Rummaging

Sometimes when searching for older works, studies, scraps, and sketches I run across works that somehow escaped my notice. That's where this watercolor came in--"Up North" is at least 20 years old and maybe older, but somehow the particulars about the piece have disappeared. It's about 8x10 on cold press watercolor paper but undated. After a brief search I found the original in storage and it's now in my studio. I wonder what else I've forgotten?

"Up North," watercolor on paper, 8x10

Salmagundi Spring Auction

The Salmagundi Club, a New York art institution, holds a members auction in spring and fall every year. This year I'm happy to have two of my pieces selected for the show. Each is a studio landscape based on plein air studies and references. "The Golden Hour" is a spot along a pristine river in Virginia, just as the summer sunset begins to light up the woods and water. "Upstream, October," is Druid Hill Creek early last fall, before many of the trees had begun to change, allowing yellow-green light to filter across the water and rocks. Each will be auctioned at the club during the second session (and simultaneously online via  LiveAuctioneers, where you can see all of the available art). The club makes bidding remotely quite simple, and the auction is a chance for people worldwide to see the members' works. 

"The Golden Hour," oil on panel 16x20

"Upstream, October," oil on panel, 14x11

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The works in the links above are on display now through April 9 at the Salmagundi Club, 47 5th Avenue, in Manhattan.

Saturday Sketch Safari

The weather has begun to turn sufficiently so that a few more sketchers turned out for the Saturday sketch group's weekly safari. 

March 19, 2022, watercolor, 7x10

Here in Des Moines the trees are bare, most grasses yellow to brown and dry. Here and there, along watercourses, networks of spindly honeysuckle are tipping toward green. And where the slope faces southwest, grasses are greening. Like the just-ending colder months, early spring features subtlety in colors. Most of the group painted in Greenwood Park, which is just south of the Art Center and features woods, water, an amphitheater, and other amenities. Besides, it was in the lee of the woods and sunny. You can get trapped into detail, so I consciously scrubbed out big shapes of colors, each slightly different, then added figures and ink details. I worked quickly because it was a little cold. 

Sketch, 3-19-22, 14x5

After packing up to leave it seemed a shame to go away before taking one more look. I sat down on a bench and sketched a tall, bare tree that loomed overhead. Mostly this was a pencil drawing that I finished and accented with ink and watercolor. 

Because of the height of the tree and the smaller size of the sketchbook I chose, it was necessary to lap from one page onto another. The red color of the woods in the background is invented--the color was more a warm grey. Trees are wonderful sketch material. I return to them again and again. 

After finishing, we met at a local cafe, where I rewarded myself with a Philly cheesesteak.

Memory of the State Fair

Back before the pandemic, I often painted outdoors at the Iowa State Fairgrounds here in Des Moines. Although many of those works are gone, I ran across one of the Agriculture Building, which stands along the Grand Concourse. It's the venue for all kinds of competitions during the Fair, from bonsai to produce judging. And inside, there's an upper balcony that's great fun to visit at fair time. The painting below is the result of two or three plein air sessions in early autumn. The viewpoint is actually along a sidewalk in the demonstration garden area that's run by the Master Gardeners association and is a high point of the grounds all summer.

Untitled, oil on panel, 14x11

There have been many beautiful outdoor venues closed these last couple of years, but I'm hoping they will be able to welcome visitors this year at last.

The Snows of 2022 (so far)

January and February are statistically the snowiest months here, but every year feels record-setting anymore and this one is no different. As it happens, snowfall has been about average overall, but January did set a record with almost 19 inches. For the past several years one of my regular winter practices is watercolor sketching from my studio window, sometimes daily, and I've continued that practice, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Still, I've managed a few winter watercolors and here are three for 2022. 

January 2, After a Big Snow

As the written notation says, this watercolor was painted January 2 after a big snowfall on New Years Day. The day was bright, winter-hazy with enough sun to cast oblique shadows across Druid Hill Creek. When painting these watercolor journal entries I often omit details or entire passages of the actual view, as in this work. Most of the woods on the west side of the creek are absent, as are a lot of them on the east. As is often the case, though, the creek is framed by two trees. This work began as a rough drawing with a warm-colored watercolor pencil. I added the watercolor, then inked a few crucial details. 

February 27, Another Snowfall

In this painting from February 27, my note indicated a total of 6 inches of snow fell that final week of the month. We had already had several inches earlier, sending our total to the higher side of usual. This painting from February 25 shows how the tree colors grow warmer and brighten as the days lengthen, even though they still throw inky shadows across the frozen creek. This is an afternoon view, with the distant trees in full sunshine while the creek bed is shaded darkly. This wider view is a more satisfying one for me, but requires more than a single page of the sketchbook. Leaving the right-hand tree half-finished was a deliberate attempt to keep the viewers' gaze deeper into the shadowy distance. 

March 7, Five Inches

The last watercolor (so far) for this year shows yet another post-snowfall scene, this time from about a week ago. Feather-light snow sifted down for hours that day, probably more than had been forecast, but the temperatures remained high enough that the creek stayed open though ice-rimmed and mounded up by the snow. At this time of year, already meteorological spring, the color changes in the trees and branches become more pronounced almost daily (see the paintings above), and even the temperature of the light is warmer. Still, the icy fist of winter wouldn't relax for at least another week.

One of the attractions for me of painting winter is the opportunity to study the subtle yet wide range of colors in what are seemingly dull and nondescript scenes. The challenge of looking long and then carefully turning reality into paint is a continuing pleasure. And these watercolors provide a fascinating and immediate record.
 

Casein Again

This past year or so I've neglected casein paint in favor of oils and watercolor. But as the seasons change I've been thinking about taking it up once again. Casein paint, for those who aren't familiar with it, is made from milk protein (casein) that has been emulsified. It's a wonderful medium that dries matte and therefore photographs well. It dries like lightning, too, making it a go-to illustrators' paint. I've written about it before but it's been a couple of years. 

In preparation for coming back to some casein painting (again), I rummaged through my files and found "On the Sound," (below) a studio casein done on Bristol board in 2020. The painting is based on reference photos I shot from a sailboat on Puget Sound several years back. Seascapes are a personal pleasure--I've never offered them for sale--done for my own edification. This particular work represents studies of color, composition, and the paint itself. It's around 24x16.

"On the Sound (Dropping the Spinnaker)," casein on Bristol.

Later this year I'm going to take my casein box outdoors and see what happens.

Shady Street

Although the weather continues to be an issue here in flyover land, work can always continue in the studio. This winter has been particularly busy, with a half dozen or so new studio paintings coming along. This view of a residential street in autumn is fresh off the easel. It is a 9x12 oil on panel, inspired by the lowering autumn sunlight and the way changing leaves can light up like lanterns. In a tree-lined neighborhood the contrasts between light and dark, warm colors and cool, superimposed on the geometric shapes of streets and sidewalks, the patterns become intriguing. 

"Down the Block," oil on panel, 9x12

 

Thumbnails

Using a tiny to small preliminary sketch is routine for many painters. It's useful both in the studio and elsewhere because 1)a preliminary essay of the subject helps solve composition, value patterns and so on and 2)it allows the painter to study his subject in the same way many paint: large shapes to small, broad value patterns first, without fussiness or too much attention to any details. Using a small size assures that details simply can't be included. 

In my own practice some works begin that way--small thumbnails--but usually not to work out an already planned composition. Instead a quick, small sketch can just be exploratory. Do I really want to paint this particular view or subject?  Many times these small studies aren't all that small at 8x10 or so, but sometimes I make much smaller ones, usually on little gesso panels. For example, below is a study for a possible landscape with a figure. The idea is from a video freeze frame, considerably modified. The painting is relatively tiny at 4x6 inches, or about the size of a postcard. (Depending on your monitor, it may be shown larger than the original.) The palette was relatively limited to yellow ochre, lemon yellow, cerulean, raw umber and white. Although there is little to no detail, the main ideas for a larger work are there. Because of the small size the sketch/study was finished in perhaps ten minutes. 

"Rainy Coast (study)," oil on panel, 4x6

By the way, my choice of gesso panel for many of these is because I have dozens of these small pieces of gessoed hardboard, picked up from a manufacturer when he quit business. These "drops" as they're called were inexpensive leftovers from production of larger panels. You could as easily use small, inexpensive canvas panels, pieces of illustration board, or other rigid supports. It really doesn't matter.

"Canoeing (study)," oil on panel, 3x5

Here is another recent sketch/study, even smaller at 3x5. In this case, "Canoeing" was done from a magnified snapshot taken some years back. In the case of this really tiny painting, there were two broad interests. The first was the color combinations of yellows and greens with the single, nearly centered red and the second was the overall composition, with heavy bankside foliage opposite and a near and overlapping set of branches (barely indicated) and embracing the canoes. This color oil sketch occupied no more than five minutes but captured those two interests reasonably well.

Studio Landscape

This time of year when changeable weather and roller-coaster temperatures are the norm, much of my time is spent on studio work. One of the advantages of painting en plein air is the chance to study various locales, the colors and values and so on. The information captured in outdoor sketches comprises notations of the reality of the subject. Those notations plus any other studies or photos can be used to make larger works in the warmth of the studio. But sometimes a painting comes only from a reference photo, like "Cascade" (below).

"Cascade," oil on panel, 9x12

"Cascade" is a spring tumbling over rocks and into a larger stream somewhere in the eastern United States. The painting is based on a freeze frame captured from an online video. The interest here is the varying textures as well as reflectivity and transparency There is also a play of edges in various places that I used to show depth. This is now available on my website and is part of my current solo exhibition here in Iowa.