Sketching From Life

"It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character."
                                                                                     ~ Camille Pissarro

5 minute sketches done with Pigma Micron brush pen

In the last six months or so, it seems like I've been suffering more from writer's block than artist's block. Occasionally inspiration will strike, but more often that not I sit down to blog and just stare at the screen wondering what to say. So this post is going to be made up of random thoughts about some sketching I've done recently.

Our local art center has a weekly live model session that I've been taking advantage of. I much prefer the quick sketches rather than the long poses. Having only a few minutes to draw helps to prioritize what to draw; I don't have time to become obsessive over picky little details.

5 minute and 20 minute sketches done with Pigma Micron brush pen

Watercolor sketches from the Tracy Aviary

I also love sketching at zoos, aquariums, and the like. It can be downright maddening when a place is crowded; people stepping in front of you or bumping into you, and the noise level can become distracting, but if you can find an area where you are mostly alone, it's great. I've also had some wonderful conversations with people who were brave enough to risk interrupting my work to talk to me. I especially enjoy talking to kids, hoping that my example will encourage them to do art. 

Watercolor sketches done at a coffee shop

There are plenty of opportunities for me to sketch in everyday situations, not just classes or special trips. Although I felt a little self-conscious at first, I've learned to really enjoy sketching at coffee shops. Easy access to sweet hot beverages + doing art = bliss. Bonus points if the coffee shop has interesting mugs or tea pots to draw, as the one above did. 

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of my sketchbooks while my writing muse is off doing something else for a while. Hopefully she'll return soon.

Tropical Smoothie

"You need both a bit of mind and a bit of mindlessness to make a painting. It's a play between control and surrender."

- Paul deMarrais

Watercolor WIP - 14.5" x 18.5" on 140 lb. paper.

During a winter storm this weekend, I attended a wonderful watercolor workshop given by Linda Aman. The workshop topic was on painting large format flowers and as the snow blew around outside, inside the art center it was looking like a tropical paradise with everyone's colorful flower paintings. During the critique sessions, I honestly started to get thirsty and crave the type of drinks that have crushed ice and little paper umbrellas in them.

I wasn't familiar with her before the workshop but I can now confirm that Linda Aman is a wonderful teacher. She regularly gives workshops in Washington, Oregon and Idaho, and then occasionally in Hawaii. Her passion for painting and teaching really came through loud and clear. We had a lot of information to absorb and a lot of new techniques to try to master in just two days but she still made it fun. Although I'm not thrilled with my painting, I enjoyed using colors I don't usually work with and really enjoyed working so large. And anyway, the point was to learn, not to create a beautiful finished piece. I'm looking forward to giving the new techniques I learned a try on some large format avian subjects.

A New Year's Thought

The pelican piece is getting framed this week and heads to the art center for a Watercolor Society show. The opening is next Friday for the monthly downtown Art Walk.

Typically I'm not one to participate in any special New Year's traditions; no resolutions or formal year in reviews. I'm lucky if I manage to get all of my holiday cards out to family and friends on time (major fail on that front this year.) so why add to the crazy December to-do list? But the other day I was minding my own business and a stray thought wandered into my brain; I completed 4 paintings last year. Four paintings that I feel are good enough to be framed and displayed. This thought stopped me in my tracks for a moment. I don't think I've completed that many "good enough" paintings in one year since I was a kid when every painting was a masterpiece. My average in the last decade has probably been about 1.5 paintings every 2 years. I couldn't help thinking to myself "Wow!".  I feel like that's some sort of personal milestone. It put a little spring in my step.

Sketches of pelicans from the Tracy Aviary.

Despite my resolution not to participate in resolutions, I have to admit to feeling challenged to beat my new painting record this year...

Quick Little Illustration

Great horned owl on a snowy night. 3.5" x 4.75" in watercolor.

As part of my concerted effort to get involved with our new community as quickly as possible, I joined our local art center this summer. Then last month I joined the watercolor society chapter. I was pleased to see it's a fairly active group with about a dozen people at the meeting. Everyone was quite friendly and seemed thrilled to have a new member joining them. At the end of the meeting we were each given a 3.5" x 4.75" piece of watercolor paper and asked to paint a little scene to share at the next meeting - like an ATC (artist trading card) kind of thing.

Since I am still a recovering procrastinator and occasionally fall back into my old ways, I left my little painting until the night before the next meeting. In a panic, I flipped through reference photo after reference photo. I wanted to choose just the right thing as this would be the group's first look at my work. No pressure or anything. I settled on a great horned owl image, and I envisioned a very rich night sky with beautiful stars twinkling in the background. As you can see, only the edges of the paper ended up with the deep rich night sky color I was looking for, but at least the rest of the sky had interesting textures. I'm struggling to master masking fluid, so although the owl mask came out well, (Thank goodness!) what I had meant to be fine points of light in the night sky ended up looking more like snow than stars so I changed my plan a little. Clearly they are just flurries though. Ah well, that's what I get for rushing at the last minute.

Anyway, the recipient of this little painting seemed pleased enough, and I ended up with a lovely sunflower painting from a fellow birder in the group. Everyone seemed to enjoy the project so I hope that we will be doing it again. It would be fun to have a collection of little paintings done by each of my new friends. But I hope to be a little more organized next time.

Pelican WIP Continues

American white pelican WIP. I haven't ruined it yet.

I crossed my fingers and toes and continued on with the pelican watercolor. So far so good. I tackled the eye, which to me is always the scariest part of a painting because if you mess up the eye, it tends to ruin the entire piece. There's still a bit more work I need to do to the eye, but it is getting there. 

One thing I discovered during this painting is that American white pelicans have pale blue eyes. I'd never noticed that before.

Old Blue Eyes?

Another interesting fact about the American white pelican is that unlike the brown pelican, it does not dive from the air into the water to catch its food but instead gracefully dips its bill into the water while swimming. When a group of them are feeding, it looks rather like a ballet.

I think I'm on the home stretch with this painting, so hopefully I'll have time to finish it up and post the final piece soon. I think this is the biggest watercolor painting I've worked on to date - nearly 13" x 11". I've really been enjoying the process!

Nail-Biter

Yup, it's a pelican. And a white pelican at that. Like me, it is happy in both the ocean and the mountains. 

I hate this stage in a painting. I can see the potential in the piece; I like where the painting is going, it looks fresh and not over-worked, but my very next brush-stroke could go either way. It's a real nail-biter. 

New WIP

WIP very early on.

In between working on two commissions, I'm trying to squeeze in a little time to continue painting some of my own stuff. I've started a new piece; this one's a watercolor on 300 lb. paper. Can you guess what the subject is from this rather messy beginning?

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

Could you pick a more beautiful day to paint outside?

On the last day of the art conference, most of the participants opted to paint on location at a historic ranch about 20 miles out of town. Our gracious host allowed us to wander all over this wonderful property that has been in his family for over 100 years. I imagine it must've been a treat for him to see all the different ways everyone interpreted his ranch.

I just love stuff like this.

Scattered all around the main house were outbuildings and relics of ranch life from a different era. I am very thankful for the many modern conveniences we enjoy and especially thankful for the medical and hygienic advances we've made, but at the same time I am drawn to old places. This ranch was almost as good as a time machine.

Many people in the group spent a good part of the day taking reference photos of all of the wonderful buildings and old farm equipment.

There was a beautiful river that flowed through the property and many of the artists decided to paint on the bridge or along the banks of the river. The cottonwoods were stunning in their fall colors.

Looking down at a group of plein air painters (center of photo) from the steep dirt road that led to the ranch in the river bottoms.

Because the dry conditions were not favorable to acrylic painting again, a lot of people brought their oil paints and some, myself included, worked in watercolor instead.

Watercolor sketch of a dead cottonwood tree.

The Wind River area is known for great trout fishing. This seemed like a beautiful spot to cast in. It certainly was a beautiful spot to sketch in.

What a wonderful day this was. I felt a little sad to leave, but since I had 10 miles of dirt road to drive before even reaching the main road back to town, I left a little early so that I would have time to wash off the dust before dinner. However, if I had waited just a little while longer before I left, I could've seen a herd of Rocky Mountain big horn sheep come through! That's the wonderful thing about painting on location - you never know what you'll see.

Painting and Petroglyphs

The scenery around Dubois was arid but beautiful.

Being surrounded by so many talented plein air painters can be a little intimidating when one is just a newbie, but by Thursday I was itching to get out in the field and give it a go. After another delicious lunch at the conference center, we headed south-east of Dubois to the Torrey Lake area and set up our easels below some interesting boulders and rocks. Painting was a bit challenging, however. The sun was strong and the wind had picked up, so any bit of moisture in my paints (not to mention my skin!) evaporated in record time. I realized that painting in acrylics was going to be nearly impossible so I switched to watercolors and just did some sketches of the area. Not for the first time I wished I worked in oils, but even the experienced oil painters were cursing the conditions.

Watercolor sketch of the boulders above Torrey Lake. I used a lot of dry brush technique on this one without really meaning to!

 In the rocks above our easels, other artists had left their mark hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago. Petroglyphs were scattered on the rocks and boulders around the area we set up in. According to the book "Plains Indian Rock Art" by James D. Keyser and Michael A. Klassen, this ancient rock art is considered part of the "Dinwoody" tradition, found almost exclusively in the Wind River area of Wyoming. I was in awe and wished I knew what the pictures meant.

There was a bird-like figure to the left of this petroglyph. I can't even guess what this one depicts, though.

I spotted these petroglyphs under a rock overhang, sheltering them from the elements.

After sketching for a while, I drove further around Torrey Lake and spotted some immature common mergansers out on the water. Mergansers are diving ducks and have very thin bills with serrated "teeth". They eat fish and other aquatic life. 

An immature common merganser having a nice day at the lake.

It seems like there's always some sort of Murphy's Law of Wildlife Observation at work; if I see some great wildlife, there won't be any place to pull over or safely observe it from. This time however, the birds were kind enough to be near a lake access area so that I could watch them for a while. 

Some pencil sketches of an immature common merganser sunning itself on a rock.

As the afternoon wore on, the angle of the sun just lit up the fall colors around the lake. I took lots of reference photos for future paintings. The trip out to the lake was not particularly successful for plein air painting, but I enjoyed sketching the area and the birds, and the petroglyphs were definitely icing on the cake.

The Fall color was spectacular.

Oregon Coast Revisited

I've written about the Oregon Coast before (here, here and here), but I can't get enough. The scenery is stunning, the food is delicious and the nature-viewing is spectacular.

Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach. Thousands of sea birds (including puffins and murres) nest on the rock while some of the best tidepooling on the Northern Oregon Coast is at the base.

The last time we went we only had half a day to explore before we had to be back in Portland but it was better than nothing. We chose to go to Cannon Beach as it was the quickest trip from Portland (about 1.5 hours) and had guaranteed wildlife viewing. We had no idea what the tide schedule was when we went, but as luck would have it the tide was out, making the tidepooling great.

The Friends of Haystack Rock have a wonderful intrepretive program in the area and the guides are eager to help identify the marine life in the tidepools. They also have viewing scopes set up so that the public can see the birds nesting on the Rock.

Sea anemones and sea weed in a tidepool. The reflections on the water make photography a bit tricky. This was my best shot of the day.

A harlequin duck watches the surf.

Watercolor of ochre sea star

With the constant wind and moisture from the surf, it is challenging to sketch on the beach. Given our short time there, I decided to draw what we saw later. I planned on just a quick watercolor sketch of this lovely sea star but as is typical of me, I ended up spending nearly 2 hours on this piece. Ochre stars are very common along the coast and the only type of sea star I've ever seen there. This great website shows all of the other sea stars found in Oregon. Since I hope to be able to go back to the Oregon Coast again and again, maybe I'll get to see some of these other species someday.

Short-eared Owl in Watercolor

Here it is in watercolor. Mostly loose and (hopefully) not too over-worked but I did have to redo the left eye a bit.

The outcropping behind the owl is a buffalo jump, or pishkun. Until the Spanish brought horses to North America, the native peoples would drive bison herds off of pishskuns like this one. Hunting from horse-back was much safer and easier, so pishkuns fell into disuse over the centuries. The top of this pishkun is now an expansive prairie dog town. We spotted a long-billed curlew up there. We were also hoping for a burrowing owl but no luck. Maybe we were being a bit greedy since we'd already gotten such fabulous looks at this short-eared owl.

A Productive Hiatus

Hello to all of you out there in Bloggerland. How have you been? I'm not even sure where to begin after a 5 month break from blogging, so I guess I'll just jump right in. Otherwise this post will be indefinitely delayed by the "Oh where do I start?" hand-wringing.

My hiatus from blogging turned into a bit of a hiatus from art. I had a sense during the fall and winter that it was not the time to paint. I needed to take care of my health, reassess my life, and rejuvenate. I felt guilty about not doing any art - I mean, how could I be a Real Artist if I didn't do any art? And didn't I want to get Somewhere with my art and therefore I absolutely had to practice on a regular basis? I was reasonably successful in quieting that guilt and I trusted that even if it went against all the rules I was doing what was best for me.

Last month I was contacted by our local natural history center with an invitation to show my work in their new gallery space. I finally felt ready to come out from under my artistic rock, so I accepted their invitation and put together a show of my bird paintings. As I was preparing for the show, I gathered all of my pieces together for the first time in a while and as I looked at them, I realized that there wasn't anything in the group that reflected who I am right now as an artist. The newest pieces I had were from the 100 Painting Challenge I had done in 2009. This really got under my skin. With just two weeks to go before the show opening, I picked up a paintbrush for the first time in months and whipped out what I now consider one of my most successful pieces to date.

11x 14 - acrylic on paper

When I finished, I sat back and nearly cried for joy. For decades I have been striving to paint like this. Somehow, at last, the exact image I had started with in my brain managed to find its way out of me and onto the paper. And in record time!

The miracles didn't stop there. Even with a last minute broken frame that had to be replaced, I managed to hang my show in plenty of time (and without forgetting anything!). There was a great article in the newspaper about the show that ran the day of the opening, and drove a lot of people to the center. I somehow managed to get off work right on time (which never happens on a Friday) so that I could be at the opening feeling relaxed. And the new painting hung front and center at the show opening and got rave reviews.


That night a local watercolor artist whom I know and whose work I admire stopped in. We were talking shop and I sheepishly admitted to not having picked up a brush in months and how stunned I was at producing the gull painting immediately after such a long hiatus. She didn't seem surprised in the least. "Sometimes things need to gestate," she said, "Sometimes a break is what you need. I've done the same thing myself." and she and I agreed that from now on, we will refer to any similar artistic break as "a productive hiatus".

Landscapes

Landscape paintings are not something I have a lot of experience with nor a burning desire to paint, but my last two paintings just happened to have both been landscapes. One of the coast and then this one of mountains. Maybe my latest subject choices are subconscious symbolic representations of my own search for a new personal landscape/home. I just love the color scheme of this one. The muted blues and browns are so soothing.

Our apartment search continues. I think I am beginning to have a problem with my craigslist habit. I have it bookmarked both at work and at home and I find myself checking it constantly just in case the perfect new apartment has just popped up in the listings. We've toured quite a few apartments in the last week or so. This being a college town, there are a lot of apartment listings that sound good on screen but end up being pretty shabby in the light of day. But we've also seen a few promising places along the way. Having lived in a basement apartment for the last 6 years, I find myself willing to overlook some cosmetic issues if a prospective apartment has big windows with lots of light. For example, one of the places that is tops on our list so far features a bedroom painted an orange that harkens back to the 70's, but I can work with that because of the fantastic windows with mountain views. At least there's no shag carpet.

Signs of Spring

Since Spring is officially still about a month away (and around these parts, early spring is probably more like two months away) I think I'm jumping the gun a little with my post title. However, the local chickadees and house finches have been tuning up their songs and it is no longer pitch black when I leave work, so I have reason to be hopeful.

This is a quick watercolor sketch of a mourning cloak butterfly. I haven't seen one this year yet, but they hibernate over the winter, sometimes emerging on warm winter days to take a sunbath before resuming their hibernation.

Today is the one year mark of when I began blogging about art and nature in earnest. It is too bad that I haven't been able to blog in earnest lately. About a month ago, our landlords decided to sell the house we rent an apartment in, so now my evenings are often taken up by dreaded cleaning and other preparatory house showing activities rather than being able to paint and blog to my heart's content. I hope that - despite the market - the house sells quickly, and to some nice people who will let us stay in our cozy little apartment!

Waxwing Painting

Had you given up on me? I'm still here, plugging along. Life decided to throw us a few curve balls in January, but all one can do is keep picking oneself up and dusting oneself off again. I've only been able to grab a few minutes here and there to paint. The process may be slower that way, but it still gets done.

Waxwings, both cedar and bohemian, form huge winter flocks in our valley and are a frequent sight around town this time of year. They've been on my mind lately because I haven't seen a one this year. Rumor has it that the weather to our north, in Canada, is more inviting to them and so they are not gracing us with their usual winter visit, making this mostly bird-less winter even more so. I miss them. I miss their high pitched calls, their undulating flocks, and the way they can completely cover a bare tree with colorful, noisy life. They especially love the mountain ash trees, gorging on the berries and sometimes getting drunk on the fermented ones. When they are spooked, hundreds of birds take off at once in a great whoosh and circle around the sky a few times until they decide it is safe and return to the trees, twittering and rustling. Seeing them just lifts my heart in the middle of a long, dreary winter. But not this year.

All is not lost, however. We are now entering February and the ducks will start coming back. I am hoping that we might be able to squeeze a quick trip down to our wildlife refuge this weekend to see if the pintails have returned, or at the very least the goldeneye - we get both Barrow's and common goldeneye. So you'll have to stay tuned.

More Ruddy Turnstones

Apparently I have not yet got the ruddy turnstones out of my system! This one was a very quick watercolor study, the challenge being to paint as loose as possible while still keeping important features such as the eye and beak from becoming abstract. To all you birders out there, does this convey essence of turnstone? Could you hazard a pretty good guess as to what bird was being painted (if you hadn't seen my spoiler title)?

I want to say thanks to everyone who left comments on my post about my painting inner dialog. It is reassuring to know that I'm not the only one who has such a harsh inner critic, but at the same time it is a shame so many of us have to deal with one.

Meanwhile, we've been enjoying above-freezing temperatures lately that will hopefully melt away all the ice so that we can safely go bird-watching again. It is very hard to spot birds up in the trees when your eyes are glued to the ground in front of you! I hope things are warming up for you in your favorite outdoor spots.

Watercolor Study #?

I need to sit down and count up all my paintings from the Challenge again. When I stopped posting every single thing I painted, I lost count of what I'm actually up to. I vaguely knew when I'd reached 50, the halfway point, but since then I keep painting without counting. So here's #? of a ruddy turnstone, a beautiful shorebird that is much easier to identify than the groups of sandpipers that are so hard to tell apart that birders collectively call them "peeps". Ruddy turnstones are found along the East, West and Gulf coasts in winter. However, I took this picture in Florida one June. Apparently the flock of turnstones that my subject was a part of had decided not to bother with the long migration to the Arctic for the summer and opted to stay in Florida year-round. Given everything that birds have to cope with during their migrations, I can't say I blame them.

Waterlily Painting

Value sketch

The leaf of this waterlily was a problem child, as far as this painting goes. It is flat. Very flat. Maybe a slight upturn along the edge in a few places, but not a lot of different textures, values, or interest to be had on the leaf. It wasn't even considerate enough to sit a tiny bit above the water so as to cast a shadow or reflection. It made a lovely photo at the time, and if you are Monet, it probably would have made for a lovely painting, but as a painting reference I found this specimen decidedly dull.

Dull waterlily painting

So after much grousing and grumbling, I decided to throw caution to the wind and invent a reflection and some more shadows on the damn thing. I don't like doing this. I am comfortably co-dependent with my reference photos and straying from their photographic reality gives me gray hairs. In fact, in the sketching stage of this painting I had an argument with myself; half of me wanted it to look exactly like the lily in the photo, down to the last petal and the other half said "So I missed one or two petals - no one will know." (...except now all of you do. Keep it to yourselves, please). And since the number of petals ended up not being exactly the number my specimen had, a little made-up reflection in the painting could hardly hurt at this stage. Right?

Watercolor of waterlily. Now with more lilypad bling.

When Life Gives You Turkeys - Painting 41

Nothing personal against turkeys, but it just kind of fit today. Paul went for his final exam this morning, and found out that one of the four members of his exam committee had come down with the flu and couldn't make it! So his final, final exam will have to wait until February! Argh! It's only just a little anti-climactic.

But life goes on. This is Painting 41. I need to complete 9 more paintings by November 20th to be at the halfway point in my 100 Paintings in a Year Challenge. That's kind of an exciting milestone to contemplate. I did this painting on the heavy cold-pressed watercolor paper I've been working on in Laure Ferlita's Imaginary Trip to Paris class. I used to swear by hot-pressed paper, but I've been very pleasantly surprised at the amount of control I still get with watercolor on this paper. Another bonus is that it takes a lot of water to make the paper buckle. I'm a lazy watercolorist, so not having to stretch my paper is a real perk to me.

For those of you wondering whatever happened to my ornithological ABC series that I had started, I hit a bit of a snag at C. I wanted C to be for crane, and I remembered that Paul had gotten fabulous photos of some sandhill cranes with their chick. Well, we have moved three times since he took those pictures and I am still looking for them. I may skip to D while I continue my search. Stay tuned...

Painting 36 - Exuberant Toucan

This toucan - which still remains unidentified - is everything I'm not right now. He's colorful (unless you count my red nose), he's smiling, he's exuberant. Well, maybe "exuberant" is taking this a bit too far, but he's certainly got more energy than me. After nearly two years of sniffle-free days, I have at last succumbed to the common cold. Not only am I reduced to a lot of sitting around feeling sorry for myself, I'm also downright grumpy. Okay, so I'm not really sick sick, but a cold is really annoying. Not so bad that you can stay home from work, but certainly bad enough to make you miserable at work. How could my immune system have let me down? What about all of those anti-oxidants I ingest; rooibos tea, leafy greens and dark chocolate? My serious attempts at 8 hours of sleep a night? Dragging myself out of bed after said 8 hours to exercise? But hey, I suppose while I'm sitting here keeping the facial tissue industry in business I can take comfort in the fact that, according to Star Trek, they still won't have found a cure for the common cold by the 23rd century.