Just a Tad

Backyard Bobcat

I live in Simi Valley, California, a small valley to the west of the much larger and more famous San Fernando Valley which pop culture has designated The Valley." It's not wilderness by any means. The Toobe Hooper/Speilberg "Poltergeist House" is just a mile or two away from me. It's suburbia. But my house is backed up to a mostly undeveloped hillside. The shrubbery is home to many birds, squirrels, rabbits and the like which draw predators like hawks, coyotes and, making an appearance for the first time, bobcats. There are mountain lions in the hills but I've never seen one here. So here he is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So since I had pictures of this cool cat, I thought I'd try painting him. Pretty quickly, I got lost in the spots. I did take a couple of process photos. I tried laying in basic values first. I believe I was working with a limited palette, although I couldn't tell you what it was. I have to say the hues of the bobcat's fur eluded me, even before I got to the spots but I soldiered on.

I went in, getting more detailed that I originally set out to do, although I don't know how to approach impressionistic bobcat spots. I got to a point where I was just going to call it done and move on. The cat seemed chunkier than it should be and I realized the forward leg had no stretch to it. I don't know how I missed that paw placement in relation to its nose.

I remembered James Gurney videos where he just wiped off half the gouache on the paper and painted the correction. And so I set out to do the same. You can see the lines where I marked the correction.

In addition to changing its leg position, I lifted its stomach to reveal the horizontal bar of the fence behind it. You know, the fence that he should be on the other side of.  I'm glad I went back and did the changes. I never conquered the spots or the color of his fur but I learned things in the process. That's the point of this sketchbook. So the final version is below.

 

 

 

 

Triads not Trifids nor Daleks

James Gurney put out a new "Color in Practice" video about Triads. Although it sounds sciencefictioney to me, it's simply a way to understand and practice the possibilities of a limited palette. Gurney puts out a ton of informational videos on YouTube but this series is the closest thing to having a formal course with him. There's also a Facebook group where you can share your painting struggles/adventure with others. James also pops in from time to time with a challenge and even awards prizes! Go to YouTube, visit his website, or best of all, buy his book Color and Light for a complete explanation.

The above is a page out of my 8.5x11 inch sketchbook. I picked my triads before I picked something to paint. The images are out of the royalty free site, UnSplash. The machinery photo is by Denny Müller of Germany. It's only part of the photo which had a glow about it. I would like to do a larger version that included more of the photo with a wider palette. The illusionary "glow" is what I would like to emphasize in a painting. Who knows? Maybe I'll return to it in the future.

After the fact, I realized that I did a pretty good job of drawing the machinery which is rare for me. The limited colors worked fine, not in duplicating the photo but in creating a harmonious painting. Because I mostly used paint that had dried on the palette from the triad chart, much of the painting is basically a watercolor. I think the transparency helped in keeping the contrast.

I'm less happy with the breakfast scene because I lost the feeling of weight and floppiness of the top pancake. After the border tape was off, I realize that, in concentrating on the color and highlights on the blueberries, I made them too big which threw off the size relationships in the entire painting! The lack of contrast in the sketch isn't helped by the black background of the blog and the high contrast painting next to it.

I'm in that mental spot of stalling. I need to paint more. I'm just not doing it. I found some nice 4K videos with great scenery but they're not things that I could fit in the sketchbook. Excuses, excuses.

Next: Bobcat!

 

Yay! Did It! Wait... There's More?

 

In the previous post, I talked about the last painting in my sketchbook.  I was excited about the idea. I almost did it before the last page but stopped myself in favor of sketchbook symmetry.

This is going to be one of those "Just how messed up is your brain and do many artists go through this?" posts.

 

I painted that last piece on August 12. I painted the carnival piece about a month later. Why couldn't I get myself to pick up the brush again? As near as I can figure, it was three things. First, the idea of finishing my sketchbook with that painting was fixed in my mind as an endpoint. Even though I had ongoing lessons at Schoolism, I had completed the book that started with my first painting of this self-improvement journey I started a year ago. Maybe it was a subconscious stop sign. On the other hand, this was probably the least of the three.

Secondly, the last painting turned out well, much better than my first page, but it wasn't as good as my previous painting of the mountain stream. Any other page gets a critique from me or at least a "Next time I'll try to --" But that stream not only still looks good to me but makes me want to get back in there and play with the illusion of water covered rocks again. I don't think it was a complete fluke. But there are definitely paint strokes that create an illusion I wasn't aware of at the time. Can I do it again? Or better, can I paint something completely different that I can be that positive about? What if I can't? So, it's a bit of a fear thing.

Finally, the next class assignment was completely out of my comfort zone. It was that photo of the County Fair after sunset. One advantage of having a yearly subscription to Schoolism is that you can take all the classes you want or skip around. One advantage of being retired is that I'm not trying to squeeze in classes around work or taking them to increase my employment potential. I love Nathan Fowkes work and learned plenty from his Landscape Sketching in Gouache class. But the goal of Nathan's class is to get you comfortable making quick sketches outside, from life. Between Covid lockdowns and  100˚F+ heat waves, I was not getting out much. And my current focus is not on painting quick sketches. So I had already decided to switch courses. But I knew I had to do that County Fair assignment because it didn't require going anywhere and I was scared of it.

Tons of people, complicated scene, dark, dark values, all things that weren't yet in my skill set. In his critique of other student work, he commented that no one was going as dark as the photo. I guess I could've gone darker but had trouble with the limited palette. There was no magic moment or revelation that got me painting again. Maybe just some internal shame. What was I going to do? Dump all my paints and stop?

The painting came out much more impressionistic than intended although that's exactly what is intended in the class. I did get some of the glow of the electric lights. And the suggestion of structures instead of detailing everything was fine. It wasn't that I was pleased at the end but it meant a lot that I survived.

That second painting is an assignment I gave myself. Although I found the location on Google Street View, it's actually a master copy of a painting by Daniel Aldana whose work I really like. He captures lighting in a way that reminds me of James Reynolds. Reynolds was an impressionistic painter that somehow captured the reality of a scene more than those who blend and smooth their strokes to chase photo realism.

I didn't want to put Daniel's painting on my page in case some sort of internet labeling linked it only to me instead of him. Anyway, I decided to try another master copy because the black and white ones I did a while back were a great morale booster for me. I tried scenes that I would never attempt on my own. I figured that's what I needed.

Except I'd do it in color.

That won't be hard.

It shouldn't have been hard but I made it hard. Master copies aren't supposed to be exact duplicates. Working through one should teach you about approaching the same challenges the original artist did. I learned but spent too much time trying to duplicate the exact tones and values of the original. There are places where I came close but many that I not only missed but put down several layers of paint getting to the wrong result. If I  had done this painting from life, I'd be damned proud. You should definitely check out the link to Daniel's page and scroll down to see the original.

But I survived that too. Then James Gurney put out a new video about color triads and started a new Facebook group. That'll be in my next post.

And then this happened in my backyard...

Nice subject but damn. That's a lot of spots!                          --Tad