Tag: landscape

How Busy Can It Get?

No, I don’t mean life. I mean trees and piles of leaves and undergrowth – all the stuff that makes up a good fall scene! Some trees have dropped a bazillion tons of leaves and others are hanging on to them. Years of detritus build up on the ground, creating a fertile place for new growth, plant, fungal, insect, which in turn supports other life in the wilder world outside the super market.

Anyone who has taken a walk in the woods or tried to photograph or paint this jumble knows exactly what I mean – it is really a busy-ness of color and texture and shape.

This is my sketch, done with a fountain pen and some Carbon Ink by Platinum. The paper is a bit rough so it could be what caused some difficulties with the pen nib – or the pen itself is not the best – or both. I tried to convey light and dark and texture with different pen marks. Straight lines to show trees and texture and the shadows of the trees across the pathway. Contrast is suggested rather than emphasized as I wanted to use paint to give the sense of shadows and so on. With that in mind, I pulled a palette of my out-of-the-tube paints rather than pan paints, cleaned them up and went to work.

As you can see, light and dark are more emphasized with the use of color, as are the colors of the leaves and the complex shapes of trees on the left and undergrowth on the right. The leaves that have fallen have some variegation, depending on when they fell and how long they have been there. Green grasses and weeds peek through. There are a few rocks, too, and leaves on the pathway. Tree shadows fall across the trail and up onto the tree on the right. There is a brightness to the day despite the murk of the undergrowth.

After adding color, I waited for the picture to dry. I made some color adjustments. And then, back to the waterproof ink pens. This time I used Micron pens and my Uniball waterproof pens. Micron pens come in different nib widths (here 0.1, 0.2 and 0.5) and the Uniball is labelled as “fine” but in reality makes a darker, thicker mark than the Micron pens.

Overall, I am more pleased with today’s ink and wash sketch than the one I did yesterday of the plumeria. As usual, I did not do a preliminary pencil drawing but just worked from the end of the path and then moved back and forth to establish areas. I really like my tangled tree in the lower left and the shadows on the big tree on the right. The brightness of an autumn day is expressed. Now all I have to do is get to scuffling through those leaves and it will make my day.

Pen, ink, watercolor wash, on Strathmore Vision 140# CP paper, 9 x 12.

Doing, Doing, Done

I have been busy. Some things I want to do, others things are in process, being forced to listen to really bad jokes (i.e. What do you call a dinosaur with really good teeth? A flossoraptor.), and just sort of shuffling along. Artwork has been rather time consuming as I have been painting in oils and those take time to dry, so no artwork is easily posted. And I have been working on my ukulele practice, which obviously cannot be posted unless I record myself. And who would want to hear that? I am no musical genius and notoriously tone deaf.

Today my next term of oil painting begins. This is the painting – in progress – I will bring to class this afternoon to work on. It’s been drying a bit so I scanned it rather than photographed it, which never really works out well as far as I am concerned.

It’s somewhere in the southwest. I am trying to make things very soft and blended and it is a challenge. We will see what happens this afternoon. Oil on panel, 16×20 inches. I also have a few small, blank canvases to play on should I get stuck or need to stop in class before the class time is up.

The other thing I have done is restrung a ukulele – my very first time changing strings. There are a lot of videos out there which discuss strings (i.e. nylon vs fluorocarbon, low G vs high G and which one is best). Different bridges have different tie-offs. Tools, too, can be used – or not. Me, I have a tuning peg winder, a wire cutter, a pair of pliers, and a Snark ukulele tuner. It took me an hour to replace 4 strings, but I am rather pleased with the results. I watched this video and learned a lot.

The ukulele I had was not an expensive one with nylon strings. I figured it would be a good idea to use fluorocarbon strings as they are easier on my fingers. I used D’Addario strings and pretty much followed along with Cynthia’s suggestions. It worked out quite well. Now I am playing and tuning the uke, and playing and tuning the uke, and playing and tuning the uke as the strings stretch and settle in. Amazing how often this has to be done.

So, there we are. Not an exciting post, but it feels good to write a bit!

Sand Dunes in Death Valley

Death Valley is up and off Hwy 395 along the Eastern Sierra Mountains in California. It’s a strange and eerily beautiful place with a lot of surprises and history. It is preserved as Death Valley National Park. The website is filled with great information and it is one of the best places to visit – in the right season, and in the right weather. People die in the desert because they do not understand it, so if you go, be careful!

Sand dunes always amaze me. I am still stuck in my child’s view of the world that sand dunes exist only in the Sahara, and can only be found by riding a camel. Silly, yes!

There are sand dunes everywhere – beaches and deserts mostly, but sometimes in places you least expect. Their shifting shape in the wind and blowing away foot prints or burying ancient cities all lead to a fascination as they make everything seem so temporal.

Anyway . . . . this is an oil painting using a limited palette. Some of the goals in doing this painting included smooth, smooth brushwork for the dunes. I tried to catch the gradual gradations and color changes I saw. In the distance is the flat valley before the towering mountains. For each I used directional brushwork and a deliberate vagueness to create a surreal effect. The mountains, when I look at them afresh, can also be visualized as swirling clouds. Interpretation I will leave to your eye.

Oil on canvas panel; 16 x 20 inches.

In the Devil’s Garden

The American Southwest is amazing. Austere, rugged, rich colors of red barren stone showing sedimentary rock layers in many different colors. Plant life is tough and diverse and needs to be able to withstand extreme heat and cold, as well as arid conditions. Portraying these colors is really a challenge and a lot of fun as well! Here is the Devil’s Garden Trail area in Arches National Park. I thought doing it in pen and color might be the easiest route . . .

Strathmore Vision paper, 9×12, ink, watercolor.

Across the Pond

This has been a terrible week out here. Where I grew up was burnt to the ground in a lot of areas with family and friends losing houses. Election week was a roller coaster. It is always surprising to me how such things can just cause my sense of world order and sanity to just blow away, as well as realizing the world is not as I see it – perceive it – want it to be. But connections with people and hobbies and doing things – normal, everyday things – does help settle the discomfort and chaos a bit. Not sure what the next several years will bring, so we will wait and see – what else can we do?

I guess we can paint!

Watercolors almost always soothe my troubled soul! Painting and drawing does in general. The act of doing is an act of being, an affirmation of life, and the validity of existence. Me, I am always searching for explanations, but there are times when the only explanation is to do something, like paint, watch a movie, read a book, go for a walk, watch the cloud pictures in the sky.

Nature. Water, trees, sky, grasses. Peace.

Watercolor, Kilimanjaro 300# CP paper, 11×14.