Finding the path

I liked the shapes of this tree and the stark landscape around it and started a drawing. It may never reach completion, but that's ok. Its the day to day drawing which counts, not a race to the finish.

Of the pieces I start, not all of them reach conclusion. Or if they do, it isn't until months or sometimes years later when I go back and revisit them. There is no shame in putting a drawing or painting that just isn't quite doing it for you, in a back corner and get on with something that you really want to do.

Its also difficult to find your way sometimes. There are so many things calling, its hard to decide on a particular medium or genre and stick with it, perfecting technique and finding your niche, and ignoring the pretty colours and toys in art stores. Finding your place in art - or staying with that place - can be challenging.

I know what I do best and what mediums I am most comfortable with. I love shades of grey in graphite and coloured pencils. I enjoy watercolour, but am not what I'd call proficient. I also enjoy oils, but find the re-learning curve a steep one to climb.

I'm doggedly pursuing it with a 6 part series - Journey to the Sea. Part II is posted on Watermarks and Part I is here. This is closer view of the colours which make up the water in the Part II image - Wetlands.

I will be travelling for a few days, heading to Montreal very early tomorrow morning, so blogging will likely not take place again until Monday. However, if I have some spare time and an airport wait, you never know...

Boules

My first love is drawing and always will be, though I seem to be doing a lot of painting these past few months. I started this little drawing in a Moleskine of a trio of boules which was the reference for the Drawing & Sketching forum at WetCanvas last week.

I love trying to draw shiny hard objects. Its almost like a puzzle, fitting the pieces together. This isn't complete and I likely will work on it tomorrow or when I get a chance this week, but even this far gives a sense of how the image will turn out.

The feeling of drawing and the control I have over the pencil is always comforting. When painting becomes a chore, drawing is my fallback. I am so familiar with dry mediums it causes little stress as I know how they will perform, how to correct things, how to apply it to different supports.

What's your comfort level in art? What always relaxes you to create with?

The perils of plein air

The Sentinel

10 x 20 oils

Today was a warm late spring day and I thought I'd try some plein air painting. I never have to go too far to find subjects as I live in the woods, quite literally. At the back of the house there are acres and acres of trees and among the pines, spruces and firs, stands a paper birch that soars head and shoulders above them all. I like to think of this tree as the Sentinel, watching over the forest.

I pulled together my oils, thinners and brushes and brought them out to the patio where I have a great viewpoint of this tree. The sun was brilliant on the canvas, so I quick toned it to reduce the glare and started to lay in some values.

A gentle breeze lifted to a cool gust making me glad I'd put on a sweater before venturing out. The disposable palette sheet started flapping, so I grabbed a rock and put that on the end of the sheet to hold it down. After finishing the sky and starting to build the tree masses, the wind came back again, this time lifting my panel and placing it on me. Great. I now had a brown sweater with blue paint and a lovely imprint of knit fabric on the painted sky.

I secured the panel more firmly to the little french easel and continued to build the image. The sun was warm and I took off the sweater, figuring it would definitely be 'the painting sweater' from now on. But the wind wasn't finished with me yet it seemed. It couldn't take the panel and fling it around, so it chose the palette instead. Even with the small rock holding the disposable sheet of paints in place, the wind took the whole thing and turned it upside down. On me. Guess what? I have dedicated painting jeans now. And shoes too.

I have older clothes that I use when painting and wear an butcher's apron,but its pretty rare that I do get paint over me. Til today.

However, after 90 minutes of work, this is what I came up with. I removed some trees to make the birch more prominent and ignored the line of old willow stumps that had been pruned in the foreground. I may fiddle with it a bit more or will it be classed as 'plein air' then? Isn't the end result what its all about instead of the process?

Technology

I am surrounded by technology that both helps and hinders me in the process of making art. When I consider that perhaps 10 years ago, my ability to use much of this technology was pretty limited, it amazes me how much I come to depend on it.

My old cell phone died a couple of weeks ago and I had to buy a new one. You can't buy a regular cell phone anymore. It has to come with slide out keyboards, cameras, bluetooth, video, internet access - and the most current feature GPS. All this technology in a mobile telephone and I still can't seem to hear it ring when its at the bottom of my bag!

When I purchased the new phone (an LG Dare, for those who are into technology) the clerk told me it came with a Samsung digital photoframe. In pink. Joy. I didn't know one end of a digital photoframe from another. I guess that candy pink wasn't selling well so they were used as a sales incentive - even if I didn't know about until the sale was closed.

However, tonight I finally got around to exploring it a bit. Despite the frame colour, it could be a useful tool for those times when I need to show some art in a slideshow format that is more portable than a laptop. It holds 120mb of space, but does need its powersource to operate.

We have access to so much technology to assist us in art marketing, networking, sales and even creating art or helping it show a better face online. However, when it comes to creating art, for me, I am a traditionalist and technology can't really help me except to create the current products that I use. Even that becomes a source of amazement as I never consider where my paint or pencils come from or the method of creating them. I just buy them and presume they will be readily available. I don't have to mix my own paints or make my own paper, even though the option is there for me. I've tried the papermaking but not creating paints.

What technology assists you or hinders you? Is technology a benefit or something else that moves us further away from reality?

Making progress

As I've mentioned previously, I'm starting a small series of paintings of the journey of water to the sea that will show on the Watermarks blog. I will be giving glimpses of my own journey of developing those paintings here.

The series will be a set of six 8 x 8 inch panels which will be displayed together. Each piece is an intrinsic part of the whole so that the story is told. The first piece has been painted and will be subject to some tweaking. This is about the two-thirds mark for the second piece.

Its still pretty much in rough values and colours right now and will be defined more before it will be complete. The thing that I dislike about the landscape that I chose to represent this panel - The Wetlands - is the palette of the landscape itself. It really does consist of browns and creams with more green coming through this time of year, but not enough to make it look lush yet. The dulled down colours make it difficult to paint and find definition.

You are the daughter of the sea

This is a tiny watercolour inspired by a poem by Neruda - You are the Daughter of the Sea. It has no reality in it. It is based on no place or time. The shapes and colours simply found their own way onto the paper. I was simply the vehicle that got them there.

Pablo Neruda is my favourite poet. His words are ones that bring such strong images to me and it is as if I can see through his eyes, feel what he felt as he wrote some of them. I cannot pick a favourite poem, it would be impossible. I love each and every one of them.

On the Blue Shore of Silence: Poems of the Sea is a collection of twelve of Neruda's poems on the sea, produced in 2004 to celebrate the centennial of Neruda's birth. The book is bilingual in Spanish with English translations and features 15 paintings by California artist Mary Heebner. The paintings were inspired by Neruda's home on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific at Isla Negra.

The title of the collection comes from the poem Forget About Me/No Me Hagan Caso: Let us look for secret things somewhere in the world, on the blue shore of silence or where the storm has passed, rampaging like a train.

Here, Heeber describes her process: "I saturated large sheets of fibrous Japanese paper with puddles of bluish-gray pigment. Hidden shapes emerged from these little seas of color. I used paint and strands of tapa cloth to suggest elements of human form."

While the paintings make a nice compliment to the poems, one has a much tougher time engaging with them on their own. Their color is lush, and at times has a kind of penetrating darkness, all emblematic of the sea, but it seems a wobbly balance between suggestions of the human form and more abstract evocations of water.

XXXIV (You are the daughter of the sea)
by Pablo Neruda

You are the daughter of the sea, oregano's first cousin. Swimmer, your body is pure as the water; cook, your blood is quick as the soil. Everything you do is full of flowers, rich with the earth. Your eyes go out toward the water, and the waves rise; your hands go out to the earth and the seeds swell; you know the deep essence of water and the earth, conjoined in you like a formula for clay. Naiad: cut your body into turquoise pieces, they will bloom resurrected in the kitchen. This is how you become everything that lives. And so at last, you sleep, in the circle of my arms that push back the shadows so that you can rest-- vegetables, seaweed, herbs: the foam of your dreams.

Clouds

Vivien Blackburn of painting prints and stuff put out a challenge last week to draw or paint the skies in your own part of the world. I was a bit slow getting going and the challenge was delayed by a week, so I was determined to get in a couple of pieces.

I guess this could be clouds or even surf, but it was intended to be a study of clouds done in oils on a tiny little ACEO card. I was given a pack of assorted art trading cards that had a few pieces of acrylic/oil painting surfaces, so I thought I'd see what I could come up with in that 2.5 x 3.5 space. Today started out warm with drizzle, then turned to a brilliant blue cloudless sky in late afternoon. By early evening, the rain was threatening again and some large clouds were building. This was the last of the clouds before they merged into a grey curtain.

This painting was more like an interlude, as I'm working on another painting at the same time. I like to have a couple of paintings going at the same time, then take a break from one or the other. I haven't been sleeping well lately, but find that the early morning (4am onwards) is one of my best times for painting or drawing. Perhaps its the sleep that helped. Maybe my biorhythms are good at that time of the day. But for whatever reason, early in the day, my eye/hand coordination seem to be at their best.\

What time of day do you function best? Are you a morning or night person? What affects your ability to draw or paint?

Quidi Vidi lock

Yesterday I wandered, needing some fresh air, and my travels took me to Quidi Vidi lake and on to Quidi Vidi village. The lake is quite famous for its annual Regatta that's been going on for close to 200 years. It is fed by the Rennie's Mill river and is home to a large number of ducks, seagulls, the occasional goose, and ever present pigeons.

Just over the other side of the road from the lake, the water heads towards Quidi Vidi 'gut' and the sea. The force of water coming down over the slope of rocks is held back by a small lock that can be lowered or raised so that the water moves at a reasonable pace, never flooding the village below.

Moving water always has me transfixed and besides sketching the little lock, I had to take a small video clip of the sound of the water as it rushed past my feet on its journey to the sea.

Youth - complete

I added more layers, changed more colours, refined the features more and am calling this portrait complete. There is still a sheen of wet paint on this image so the true colours aren't coming through.

I do tend to be stingy with paint and need to push myself to apply it more thickly. I almost feel as if I'm drawing instead of painting sometimes. For those who may have the same problem as me, there's a good thread on WetCanvas that deals with this subject.

This painting finishes my current Zorn palette and I have to say that I do really like a limited palette. It limits my ability to muddy colours too much and forces me to focus. I will be adding some blue to this palette and experiment with it in other pieces.

I have a series planned of 8 inch square panels that will be grouped together and involve land and water. Most of these will be shown on the Watermarks blog, but there will be glimpses of them here too. Enhancing the colour palette will likely be necessary to achieve the effects that I want.

202 guests

Its that time of year and today 200 plus day old chicks were collected this morning. These tiny birds are like little balls of fluff but grow very fast. These are broiler chickens to be grown for food. It took me quite awhile to get over the concept of eating something that I knew personally. But I know they are treated well and have everything they could possibly want to be safe and comfortable while they are here.

When chicks arrive they haven't eaten or drunk anything in their life. They are still getting nutrients from the egg sac that housed them for 3 weeks before they hatched. As soon as they get to the barn, they are placed under heat lamps shown where the food and water is. They have special feeders and water stations that prevent them climbing into them. Chicks can easily fall into a tray of water and get chilled or drown. Sometimes a few get confused and wander out from the heat and get cold, so they need to be monitored closely to make sure they stay warm and are eating and drinking. Most get the idea quickly but there's always a couple who are a little slow on the uptake.

And for those who haven't experienced driving for 40 minutes with a flock of chicks 'singing' in the back of your car, here is what it sounds like. And why the video is appearing sideways, I have no idea. I didn't film it on the side. Ahhh technology, it's a constant mystery to me.

Youth - WIP

I made a start tonight on a new portrait in oils. The face of the young man was appealing and challenging too and the hair will prove interesting to create. Its on an 8 x 10 stretched canvas and this is the result of about 90 minutes of work so far. Lots more to go.


I 'drew' the basic shape of the head and face using dilute lamp black and a small brush then started to block in some values.

I keep covering the face with a base colour, refining the drawing as I go along as well as the colours.

I begin blocking in the hair using a scrubbing motion with an old brush to get a soft base value that I will add detail to later. I continue to shape the face, correcting the drawing, and painting and repainting the eye.

Direct purchase savings

Tripod Study in oils
6 x 8 - canvas panel

For Sale
in my Etsy gallery

Yes, I'm still on my Zorn kick and wanted to try it out on animals. This study of Tripod seems to work in terms of colour. Then again, with a limited palette, you can't really go too wrong as the colours do tend to be harmonious. There are no harsh, conflicting contrasts in colour that pull the eye away from the subject. I'm quite liking this little palette...

This is the first animal that I have painted in oils for more years than I care to remember. I like the solidity that the paint gives when applied in thicker strokes, making the fur seem deep and thick. And with Tripod it is that if the layer of hairs floating around the floors every day are anything to go by!

There seems to be a following of cat fanciers who Tripod - or his colouring - appeal to, so I will make this piece available by trying it out as a 'Buy Now' on the blog. Most of my original art work is for sale on Etsy, but I will occasionally put something here that can be purchased direct from the blog.

Koi

I always find fish interesting. The mere fact that they can breathe underway is fascinating and the play of light and dark in sunlit water as they dart about gives a challenge to capture it.

Koi carp have a long history and were used as a food fish with monks breeding them in moats. I recall in some Somerset canals, huge colourful koi swimming, being caught and released. They were the release of someone's carnival or pet store prize into the local waterway. These fish usually return eventually to the natural brown colour of carp but are often considered a nuisance, stirring up the bottom constantly and making the water useless, even for cattle to drink.

This was a quick sketch of a koi. I wanted a stronger sunlit effect but it didn't really come off. I need to darken the values, especially under the fish to get the effect of dappled sunlight. This could be a warm up for a painting. It has that colour that is appealing to me.

Over the last few months painting is taking a stronger hold in my life. I still love drawing and especially detailed pieces that I can lose myself in. Painting is a completely different side of me where I don't have to be so controlled. In fact, its almost a test to see how loose I can be sometimes and still provide a recognizable piece.

Brushes and portraits

Portrait study 1
oils - 7 x 9 canvas panel

I have kept playing with the limited palette and trying to achieve different skin tones with the colours that I have. This one has gotten a bit chalky and needs brightening. I'm not sure about pale skin tones with the Zorn palette, but perhaps I need more practice with it.

I treated myself to some new flat brushes and have a problem with one already. They are Royal & Langnickel which are usually very good, but in this one, the bristles keep disappearing up the ferrule and I have to grab them and pull them down again. I resorted to taking a hammer to the brush ferrule to flatten it further against the hairs, which seemed to do the trick. I'm presuming its just a fluke brush that left the factory and not a continuing problem.

The majority of the brushes I use for oils are flats with a few filberts as well that give a softer, more rounded edge. The number of brushes that are available are staggering and you do need to do a little research before heading to the art store to find what will best suit your purpose.

Empty Easel has a good article on brushes that takes some of the mystery out of them.

Portrait in Zorn

Bill - complete
oils 8 x 10

Bill - 2 hours
oils 8 x 10

EDIT: I thought I'd put the finished portrait here and compare it to the 2 hour session. I tweaked a few things, adjusted a few colour and now I'm calling it done. On to the next one!

I wanted to continue with the Zorn palette to work on a portrait and tonight there was a perfect chance as one of the images for the All Media Event on WetCanvas was a portrait.

This is my attempt after two hours. I still haven't got the angle of the head quite right, but its coming along. I quite like this limited palette for portraits and they especially suit the ruddy complexion of this individual.

I'll do some more work on it tomorrow and see if I can finish it off.

Zorn palette

I have been experimenting with using a limited palette for painting, and am trying the Zorn palette. This is based on a palette used by Anders Zorn, a Swedish painter who excelled in painting water and portraits, especially nudes and eventually incorporated the nudes and the water. He also became very proficient in watercolour and painted some of his best work in that medium. He also had excellent drawing skills as well as turning his hand to etching and sculpture!

The oil palette that he used consisted of only four colours, yellow ochre, cadmium red light, ivory black and white. This provides a warm palette that works beautifully for portraits, as Zorn showed. I'm trying it in a landscape here - a study of the same path that I painted in Chocolate Road, and the lack of blue can be limited to achieve those shadows. Obviously Zorn must have used blue in some of his paintings, especially water. Some individuals add ultramarine blue to the palette to expand the range of colours.

Les Demoiselles Schwartz
1889, oil, 39½ x 26½. Collection the Louvre, Paris, France

Ivory black is a sort of blueish black and the theory is that by placing a grey made from the black and white next to an orange made from the red, yellow and white, the orange will make the grey look bluish. This is because the eye picks up the orange and then ‘invents’ the complementary blue colour.

David Rourke, from the blog All the Strange Hours, has an interesting post about using a limited palette and it would be good to experiment with the various combinations of warm colours.

Using a limited palette does make you become more creative in mixing and choosing colours instead of just reaching for another tube of colour. I will continue to experiment with the Zorn palette and see what I can do with it for a portrait.

Any other Zorn experimenters out there?

Charcoal study

Head study 1

I haven't drawn with charcoal for ages, so pulled some out last night along with a piece of newsprint and played around with a study for a portrait. Charcoal is so versatile and goes from loose to tight with ease, depending on how you use it and what type it is.

I'm one of those people who like getting dirty and prefer vine or willow charcoal, but also use charcoal pencils to add detail. I don't often use charcoal powder but sometimes tone the paper by putting down a layer of charcoal then blending it lightly with some kitchen towel or a tissue. I use tortillons for blending small areas if I need to, such as eyes or lips where I want smooth transitions of shadows.

I'm still not 100% happy with the likeness I have for this study so will tweak it some more - another reason I like charcoal - its so easy to manipulate with a kneaded eraser or to add more charcoal to deepen shadows.

Inspiration Tuesday

Each Tuesday I choose an image that I allow others to use as they wish under a Creative Commons license.

Dandelions are one of the first things that bloom and in places they blanket the ground. Dandelions, while considered a nuisance by many gardeners, are one of the most beneficial herbal plants and are used to assist digestion. I use dandelion root which I dig in the fall to make a tincture that then lasts me til the next fall's harvest.

The leaves are bitter and eaten in spring when the plant is young as a vegetable and to help stimulate the appetite. The leaves are also a diuretic.

I need an apprentice

My blog is pushing 1,000 posts and now entering its 4th year. Sometimes I feel as if I've run out of words and inspiration to add more to it. I know that I still have information and art in my past, my present and my future, but sometimes it doesn't come out the way that I plan.

These last few weeks seem to be those of starts, but not finishes. There are sketches, half finished drawings, starts for oil paintings and now a lino block that I've started, but my body refuses to let me complete it.

With aging comes its own set of complaints and in my case its some arthritis in one hand - the drawing hand of course. It was exacerbated by an accident years ago when a sizable sliver of glass entered the joint of my forefinger on the right hand. It became infected almost instantly and was dealt with medically promptly. However the glass severed the nerve and there is a numbness from the joint to the fingertip which causes problems sometimes.

I started this lino cut a few days ago, but had to stop as my finger was too stiff and painful after extended pressure on it. I keep trying and may transfer the piece over to a softkut piece of vinyl that carves more easily and see how that works.

I think I need an apprentice. Isn't that what artists had years ago? A 'go fer' to mix paint, do the parts that the artist hated to do, like tedious backgrounds, and to cut lino blocks! Then I could come in and work on the fun part like printing. I've set Tripod with the task of searching online for an apprentice for me. He seems quite dedicated to the work...

There are still apprenticeships available in some areas, and while they may resemble in some ways the apprenticeships of years past, the workload is less strenuous and the life not so harsh in the 21st century. The passing down of skills from master to apprentice is age old and very valuable. Only now are people understanding the loss of information and skills that can only be produced through person to person sharing and not through a virtual connection.

Skintones in watercolour

The week's hectic pace has run over into the weekend and I ended up having to go to work for a meeting on Saturday which ran over. Then running around afterwards trying to do some errands ensured that I didn't get home til around 5, so the day was shot.

I haven't had time to many inroads into projects that desparately need attention and tend to go off on tangents in the form of drawings or small paintings that aren't truly inspired or destined for anywhere but 'the' drawer. You know, the one where pieces that you lose interest in or that don't work out go to spend their days.

I did play around with a watercolour portrait, just to keep my hand in. I am continually working on the right palette for cool skin tones. I'm a real fan of blues for shadows for people with fair colouring, but they can be easily overdone and need to be balanced with reds and yellows to add some warmth as well.

This watercolour paper is Bockington 140lb and is very pale blue. The image here is taken in daylight and is quite cool overall. The image at the beginning of the post taken under artificial light and you can see that it adds a warmer tone to the piece.

I even remembered to take a couple of progress shots while I was doing this that may be useful to see the process of how I work.