California – Page 17 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

A Tale of Three Paintings

Over the last week I have been painting the same image three times, each time in a different media. I began with gouache, moved to pastels, and did the final painting in watercolor. Doing such an exercise was really educational as well as pleasurable.

As you can see in the gouache, the perspective is totally off! I didn’t do much of an underdrawing, just a few quick lines, but I didn’t really check this point against that, as well as compare it to the photo. The result was an uphill beach, and a total lack of realistic perspective. I suppose it would look like htat if my head were on its side, lying in the sand or something! Anyway, it was a good lesson as I realized most of my perspective issues are simply the result of poor drawing techniques.

This next one is my favorite. Maybe it’s because I am just learning pastels and totally in love with them. Here, the perspective problem is solved. The cliffs look quite sandy in the picture, and in reality, they are. Along the coast where I live in California, cliffs tend to be friable, made of highly compacted but still fragile sand. They easily collapse, and it is really foolish to sit under them on the beach or to walk along there edges. After rains it can be especially dangerous, and one year a major landslide occurred and several people died. It was not good. So, I think these cliffs are pretty accurate representations of what our cliffs look like here.

Finally, watercolor. Perspective issues remain resolved, but a sense of distance prevails along the strand of beach on the opposite shore. Rather than overwork it, I left it as it was, still pondering how I could make a sense of distance as the beach veered off to the left and background. More blue? Less detail? I’m still befuddled on that one.

Altogether, using three different mediums to paint the same image was rewarding. Problems occurred in all paintings, many of which could be applied to others. Perspective is always an issue for me, so I really need to focus on it probably more than anything in landscapes. I know the rules, but need to find methods to implement them. Gouache and pastels are more forgiving as you can paint over what is underneath to a reasonable degree; watercolors are pretty much a one-shot deal. I think I will continue the 3 painting studies in the future as I learned far more than if I had only done one study in a single medium.

Lock Down!

In a state of 40 million, there is a lot of potential for sickness. The trajectory is 56% of the population will get Covid-19. That is 22, 400,000 people will get sick. There are 3 known corona virus victims in the city where I live, and 17 throughout the county. At least the governor of Califronia is taking a proactive approach to lessening the spread of this virus – the new state mandate is everyone shelter in place, but you can get out to shop for food, get medical care, bank, buy gas. You can get out for exercise in open spaces. I cannot believe the fact that kids are flocking to our southern beaches to play and party and crowd together, yet that is youth – indestructible and still in a world of magical thinking. Yet, I do get it.

Meanwhile, I am sitting here pondering what to do with myself. The other half is home, working full time and telecommuting again (he is happy). We sort of tumble over each other at times, but part of that is just life in a smallish house. Unlike many people, we are going to be fine no matter what happens – income, insurance, access to doctors and care. Good neighbors. People to call. I am pondering because all the things I should avoid suddenly become things I want to do! I need to really sit down and put a bit of a list together for fun things and necessary things to do. It would be a great time to do a bit of cleaning – but where do you bring discards if the places such as Goodwill are closed? Life will continue, no matter what happens, and getting creative and productive is important. Cabin fever is not something I like, nor do most people, I expect.

I am glad I live in a state, expensive as it is, with problems like every place else, is genuinely concerned about the welfare of its citizens (and non-citizens). Governor Newsom is working for the people, not for the profiteers. In this country with poor healthcare and safety nets, all the overlords will be so sad when their worker bees die from the virus because sick leave and health care are unavailable. How inconsiderate of those damned worker bees.

Dry Hills in Malibu

Yesterday I started an 8 week course in pastels. Already I am in love with the medium! Add to this, the teacher is a real teacher – she is a professional who teaches full time in an elementary classroom. She is organized, states what she expects, interacts, demonstrates, and all the things that are so important in learning something new. Some teachers just say “have at it” and you stumble along, not knowing what you are doing. Yes, experience is a good teacher, but explanations and clarity really help one understand what is going on. I am looking forward to more classes!

Here is a picture from the Malibu Creek State Park near where I live. We all had a copy of a photograph to use, and then she explained the Rule of Thirds, the Golden Mean, and explained how she changed the composition of the photo to meet the needs of the Rule of Thirds. Value studies, too, were done before even picking up a color.

We used Nupastels, made by Prismacolor. Inexpensive but very nice. I have some Rembrandt soft pastels that I will use later on, or in conjunction with the ones we have in the classroom. As I love colors and drawing, this is a perfect combination of “things” – and these pictures are not “drawings” but “paintings” in the lexicon of the teacher. I never considered a pastel a painting.

I have not been this excited about a class in a very, very long time.

View from the Hills

The miracle of green always happens in the last of the year and the first of the next when the rains come and new growth begins to emerge in the hills of California. After months of dry weather and fading landscapes. color erupts almost overnight. Soon, wildflowers will begin to tinge the hills from green to orange and purple and yellow. Here, a view from the hills toward the Pacific, with the Channel Islands in view, lost in the coastal fog.

Cliffside Flowers, Pt. Lobos

I took a lot of photos – digital, film – while on vacation in Monterey, California. Trees, flowers, streets, room. This is what I saw along the trail at Whalers Cove in Pt. Lobos, California. The cliffs are sandy and crumbly, but there are bits of very dark dirt, from black to grey. I wonder if this area had volcanic activity at some point. The color contrast of the soil and cliffs, along with the tenacious hold of the flowers, made for some rather lovely bits of bright color in late summer.