Ink, Yarn & Beer

3 Pears: A Study in Simplification

Pretty fancy title for an attempt to 1) take a color photo of pears, 2) reduce the colors in the photo to 16 so that fields of color appear, thus allowing an easier visualization of values, and 3) painting observed fields.

First, let’s put this out there: I really do not like painting outside at this point. I used my gouache paints for this study and had to take the following out to the table on the patio in multiple trips – paints, brushes, water, paper towels, image on a tablet, palette. Of course I forgot this and then forgot that, and it really just riles me up! If I ever want to have a plein air experience, everything needs to be consolidated in one thing to take all the little things out at the same time. Inefficient usage of my art supplies really makes me crazy. It is soooooo much easier to have everything in one place on a shelf rather than having to traipse hither, thither, and yon.

Okay, gripe session over. Using gouache on hot press paper, I used green in different values to depict light and shadow, somewhat successfully. I referred to my simplified image (which kept turning itself off on the tablet – another reason why painting from a reference photo indoors is so much nicer), and worked from there. Some areas of the pears were more yellow, as pears can be, and other areas were a colder green. This did end up showing in the simplified photo, and you can see it in the above painting.

I like to desaturate color photos or paintings to see how they read in black and white. This way I can get a sense of values in the colors I used. In the above painting, you can see that, overall, it worked in the pears. The shadows beneath the pears were nothing special and honestly not something I paid much attention to. Using desaturation, I see faults and areas for improvement. For example, the neck of the middle pear would benefit from more dark shades – middle values – to create a sense of the cylindrical nature of that part of the pear.

This was actually fun once I got into it, despite my frustrations with the outdoor set up. I have to think more about how I go about painting outdoors. The fact is the day was beautiful and nearly 70F for a bit of the afternoon. No wind to fight with. Later this week the rains will return (hooray!), so getting outside was probably the main point! Painting was just something to do . . .

Winter in the Sonoran Desert

Winter is all over the place today – arctic blasts and cold temperature records. Snow in the South where snow is a rarity. Even the desert sees snow – a fact that never ceases to amaze me because to me a desert is hot, dry, and filled with sand and palm trees. Evidently not here!

First time using Hahnemuhle 140# CP paper, 9×12.

Bagged

Yesterday I refilled an old travel palette with new watercolors. This meant rummaging through my paints, discarding dried up tubes of paint, and sorting them out. This is always fun as I get to choose my colors out of the collection that has accumulated over time as well as just clean things up.

I don’t know about other people, but I really like my stuff – of which I have scads – to be organized and tidy in all its scaddiness.

Baggies are great for this. Permanent markers label them, too, to help me sort things out. Categories include red, blue, yellow, orange, earth colors, teal & turquoise, violet, neutral-white-grey-black, green, and maybe a few others. If a color leaks, the baggie keeps things from oozing everywhere and when this happens, the offending bag is dumped into a bowl of water, the offending tube(s) removed, the rest of the tubes cleaned and dried, and moved into a new home. We are all happy.

Wood & Wetland

I have been spending the better part of the day watching the videos in a class in which I have enrolled before starting any of the projects. There are a lot of short videos in it pointing out this and that, but sitting still to watch the longer ones makes me restless. I need something to do with my hands rather than just sit on my butt! Knitting is out as I have a few projects at a point which need some focus, but oil pastels did the trick. I can draw / paint and watch at the same time. I may not get all of the video, but I do get a lot of it – just as I am now as I write this post.

I picked up a few brands of oil pastels and a 6-pack each of soft white and greys. These include Sennelier, Mungyo, and Caran d’Ache. The white and grey pack are labeled “Anders” I think. I also have been playing on various papers, but decided to check out the Sennelier oil pastel paper. It seems to do a pretty good job despite all the rubbing in of layers of pastels.

Oil pastels, at this point, are more like playing with crayons for me. I blur the colors using my fingers and tortillons. Harder oil pastels make up the underlayers with the softer, oilier ones going on top. This adheres to the adage of “fat over lean” in oil painting, so it makes sense that it would apply to the oil pastels as well.

Oil pastel on Sennelier paper; about 5×7 finished. Scanned on Epson V600.

Morning Vitamins

Our bathroom night light has rotating colors – the marvels of LEDs! There are about 12 of them, but in general we keep it on red as it is less likely to wake you up but it still lets you see as you stumble around in dark. In the mornings, once the makes the “turn off” switch of the night light happy, the light goes out. On a gloomy day, the light may never turn off, but early in the morning, the light remains on.

One morning, dumping out my vitamins onto a blue towel, suddenly I noticed these little bright bits of color and light. Coming through the gel caps, everything just took on a surreal quality. Out comes the Christmas macro lens and here we are with what I think are some of the more interesting photos I have seen in a while. Vitamins A, E, and D are now immortalized for your viewing pleasure.