Bridge Scene and Cat from Life

 Bridge landscape painted in acrylics on Sunday, May 20th during Johannes Vloothuis online Paint-Along hosted by WetCanvas Live! I simplified the source photo drastically and used stronger colors than Johannes did, also made other changes. This is one of the best landscapes I've ever done in my journal, perhaps the best. Both this painting and the next are in my Stillman & Birn Beta journal, which has 180lb rough bright white watercolor paper. I love that paper. It stands up to everything I throw at it. The paper never bleeds through either, it's very easy to paint on both sides of a page.

I've been out of it dealing with medical issues and resting up from appointments. Chronic fatigue can get rough when I have to go out immediately after having gone out the day before, then it takes longer to rest up to the point I can do anything. Very frustrating, so this month's "as can" is a very slow daily painting attempt. However, I'm approaching 20 small paintings and already happy with my progress!

Below is today's watercolor life painting of Ari, my longhaired colorpoint cat. He's a "street Siamese" with no official papers but clearly has the markings. I did a quick gesture in pencil while he more or less stayed in that pose. He turned his head, but not till I'd gotten his face sketched. I decided the sketch was too light and so painted in watercolor.

I don't usually do pencil sketches under watercolor, preferring a purist look without guidelines showing. This time I just let it show and painted anyway. The final embellishment is white whiskers sketched in with a white gel pen because this is in my art journal and I don't need to be purist in a journal.

Flower and Furball, Yesterday and Today

The top painting, Bird of Paradise, in pen and watercolor, is the subject of my latest demo on Rob's Art Lessons.  You can see stages in the creation of that big folded sepal the flower springs out of on the other blog. It's from a reference in the "Plant Parade" challenge at WetCanvas.com where there's a reveal date on May 25th.

Today, I noticed Ari laying on the folded down white sheets of my bed and painted him very fast using the same Sakura Koi watercolors, touched in a couple of whiskers with a Pitt Artist Pen.

So even though these aren't stand alone paintings, I've got two more daily paintings in. This is a good thing. I have had a lot more sick days lately than not, also days when going out to appointments meant I was too sick to paint once I got back. Glad to get back in the groove again.

Orange Lily - Pastel ACEO

Just a small painting today.

Orange Lily is 3 1/2" x 2 1/2", an ACEO on gray ClaireFontaine PastelMat done with a 25 color Girault Landscape assortment supplemented with a red and a red-violet stick that I bought separately because the Landscape assortment lacked either a red or a violet. The photo reference is from the May Spotlight challenge on WetCanvas.com.

Every month the Spotlight challenge includes a lesson, this month's topic is Edges. So in this small painting I focused on the soft to vanished edges in the background, softened edges on some of the stems and leaves with some linear accents to sharpen up edges on some buds, leaves and of course the main flower. It came out vigorous and lively.

One of the nice things about working small is that I'm forced to keep things simple. I can't noodle after details of veins and spots in the petals, have to focus on the important shapes and graceful lines of the subject. I like how it came out. The contrast between finger blended background and stick-blended or unblended strokes is a bit stronger in person.

Finger blending mutes and dulls pastels. It creates perfect loose soft edges at the cost of some vibrance. The pigment crystals get broken down and crushed to more of a matte look. That's something I use to advantage sometimes in painting so that the main subject pulls forward with more intensity and texture.

A Page of Little Ari Drawings

Technically this isn't a painting - it's a 9" x 12" page of life drawings of my cat Ari. It's a serious project. I used an archival Pitt Artist Pen, black brush tip for its expressive line, on 100% rag watercolor paper. Every one of these little drawings is from life. The dates come in two clumps, back in November when I first started the project and then picked it up again late in April when I realized my winter slump had lasted that long.

This piece was difficult not because I don't have a lot of practice drawing my cat, but because I had so many little drawings of him and was determined to give the page a decent layout. The more of them I finished, the tougher it was to use the remaining space well, have everything leading in toward the others with a good eye path, create a good page as a whole instead of "cool little life studies."

I love my cat. I could and do draw him endlessly. I also don't mind having a lot of bad sketches of him crop up in my sketchbook. I lighten up when I do these gestures and don't worry so much about whether each of them is a good drawing or even an accurate likeness. This project, I wanted to do my best on them.

It's part of an art trade with Charlotte Herczfeld, my pastel teacher, a Swedish Colourist who heads up the Pastel Guild of Europe. She taught me how to handle color, how to handle pastels and depth and distance. She freed me from literal adherence to the photo and from sticking to local color instead of what I see. She also taught me how to create any hue I want with optical mixing and use a limited palette in pastels.

I've got several other artworks in the package. I'm nowhere near her level of skill, honored she liked so many of my works though. I'll be packing them all up this week to ship to Sweden and then wait for a wonderful, glorious package containing a painting that went right to my heart. I need to order a good frame for hers too, need to set aside that budget and not unpack it until I have a frame big enough - though I have mat board and can cut the mat for the painting myself just as I did last time.

I'm so thrilled about this and honored. I'm also vastly relieved that A Page of Little Ari turned out so well! I can't believe I managed, with all that care and patience waiting for good days and of course waiting for the cat to hold still in good poses, to fill the page just right. He is a great beauty of course, there was no question of the model's competence in this piece.

A long project completed just right! Nothing compares to that feeling!

Plein Air Iris Pond

Iris Pond - Plein Air in Golden Gate Park. 9 1/2" x 12" / 24cm x 30cm Pan Pastels on Buttercup color ClaireFontaine PastelMat coated pastel card. The link is to my Etsy listing. Plein air in Golden Gate Park has been my goal from the day I first decided to move back to San Francisco. Heck, it's been a dream of mine since I first read about San Francisco and wanted to move there back as a kid. Yesterday, I actually made the trip.

A local artist friend Reba whom I met on WetCanvas met me in front of the De Young Museum. We didn't have far to go to find a wonderful spot to paint. A small memorial garden right next to the museum had paths running everywhere and a gorgeous natural planting in the central island in a round pond. Mallards swam in the water along with a turtle.

 I did three pages of sketches, took 300+ reference photos and painted the best plein air scene I have ever done in my life. The composition almost planned itself.

Both of us noticed the balance of the area around that big rock. Reba's painting focused more on the water lilies and she has a larger area of water and rocks under water in hers. I focused on the stone and the irises planted next to it, though I moved most of them to the left of the rock replacing a clump of different plants.

Unlike all my previous attempts at plein air, I took command of my painting. I moved elements freely to strengthen the composition. I left out plants that I thought were beautiful and could have painted in detail. I have reference photos of them for later paintings anyway, I wasn't there to imitate a camera. I was there to paint from life and that's what came of it - a bold, big, loose, colorful painting that almost painted itself. I spent three hours entirely with the Pans on it.

I had meant to use stick accents for small details but the corners of my Sofft sponge gave a better look to the irises. Otherwise I might have tried to detail them as if I waded right up to them to do a flower macro. I could do that on another trip. Some of the same irises were planted in long grass near the garden, so I could roll up close to them and paint just the flowers the way I used to. But that's not why I went plein air.

I can find flowers in people's gardens, window boxes, supermarket stands easily enough. It's the outdoor landscapes shaped and maintained by the incredible gardeners at Golden Gate Park that I went there to paint. I could go back every day for years and not run out of new things to paint. I could spend a lifetime just in that park.

There's a buffalo enclosure so if I want to do something with a cool Western theme, I'll roll out there sometime for life studies of bison. I remember the Japanese Tea Garden had that intensity - thousands of wonderful views each worthy of a painting every time I moved or turned my head.

In some ways Golden Gate Park is like copying masters. Other creative minds and souls went into crafting the beauty I visited to paint. The whole park is a massive collaborative work among architects, gardeners and donors.

I have yet to visit the botanical gardens or the pond or streams but the paths run everywhere. I've got a map of it now and both of us definitely plan to do this again. We might get into a habit of painting out there regularly as well as visiting the great museums in and around the park.

 I've finally achieved a lifetime goal. This was one from the "bucket list" of things to do before I die - paint plein air in Golden Gate Park. It was so fantastic that I can't resist doing it again and again for the rest of my life. Meeting a good online friend and hitting it off so well that we're now happily offline friends is wonderful too.

Some of our trips, we'll leave the city to visit some of her coastal plein air spots around Pacifica. We tested whether the two of us could manage to heave my power chair into her small convertible's back seat and it worked! So in future you'll see some plein air seascapes too, from every vantage point that can be reached by a paved path. This is only the start.

Today I'm glowing with joy at the sight of it and feel much better than I usually do after a massive exertion. I got a little sunburned, just enough that I got enough sun to feel great.

I've got home care coming, so today's daily painting will likely be done in the evening by artificial light. I have all those photos to sort through and choose a good subject for today's painting though, so watch for a new post. I feel good and definitely ready to paint again! My home care worker just arrived so watch for a new post - today's post - in a few hours.

Yesterday I was a bit too tired to post after I got back but it was completely worth it! Big thanks to Reba for making the day such a joy!

House on the Hill"

House on the Hill is based loosely on this morning's Johannes Vloothuis paint-along. His painting in oils was 16" x 20" so I made mine simpler, changed the house substantially and simplified other elements. Pan Pastels, Girault pastels and pastel pencils on light grey Strathmore Artagain unsanded pastel paper. By working smaller I was able to keep it tight. I used pastel pencils for small details and linear elements, sticks more for textures.

Three Bell Peppers, 7" x 10" in Derwent Watercolour Pencils on Stillman & Birn Beta journal, rough 180lb watercolor paper. I love the Stillman & Birn journals. When I'm using wet media, that extra heavy paper helps so much to control my results. Today my home care worker Joy brought me these three peppers. She casually set them down in a perfect arrangement. I said "Don't touch them!" and took a half dozen good photos, then painted them fast with the watercolour pencils. Some moments need to be painted. I might use them in combination as a source for a pastel painting.