landscape – Page 16 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

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.

A Painting on My Desk

I took this picture of a painting I recently did to check on my contrast values. There is always a struggle here, but with practice, I do “get it” better each time.

As with other photos of the past few days, monochrome and the Nikon 50mm f2.8 macro.

Evolution

Several weeks ago I started an acrylic painting of a building at the end of a road. It was sort of painted in a traditional manner, meaning I was trying to represent reality. Truthfully, it bored the hell out of me, but I kept it as it was fairly decent in my opinion, but it did put me to sleep.

Working with brighter colors of late has really been exciting for me as I feel much more of a connection to the colors I use than I do to subject matter. Subject matter can be anything – but colors express more to me and are more true to who I am (a magpie reincarnated as an old bat) than subject matter in general. So, I took the painting and painted over it. Below is the original.

This is a photograph I took and it is pretty crap (above) as there is a lot of weird stuff going on. I didn’t think it scanning it because of its size. This morning I scanned my current iteration of this painting.

I like this much better, but it is not quite done. I need to work on the road in the foreground as well as details of the building. More windows, fix windows, fewer windows? Create some focus at the end of the road? Fix the road? Cast some shadows – creating light and dark – across the road?

Many things to consider here. I am going to let it sit and ignore it awhile. If you have any ideas, let me know!

Acrylic, canvas, 18×24, scanned on an Epson V600.

A Late Winter Afternoon

When I lived in upstate New York, the winters were marvelous! Hardwood forests and pine trees all worked together to create a magical land of light and shadow, rolling snow banks, and winter streams frozen and thawed and frozen again. The skies, too, were amazing in their coldness of light that could reflect so brilliantly on the snowy landscape.

As an adult, snow as a place to live, work, and travel in no longer holds much allure – great to visit, but don’t ask me to wade through it, chisel ice off my windshield, or shovel it just to get out of my house. Still, the memories of those magical winter days in deep winter always hold a spot in my heart for their crisp and intense beauty.

10×14″ Arches Rough, watercolor limited palette of umbers, quin gold, ultramarine blue, and a touch of titanium white gouache.

Sweet Lavender

More gouache! Such a lovely, forgiving medium. Mistake? Dry, re-wet, blend some more, paint over. Can you really ask for more? The only problem with artist’s gouache is that it stays water soluble when you are done with the painting, but there are ways to seal it and make it waterproof. I think I will try that out on some gouache painting failures – like my snow scene of yesterday.

After getting lost in a drift on that snowy road of yesterday, off in my Learjet for warmer climes and roads easier to navigate. May as well time travel a bit, too, and move from winter to late summer.

Back to lavender fields! The ones I have been doing in acrylic are a bit gaudy, but so is lavender. Some lavender is light, some is so dark it rivals the deep blues of lobelia. I tried to strike a bit of a more subdued approach to a large amount of lavender, and I think it works pretty well.

Artist’s gouache on bristol paper; about 8×10.