viewfinder, the “Golden Section” is also indicated with slightly smaller hairlines. I won’t go into details about these rules of composition other than saying generally put the center of interest somewhere along the one third line intersects. This viewfinder makes doing so a snap. You can read more about these composition rules here.

All-in-all, this is the handiest tool I have seen in a long time! Both viewfinders are very affordable at around $10 and $4.50 depending on size. You can get more info and order it at:
http://www.artworkessentials.com/products/accessories/Viewfinder/VF68G.htm

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Adding Interest

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I had mentioned in my previous post about changing an older mini painting more to my liking. I had done the painting about a year ago, and even though it had great color, it looked ’empty’ and lacking ‘interest’. So, I added some buildings, a fence and a road leading into the painting. Below I have a before and after. So does the new version look better? I think so.

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Before

After

Hollister Valley 5×7 Oil on board

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Menlo Art League Demonstration

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Although it is a ways off, I have been invited by the Menlo Art League to do a demo at their monthly meeting January 9th next year. Not sure what I will demo, but most likely oil painting in a wet on wet technique. Below is a painting I did last March during a demo for the Los Gatos Art Association.

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Truckee Snow * 16×20 * Oil on board

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Los Gatos Art Association DEMO Final Painting

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Thought I would post the final painting from the Los Gatos Demo I did last Saturday. I spent a little over an hour finishing it. I might touch it up a bit more in the coming weeks, but it is about 98% done.

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Truckee Snow * 16×20 * Oil on board

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Los Gatos Art Association Demo

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I mentioned in a previous blog I was invited to to a demonstration painting at the Los Gatos Art Association monthly meeting. Today was the day. I decided to demo a painting of a Truckee River snow scene. I had done a series of plein air snow scenes several years back, and am now doing some studio versions of them. You can read about my trips here, and here.

I only had about an hour to demo the painting, and the painting had to be fairly large so everyone could see. With fifty or sixty in attendance, they told me it was a good crowd for their meeting.

Below are some photos of the meeting, beginning with an introduction.

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I used one brush to do the entire painting, a number 10 bright, which I use on about 95 percent of all my paintings, including the small ones.

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A couple close-ups when I was about half way through the demo.

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I probably got about 2/3 of the way towards completing the painting and stayed a few minutes afterward. When I finish the painting and have a chance to take a snapshot, will post it back to this blog.

I have a demo on my website of a similar scene which you can see here.

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