More Spring

One of my favorite oldies is this view of New York from an ascending subway stair. "Spring, NYC" is in a private collection here in Iowa. 

"Spring, NYC," oil on panel, 9x12

Sudden Spring

Here along Druid Hill Creek the surest way to know that spring has indeed arrived is when the honeysuckle undergrowth bursts into leaf. First the bushes take on a faint green glow, then a kind of shadowy green along sprays of branches that cascade over the river bank. But in only a day or two the honeysuckle simply erupts into clouds and billows of green below the still-bare cottonwoods and willows. 

"Honeysuckle on Druid Hill Creek," wc/ink on paper, 8x10

Distant trees do show warmer colors and casts of yellow, where buds are barely open. In another week or two the foliage will be considerably more dense.

Winter's End

"On the Raccoon," wc/ink on paper, 8x10

When the season begins to change, you can tell, even if the ground is frozen and the trees are bare. There's a subtle green rising in the world. Here in my watercolor sketch there's the tiniest hints of spring. The river has thawed but the woods are barren.

 

Shiny Coat

One of the things I find most difficult to draw or paint is shiny fabric, so it's important for me to study various kinds of cloth. Here's a digital figure study of a woman wearing a quilted coat tied around her waist. Since the coat and figural proportions were my main interests, I left the lower legs relatively unfinished.

"Quilted Coat," digital drawing

Cataloging

One of the more onerous tasks in the studio is keeping track of my work. Sometimes it seems to me that I need an assistant to keep up with the mundane tasks of scanning works for digital records, sorting and organizing the actual works, and preserving or destroying those that need it. As works pile up you have to keep track. 

Today while scanning and organizing watercolor works I ran across a few sketches that seemed worth sharing. Here's one. 

"February, Gray's Lake" wc/ink on paper, 8x10

"February, Gray's Lake" is a sketch I did with the Saturday group a couple of months back. It was one of those sunny winter days when you can sit in a sheltered, sunny spot to work and feel reasonably comfortable. The lake was the color of old pewter and the far shore and treeline looked monotonous at first. But as I sat and studied, you could see countless variations and shades in the seemingly boring trees, and the sandy near shore made an interesting ochre-red contrast. Overall, this kind of sketch looks different after it's had time to mature. As I recall, I didn't like this one much at the time I did it but today it looks good.

Saturday

Spring has felt slow and chilly, but at last we had warm weather and sunny skies last Saturday, when the sketch group went out. As we always do, the group came to a consensus regarding location then set off. This week we went to the Botanical Center, on the east bank of the Des Moines River. Some of us went to the Robert Ray gardens nearby and some stayed outside; a few went into the dome and then checked out the big outside gardens. 

Alas, there wasn't much in flower, though narcissi were clumped here and there. I went to the farthest bench from the dome and spent an hour or two sketching it. I laid in the big shapes with pencil, then watercolor. As the painting progressed I added darks with ink.

"Des Moines Botanical Center, April 2023," ink and wc, 8x10

 

Step by Step

Not long ago I posted an unusual painting of snowy mountains around Donner Lake. It was unusual for the subject matter but also because I did it on an unusual paper support as a test. Because the result of the test was interesting, I put it online but didn't mention anything about the painting process. 

   Here is the layout of that painting, showing my underdrawing in a warm tone.. I drew the distant mountain masses and then the evergreens in the foreground, leaving the middle for the surface of the lake. Sometimes I tone my entire surface, but here I wanted bright snow. If you look on the left, though, you can see a very light yellow tone laid onto sun-reflecting surfaces. I painted the distant sky first, then the main mountain colors. 

After a number of steps you can see how the distant sky and mountains were muted and warmed as were the sun-facing slopes of the mountains. The media board support I used is fairly rigid, much more so than light paper, but also quite absorbent. That meant using oil paint more like a water-based medium and it dried quite matte. Here I've toned the downslope evergreens a redder color, where the sun struck them. 

And here is the final painting.

Oil Painters of America

As a member of Oil Painters of America (OPA), you can submit to the Online Showcase, a members' event hosted on the OPA website. There are three Showcases every year--Spring, Summer, Fall--I've entered a number of times. The last, OPA Online Showcase Fall 2022, featured nine of my paintings. (Follow the link and scroll about halfway down.) One of them was "Down by the River,"a studio work from last November. 

"Down by the River," oil on panel, 12x16

This one is a particular favorite because the view is of a wetland trail along the Middle Raccoon River. In late summer, drifts of wildflowers light the meadows--the mauve Joe Pye weed among them. The place is almost enchanted.