Category: Blitherings

Incoming Storm – Mt. Tamalpais

I do love the views and hills of Mt. Tamalpais year round! The views are amazing, the ocean not too far away, and the sky and weather always different throughout the seasons.

The sky in this painting was sort of an area to play with. Sky in watercolor is done with as soon as you lay it down. For the most part, that is!

Painting a sky is usually thought about and then laid in with a fair amount of water and color, avoiding areas for clouds, letting colors bleed, and all sorts of tricks such as blotting up color with cotton or tissue to make clouds. It’s a lot of fun! Here, I did go back in and lift some paint in the right side of the sky, re-wet it, and then laid in more color. It is okay but did not really work. Still, I did salvage it more to my liking.

Next, the foreground. I like my tree and grasses and rocks. The mid-ground with the trees is also to my liking. The land between the mid-ground and the horizon is too colorful and too bright – it should be a bit lighter and perhaps a bit more neutral.

Overall, I am fairly pleased with the results here. I tried to work as directly with color and water as possible. I used a bit of frisket in the rocks and in the foreground to maintain a bit of white.

As I said above, I try to paint with my colors very directly. This means mixing up large puddles of color and painting from that puddle, adding other colors as I move along with my wash to create variety. It requires a bit of thought as well as knowing what colors work together and so on. I mix these colors on my palette often before applying any to the paper.

Many people lay down glazes and work with layers in their watercolors, but I find that, while pretty, those methods of painting create a rather tame look. A lack of freshness is the only way I can describe it. On the other hand, my approach is quite challenging as I don’t build up colors but try to work with thick, rich colors and pray a lot. As a result, my watercolors tend to by quite gaudy, I think!!

Watercolor, Arches 140# Rough, 11×14.

Above the Lake

Lately I am not interested in pretty pictures so much as I am in simplifying or working on specific techniques in watercolor. Here, the main goals were the foreground rocks – making simple but still suggestive of a bit of an outcropping – and a sense of wind on the water and reflections of the trees. Well, the rocks turned out to my liking, the waves on the water okay, but the reflections are a total flop. More careful planning next time around!

Watercolor, Arches 140# CP, 9×12.

Into the Mists

The Great Smoky Mountains get their name from the mists that rise up from the hollows. The park was established in the 1930s and are part of Appalachia, itself which covers parts of New York south into the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and more. My own family on my father’s side can trace itself back through many areas, in particular Tennessee. As a kid, my family traveled through these mountains a bit, but I have never had the opportunity to spend a lot of time exploring them.

Here, I tried to work with a limited palette as well as a wet-in-wet technique to create the sense of fog and mistiness of the distant trees. The sense of just a wetness to the landscape – lush greens, trees, mists – is another thing I wanted to convey. I think it works.

Watercolor, 9×12, Arches 140# CP paper.

Something Different

I really prefer landscapes to nearly anything when it comes to artwork. Part of it is pure laziness – no one will point out the inaccuracy of my rendering! I can make it anything I want. Portraits, of someone you know or is famous, are inherently more challenging. With this challenge in mind, I decided to enroll in an 8-week portrait class led by my painting instructor. Yesterday was the second class.

For a number of years now I have sporadically met up with a small group of artists in a nearby park. Originally the group was for a portrait class, in person, sans masks, during the Covid days. Eventually it evolved / devolved, but now it is once more on track as a portrait class. No problem – I think i will happily return. The reason is simple – I am beginning to enjoy portraiture – at least in pencil.

We did a graduation party for Dakota, new high school graduate and soon to be university student. I decided the photo Auntie Am took was perfect for subject matter in yesterday’s class. Tan paper, hard and soft pencil, white Prismacolor pencil for highlights.

I listened to my Portraits-in-the-Park teacher, Steve, whispering in my ear as I drew, recalling words of advice and hints. Barbara, too, refreshed the “rules” of portraiture last week. And so, a portrait of Dakota emerged with the help of my two wonderful instructors.

My own observations tell me my noses are improving but need work, my ears still suck, and the rest is not too bad. All done in about a 45 minute session once the class instructions were completed.

Now, let’s be honest here. Pencil is easy to use. Barbara’s class is to soon move into value studies on canvas and a painted portrait may emerge in the next several weeks. That is going to be pure experiential hell. I have never painted a person in my life. At least I am somewhat comfortable with oils and other media. I am considering oil paint or pastels. Oil is slow drying and can be modified. Pastels are like drawing with a pencil. Watercolor requires a bit more skill than I have and in a classroom I don’t think I would be comfortable, but may decide to do at home where I can wade through paper if need be. Colored pencils may or may not be on the agenda.

Onward!!

All on a Saturday Afternoon

There are times when it seems all the piddly little things pile up and I spend my days doing them, like a list of a million bits of this and that. It gets depressing. It is important to do more than just tasks and chores and the to-do list. Today, after spending too much time on oil painting and working on getting myself organized, I just pulled out the gouache and some paper and played.

First around, trying a paper that I haven’t tried before. This is an inexpensive cotton paper with a decent texture for watercolors, but too much texture for gouache. I had forgotten that gouache is much better on smooth paper. I chose flowers as it is summer time.

I have yellow cosmos – a bit past their prime – in the front yard. A tall, jolly mess!

Here, echinacea. I often grow it, but this year did not. I like the way the petals fall back and the center is bright orange and black with bits of yellow. Not a good painting – too dark and messy.

Mullein is a wild plant but it has been hybridized to grow in colors such as pale yellow, lavender-pink, and whitish. It is normally a yellow flowering plant with dark centers. I have thought of growing them but so far haven’t. Maybe next summer.

And then, I moved on to a smoother paper. Here, a coastal scene with rocks and sea and clouds and a distant shoreline. Here in California the coastal fog comes and goes, making for some chilly summer days!

I like this one the best, in part because it was easier to paint on smooth paper. Gouache is such a fun medium as it is easy to use, never looks real but does, and so on and so forth.

Altogether, a nice way to spend an afternoon outdoors ignoring the list of petty crap that seems to be dominating my life these days . . . .