dappled light

Yesterday I went to the local botanical garden, Smudge on leash, Fuji X100V in hand. Smudge is really good about stopping and sitting and waiting for me as we take a sniffy walk around for her and a looky-lou walk for me. It is a stop and start proposition.

As any photographer know, dappled light is hell to try to catch, especially if there are flowers under the foliage, a bit of wind, and so on. The cameras just cannot do it justice and our eyes see more than the camera in many instances, digital or film. But, I was determined to find something to both photograph and then paint.

I doctored it a bit in post as I wanted fairly strong contrast and warm / cool balance. This one pleased me. It is right at the gateway to the botanical garden and the path zooms off uphill, which we see ahead and to the right, and downhill, which is behind me. I always enjoy this section as I can choose my adventure.

I tried to keep this painting fairly close to both the values and perspective of the photo, but as always what I see and want is not necessarily what I paint. My sense of depth is not good and I often find it happens when I paint. I know a few tricks, but that is not always something I “get” – oh, well. Nonetheless, I rather like the dappled light I did get even if the end of the path ahead is rather wonky.

This took me a bit of time to do, and I did it in my sketchbook. Sort of a “serious” study, but because it was a sketchbook and I did it at my desk I didn’t take it too seriously. Cramped and messy space to work in but it did work out fairly well. I wonder if this ability to work in limited areas, such as my desk rather than my drafting table, will also help when I decide to go plein aire . . . .

Forest Road

I’d forgotten how much fun painting with gouache can be! Today, a painting of a forest road running through a lot of trees, but not so heavy with leaves that light doesn’t shine through. I began with a value study – again, more for shapes I think in light and dark.

The first layer of the painting had thin washes to set up the light green in the distance. Then, general dark shapes were added after the road was limned. The trees were then painted, dark to light, using long strokes with a round brush. After that, a flat was used for broad sweeps of the road. Finally, dabs of color to create a sense of dappled light on leaves. Final touches included some dashes of white and a blackish mix (purple, green, black) for lines and bits of contrast. What I really liked is the ivy climbing up the trees, creating bright splotches of color. Altogether, I think it worked quite well.

The value study is becoming valuable. Yeah, really. It helps me see where strong shapes against light shapes create visual interest and leading lines. Value studies are general but the painting becomes more specific.

Dappled Light

It’s been nearly 10 days since my last post. Nothing traumatic to keep me away from painting – I just have had appointments and social activities accompanied by making sure all my retirement paperwork and insurance is in place for my “official” beginning of being a Medicare recipient on June 1st! It’s been a slog, but it is in place, and hopefully nothing will make me have to do it all over again.

That said and done, the weather here in California has been really strange. The new normal! We have had rain into the month of May, and as a result flowers and plants and butterflies are prodigious, with spring flowers lasting well into what might be considered the summer months. Even the hills are still colorful, but slowly fading to the usual beige and brown. The rain, though, fills the bright blue sky with big clouds, sometimes ones which sit around and slowly disperse, sometimes with ones that dance their way across the sky, changing with every glance. When I was a kid in the middle of nowhere, I loved lying in the hammock and making up stories as the clouds shifted and reformed. It’s as magical now as it was then.

The local botanical garden is one of my favorite places. It has so many things to see. A variety of habitats are represented – desert, Mediterranean, and woodland, to name a few. Today’s painting is a scene along one of the pathways, from the photo I took below.

I am always attracted to dappled light – the strong contrasts of dark and bright. Photographically, it is hard to capture, but I was relatively pleased with the way the photo caught it. I am also fairly pleased as to how I was able to interpret the photo and the light. It was a struggle, and especially difficult after nearly two weeks of inactivity, but it worked out in the end.

Dappled Light

More work with water and light. Here I thought about some of the exercises I have followed from Rick Surowicz’s YouTube channel – lines, curves, and dots to capture branches, light, and leaves. I think this painting worked out quite nicely.

Besides considering what I wanted in advance (a way of thinking that has taken a very long time to get to) by applying frisket, I also was determined to paint from light to dark and use glazing and blending. Areas of color were also considered, and rather than trying to paint each leaf, I painted blobs of color to represent the foliage. As a result, I built up layers of color throughout the painting as I moved along, and can say this is possibly the first painting in which I have done this.

I also had to be very patient! Frisket is not happy when you blow dry it – it gets all sticky and you have let it set up again. As a result, this 6×9 painting probably took a couple of hours to do. However, the results, for me, were definitely worth the time it took. Perhaps my impatience is lessening . . .