To Answer Your Question...

I received an email from a reader asking me about the photo in the last post. She wondered what the heck kinda surface was I duct-taping the piece of canvas on? Was it some kind of gray scale board that I made? and if so is there a particular reason for working on a gray scale?



It took me a moment to understand what she was talking about, but I realize the source of her question. The board is not some special gray scale support thing. It's a 12 x 24 painting I did last year during Sonoma Plein Air. I just used it as a rigid surface on which to tape the scrap piece of canvas. No, it's not a painting that I'm attached to and it'll never see the light of day, but it came in handy.

Why did I use the front of the painting rather than the backside? It's because some time ago I used the back as a palette and it has dried gobs of paint on it. It ain't smooth, see.

I churn out a bunch of little paintings that's never going to be shown, (not even in my own studio) because quite frankly, they suck. I usually throw them out but if I can find good use for them...

Having a gray scale right above and/or below your painting at the easel might not be a bad idea, actually. One of my old palettes had a gray scale strip under the glass and I remember finding that very useful.

Anyway, I hope that clears up the mystery of the board. By the way, no particular reason why I use duct tape as opposed to artist's tape. It's just what I could find in my studio mess.

Minuets

Here are heads No.7 ~ No.10. I just realized I forgot to post No.5 and 6. I'll do that on the next post. These head studies, as I mentioned before, are quick and dirty and I only work on them until my baby wakes up from her nap. She's not very consistent in how long she sleeps, so sometimes I am far from finished when I have to put my brush down.

That's ok because I don't expect to finish them. I'm fine with abandoning when the buzzer goes off, and just start a new one the next day. That sort of "parameter" is rather liberating, and relieves me of pressure to do well every time. I typically just set out with one problem to solve and I don't expect to solve them. I explore and investigate, and while I may not solve a problem every time, I always learn something. And that's progress, in baby steps.



No.7 - I used a Sargent drawing as a basis for this one. I wasn't trying to make a Sargent-like painting, (not that I could, if I tried!) just using the drawing for reference. I was particularly interested in simplifying the attitude or expression, of the nose and the lips. I'm pretty happy with it.


No.8 Splotchy brushstrokes, a la Fechin. Not muddling the stroke edges - you can see I kind of lost it on the contour. Also, I was interested in painting a profile with almost no shadows to define the structure. The value and temperature changes had to be subtle, with the hair providing the value punch.


No.9; Looking down. The drawing has its challenges with this angle. I fussed with it too much and didn't pay enough attention to other factors. The value oriented "tonalist" structure conflicts with the color temperatures (the blues around the brows are too cool and obvious) I noticed it and was contemplating whether to warm that up or introduce a more consistent cool light. but then... time's up!


I like the abstract quality of this one. However, it's the result of rushing through the process and not something I meant to do. So that, to me doesn't count as a success. It's an accident. Still, I look at it and see things I like, and I can apply them to future paintings on purpose. There is a lot of value in the unsuccessful attempts; maybe more than the successful ones.

Head Studies No3, & No.4

Head Study No.3, No.4

These are little. I have some larger canvases in various stages sitting around in the studio, but I hate working on them if I don't have a nice chunk of time to fully immerse myself into the process. It takes a few hours just to get to that point of immersion and involvement, and to have to stop before getting something accomplished is really irritating to me. 

Unfortunately, I rarely have more than an hour at a time to work, so I don't get much done. Plein air? forget it. It would take me an hour just to get to a destination and set up! 

However, I discovered recently that I can do little head studies in a very short amount of time, and take it from start to finish within an hour; nothing spectacular or show-worthy, but completing a painting is very satisfying. And it keeps my hand from rusting up. Why it took me till now to figure out how to make good use of an hour here, and an hour there, I don't know; I assume it's because I wasn't trying hard enough. Well, I KNOW that's the case. It's always the case!

I've started numbering these heads from the point of this "discovery". So I'm on number 4. Kind of funny to see such a small number when I've done thousands before, but it's refreshing and humbling to start anew.  None of the four I've done are from life. The first one I did using a charcoal drawing by Sargent. The next three are just made up. I'm not picky about my references, or whether I even have one for that matter - these are just little exercises and I'm just doing them to keep one foot in the studio and finding little satisfactions when I can. 

Napa Valley Plein Air Workshop!

Things You Don't Have To Do, 9 x 12 inches, oil on linen

I'm happy to announce that in the Spring 2009, I will be conducting a workshop in plein air landscape painting in the beautiful Napa Valley!

Napa Valley is, as you well know, one of America's premiere wine countries. Come join me and paint the beautiful wineries and bucolic farmscapes, and have a little wine while you're at it. Well no, we won't be drinking during the workshop, we'll have some at the end of each day!

The workshop will focus on the process of creating a plein air painting from start to finish, with emphasis on composition, color strategies, and getting the idea across. There'll be demos, lectures, critiques, and of course plenty of time to paint the beautiful sceneries of Napa Valley. And, as always, all levels are welcome! (If you are a beginner beginner, don't worry, I don't bite!)



The workshop takes place March 20-21-22, (fri-sat-sun) 2009. I will have more details soon, including cost and sign-up info. If you are interested, please make sure I have your email address so that I can send you information. The last time, the workshop filled up quickly and some people weren't able to sign-up because they found out about it too late. If you were one of those people, I want to make sure you get the same chance as everyone else!

Also, I will post the info on my website under "workshops" sometime this week.

If the past workshops are any indication, we are going to have a fabulous time!

Lobentruck - Done

Ok, I'm calling it done. Because it's due! For those who are new to my blog (welcome!), this little project started I don't know...a month ago? My friend David sent me a pic of this derelict truck sinking into the dirt, and I suggested we both do a painting from it, just for kicks. He set the format at 16 x 20, which is bigger than I would have liked, but I was pleasantly surprised when I started slinging paint around.

Initially, I drew the truck with a pencil and using a dark brown wash, worked out the value structure, paying particular attention to light and shadow.



Next I started with the yellow of the truck, still kinda washy and thin. Just feeling my way around the truck, trying not to be too tight.



I proceeded to paint the rest, first thinly (lots of turp) then gradually thicker. The beach in the background was not in the original photo, but when I first looked at the picture, for about half a second I mistakenly thought it was. Even after I realized it wasn't a beach, I was intrigued by the idea and painted it in.



But then I realized that there was no connection between the truck and the beach, conceptually. It was just an odd juxtaposition, which might be interesting but that was not a good enough reason, so I got rid of it, replacing it with a dusty road.

I added some sorry looking grass for color and texture - but made sure they were close in color and value to the dirt so I wouldn't have distracting patterns on the ground. This way I think it adds to the overall dusty blah feel.

The stakes were added last. I wanted a little more forceful suggestion of perspective - I'd meant to do that with grass patterns but I couldn't resolve the conflict between "pale and dusty and blends in with the dirt" and "punchy perspective suggestion", so I opted to introduce another element (the stakes) to do the latter. It also helped to differentiate the activity level of the right side ground from the front and the left. It was too equal in weight and activity before.

All in all, I like the mood of the painting. It's too tightly painted, though; I would like to have seen it painted with a freer brush. Also, I forgot to account for the frame's lip overlapping the painting's edges, and the eave of the building in the background would get lost. It's a shame because that's an important piece of compositional device. I will just have to use a floater rather than a traditional frame.

Anyway, that's it. It was a fun little project and it's interesting to see the differences in our approaches. Check out David's blog for his interpretation. Also, David assigned the same project to his classes at Sacramento City College, and the "winner" can be viewed on his blog. For his watercolor class, David invited artist Mike Bailey to come and do a demo using the same truck. David and Mike simultaneously painted the truck in watercolor, and you can see the results of that on his, and Mike's blog. What great fun!

Abstraction and Such

There's something to be said for painting fast. I knew I only had 45 minutes at most for this one, because the time limit was dictated by my daughter's nap. When she awoke,  I had to put down the brush, no matter where I was in the painting. Sort of a game show mentality at work here.

So basically, I set out to make every stroke count. No wasted strokes! was the idea. Of course that's kind of impossible (for me, that is) and I had many a frivolous, meaningless stroke in the 45 minutes I had with this painting, but I can say that I had far fewer of those because I intended to. And the resulting sketch is better for it. The lesson here is that fewer wasted strokes make a better painting. But you really have to try to make every single stroke count!

Normally, I wouldn't even attempt to go into the studio if I only had 45 minutes but I had been mulling over a couple of ideas (I can do that much even while I'm chasing the Tazmanian Devil of a baby) and I was itching to try them. One of these ideas is a high key, cooler light with the greatest value contrast away from the conventional focal point. Ordinarily, I would reserve the punchy values for the eyes or some other area of greatest interest. Here, I used it for the shirt.

The rationale is that I'm trying to move away from traditional representational painting, which to me, means finding ways to break rules. And I do that by looking at my painting as an abstract painting, and making formal decisions based not on rules of realism, but purely abstractly. The black shirt is not a shirt, just a black shape, in other words. There's no reason why one abstract shape (the eye) should be given a higher value contrast than another (the shirt). They're both just shapes. 

Now, this sort of thing wouldn't work well (in fact it might invite disaster!) if you're working within a more traditional representational context. So it is important that you establish  a different context which supports such deviations. That's exactly what I tried to do by unapologetically bringing in the background color into the shadow area and losing the edge completely, by not rendering out some of the features (the ear is just a blob of color) by giving sharp edges around the hair (a big no no if you're painting traditionally) and by choosing more or less an arbitrary color for the background. These are all visual cues to tell the viewer that I'm intentionally not following the rules. If that intent is communicated, things like the highest value contrast being used for an unimportant thing like the shirt, works. 

I don't break all the rules, though. If I did, I'd have a completely nonrepresentational painting, and I don't want that. I do need some structure and that means hanging on to some rules in a systematic way. The rules I refuse to give up are those of drawing. Whatever I may do to the colors or the application of paint, I don't want to distort my drawing. It's a visual language that's clearly understandable to everyone, and by sticking to it, it makes all the other deviations meaningful and effective. Abstraction is not anarchy, you see. You can't break rules if you don't have them. Deviation is no fun unless you feel like you're getting away with something :-)

Accidental Compositions

After I posted my last sketch, I was looking at the blog page and as I scrolled down, the top of the painting got cropped by the browser's edge. And wouldn't you know it, I saw an unexpected composition that for some reason really appealed to me. I went back to the easel and rather than chop a part of the last painting, I did another painting. Sligtly bigger in scale, and formatted to suit. And I like it!

Actually, this kind of accidental compositions happen quite often when I'm doing stuff on the computer,(trying to fit an image in a banner, for example) and I've benefited by keeping my eyes open for them. I've done countless revisions of paintings based on this...method, if I can call it that, and the unexpected nature of it keeps things really fresh. It's a "discovered" composition, rather than a "built" one, and I love that it gives me new ideas outside of my compositional box, as it were.

I didn't fuss too much about matching the colors of the previous sketch - that wasn't important. But having done the painting once, it was a lot easier to achieve the looser look. In fact it almost felt intuitive.

Now that I am looking at it digitally on the screen I am seeing more possibilities. This could take a while...

Sketch

A sketch of the house at the Olive Grove. Kind of a soft, sunny day, a lot of different greens. I'm really trying to work looser and freer with my brush. It's a constant struggle between representation and abstraction.

As it turns out a "loose" painting is not a result of purely intuitive wielding of the brush, but of carefully controlled strokes which require my analytical side of the brain to be fully engaged. As much, if not more, than if I were painting "realistically". It's such a difficult thing to pull off.

Ooh! ooh! I just had an idea! Back to the canvas!

Head Study

A little head study. I haven't done any figure painting since I gave up my studio in the summer -except the Victoria's Secrets mannequins I painted in San Luis Obispo Plein Air - so I'm feeling a little guilty about my lack of diligence. This is just a quickie but it really felt good to tackle this exercise. Like visiting a familiar place and finding it just as you remembered. 

Which reminds me, I need to go get me some Carneros Pinot Noir.

Sanding It Down

OK,I took the sand paper to the canvas and abused the surface. I couldn't get it all the way to white because my gesso ground was thin (cheap canvas) and canvas texture too course. No matter. I'll just keep working on it and see where it takes me.

Now that I look at my painting, I'm starting to not like the beach background. There's just no connection there between the truck and the beach - I mean conceptually, not visually. It's just an odd juxtaposition. I tell my students that "it's interesting" is not a good enough reason to qualify as concept. I should practice what I preach, huh? 

Now that I've spelled it out, I'm gonna have to take it out. No amount of rationalizing will make this work now. Luckily I'm working in oils so this'll be an easy change!