Mo' City Paintin's

Afternoon Lines, 20 x 20 inches, oil on linen

Damn it's hot!

Last weekend we got up to 107F. As my garage / studio has no AC, and it gets direct sunlight, it's like an oven in there. I feel like a pig on a spit. At least the paint dries really fast, eh? I'd bring my easel inside the house except that I have a destructive two-year old. And the smell of paint and solvents would get me kicked out anyway.

The painting above is a part of my cityscape investigation. This one, being a facade has no perspective issues. Well, a little bit, but nothing that requires mapping out vanishing points and such. That means that I have a whole lot of freedom to push paint around and play within two dimensional space. Just shapes. Makes for an ideal playground for abstraction, methinks.

After the first round, I had a lot more color in the shadows than what you see now. I had painted it more or less with natural light in mind, with blues and violets in the raking shadows. It looked good, but when I set it down next to some of my more tonal cityscapes, it stuck out. I wanted more consistency among my pieces, so I gave it a glaze and proceeded to work back into it, making it more tonal and moody.

Often, it takes some courage and faith to work over something that's already "correct". But once I get passed the initial timid strokes, I find it liberating to just go at it aggressively and even obliterate passages that took me a long time get it right the first time. This is where I finally let go of my left brain thinking, and really have fun with intuitive brush wielding. This is where magic happens. When it comes down to it, you have to put aside your fears and dive in with both feet in order for magic to happen.

Kinda like life, huh?

Palette Shift

Les Parisiennes , 16 x 12 inches, oil on linen

This painting is a sequel to my earlier piece, February Morning at the Louvre . In creating paintings for my fall show, I had decided to start by doing several pieces without any regards to having an overall theme, except that they'd all be cityscapes. That was enough of a parameter for me; any more restrictions from the get go would have thrown me into a rut right away. So I did a bunch of paintings, trying to be faithful to my whim at every turn, and as expected, I now have several pieces that all look different. I might even say that they look like they were done by different artists. That's not good. Not for a big show, anyway. I had a friend whose opinion I trust and value look at them, and he disagreed with me. He said that they still had common threads running through them, stylistically speaking, and we got into this big discussion about it.

Long story short, my strategy was to have a handful of paintings first, and make a series out of each. And by working on multiple paintings at the same time, I would start to narrow the stylistic jumps as I became more in tune with what I wanted to say with this show. Furthermore, I am working back into the first bunch - the "prototypes" - with intentions of making them a more cohesive group.

One of the ways I'm doing this, is by limiting my palette. I'm after a different moodiness with my cityscapes than with my landscapes. A more urbane, gray, heavy feeling that's timeless. And I don't mean to be lofty and say that my paintings are timeless in the sense the great masters' works are timeless. I mean in a sense that some black and white photographs feel timeless as opposed to brightly colored snapshots that capture a "moment in time". In other words, unlike plein air paintings that attempt to capture fleeting light in all its glory, my cityscapes are not about natural light and its effects on color. And I want to make that unambiguous by shifting my palette to a more muted (like my paintings aren't muted enough already!), tonalist set up.

To that end, I took out Ultramarine and Cobalt off my palette, and replaced them with Ivory Black and Prussian Blue. Prussian is pretty intense, but it's a green blue, so I can't make intense purples even if I wanted to. And in my book, saturated violets are a huge part of the natural light equation. If I'm stepping away from that, I want to make sure I'm not tempted by violets.

Also, I'm adding Yellow Ochre. Not to replace my other yellows (Cad Lemon, and a mix of Cad Lemon + Transparent Brown) but in addition to them. Actually, the dull Yellow Ochre becomes my primary yellow and the brighter yellows are used only when I absolutely need them. Usually to punch up a green.

So my primaries, with this set up is; Yellow Ochre is my yellow; Transparent Brown is my red, and Ivory Black is my blue. Very limited. To this, I add my more saturated back-ups, the two yellows I described above, a Permanent Red and Alizarin for my saturated reds, and Prussian is my saturated blue. Oh, and white. It's not quite as muted as, say, a Velasquez palette because I'm using Transparent Brown (Transparent Earth Red, Transparent Oxide Red... different brands call it different names) instead of siennas and umbers. But look at what Velasquez could achieve with those dead colors! It's all how you use them, right?

Anyway, I'm making progress toward my show (early November). And it feels pretty good.

City Slick

City Slick, WIP 12 x 24 inches, oil on linen

Continuing with San Francisco imagery. The wet weather in Tahoe a few weeks back inspired me to try a rainy cityscape. I just pulled out a rainy photo from my library, and composed this picture. Moved a few cars, gave it heavier atmosphere.

This, obviously is a blatant one point perspective set up, which makes drawing a hell of a lot easier than a two point. I wanted to focus on other tricky issues like working with diffused light, and abstraction by linking shapes, so that I didn't want to complicate the matter by introducing a second vanishing point, or one off the canvas. Nothing wrong with more complex perspectives, but I had specific objectives and didn't want to fight unnecessary battles.

During the workshop, someone asked me, "how do you paint rain?" And I answered, "I don't." I wasn't being a smartass, actually. I explained that you can paint evidences of rain, like reflections on flat surfaces, cooler temperatures, heavy atmospheric perspective, splashing water, rings on surfaces, and let's not forget, people with umbrellas! But I don't actually paint rain drops or needles coming down. I know some artists do that, but I've yet to see one done well. It just looks hoaky to me.

Actually, I'm not that interested in depiction of rain, as much as the overall mood created by rainy days. If I can get that in a painting, I couldn't care less if it looked like it was raining, or simply overcast. Unless of course rain was somehow central to my concept. Then I'd probably end up with a more "realistic" painting because I don't know how else to do it.

I have more cityscapes to show you soon~

Bay Bridge

Bay Bridge, 12 x 12 inches, oil on linen

Here's another 12 x 12 San Francisco-scape. It's an odd little composition, what with the top and the bottom being the same size and shape and all. It doesn't bother me as much as it should. Maybe I'm in denial. Or may be I've been looking at Inness too much.

Originally, the background was a lot bluer, and it looked really good to me, but then I got to thinking, it looked too pretty, so I grayed it down. I don't know why that should be a problem, but it just didn't sit well with me. I guess I just like grime and grit, even when depicting a pretty place like San Francisco.

Back in the Studio

Untitled, 12 x 12 inches, oil on linen

Back in the studio this week, working on various cityscapes. I don't know about you, but I find painting cityscapes a lot more difficult than painting the landscape.

Lake Tahoe Workshop Recap

Friday's Demo, 9 x 12 inches, oil on linen

Just got back from my three-day plein air workshop at South Lake Tahoe, where twelve students and I painted the beautiful lake, despite the challenging weather. Yes, Mother Nature was cranky the first two days (she's been cranky all week. Remember the lightning storm we had a few days ago? All night long? Never seen anything like it here in Northern California) but we persevered and had a very productive weekend anyway.

I drove up the mountain after doing some last minute shopping for supplies, and arrived in South Lake Tahoe around 11 a.m. I drove around a few of the spots that I had picked out two weeks ago to see which spot would be best for my afternoon demo, under current climate conditions, which I might best describe as "occasioanl drizzle with icy, whipping winds". Needless to say, it didn't look good. I thought may be I would have to do a demo indoors (even though it was a plein air workshop).


I arrived at our "headquarters" –a big house that Barbara, my partner in crime, had rented for us– at around noon. I was the last to arrive, and after saying our hellos and having a cup of hot coffee, our workshop officially began.

My hand-outs for this workshop included a new 20 page full color demo booklet which I mentioned in an earlier post, my "All the stuff about plein air painting I wish I had learned in school but I didn't because I didn't pay attention to what Dan McCaw was teaching us" text, an 18 page document full of hard-earned information and wisdom. I wrote this paper as an accompaniment to my first landscape demo which I did a few years back. Since then, every time I conducted a workshop, I added more information and tips. Now it's twice as hefty as its original version, and someday I hope I can publish it as a book.

I also included a map indicating some great painting spots in the area, complete with photos and short descriptions – what kind of views, whether there were easy parking, rest rooms, etc.

Anyway, it looked as though the rain had stopped for the time being, but there was slim chance that it would stay that way . Fortunately, the house was in a really pretty meadow area right next to the beach, so I was able to quickly find a location just yards from the house. I would like to have done a beach scene, but it was just too cold and windy. This view (the painting above) was cold too, but at least it wasn't windy.

I did my demo as best I could, and everyone was a trooper and stuck around even though we froze our asses off. My fingers were numb after about an hour, and we finally had to stop half an hour after that. The sun light on the red doors in the painting is something I invented at the end of the demo. I think I might just title this painting Wishful Thinking.

After the demo, we tried to get warmed up in the house, and a few of us braved the cold and went outside to paint. The rest had had enough, and decided to stay warm, and study the hand-outs and rest up for the next day's adventure.

Rain started up again, and that was the end of our painting day. Later, we headed out to a little Mexican restaurant where we took over the back room and had ourselves a little party. Mmmm margaritas...

Day 2. We headed out to the west side, to D.L. Bliss State Park. Lester Beach at the park is one of my favorite locations around Lake Tahoe, what with beautiful boulders jutting out to the water, easy parking, and access to the facilities. It's also sheltered from the winds and the sun (not that it mattered this day) It was drizzly from the get-go, and we found shelter for our easels under big trees on the beach, and painted the boulders.

The light was challenging –no direct sunlight to define the forms for us– we had to use local values to compose, and that isn't always easy when the rocks have variegated surfaces. But everyone took on the challenge with enthusiasm, and came away with good studies.

I... didn't paint the rocks.



...because they were too hard. No, just kidding. I decided I would sketch the cars in the lot. Something different just for kicks. I was mostly going from easel to easel helping the students and offering instruction, so I just painted a few strokes on my own panel in between rounds. I knew it wasn't going to be a finished anything, so I just wanted a little study of black and white cars in diffused light.

D.L. Bliss is an awesome spot. But one thing lacking is a place to get lunch. Not a problem if I were just painting on my own, but something of an obstacle for a workshop. So we packed a cooler full of picnic lunch, and had a spread on a picnic table, sheltered (sort of) from the rain under a big tree. It worked out ok (whew..) but the cold finally got to us. We decided to return to the house, and work indoors for the afternoon.

As a last resort, I brought a stack of reference photos from home, and had the students pick ones they liked and paint from them, if they wanted. Others worked on the paintings they started that morning. The light in the house was not great for painting, but at least it was warm and cozy. I felt a little bad that we couldn't paint outside, but I tried my best to make this inside session worthwhile.

Later, we ordered in pizza and opened a bunch of wine, and had an informal critique session, which went on well into the night. Very productive.

Hoping for a little sun the next day, we turned in.





And get some sun, we did! It was absolutely glorious. 61 F degrees, a slight breeze and spectacular cloudscapes. It was perfect for painting outside! We headed out to Zephyr, and set ourselves up on the beach, and painted the cove, boats, the sky... I was very relieved that we didn't have to paint in the cold and the rain all three days.




I set up and did a quickie of the big clouds.



After lunch it warmed up a bit, and beachgoers started to arrive. I thought, hey! free models! and did another quick sketch in between my rounds. Everyone was a lot more relaxed today, and I saw some big improvements from the day before. That's always a good feeling for me.

Back at the house, we had a quick crit, and that concluded our workshop. The weather was the only regretable thing, but if anything differentiated plein air painting from any other form of painting (or visual arts in general), it is the fact that you have to contend with the elements. We may have harsh sun, winds, rain, mosquitos, spectators, ticks, dogs, snow.... You just never know. I hope that the bad weather doesn't discourage first-timers from keep painting outdoors!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Tahoe workshop, and a special thanks to Barbara for doing a fantastic job organizing this event, making it really easy for me to just do the parts I'm good at. Couldn't have done it without you!

Back at home, I'm decompressing, trying to switch mental gears so that I can tackle and finish my big Olive Grove painting.