Whiterock Memory

About a year ago I spent three weeks at Whiterock Conservancy, a land conservancy here in central Iowa that encompasses a fascinating range of landscapes. There are wetlands, river, rolling prairie, and oak savanna. Some of the land there has not been farmed, or disturbed. During my time there I painted a number of works in the small studio and a number outdoors. From those studies and photographs, I did a number of studio works over the winter. This one, "Savanna," is featured on my website. 

"Savanna," oil on canvas, 24x30

Better Homes and Gardens

Some know that Des Moines has been a publishing hub for more than a century. The Meredith Publishing company (now DotDash Meredith) began in the early 20th century with Successful Farming magazine, eventually expanding to include the venerable Better Homes and Gardens, among many more. The company has had test kitchens and a demonstration garden for a long while. I wrote about it in June. The BHG demonstration garden is open to the public from noon to 2pm every Friday, May to October. 

I've gotten into a habit of visiting the garden at least once or twice a month this year. The horticulturists do a fine job of keeping everything thriving. It's a real favorite for lunch and sketching.

"In the Garden," ink and wc

"A Shady Corner," wc with ink touches

"Looking South," wc and ink

Valley

The leaves have faint touches of yellow, here and there, but the fall change hasn't happened yet. This painting is from an outing last weekend in Madison County, famous for its bridges that inspired a book and movie. The Chamber of Commerce sponsored a paint out at several locations in and around Winterset, the county seat. 

"Madison County Valley," oil on panel, 9x12

The valley I painted is home to a local winery, the vineyard just visible in the extreme foreground. The sheds and garage across the road are actually another farm.

A Saturday Sketch

Last weekend the Saturday sketchers went to a private garden in one of the old neighborhoods. The owner has landscaped his garden in a number of interesting and sometimes quirky ways. For example, he used a top of a salvaged column as a centerpiece in one flower bed, making it look like an old ruin. The terraced garden features a large patio dominated by a gurgling fountain. We sketched there for a couple of hours in various locations. 

In this particular sketch my interest was in the shapes and colors, so I omitted part of the fountain in favor of the more rectilinear shapes of the house and the grounds. The circular shape of the fountain helps draw the eye to the sketching figure on the right-hand side.

Sycamore

Sycamores are one of the quintessential American trees. There are similar trees in Europe (plane trees), but ours seem more majestic as they soar over other species with their grey-green bark and broad palmate leaves. For me, sycamores are among the most reward trees to paint. 

Last month while visiting friends I had the opportunity to paint outdoors for several days along the bank of a small river. From where I stood, there were mature trees in all directions, many of the sycamores. This one was started outdoors and detailed in the studio. The subject was massive, leaning over the water with many trailing branches. Afternoon light gave an ochre glow to the water, a reflection of the rocky bottom.

"Sycamore," oil on panel, 9x12

Plein Air at the Farm

Last Wednesday a half dozen of the Saturday group made the drive to a farm near Prairie City, maybe 30 miles from Des Moines. Our hosts, Lisa and David Burns, have been farming there for decades though they live in town. David has cattle and grows what Iowans call "row crops,' meaning mostly corn and soybeans. The farm is nearly a half-section of rolling Iowa countryside. They have huge grain bins, four tractors and other farm implements, and a century-old Model T farm truck.

"Cententarian," oil on panel, 0x12

Although the day was a little chilly, and grey with clouds and Canadian smoke, meaning flat and uninteresting light, I set up my Open Box M in the back of my car and sketched that antique truck parked near an old grain bin. There was considerably more clutter to the right--a cattle enclosure--that I edited out of the image in favor of distant fields. There was only a couple of hours before we had to leave, but I took a number of reference photos as well, and plan to turn this into a larger studio work. 

The Ford

Located less than a mile downstream from my studio, along Druid Hill Creek, this image is from many personal observations and photos. Druid Hill Creek rises on a golf course south of us, running mostly north and into Grays Lake. The creek is probably only a couple of miles long and must be fed by artesian springs. Its flow never stops, even during significant drought. 

"The Ford," oil on panel, 14x11, private collection

The creek passes through a culvert thence into a glade of trees about an acre in size, long and narrow along the banks. The stream is a carpet of stones and at one point several big boulders provide a dry-shod crossing. Hence, "The Ford."

Eternal City

"Eternal City," oil on panel, private collection

Rome is perhaps one of the most important destinations for artists of all kinds. The treasures in public and private museums there are simply staggering. If you want to see works by the masters, Italy is obviously one of the places to visit. And the Eternal City is on the short list of cities where one should spend time lavishly. 
 

This particular painting is an imaginary view inside an osteria, or tavern, somewhere in Rome. Much of this scene is imagined, including the colors and the fountain across the narrow street. Sold long ago.

Just for Fun

Once in a while, just for fun and a challenge I draw things I don't normally tackle. Last week a news photo of the Iowa governor's residence, Terrace Hill, struck me as interesting. Terrace Hill is more than 150 years old, built by an early Iowa land baron and eventually sold to a prominent family who in turn donated it to the state. It's a big Victorian house with all of the requisite gingerbread that came with this style.

This particular drawing was made on a Wacom display tablet using a program called Sketchbook. Like most digital drawing and painting programs Sketchbook allows the artist to pick tools using varioius parameters like size, darkness, soft/hard emulations and so on. For this one I used no perspective tools or other digital crutches and instead just drew it "free hand."

"Terrace Hill," digital

Portraits

For some years one of my primary genres in painting was portraits. Most of the works from those days were head and shoulders views though I did a few half-length works too. In the supposed hierarchy of painting genres, portraits are one rung from the top, after history painting, although the latter has fallen far out of favor. For that matter, so have personal portraits. The reasons are complicated but in part photography has clearly supplanted much. And for that matter, we're a less formal people than our ancestors seem to have been. 

Regardless, portraits remain a challenging and engaging task. Achieving a serviceable likeness is sometimes the best an artist can hope for, but the very best manage to convey expressions, moods, and even subtle cues of character. It's said, for example, that when Velazquez' portrait of him was shown to Pope Innocent X he cried, "Take it away! It's too real!" Presumably he felt the painter had seen something of his true and rather vicious character. 

Diego Velazquez, "Pope Innocent X," 1640

I don't claim equality with any of the masters, but you can judge these few portraits of mine for yourself.

"Linda," oil on canvas, 2007, private collection

"Brad," oil on canvas, 2009

"David," oil on canvas, 2007, private collection

"Bill," oil on canvas, 2010, collection of the painter

Painted Plein Air

A little over four years back I participated in a workshop with my friend Garin Baker in upstate New York. Garin's studio is in New Windsor, about 60 miles north of New York City. The Hudson is a wide, estuarial body, which means it has tides that extend as far as Newburgh, where we painted, that reverse its flow. That is, the water flows either north or south depending on the ocean.

"5-19-19 (The Hudson)," oil on panel, 9x12

This view of the river faces southeast, with a mountain called Storm King along the right side of the painting. The day was windy with low scudding clouds, and the river washed onto the shore in small waves kicked up by the weather. We painted at this location almost all day. 

When a fellow painter saw this one online she commented on the flock of birds in the sky, but the truth was those "birds" are gnats, caught in the wet oil paint as I went along. When that happens it's a simple matter to wait for the paint to dry before brushing off the intruders. I took this photo before I cleaned the surface. My initials are scratched into the painted surface, one of the indications that the work was completed outdoors.

Retirees

"Three Retirees," ink and wc

Although I'm an oil painter I love doing watercolors too. This is a sketch of three vintage autos--two pickups and a van--that I saw at an antique car dealership here in Des Moines. Older trucks are more rounded and graceful than contemporary ones.

Rocky Stream

"Rocky Stream," oil on panel

Here is one of my newest landscapes, a group of rocks in a river. If you've paid much attention here in the past few months you know that this is a subject that has fascinated me for a long while--hard and variously shaped stone versus elusive, transparent and slithery water. "Rocky Stream" is 11x14 and will be available soon on my website.

 

Ravine

"Ravine at Ashby Park," watercolor

The great thing about being part of a sketch group is regularity. Our group has a pact to go outdoors and sketch, weather notwithstanding. That means rain, snow, wind or otherwise, someone (or several or many) go outside. We may not get great images but nevertheless we go. 

This little watercolor is from a while back. There are quite a few parks in Des Moines, and this one hasn't been visited by our group. It's a mixed place--playground, picnic tables, and the like plus a relatively unimproved area that features a deep and steep-walled ravine that needs stairs.

At the Ballpark

Last week the Saturday group went to the local baseball stadium, now known as Principal Park. Old timers like me prefer the old name, Sec Taylor Stadium because it honored a long-time sports writer for the local newspaper. Regardless of what it's called, there was no game that day so the parking lot was empty. I sat in the shade and sketched the main entrance and landscaping.
 

Old Drawings

If you've been drawing long enough some of your sketchbooks get misplaced. Not lost, exactly, just not in the same place as the other sketchbooks in the studio. That's what happened to a sketchbook that had somehow been left behind in a backpack. The works in the sketchbook are nearly all graphite, many with chalk highlighting. 

The main surprise for me, besides having forgotten several of the drawings, was how varied the subjects were. That is, there were still life, faces, animals and other subjects. Here are a few, all done on tan paper. 

This one is from a reference photo of mine. This fellow visited the woods behind my studio one early winter day. 

This rose was one of the very last in my garden that year. for some reason it hung on until the last moment. This is from a reference shot.

Many folks have a hard time rendering shiny metal and I'm no exception. This is a study of a tarnished silver cup. The shine and the range of values in the metal reflections were the main interest.

I often draw figures to keep my eyes sharp and careful. This is a study of a truly monumental marble statue of Venus. When the figure is posed with hands over the pubic region these are termd "Venus pudica:. That is, "modest Venus".
 

Sketching Trees

To be a convincing landscape artist you have to understand the anatomy of trees. Trees come in a wide range of sizes, shapes, and configurations. For example, a mature blue spruce can be 50 feet tall with a conical shape and blue-green to green color. On the other hand, a mature oak may be nearly as tall with a heavy, thick trunk and a balloon-like mass of dark foliage above it. A beginner might confuse them when drawing, but a trained artist knows better. Drawing and painting believable trees is a critical skill. 

 During the last month I've posted a watercolor sketch of a mature blue spruce, a silverpoint drawing of an ancient bristlecone pine, and a plein air oil that included a big deciduous tree, probably a cottonwood. 

Here's a small watercolor sketch of tree trunks in a shady garden. 

"Shade in the BHG Demonstration Garden," wc/ink, 3.5x7

On the River

One of my favorite places is in southwest Virginia. Friends of ours have a place that is literally riverside--the water is probably less than thirty feet away. It's a small and short stream that flows cool and clear through the Alleghenies. It's banks are relatively unpopulated and therefore unspoiled. Most days are peaceful. Life on its banks is quiet and full of grace, it's literally a paradise.

"River Time," oil on panel, 11x14

This new landscape, "River Time" shows us an idealized stretch of that river. Its title is taken from our friends' term for the days--river time--when they settle in, and the "livin' is easy." The cares of daily life become more remote there. Time slows, and the busy, hustling, anxious world disappears. 

 

One of the deep joys of river time is the chance to float downstream on a raft or in a canoe. In this scene, the floater has pulled his kayak onto the rocky shore and disappeared--resting perhaps?

 

"River Time" is now available on my website. 

Waterworks Bridge

As has become my habit, last Saturday afternoon was spent with the sketchers. As we always do, a locale for sketching was only agreed on when we were all present at our rendezvous. Because it's close and provides a wealth of opportunities we often go to Waterworks Park, which is only a couple of miles. This week has been busy there--big events coming this week--but all of us found a spot to study. 

This is a disused railroad bridge in Waterworks Park that is now a pedestrian and bicycle bridge that spans the Raccoon River. It's connects the Waterworks trail to Greenwood Park, farther north on the bluff above. The steel trusses are rusty and the supports too, but its complex geometry is always a challenge. 

I drew the scene with a Derwent black watercolor pencil then painted over it with watercolors. The beauty of doing a lay-in with water soluble pencil is edge control. You can completely lose edges with ease.Once I had the colors and values laid in I went back with waterproof ink and emphasized edges here and there.

In the Garden Again

"Shady Garden," wc/ink on paper ~3.5x6

One of the pleasures of Des Moines is the Better Homes demonstration garden downtown. It's a favorite spot for a cool, shady lunch surrounded by beauty. And it's a great place to sketch. With a pocket-sized sketchbook tucked away I can carry the rest of my watercolor gear in a small paint box. The key with quick sketching is to edit out as much detail as you can.

 

Parched

One of the great things about painting outdoors is the results can serve as a kind of visual journal. Sometimes I do go back and review how the world looked in the past. 

"Fort Des Moines Park, Near Sunset," oil on panel, 9x12

Last summer was dry and hot, and this oil from last September shows how the grasses had gone gold-brown and dormant. This painting was done as a demo at a plein air paint out held in a south Des Moines park. 

A group of around a dozen spent a couple of hours painting around a small lake in a former military reserve. I did this as a kick-off to the event. A storm was approaching and the late slanting sun caught the cloud tops and turned them bright. Alas, the promised rainfall was pretty sparse.

Portrait Sketching

A few years ago a portion of my practice was portraits, commissioned (sometimes) or casual (often). As time went by I painted life portraits of perhaps twenty or thirty sitters. In addition some of my easel time went to sketching human faces as a way to study physiognomy and understand facial relationships. Some of those portrait sketches were from photos, some from life. 

"Andy," oil on panel, 8x6

Most portrait sketches are discarded, painted over, or thrown out. But a few seemed worth saving. Here are a couple. The first is from a well-known photo of the individual. "Andy" is done on a very small gessoed board which had something else painted on it in the beginning. Warhol's pale angularity, false fright wig, and acerbic personality interested me. The palette was simply whatever oil paint I had on the palette that seemed to work together. The slashing brushwork and thicker paint application were done as a study.

"Hockney," oil on panel, 8x6

 

 

 

 

 This second painting, a portrait sketch of the enormously famous British painter David Hockney, was also done very quickly simply to study the shape of his face and features. This was also a gessoed panel, but blank white until I spread a warm red-ochre intonaco with a big brush. Using a large filbert I sketched features, cap, and tie, contrasting warms with cools.

"John," oil on panel, 14x11

This sketch of John Lennon, also from a photo that I saw online, was pretty spontaneous. The photo was from his post-Beatles time, complete with circular granny glasses. This was painted with a severely limited palette of white, black and raw umber, ochre and red. The panel had been used for another work and you can see it vaguely behind the head. The orange-red color in the glasses is underlying paint peeping through.

Cutting loose and trying new things is an important way of moving forward.

Practice

One of the constants of art-making is practice. Practicing allows me to sharpen skills, train my eyes, and even try out new mediums of expression or methods of work. These drawings are practice examples from a few years ago. These were done to study the structures of various kinds of trees in various settings. And they were also done to study a kind of drawing known as metalpoint. Metalpoint drawings are made with a metal rod--in this case silver, but gold and others are used. The surface is slightly abrasive so that the metal is rubbed off and adheres to the support. 

When we begin drawing most of what we draw looks odd because we tend to draw things as we think they look rather than how they're actually put together. Trees are a perfect example. Tree structure, colors, foliage, and so on are quite different among the various kinds. Compare the structure of an oak versus a pine tree. So these were done to fix tree structures and appearances in my mind and to practice using silverpoint. Each of these is 6x4 on gessoed hardboard.

"Blue Spruce, Snow"

"Winter Companions"

"Bristlecone Pine"

"Silver Spring"

Spruce

"Blue Spruce," wc & ink

A watercolor and ink painting of a big blue spruce. The oddly blue, oddly grey color of this species of spruce tree is difficult to capture. This one conforms to my usual practice of a graphite lay-in, then full watercolor, followed by accentuation of certain parts with waterproof ink.

This particular sketch is about 3.5 x 6.5, done in one of my sketchbooks. 

Sam

Today is Independence Day in the United States, commemorating the signing of our Declaration of Independence from England nearly 250 years ago. 

"Sam," after JCL, oil on canvas, 20x16

Here's a painting of Uncle Sam, our unofficial symbol. This particular painting is a copy of a work by J.C. Leyendecker, whose work is in its own way symbolic of America a century ago. Leyendecker was an exceptional illustrator and painter whose work continues to resonate for many. I did this as a way to learn Leyendecker's techniques and ideas. Uncle Sam's expression seems an apt comment. 

Happy Fourth of July.

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Demo Garden

A little-known asset in downtown Des Moines is the Better Homes and Gardens Demonstration Garden. It's a working garden of the publishing company, used for various purposes including photos, events, and so on. As a working garden it's generally closed to the public except Fridays 12-2pm from May through September. It's a beautiful spot for lunch, sketching, garden browsing and simply for chilling out.
 

I go to the garden as often as possible during the summer months for all of the reasons I mentioned above. Today started rainy and dark, but by midday the sky cleared, so I spent an hour there. The sketch below of a sunny corner was the result. 

"In the Garden," wc and ink on paper, about 3.5x6

 

Blue Domes

I'm not certain why we love Santorini, the Greek island, but most people do. It's a hot, dry crescent of land, a rim of an ancient volcanic caldera. The other rim is nearly gone and the ocean flooded into what is now a big bay. There is little water, hot sun, steep cliffs, and high prices. But tourists and vacationers still flock to Santorini. It may be the model for Atlantis. 

"Santorini Rooftops," oil on panel, 8x8, private collection

This particular lanscape is based on my reference photos, taken during a visit there.
 

Sherman Hill

Sketching buildings and other structures can be daunting. When I do that kind of sketch I look first for the big shapes--volume shapes, not simple shapes. That is, I look for cubes, spheres (or spherical shapes), and so on. If you start that way you can make the sketch more solid looking. Next I spend a great deal of time making sure of the perspective I'm using. Most times it's two point perspective, but sometimes different. I don't use a straight edge, just "eyeball" it. 

Here's an ink and watercolor sketch of an apartment building in an old and funky neighborhood just northwest of downtown. Many of the houses are Victorian, but there is a smattering of 1930s low-rise brick apartments and houses. I chose this one for it's rather ornate facade. There was only enough time to do the left side but that provides enough information to complete the work if need be.

"Up on Sherman Hill," ink and wc, about 6x9

Glass

Glass is a fascinating subject to paint. Beginning painters are sometimes baffled by a glass subject and forget to address whatever is seen through it. Water can provide the same puzzlement. But unlike water, glass is at least solid and still. Glass is transparent but it's also often tinted slightly green by iron compounds, especially when seen tangentially. 

These two small studies of a studio magnifying glass (both are 6x8, oil on panel) show the green tint of the lens glass, especially the second one. Both of these date over a decade ago and are part of a body of sketches done as studio warmups. Small size, limited subject and limited time meant the opportunity to do many studies over a set period of months. The green color is slightly more blue in real life.

Bonobo

Our human species has several cousins--most know chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. But few seems to know about bonobos. They've been called "dwarf chimpanzees" but aren't actually chimps. They're a separate species. Unlike chimps, they're matriarchal in social organization and generally peaceable. They prefer to make love, not war. But they're endangered because of habitat loss and being hunted.

"Bonobo," digital drawing

I drew this as part of a series of endangered species some years back and exhibited in an online show.

Another Saturday

One of the greatest things about the regular Saturday sketch group is that it provides a regular and somewhat structured opportunity to use different media--mostly watercolor and ink. A side benefit is the visual journal the resultant works have provided over the years. You can go back from year to year and even day to day to see what the world looked like then. You can see refinements and changes in painting methods. And you can simply look at the images as a way to document the world. 

"Greenwood Park," wc and ink

This week's Saturday sketch is a corner of Greenwood Park, a lush urban park behind the Art Center. The park connects to the south with the Raccoon River valley and thence to Waterworks Park. It's a semi-landscaped park that gradually gives in to wild ungroomed woods. There is an outdoor pavilion that's used for plays and concerts, too. I sat on a bench near the pavilion and sketched the path leading into the seating area. Out of view on the right is the stage and chairs. 

This work began with a graphite sketch, then watercolors. I emphasized shapes and added contrasts with waterproof ink, then went back to accentuate shapes, colors, and values using more paint

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Skullduggery

Although still life has always been an interest of mine, the output of nature mort from here has been small over the last few years. But when the weather changes this fall and the cold months return I plan on doing more still life. So last weekend I spent some time rummaging through older work for inspirations. 

One of my favorite inclusions in still life is the human skull. It's an incredibly intricate set of bones. The skull is a group of bones, some fused together, some less so, not a single unit. There a innumerable nooks and crannies, openings, depressions, points of interconnection and more. It's one of an anatomist's ultimate challenges. In art, the skull has figured as subject matter almost forever. The most interesting is the use of the skull as a memento mori (remember: you will die) or vanitas ("vanity of vanities, all is vanity") to remind viewers of universal mortality. 

"Risk Factors," oil on panel, 20x16

"Risk Factors" is a vanitas work of mine from over a decade ago. The title is derived from the medical term, a kind of laundry list of behaviors and circumstances that increase a person's chances of developing a particular condition. In this painting, we see a salt shaker, butter in a dish, a pack of cigarettes, a donut, and the skull with reversed ballcap. Prominent risk factors for heart attack include high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, smoking, and diabetes, obviously implied here. The reversed ball cap is a comment on being unconciously silly.

"Vanitas Study," oil on canvas, 20x16

A companion to Risk Factors is the study (above) I did that included only the skull and cap. In this one two are perched on the same stand but it's covered with blue cloth. This one was simply a way to work hard at observing the skull and its intricacies.

New Landscape

This one, "Boulder" is the newest studio landscape I've released. It's partly imagined, partly reference-based. The subjects of moving water, reflected lights, hard vs. soft (stones/water) attracted my interest, but quite a lot of the result aren't in the reference photo. 

"Boulder," oil on panel, 14x11

Thunderstorm

"Stormy Savannah," oil on panel, 11x14

Studio landscapes have been occupying a lot of my painting time this spring. Even though outdoor work beckons, I've been trying to finish a few indoor works. This one, "Stormy Savannah" was based on photo references, sketches, and other oil paintings. It was an attempt to show how thunderstorms march across the prairie here in the upper Midwest.