Just a Tad

A Plan for Yosemite

The two biggest positives about this piece is nothing you can see. Number one, due to a planned power outage in my neighborhood for maintenance, I use the time to paint and completed a painting in less than a week from the last one. That's a big step toward improving by painting more often. Number two, I made a plan on how to approach this painting and actually followed it which made the process much less maddening.

 

I rescued some old photos from being tossed because I need to work on my control of values. The photos were great examples of atmospheric perspective, each level bluer and more faded as they retreated into the distance. It wasn't until I set up my easel that I realized two of the pics made a panorama, perfect for the format of my sketchbook.

I used a lightboard to trace the scene onto the page. I then used blue to lay in shadows. I then laid in some of the forest. The sky was a  wash of cobalt blue. I added to it at the end but I treated it like a watercolor wash. In the final, the most distant peaks should have been cooler and lighter still but at the point I was happy with my roadmap.

I worked from back to the front then left side to right. I repeatedly reworked the cliffs on the left with thin layers. I don't know if the end result was any better than some of the earlier stages but that's me learning. I saved the greatest contrast for the waterfall against the cool darks of the cliffs. Finally I painted the foreground trees and the branches on the upper right.

My self critique says the sky needed more paint. The thin wash seems out of place with the rest of the painting. The most distant mountains need to be lighter and bluer. But overall, it's much more successful than my previous paintings of cliffs and mountains. I'll take the win.

 

 

Jack-O-Lantern Night

The more time passes, the more I appreciate the mood of this painting. The mood was intentional. The pathway to getting it was a mix of blind luck, frustration, and pushing through the ugliness. And there was a lot of that at the beginning.

We have this big ceramic jack-o-lantern that we use as a porch decoration at Halloween. After that I drag it into the backyard where it sits through several other holidays before my wife insists I move it into the garage. One night, well after Halloween but not yet Christmas, I looked out at the pumpkin which lit by the light of the kitchen window. The lighting on the pumpkin and the shadows across the pavement had a spooky look to them so I took a photo.

I don't have the latest model iPhone, nor was it a "Plus" model that had extra bells and whistles when it comes to digital photography. But it managed to capture an image that I could paint from. Like all photos, it did not capture the subtleties visible to my eye.  But there was enough there to provide a cool subject when I revisited it more than half a year later.

Since this was for my Pentalic sketchbook, I first had to crop it into a horizontal format. Although, I love having a bound book of my year's painting that one can flip through, I sometimes feel that the biggest asset of the book is that it would very hard to rip out a page and toss it. Believe me, that urge hits me regularly. This one had an especially rocky start.

Aside from cropping, the first artistic decision made was to turn the talavera pot behind the pumpkin into a solid color. I felt like the second pot was needed in the composition but the bright colors would take to much attention from jack.

I didn't take any process shots. I started with a pencil tracing made from a print out of the photo. I started blocking in shadows and immediately felt lost. Why? Dunno. Thinking back, I would've been better served by blocking in with a light wash. Something about using gouache thickly at first, at least on this painting, was off putting. I pushed on, and once I got the page covered with color, I felt better. At least, I felt like I was at the point where I could attack it with detail, an area at a time.

But, still disheartened by the feeling of really not knowing what I was doing. I decided to stop for the day. I seem to do that whenever I'm working from a photo (which is the case with most of my paintings). The problem is that the feeling of frustration/doubt of my ability etc. stays with me until I return to it.

I realize now that frustration and doubt was amped because I kept comparing my painting with the photo. At a certain point, I have to remember I'm not trying to be a photocopier and just look at the painting. I spent most of my life drawing images out of my imagination. I have to give myself the permission to do the same as I paint.

I stopped again to let things really dry and mentally map what I needed to do. There wa a perspective problem with the bottom edge of the pots not sitting on the ground. I wanted some reflected cool light on the shadow side of the pumpkin, even though there was non on the photo. I finished up with some water color pencils to had some texture and details. Then back to a little paint.

I posted it online and got positive reactions. But looking at it in a different size, I appreciated what I had done right. The mix of colors on jack, the more impressionistic pot behind him, the overall creepiness. I keep saying how I need to paint more often to really start learning and being comfortable. Haven't done it yet but here's hoping.

Meanwhile, it's late. I'm tired. I'm posting without editing.

Why IS a Raven Like a Writing Desk?

The March Hare never answered it in the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. It was just a set up to, "Careful! She's stark ravin' mad!"

A quick google revealed that Lewis Carroll had no answer in the original editions. But he was constantly pestered about it and added an answer to later versions, "Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!" Others have produced more clever answers over the years, although it's absurdity and not cleverness that is the point of that scene. None of that has anything to do with me other than I tried painting one. A raven that is. Writing desks have too many straight lines for me.

This painting is based on a photo by Tyler Quiring that I found on Unsplash. See Tyler's other work here.  Once again, it is a small painting, just 3.5 x 8 inches to fit into my sketchbook. The bird had a nice light pattern on its feathers. Had I painted it larger, I would've had a better chance of capturing it. But I always say that. However, it was the setting I placed the raven in that led to the most changes.

Above is the first work in progress image. The background of the original photo was intentionally out of focus with a higher horizon and clouds stretching across the sky. Overall, it was a better composed image. The high horizon gave a stronger sense of the vastness of Bryce Canyon. But I wanted a more simplified cloudscape. Some dark clouds in the photo gave me the idea of a threatening clouds casting shadows across the canyon. Perhaps the raven is a harbinger of the approaching storm. I think that's a good idea that occurred too late in the process.

Cloud shadows would be best served by a higher POV that featured more of the ground plane, or a mountain range that could showcase shadows sliding across it. Note that I am trying to be a good boy, blocking in the shapes of the entire painting instead of concentrating on detail of a specific area. However, that method is to allow the checking of values and mine are all over the place. The brightness of the red rocks and canyon are turning the bird into a sort of black hole in the canvas.

Above you see my colors getting muddy as I try to dim the canyon a bit. The sky gets a little darker near the cloud. I played with the idea that a towering thunderhead rising out of frame is casting its shadow on the other clouds.

It was time to fuss with the raven and tried to fix its legs. I also really committed to the dark clouds but, composition-wise, they are now fighting the bird. On the good side, I managed to mute the background closer to where it should be. The dark color on the horizon is too dark and saturated. That hurts the illusion of distance. You can see I tied down the shapes of the landscape which helped.

Taking stock of where I was, I looked back at the photo. I considered that stretching the clouds across the page would help a lot. Here's the final painting again.

As often is the case, I got to the point where I had to stop because the colors were getting muddy. This is more of a  problem with me and how I use it than it is with gouache. However, gouache is water soluble. If you aren't careful, later layers can activate earlier layers. I know a cleaner bit of sky along the horizon would create the idea that the storm is more localized  to the location of the viewer. I added some light to the canyon walls near the center that added interest and suggested a slight break in the clouds.

The end result is okay. I stare at it now and see little changes I could do that would make big differences. But I learned which is always the point of these things. It's much better than what I was turning out almost a year and a half ago and people have been kind with their comments.

I'm taking too long between paintings. This was done a month ago. I always seem to find an excuse not to start another. How did I get two movie poster assignments decades ago yet am fearful of messing up a page in my sketchbook? But I did make a drawing on the next page, so I'm close.