Tag: landscape

Somewhere in Wyoming

Last summer we spent a couple of weeks traveling around the western part of the US, visiting states such as Wyoming and Arizona and Utah.  Open space, loneliness, long drives through incredible country.  This is a photo I took out of the car window on the way from Laramie, WY, to Grand Teton National Park, where we stayed for several days.

I pushed the colors in post production, to pull out greens, reds, and blues.  The view of the house / barn was fascinating – and I expect the view from it is even better, rather than zipping by in a car.   Anyway, I’ve decided to do some sketches, in ink then color, and hopefully an unlined watercolor based on elements of this photo.  Below is this morning’s sketch.

Watercolor Workshop, Day 2

Another day just painting!  What a pleasure to be able to do it!

Today we did two different things.  Actually, three.  For warm-up, we returned to the quick three minute sketches, which eventually morphed into a still life with three objects.  Mine were a piece of dried corn, a plastic mushroom, and a plastic artichoke.  I was not particularly nimble this morning, but here is one I produced.

From there, we moved on to landscapes, but I will hold off for a moment on those.  We did an exercise which I found fascinating:  take one object and paint it 6 different ways.  I chose a really lovely fake pear – golden and red, reminiscent of autumn.  Take a look  . . . they are in a gallery format, so click on one image to be able to scroll through them larger than they are here.

This was a lot of fun to do – nothing I ever have considered as an exercise.  And then . . . we moved on to landscapes from photographs Brenda took, laminated, and brought to class.

The idea was to take a photo and modify it.  This one is in the wine country of Northern California.

This one is, I think, in Carmel, but I don’t recall.  All the speckles are from the fact that it is a ghost image from a wet painting.  Truthfully, I was surprised it was a success at all.  All day I felt restless and unfocused.

Finally, this one.  I think it is the best of everything I did today.  The mantra for the day was draw, frame, paint.

Studies from Kautzky

After the disastrous lilies, I had a good think.  I really am not a decorative painter at heart.  What I love most are landscapes.  The outdoors is to me the most exciting thing . . . mountains, water, trees.  Thus, with this in mind, I pulled out the very first “how to” art book I ever bought, back when I was 16:  Ways with Watercolor by Ted Kautzky.  I still love this book and find his style and words soothing and thoughtful.  To ease my frustration, I did two of his exercises.  The first below is in 2 colors only, ultramarine blue and burnt umber.

The next one is in three colors:  burnt umber, ultramarine blue, and Hooker’s Green.

Kautzky’s palette of colors is one with which I am comfortable and familiar, so it was very reaffirming to feel somewhat skilled after the lilies fiasco.  That really upset my little apple cart!

A View from the Owens Valley

The Easter Sierra from Hwy 395

The Owens Valley has an interesting history.  Essentially, Los Angeles, the city, took all its water for itself.  It is also where the Manzanar Concentration Camp interred thousands of Japanese American citizens during the dark and scary days of World War II.  While not the horrific camps of the German Nazis, these internment camps were still horrors in their own right, and a blight on America’s history of human rights.