Daily Painting

I read so many watercolor books and really enjoy all the theory. I understand everything in theory, but until I took Andy Evansen's online workshop in August, I thought a value study was a black and white sketch that you do before your painting. I didn't understand how the black and white sketch needed to be manipulated to arrive at the foundation that would BE the painting, and then followed with more loyalty than the reference image. With his workshop, I suddenly understood how the notan and the value study relate. The notan is a stark black and white graphic, if you will. Andy started by painting all but whites in a medium gray, and instantly, it looked like a notan. I got it! Then he added darks to the grey parts and lo and behold, there was a 3-value value study. I've seen Laurel Hart paint this way (in color), but I never connected her layers to the values as in Andy's value study. He also had us paint the color version alongside the value study, so we could rel...

I am still trying to find my style - I hear it develops automatically over time, and you cannot search for it or "find" it. I do pause when I like a painting to see what it is about the painting I like. I love architectural subjects but I don't like every painting that features a building. I love transparent layers like Iain Stewart's work (and his color palette) but I also like Charles Reid's alla prima "one shot" style of painting. I do like a strong value foundation, but also appreciate high key paintings that have a lot of white space (Mel Stabin). Maybe it is the confidence I can see/feel in the painting, before the appeal of the subject? I am continuing to look for "ordinary" images and trying to do value studies and focus on my path of white, then apply color. I did the following in the layers' style, as well as the alla prima style (hardly washing the brush, just letting colors flow into another, keeping the values the same). I am ...

Inspired by Patti Mollica's color schemes for the same scene, I decided to do the same. I had some major learnings along the way, and feel like I got a new lease on painting and experimenting. I felt like I was on a plateau for a while, doing the same things, not brave enough to just experiment and play, yet never quite pleased with anything I painted. And not inspired to paint, and feeling discouraged when I did. A vicious cycle. This exercise was the best thing to happen to me and I learned a lot. My major take-aways: - find a practice exercise that another artist has done and just do that. It's just an exercise, not a full painting, and it will encourage you to keep your brushes wet, paint, and maybe you will learn something new, as I did. - find an ordinary reference image. I am always searching for the perfect inspiration and guess what? I am setting myself up for failure. If the inspiration is perfect, the painting can seldom be. It is too much pressure. Find an ordinary...

I haven't blogged for a long while - I have been painting, but intermittently. I really enjoyed June's Direct Watercolor Challenge where we were all asked to not use a pencil to sketch first, but just paint directly. One painting a day - no pencil! We were all posting on Facebook to share and see each other's work. It was spectacular - the learning, the confidence. Some of the work I saw was mindblowing - so ambitious. And no pencil! What I learned was - and there is always a lesson in everything - that it's a mindset. A pencil is a crutch. You don't need it when you stop using it. You reach for it out of habit. You can catch yourself and NOT use it. I stopped carrying it with me through the month of June because I didn't want to have it and be tempted. Towards the end of the month, I was very pleased with these two versions of the same painting - the interior of the Orpheum. I took the reference image for this from my seat while waiting to see the musical Hamil...

One good thing that has come out of this shelter-in-place is that I am walking daily. Previously, my exercise consisted of Body Pump at the gym three times a week. Sometimes I would walk right after, about 2 miles in the park (where I took photos of the man with the dog in the previous post). Once upon a time, a long time ago, I tried walking daily regardless of gym regimen. That didn't last. Now I am walking daily, and lately, have been running and walking in alternate minutes to up the cardio. I find I am not sleeping very well - I am probably not tired enough since I don't have the usual runaround and drive-around that I do back-to-back when I am out and about. Now, I am mostly sitting in the day, aside from the hour of walk-and-run. And I am playing a great deal of online Scrabble - a new vice. I keep taking pictures on my walk of the various flowers I see. Spring is here, and how! Everything is blooming, the sunlight kisses it and creates very paintworthy scenes, so I am...

In this lockdown, I have decided to paint more on my own - be it going out for plein air (harder to do without a companion) or at home (harder to do anyway :-(  ). I cleaned up my desk after my last project and I put my tabletop easel on the wiped-down surface. Now, from across the room, I feel the tidiness invites me - the easel with a blank sheet of watercolor paper, a clean bowl of water, and paints and brushes set up on the right. Now I don't need to set up from scratch and only need to know what to paint. Which isn't always easy. Typically watching YouTube videos of artists I like inspires me to no end. Who better, then, than Charles Reid? My artist teacher-cum-friend Bill Dunn mailed me two DVDs from his personal collection to watch during this quiet time. One of them isn't available in any library, nor through Link+. It is Charles Reid's English Watercolour Sketchbook. I loved watching it, and was inspired to paint like him - alla prima - and not in layers. I ...

Today's morning meditation and, in particular, a couple of lines, struck me: Just as you breathe, and let the breath go, then the next one comes, in, out, let it go, let life's events come and go the same way. Don't hold on, just like you don't hold on to the breath. I don't think about the breaths that have passed, nor do I think about the breaths that will come in an hour. Why, then, do I not paint the same way? I find I focus a lot on the future - specifically getting into big shows - and I paint with that in mind. I also paint bigger with that in mind, and I don't think I am ready to be that big just yet. When I am not thinking of all that, I paint well, instinctively. When all that takes over, my instinct goes for a toss and I paint under various kinds of pressure. If I could just focus on today, this moment, and focus on what there is to learn, what I am lacking in - then I could master that one task at a time, and trickle it to my paintings. When ...