Grey Days

"January Snow," watercolor on paper, about 3x5

If this January is like others these past few years, there will be dim, grey days with snowy haze and not much to see, unless you look closely. Once you do, muted colors are everywhere, from shadowy snowbanks to distant trees. Details merge and the world goes cold and soft.

 

West End Salvage

"West End," wc/ink on paper

Although the sketch group mainly goes outdoors to work, sometimes the weather chases us inside. Last weekend was dreary and cold so we elected to go to a local architectural salvage place that sells all of the stuff that's reclaimed from house and building demolitions--doors, fixtures, windows, etc. It has a coffee bar and tables and is usually uncrowded.

Floating the River

"Floating the River," oil on panel, 11x14

This oil is the newest of a body of work involving images of a river we visit annually. This particular painting was done from photos and plein air studies.
 

Multicolored Orange

Long ago one of my pursuits in studying painting was still life studies, usually quite small, many 6x8 on gesso board. Still life gives the artist the luxury of an unchanging subject, especially if the lighting is controlled too. These tiny studies were ways to explore all sorts of things: color, composition, light, and more. 

"Orange Study," oil on panel, 4x6

This particular painting was the result of perhaps an hour's study and painting. I was interested in how to produce a believable orange in oil paint. It's not as easy as it might seem. If you look at the painting you'll see many colors in the surface of the fruit, most of them more yellow than red but many more red than orange. There are many colors, from very dull reds to brighter reds and a range of in between colors. At the brightest spot on the orange we see bright yellows. In the shadowed areas on the left some very dull greens appear. While it's possible to remember and imagine an orange and perhaps even paint one believably, painting one from life is considerably more useful. 

Freezing Rain

Last Saturday was one of the few days when the sketch group didn't go out. Most of the group--a varying majority--manage to go even in snow or cold. But the weather was the worst you can imagine, with freezing rain making everything slippery. So far as I know no one ventured out. 

Instead of going outside I stood in my studio window and sketched Druid Hill Creek, what you could see of it. I keep a pocket sketchbook on the windowsill and sketch the view north/downstream a time or two monthly. This little book is about 3.5x5 inches or so, a truly small book, intended for pockets. But I leave it on the windowsill and simply do a watercolor of the view from there every few days. So the book becomes a visual journal of the year and an artwork as a whole, too. 

"Druid Hill Creek, Freezing Rain," wc/ink on paper

This view is about 6 inches wide. The grey skies and freezing rain, superimposed on a recent inch or two of snow, made this one a bit bleak.

Warm Memory

"Fort Des Moines Park, August," oil on panel, 9x12

With low temperatures less than 10 degrees F and highs not much higher, with snow on the ground and Druid Hill Creek frozen solid, I needed a warm memory. This was painted outdoors as a demo at a plein air paint-out in a local park. The day was hot and sunny with weather moving into the area.
 

Saturday at the Lake

"Gray's Lake Beach," wc/ink on paper,

The weather was unseasonably warm during the last weekend. Temperatures were in the low 60s a couple of days. The sketch group went out last Saturday and I was able to sit outside to draw. This is a view of the public beach at Gray's Lake Park. The skies were brilliant with light, unlike the usual December skies and there was a soft southerly breeze.
 

Winter Study

"Tree Study, December," oil on panel

December has most often gloomy, cold and snowy. Warming weather may push that experience into January, but here's a December painting from a few years ago, a study of the woods outside on a dim snowy day.

River House

"River House," oil on panel, 12x9

As we commonly do, we visited friends in southwest Virginia last year. Their summer home is literally on the bank of a river, maybe thirty feet from the water. You can go out into the crystalline stream and cool yourself. The bottom is rocky, the surfaces worn smooth by eons of flowing water. 

This view of the house if from about the middle of the stream, so you see the house and trees and distant hills beyond as well as the boulders and stones of the bottom. This painting is literally wet and still on the easel.

Fair Weather Saturday

"Skyline," wc/ink on paper, 8x10

The weather was wonderful last weekend--bright, sunny and not very cold. I went to Waterworks Park and sketched the city skyline over a couple of lagoons. 

Summer Scene

"Raccoon Afternoon," oil on panel, 9x12

As happens quite often, I ran across a plein air work from a couple of years ago. Here in Iowa we're facing our first blast of winter weather, with morning low temperatures in the teens. Happily, this small painting is a bit of a mood booster as winter closes in. 

The scene is the Raccoon River as it passes through Waterworks Park, perhaps a mile from my home studio. I stood on the bank and painted the bike/pedestrian bridge and woods.

Ruthless

"Ruthless," oil on panel, 6x8

This small panel study is part of an idea for a story illustration. This particular oil study was completed in an hour or so, but a larger work never followed.
 

Brewpub

"Outside the Brewpub," oil on canvas, 18x24, private collection

This cityscape is a view of a local brewpub in Des Moines, framed by its outdoor tables. Through the tall windows you can see the brewing vats and lights of the brewery side as two patrons on the far right are going to the indoor bar. I did this from personal references, but invented the tableau of figures,
 

Last Saturday

In spite of the advanced autumn season, we've yet to have a frost here. Further, at least some of the trees are still bearing colorful if subdued foliage. But last Saturday the sketch group was chased indoors by rain. It's surprising it wasn't snow, but the weather has been warmer. 

We went to a local architectural salvage place. Four floors of architectural material salvaged from demolitions and the like, plus vintage furniture, signs, and so on. They have a coffee bar, it's warm, pleasant, and provide ample indoor material. 

"Saturday Interior," wc/ink on paper, 8x10

This is my sketch. It's actually the south exit door from the building. The red door is free-standing next to the modern glass door, and it's for sale. It was fun to manipulate the colors to show low-angle sun slanting into the building. The tall object on the right is a sort of settee you'd put next to an entrance, also for sale.

 

Window Plant

"Yellow Pot," oil on panel, 8x6

This is another small oil done as a morning exercise. It's a jade plant and an aloe in one small plastic pot.
 

Winter Bottles

"Winter Bottles," oil on panel, 8x10

When the weather keeps me indoors, a still life setup can provide enough subject matter to keep me busy. This particular work is from several years ago. I set up bottles on my studio work table in a pleasing arrangement one snowy January day. The bright middle bottle contained turpentine, which lit up bright in the slanting winter light.
 

Shaker

"Alone," oil on panel, 6x8. Private collection

Long ago, one of my goals was simplicity in painting. At least in small works, simplicity and confident brush work can carry the day. This painting was done alla prima during a period of daily small paintings. I did a still life almost every day for a long while. The majority were 6x8 on a gesso panel. 

This work was one of the most successful of that big body of still life. First I laid on and wiped off a thin raw umber wash. Mindful of the value provided by the wash, I laid in a minimal outline plus the very darkest darks on the cap and rim. On the glass of the shaker I laid on flake white from the tube in three places, then in darker tints to show surfaces. The painting was finished off with the white reflections below the glass of the shaker.

Golden Autumn

Here in the upper midwest, autumn color seems to arrive in a rush. We've looked fruitlessly for color for about two weeks but foliage seemed to change colors in small pockets. Here and there a tree has suddenly glowed crimson or rust but the majority of the trees around the city remained green in all of its endless variety. But then suddenly, masses of leave and entire trees burst into color, all green bled away in favor of scarlets and rusts, dark cool reds and bright oranges. 

"10-26-24," wc/ink on paper, about 10x3.5

This is a quick, very small watercolor of the morning along Druid Hill Creek. The view is from my home studio north window. The tree had been a lush emerald green until only a few days ago, completely hiding the creek. Then over a day or two it shed leaves and took on this bright yellow cascade surrounding the narrow trunk. Creekside grasses and low plants still obscure the water. 

Saturday

Our weather has been temperate--warm actually--but dry. The fall colors are near or just beyond their peak. Here and there an oak or maple flames red-orange, or bright orange while other trees show us cool and dark reds. But much of our Iowa landscape glows in shades of yellow. 

"Greenwood Park," wc/ink on paper, ~8x10

This sketch is from last weekend. The group met as usual and discussed where to work; the consensus was to stay in Greenwood Park, which provided the brightest and most varied color. I sat near the Rose Garden and worked on this red giant.

Multimedia

"Coneflowers," digital

"Coneflowers," casein on panel, 6x8

A few years ago, as an experiment in art media, I did a series of paintings of purple coneflowers outside my studio. The idea was to compare using oil, casein, watercolor and digital methods to make a painting. Here are the four paintings, each done with differing materials.

I used Sketchbook and a Wacom tablet to paint the digital coneflowers. Otherwise I used traditional media and traditional supports. Casein and watercolor are thinned with water, of course, while oils require a solvent (turpentine or oms).

The results were interesting for several reasons. First, the digital image (top) seems comparable to the other images made using traditional media. Casein and oil paint each gave results that to my eye look rich with implied depth. The watercolor, while more transparent, also gave a visually interesting background. 

Seems to me that depending on subject and the eventual use of the painting, any of these mediums is a reasonable choice.

 

"Coneflowers," oil on panel, 6x8

"Coneflowers," watercolor on paper, ~6x8

 

Dog Cart

"Pushcart," oil on panel, 12x16, private collection

Manhattan is brimming with pushcarts of all sorts. You see hot dogs, chestnuts, falafel, and much more being sold on street corners from the southern tip to way beyond Central Park. This particular hot dog vendor was set up in the Financial District, near Wall Street. This particular work was done from a photo reference, considerably modified. 
 

Sherman Hill

"Houses on Sherman Hill," wc/ink, ~8x10

This watercolor and ink sketch shows a couple of very similar houses in the district of the city known as Sherman Hill. The name derives from Hoyt Sherman, a younger brother of the famous Civil War general, William Sherman, who built himself a large house there in the 1870s. Subsequently the house was expanded and became Hoyt Sherman Place, with a large auditorium, an art gallery, and other amenities. 

Fall Foliage

"Blue Heron Lake," wc/ink on paper, ~8.5X3.5

Saturday the sketch group went to the Raccoon River Park in West Des Moines, an enormous multi-use facility that features Blue Heron Lake, fishing, boating, swimming, softball, a dog park, and a lot more. I sat on the west side of the lake and sketched the opposite bank, where grasses and trees have just begun to show fall color. The day was perfect.

Ten Years Ago

"False Dawn, Union Square," oil on panel, 16x20

This cityscape is a view of the subway station entry on the west side of Union Square in lower Manhattan. The sun hasn't risen but its light is creeping over the horizon. To my eye the roof looks a lot like our popular concept of a flying saucer.

Spanish Lighthouse

"Almeria. The Light." wc/ink on paper, 3.5x5

This little watercolor dates from a few years ago. We sailed the Spanish coast and islands for about a week,  visiting small ports and savoring the food and wines. This is a view from our ship while anchored.

A Rare Pastel

"Egon, Dead," pastel on paper

Although I have a few old pastels from two or three decades ago in my files, I've done far fewer than my other works in oil and so on. This one floated into memory today. It's a bit rough, being one of my first pastel paintings twenty-five years ago. It's after a death photo of Egon Schiele, the young artist whose work was sometimes considered scandalous (he was even briefly jailed for some of it--click the link for a bio) and who died in 1918, before he was thirty, of influenza.
 

Autumn at Whiterock

"Autumn at Whiterock," oil on panel, 9x12

This landscape was done as a plein air work just about a year ago, at the Whiterock Conservancy. The October colors out there are simply luscious.

Wading

A new landscape, begun last summer as a plein air sketch and completed in the studio. The setting is a river in southwest Virginia. 

"Wading," oil on panel, 9x12

 

Art Center Sketch

This is a sketch of the Des Moines Art Center, from the northeast. Last Saturday many of our sketch group stayed at Greenwood Park, which is home of the Art Center. Architectural subjects are an interest of mine, and I've done a number of views of the buildings, mostly from the rose garden and other southern spots. 

"Des Moines Art Center," wc/ink on paper, ~13x5

You can see the Richard Meier building on the right side and the Saarinen building to the left. The latter was completed in 1948 and the Meier in the 1980s. I like the contrast and the seeming zoom of sidewalk into the center.

 

Morning, Afternoon, Evening

Painters in the past have done series of the same subject in order to delve into color, value and lighting--think, Monet's haystacks. A few years back I tried a few small series of sketches--usually three--in an attempt to do the same kind of study. The main point was to capture the light--color, intensity, shadow effects and all that--at different times of day, in oil paint. These were 6x8 gesso panels and there was a time limit of an hour, start to finish.

Ink

A bottle of pale blue ink fell on its side one day, so I painted it.
 

Silver Creamer

This casein sketch is one of a series of studies I did to learn the handling and other properties of casein paint. A silver creamer on a windowsill.
 

Clock and Two Bottles

And a Clock," casein on panel

This small still life is one of my first studio works using casein paint. Casein is a wonderful painting medium. This one enetered a private collection years ago.
 

Diner

"Nathans'," oil on illustration board

This oil is a view of a diner in Minneapolis.

Study and Finish

Like many painters, many of my studio works develop through a combination of observation, photos, on the spot studies, and so on. 

"MacDougal Street." digital sketch

Here's a digital study I did of  a street in New York. It's an intersection along Macdougal Street in Manhattan's West Village. The two places with signs are both famous for their clientele over the decades, including beatniks in the 1950s, and Bob Dylan a few years later. This digital study was done using Sketchbook and a Wacom tablet to explore colors, compositions, and so on. 

The resultant oil painting is considerably different, but clearly is a result of the study. The final oil is a tall and large work on canvas. As you can see, the color palette is considerably different, and the sky, background and pavement have been changed to suggest twilight. And of course the three figures have been significantly modified and repositioned.

"MacDougal Street," oil on canvas, 36x18

Feeliing Hot?

"February, 2020," gouache

This gouache painting from several years back looks frigid and is a sort of relief from what has been said to be the hottest, most humid month in history. It certainly felt like these past few days.

Summer on the Sound

"Dropping the Spinnaker," casein on illustration board, ~8x16

This painting is a view of the coast of  Puget Sound from a sailboat. Another sailboat has stopped to drop their huge spinnaker, the sail you sometimes see ballooning from the front of this type of boat.

This painting was done using casein, a kind of paint made using milk protein emulsified with linseed oil. It's water soluble, but once it dries casein is almost bulletproof. Like other water media--acrylics, gouache, even watercolor--casein dries very quickly, which is both an advantage and a hindrance. Quick drying means the ability to work over previous painted passages within a few minutes. But it also requires quick decision-making and good eye-hand skills too. 

 

West of Miami

This digital painting was actually finished about five years ago, but the message encapsulated in the image is still scary and seems even more possible, given the climate changes we've seen--the hottest year in history, more damaging storms, warming oceans (and coral bleaching), melting glaciers and melting of the Greenland ice. 

"West of Miami, 2050," digital painting, 2019

The implication, of course, is that as the sea levels rise, perhaps southern Florida will become a shallow sea. As the changes have accelerated, one wonders if it will be even earlier in this century.

At the Art Center

"The Pei Building," wc/ink on paper, about 3.5x9

Our Saturday sketch group stays in Greenwood Park, the setting of the Des Moines Art Center, once in a while. Back in May I sat in the park and sketched the Pei Building of the Art Center. Designed by I.M. Pei, the famous Chinese-American architect, the building opened in 1968. Its bare concrete and geometric forms are consistent with Brutalist architecture, a 20th century movement. The building was commissioned to provide ample room for monumental sculpture and large paintings. Its rear windows seem to suggest the architect's last name, but he claims it is a coincidence.

The Patriot

Long ago a fellow named Les sat for a workshop group in Arizona, run by one of my mentors, Bill Whitaker. Les was retired and lived on various incomes including modelling fees. By the time we met he had been modelling for a number of years. As often happens, the model and painters talk about a range of subjects and get to know one another. Turned out that Les was a veteran of World War II despite being considerably younger than many of his fellow vets. He had been draft age when he entered the service then rose quickly (as many did) to sergeant in the Army Air Force. At some point he became a "Flying Sergeant," a program of enlisted men trained to fly all kinds of missions during the war. As it happened, Les became the pilot in command of a B-24 bomber before he was 21.

"The Patriot," oil on panel, 20x16

This portrait is a studio work, done from several oil studies completed in person. Although Les was the sitter, I changed his shirt and emphasized certain features over others because this is intended as a "tronie" or a painting that depicts an expression (like horror, etc) or a type of person. Here, the etched lines, determined jaw, distant gaze and flag-colored shirt were all intended to evoke the kind of fellow who has fought in all of our wars.

State Fair Time

The Iowa State Fair is back. It began August 8 and runs through August 18 and includes all of the favorite sights and events people are accustomed to. This year's butter cow is accompanied by a life size butter sculpture of the famous Iowa basketball player, Caitlin Clark. Big crowds are likely. The pandemic was a setback a few years ago but now (despite the continuance of covid) it's a lot like old times. 

This year I painted outdoors at the fair, participating in the plein air painting event, and chose Pioneer Hall and it's cupola as my subject. This is the oldest building on the fairgrounds, dating to the 1880s. It houses "old time" events like the fiddler's contest, a functioning blacksmith, a letterpress, and antique shows. Below is my outdoor oil from that event, made from a slightly different angle. I omitted the skyride cupolas.. 

"Pioneer Hall, Morning," oil on panel, 12x9

 

Fountain

"Private Garden," wc/ink

This ornate fountain, gurgling happily, sets in a beautiful private garden on Sherman Hill, a 19th century enclave of great houses and mansions. The Saturday group has sketched there several times over the past several years, thanks to the welcoming owner.

 

Downtown Sketch

"View of the City," wc/ink on paper

 A partial view of downtown Des Moines, done in the Better Homes Demonstration Garden, a few weeks ago.