rain – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Rainy Night, Snowy Night

Pixabay is a wonderful source for photos for painting subjects. Resources like this allow you – the artist or whoever – to explore worlds new to you. I, for one, doubt I shall ever visit a city with yellow trams unless I travel far from my current stomping grounds. This painting is derived from one such photo.

In the afternoon of one of my classes, I had about 20 minutes left to paint. The one I was working on was done to the point I could not go any further. It still needs to be finished while I try to figure out how to do the people in it.

I laid in an essential outline and some basic colors in those remaining 20 minutes and set it aside for the next class period, which is about 2.5 hours in length. I also decided to do it alla prima – finish it all at once. And, I did. Over the past few days I worked on some refinements, but very little.

The only thing I think I want to do a bit differently is the headlamp on the tram – make the white brighter and colder. To achieve this, I probably will use a cold blue mixed with titanium white.

Pretty pleased with this one!

Oil on 11×14 canvas panel.

Late Summer

A hot, humid day with rain coming or going. Summer is leaving, time soon to bring in the harvest. Late afternoon.

I am totally into lavender fields! The bright colors just make you happy, and when in contrast to the warm yellows and golds of other plants, how can you not but rejoice in nature?

Yeah, it sounds corny, but landscapes and the countryside, no matter where, just make me happy. It can be in gentle countryside like here, in the desert, in the mountains – all just touches me and brings a bit of peace.

Oils, 10×14, cotton canvas panel.

Waiting for Rain

The coastal fog rolls in, sometimes doing nothing but bringing cold and damp and chill to summer. Other times of the year, in fall and winter and into spring, the coastal fog is not fog at all, but lowering clouds. Sometimes you just don’t know.

Rainy Night

I’ve always loved pen and watercolor drawings, long before urban sketching became connected with it. The ink here is some of my homemade iron gall ink, waterproof and dark once dried. On top of that, opaque pan watercolors I picked up at a little store in Decorah, Iowa, this summer. The paper is 100% cotton Bee paper – nothing great, not expensive, but fun to use and responsive to both ink and color. Illustrations like this are fun because they aren’t “serious” – I get to play, practice, explore. Not a bad way to spend some time before lunch.

Monsoon Season is Here

The summer months bring rain to the American Southwest. Skies become dark, light bright and fleeting; a sudden downpour, and then it vanishes. The clouds clear and once more the intense light returns. Everything becomes more vivid and alive during these brief showers and scudding clouds with lightning often adding to the drama. To me, this is the desert at its best – a harsh beauty in a harsh land.