Tag: boat

Waiting for the Tide: A Boat Study

For most people, like me, who like to paint or draw but have little formal training, shapes can be challenging. I’ve taken art classes when I was in college, but the fact is, most American colleges fail terribly at providing practical knowledge to their art students. Too often the dictum is essentially “Go forth and create!” without any foundational information. In my adult school art classes, there is far more information to be had, and when I see fellow classmates from Asia and Europe with superb technical skills, I feel overwhelmed. How the heck do I get that?? But, on the other hand, they like my messy art and wonder how the heck to get that!

So, we are stuck. All of us. We all face challenges in how to do or express things with whatever medium we use. For me, shapes are most often the biggest challenge, and maybe that is because I prefer landscapes to people or buildings. I am working on meeting these challenges, and YouTube provides a lot of help in all areas confusing. My current challenge is to paint boats. I don’t have an easy way to get their correct shape.

So, enter YouTube and three methods to get a boat shape: figure 8, blocks, and a petal shape with lines and crosshairs. All work. The simplest is the figure 8 method, and that is what I applied here. I used a reference photo and then superimposed the figure 8 method to the boat. It took a bit, but below is the boat – a simple sailboat anchored at low tide.

I drew several figure 8 boats with pencil and paper, but painting one proved a bit of a challenge. It took awhile to get my mind wrapped around the image and then the figure 8. Going from figure 8 to boat with pencil and paper was easy, but looking at a real boat required more work. Still, not really displeased with the end result of the boat – she’ll float – and that is the point of this painting: a boat that looks real(ish)! As far as the rest of the painting? It’s just there for filler.

Watercolor, Bockingford 140# CP, 9×12.

A Sunday Painter

These past two weeks have been rather a waste – bumps in the normal routines create havoc and everything just seems to fall apart. When that happens, it really does require a focused effort to get back up and into whatever interests me. I am just coming out of a cold – thankfully, not a sinus infection – that has made me not really tired, but just lethargic and lazy between bits of fever and congestion. Lounging around and doing very little and sleeping a lot has been my agenda, filled in with little fun things like dishes . . . .

Actually, yesterday was possibly the real turning point. I was feeling better, so I did some sewing in the morning. I am hand-sewing a top without a machine (including finishing the seams with a whip stitch), just to do it. Then blob time. Miss Marple entertained me for an hour or two between naps. And then it hit me – I was just unhappy because I wasn’t doing what I like to do best – paint or draw! I didn’t want challenges or messes (ie oils) to clean up, but …. what?

Gouache!

I haven’t used gouache for some time. I keep it in the fridge between uses. So, while it was coming to room temperature and soaking up the water I put on it, I taped up a piece of 9×12 CP 140# Arches into two somewhat equal sections. Hot press paper is my preferred paper for gouache as it is smoother and lets the paint move over the paper more easily than cold press.

If you have been following my blog, you know that of late I am rather focused on lavender fields. This first painting was no exception. I wanted to see what I could produce, sort of from a photo, sort of off the top of my head. I wanted a gloomy-looking sky to match the grey, rainy sky of my own world this Sunday, and so moved along. Landscapes are very forgiving (I think) and are a good way to warm up when re-acquainting myself with a medium. So, a lavender field, somewhere in the world.

Then, more of a challenge: Buildings, water, plants, and a boat on a river.

Somewhere in a mythical village along the Nile in Egypt. The traditional sailboats – the felucca – are just so beautiful to see because of their simplicity in shape and line. I sourced a number of photos to create this one. I drew in some basic lines, but that was it. I started with the buildings and then the sky, painting the palms and plants before beginning the river its banks. I left the entire area of the felucca as blank paper, waiting until the end to fill it in. The sail was fairly easy, but the shape of the boat and the suggestion of a person was the most challenging. In the end, I was really pleased with how I met this challenge I presented myself!

Paintings are about 4.5 x 10 each – maybe more or less, I am not going to measure! – using gouache on Arches CP 140# watercolor paper.

Dry Docked

Walking up and down the boardwalk / bike path of Monterey and Pacific Grove, it was really a delight to see these boats, old and fading as they are. I am not sure what awaits them, but personally I thought they were rather cute (for lack of a better word) and would love to see them chugging around in the sea! The Metropolis film shifts the colors, and while the boats were faded in color, they were still quite bright in the sunlight.