-N- – Page 72 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Painting, Waiting

Watercolor is wet. It needs to dry. In a studio setting or classroom, a lot of people use hair dryers. You see it on videos all the time – brrrrrrr! But, outdoors, unless you have an outlet and a long extension cord, and want to annoy yourself, you just sit and wait for air and evaporation to get to work.

I opened up my big sketchbook – each page is about 9×12 inches – and it was a spread across the two sheets. Above, a more traditionally done sketchy watercolor. I did a basic pencil drawing and then applied color.

Last month we drove from north of Los Angeles out to Tucson for our Global Entry interviews. En route we drove through portions of the southwest I have not yet seen, driving east from San Diego along Hwy 8, at times just north of the Mexican border. The land was sparse and beautiful in a fierce way, and before we reached Tucson we drove through the Sonoran Desert, home of the mighty saguaro cactus.

What can I say? They are tall and strange, reaching upwards to 40 feet, with arms and branches against mountains and skies filled with drama. It was beautiful. As we were on a long drive – 8.5 hours – we didn’t stop. I took a bunch of lousy pictures out of the window, and these are the basis for the above painting. An impression, not a reality, although you know these are saguaro if you have ever seen one.

This painting had to be painted in stages, so my thoughts were what to do while waiting? I decided to do some direct watercolor and use a photo I had taken of the local landscape.

Direct watercolor has no lines, and I have found it a wonderfully fresh way to see the world and to paint. It is also a challenge not to make mud, not to get carried away, and to think strategically. For me, the real challenges are negative painting and values. Because I am making sketches in a sketchbook and not something “serious” on a sheet of expensive paper, the direct watercolor and the more traditional studies are gaining traction.

I am learning a thing or two in my old age, and there is something to be said for that. Today’s painting was very satisfying. I spent it outside at the picnic table, a few supplies, a dog at my feet, and a kicked-back-who-gives-a-damn approach. And, I don’t think either of these paintings is half bad.

Potted

Every year I plant flowers in pots and in the little front garden bed outside the studio window. I let the roses alone along one side of the house, and the glads and fig tree, too. The front bed reseeds itself, and at times I add to it. The side patio, though, is where the fun often is to be found. There are some permanent plants, such as bulbs which return every spring. Then there are herbs and flowers and tomatoes (although not this year). Here are some of the lovelies I have in bloom today.

Mandarin or Tangerine on the Tree in a Pot on the Patio

And there you have a few. Some last a long time, others fade away in days. The joy of a garden, the cycle of life, the fragrance of flowers, the hum of bees – add a bit of sun, a good book, a comfy chair and birdsong, and a slice of heaven to be had and held.

Cosmos on a Summer Day

Yesterday I left a lot of the normal stuff undone, so this morning I had a bit to do! In between this and that, I looked out the studio window. My front garden is loaded with flowers – mostly yellow – but the pink cosmos are coming into their own.

I always enjoy their pink-to-red violet color, especially when silhouetted against a bright blue sky. Out came the watercolor sketchbook, a micron pen, and quick little sketch. Catching that pink is hard, and the shadows on the petals themselves even harder. Still, summer is here, the Solstice was here, and it is time to enjoy it all.

This afternoon it is off to the beach!

Out in the Back Yard: Dinghy, Trees, and Lilies

This past week has been spent sewing, learning software, socializing, keeping appointments, and going to Santa Monica via the canyons. Fun stuff. Today, though, the urge to paint came upon me – it really is part of my identity, for better or worse.

For some reason I am obsessed with boats of late – trying to get their shapes and such. I figured a dinghy on water, reflections and all, would be a good place to begin. Boat shapes are hard in some way, but if you create a series of rectangles, the curves and such are easy to create. I drew this one in my watercolor sketchbook, and there were a lot of pencil marks. In the end I needed a bit of definition, so added blackish paint lines here and there.

My sister asked me if I ever paint from real life or outdoors. Seldom will I do either, but I have been doing my garden plants, so I decided to do my podocarpus trees along the back wall, and added some imaginary grass to replace the dirt and roots. (I need to cut these all done, have the yard dug out, and then re-landscape. What’s a couple of million bucks?)

After these, drawn ahead with pencil on the paper, I decided to work on what is referred to as “direct watercolor” – a phrase invented by Marc Taro Holmes. This is when you paint directly on the paper – no prelim drawing, no pencil lines. You put pigment on paper and off you go.

The first subject is the large grouping of banana and palm trees across the street from me. I wanted to catch the light, so I began with the beige of the banana plants, and then began creating shapes with negative painting and then adding more colors and so on. The negative painting is easier to do with direct watercolor, I think.

And finally, more of the orange lilies I have. This time I included the pot! I began this painting with the pale beige of the wall, creating leaf shapes by negative painting. I wanted to catch the light and sparkle on these complex plants. They are lighter at the top, and get darker as you move down and to the left. The patio is covered with light and shadow from the sun through the leaves of the overhead trees.

Nothing spectacular, but a good way to spend some time outdoors, seated at the picnic table, and playing around.

Time to Learn, and a Tornado in Malibu!

Software updates and new versions come out on a regular basis. If you are diligent, you learn the newer versions and discard the old by uninstalling them. Sometimes the newer versions have features added and older ones removed for this reason or that. Usually I just install things and play. Today I decided it was time to really get my proverbial s*** together with regards to Lightroom Classic CC and On1 Photo Raw 2023.

In Lightroom up to the 2021 version of Photo Raw I could use the different modules of On1’s software individually. After that, no. I decided to get into the 2023 release of Photo Raw and figure it out. The first thing I did was to import a bazillion of presets into Photo Raw 2023. That took easily a few hours. Each preset group had to be imported individually. Argh! Why batch imports cannot be done, I have no idea – may be it can be, but I have no idea how!!

Anyway, done with preset importing, I started trying to figure out how I could get the best usage out of my LR and Photo Raw 2023 to edit by exporting an image from LR to Photo Raw. I found a great video, for Photo Raw 2022, not with the individual modules as before, but it works.

If you have struggled with LR and On1, this presents a viable option. It is not as good as the individual modules of the 2021 and earlier versions of Photo Raw, but it works. There are ways to batch edit in both LR and On1, and I do need to learn those as well.

While I was playing with On1 Photo Raw 2023, I started exploring the sky replacement element. It is really fun! Of course, you need to have some sense of matching the sky with the photo or it can look odd, but there are some adjustments it seems that you can make while importing a sky into a photo – ones that adjust the foreground for instance. If you have water, you can put in a reflection. You can also expand and shrink your new sky to a degree, as well as move the horizon and so on. Again, more study is needed.

And here is just one of the pictures I played with. Below is one with an original sky – I downloaded it from Pixabay, a website with a lot of free photos for use. Per the description, this is taken in Malibu, CA. Those clouds are not common here – winter storms are usually when we see them.

And here it is with a tornado and rain – not something you are likely to see here in California unless the world really changes!

And that is how I spent today – updating photo software, playing around, and trying to join the 21st century with AI and photography. I like the sky thingy – has potential.

And now – dinner and a walk and something other than computers . . .