Umbrellas

Over the years umbrellas have featured in quite a few of my paintings, whether similar to Friday's post or otherwise. You see a lot of umbrellas in a city, whether the weather is wet or not. Sometimes umbrellas are for shade, not protection from rain or sleet. In the last post, "Goodbye" had a lot of them. 

"The Pink Umbrella," oil, 10x8

Here are three "umbrella paintings," as I sometimes call them. In each the weather is different and so the effects needed are different. "The Pink Umbrella" is a rainy day painting, complete with smeared colors, watery surfaces and muted reflections. It was the high point of view that attracted me to this particular composition, but as always the rainy day was attractive as well. 

In "Sabrett" the weather is dry and sunny but our point of view is the deep shade of tall buildings. The composition was mostly abstracted, except the figure and the two umbrellas over his hot dog cart. A relatively narrow range of values helped make the muted colors more realistic. 

Finally, in "Union Square, Winter," the weather is entirely inclement--a blizzard in fact. The blowing snow obscures everything beyond the middle distance, even the light from streetlamps. Distant buildings are mere blue shapes in the white wall of snow.

"Sabrett," oil on panel, 9x12

I suppose you can lump these together as pictures containing an umbrella, but they're also quite different from one another.

"Union Square, Winter," oil on panel, 10x8

Rainy Scenes

Some years ago, rainy weather fascinated me as a painter. When the skies go grey and misty and the light becomes flat and shadowless, when rain falls steadily, the scene is ripe for more drama than a sunny day.

Hoff, "Goodbye," oil on panel, 2009

In a city, in the rain, things begin to look smeared. Buildings, pavement, streetlights, even faces lose definition. The world turns into shades and tints and lights shimmer and float. "Goodbye" developed from a city sketch of pedestrians in the rain. Here and there, the shiny pavement reflected shop lights onto the people hurrying along in the downpour. For me the composition is more effective for lacking a definite horizon, suggesting the complexity of city streets and intersections. 

Still Life

Diego Velazquez, "Old Woman Frying Eggs," 1619. A bodegon.

Like most, a great deal of my work once was still life. A still life is simply a drawing or other image of a group of inanimate objects. It doesn't matter if they once were animate; they are not at the moment they're caught in the image. Certain paintings that do contain an animate object are also considered still life--an example is the Spanish bodegon or kitchen painting, that often has a figure or two. But usually when we think of still life we think of the inanimate.

Still life is a great way for beginners to work because everything can be arranged, not just the objects themselves but their lighting and surroundings. Many painters have some kind of light box with three sides that can be set up rather in the way movies are set up. The painter can juxtapose green apples, red peppers, an orange, and a glass of water, for example, in a pleasing arrangement and paint the result. Contemporary painters do just that, but in the past the idea wasn't simply to show a pleasing arrangement or show one's technical skills. 

Hoff, "Risk Factors," oil on panel, 2008

From the 16th century into our own time, still lifes have served as metaphors. One important type of still life is the vanitas, a reminder of our universal mortality. Vanitas refers to a phrase from Ecclesiastes "vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas"--that is, "vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Vanitas paintings often include symbols of transience such as soap bubbles, a skull, a snuffed candle. Other kinds of still life have show opulent spreads of food and drink--known as "breakfast paintings" in Holland at that time. Even these sumptuous, rather decadent images contain hidden meanings. 

Rembrandt, "Side of Beef," oil on panel, 1655

 

 

 

 

Some still life isn't easily classified. For example, Rembrandt's "Slaughtered Ox," now in the Louvre, does show a inanimate object, this time a side of beef in a slaughterhouse. The painting is relatively small but has an enormous impact. It is indeed classified as a still life, but carries an implicit message about life and its transience. Why the great Dutch painter made this painting remains unknown, but it has inspired others--notably Chaim Soutine and Francis Bacon.

Hoff, "Onion," oil on panel, 2011

Still life is clearly more than a collection of objects. But sometimes that's all it is. Many beginning painters have tackled the subject of a ripe apple, or a pear, or a glass of wine, or even all three in the same painting. For practice a good idea is to include objects that echo solid geometric shapes--spheres, cylinders, cubes and similar solids, pyramids, and so on. 

 

Hoff, "Bedtime Snack," oil on panel, 2006

One great way to build momentum in the studio is to do small, daily studies of various objects like that apple (left), or perhaps a glass of milk (below). The daily painting habit plus the use of small support sizes means that you can practice without worrying over time and expense or getting to precious about each individual work. 

For anyone who wants to advance skills in all phases of painting or drawing, give daily still life painting a try.

Plein Air at Last

After waiting and longing for plein air work for three or four months spring weather has at last allowed me some time outdoors. During the past week sun and warmth predominated over grey skies and damp, so that I was able to get outside with my Open BoxM and actually do some oil painting. It isn't that there haven't been outdoor opportunities, of course. The Saturday group goes out weekly, rain or shine, and I've had a few outings with them, as far back as March. But watercolor and oil paint are quite different. Watercolor is quick, portable, transparent and oil paint is slower in execution and drying, semi-opaque and considerably less easy to transport. 

I finished a single plein air oil this week, 9x12 on panel, completed on the spot. The Raccoon River is nearly always a slow, lazy stream colored a warm brown-green by silt from farmland upstream. Because it's so near it's one of my favorite subjects. 

"Raccoon Bend," oil on panel, 9x12

It is a certainty that this summer and fall I'll be spending more time on the river bank.

A Spring Sketch

The spring season is at last more like spring and less like either fall or summer. The temperatures have moderated, spring storms are lessening, and trees and gardens are in flower. Near us is an arboretum with several dozen flowering trees. Blazing temperatures forced the trees into massive flower, but the high temperatures were threatening, so last Thursday a handful of mates from the Saturday sketch group made our way to the arboretum for a painting session. Although I could have used oils, I had already spent several hours working en plein air and wanted to switch gears so I used watercolor. 

"In the Arboretum," watercolor and ink on paper, 5x10

The day was pleasant, with a little south breeze and fair skies. I laid in the composition lightly in pencil, then painted broad color washes, becoming progressively more detailed. A technical pen made adding the ink lines simple, at the end.

Ink

Like most people, I first learned to draw with graphite, many decades ago. But it wasn't very long until I started drawing with India ink--commonly just carbon black in water, but often with something added for durability, like shellac. My first drawings were mostly done in basic drafting classes at a vocational college, but later elective work included illustration techniques like shading, stippling, hatching and air brush. One of the first, harsh lessons that ink taught me was the penalty for mistakes. Erasure of ink is very difficult, if not completely impossible. But ink gives wonderful results, a great range of values, and ink can be brushed, applied with a pen, blown (airbrushed) and so on to achieve a wide range of effect and textures. Making illustrations taught me care using ink while gaining enough experience to reduce mistakes. 

In the heyday of illustration, a century or more ago, pen and ink drawings were common in mass media. Magazines and newspapers were a huge market for illustrators' work. And so ink drawings were the rage because they reproduced so well in black and white. No need for expensive color processing. Today pen and ink used much less often. Nonetheless, I like doing pen work from time to time. 

"Salisbury House," ink on paper, 8x10

For example, "Salisbury House," is an ink and ink-wash drawing from several years back. It began as a lightly drawn pencil composition which I inked first with a pen to show basic outlines. The dark masses were brushed with ink, sometimes diluted to half strength or quarter strength, sometimes full strength. 

"Kerry," in on paper, 5x7

 

 

 

A considerably more casual and sketchy drawing is "Kerry," done in a pocket sketchbook in less than ten minutes. In this particular work  I used a technical pen while scribbling and hatching for dark masses. This is about 5x7. 

 

 

I like cartoons enough that I once had the fantasy of becoming a cartoonist. While that pathway was enticing, in the end painting was my major passion. Nonetheless I still do a cartoon once in a while, just for the fun of it. This one is a parody of perhaps the most famous underground cartoon of the hippie era, "Keep on Truckin'" by RCrumb. I drew this parody using a dip pen and ink. Dip pens have a steel nib that you dip repeatedly in ink, unlike most technical pens these days. And unlike tech pens, nibs allow variable line thicknesses, a real asset in experienced hands.

 

Folds

A few years back I wrote about learning to draw folds in drapery from one of my masters. Drapery and clothing are difficult. Breaking folds down into a few easily recognized and drawn types is the key to learning how to draw fabric. The ubiquity of folds in clothing, furniture drapery, curtains, and a multitude of other items means if you're going to draw or paint realistically, it's critical to understand folds. 

There are six or seven basic folds that fabric repeats: diaper, pipe, half-lock, spiral, drop, and zig-zag fold types are common. Diaper folds have a kind of droopy, swaggy appearance because they occur when a piece of cloth is supported in two or more spots. Drop folds occur where fabric hangs from a single support and drops straight toward the floor. Pipe folds are so-named owing to their resemblance to pipes--a stage curtain is a group of lined-up pipe folds. Half-lock folds are found when a tubular piece of cloth is bent, for example elbows in a shirt. Spiral folds occur in tubes of cloth as well, making spirals around the circumference. And zig-zag folds, again occur often in tubular fabric structures like pants and shirts. 

Diaper Folds

These configurations occur again and again in sculptures dating from antiquity and in paintings dating to at least the 15h century if not before. anyone who aspires to draw and paint figures must eventually grapple with how cloth drapes and folds and clings to the human form. It's worth reviewing once in awhile.
 

Drop Folds

Pipe Folds

Half Lock Folds

Spiral Folds

Zig-zag Folds

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Related:

The Wall of Pain

Another Spring Watercolor

Our cool wet spring has kept me indoors longer than intended this season. The uncooperative weather has featured mostly cloudy or grey days without much shadow--what skiers call "flat light"--which blunts visual interest. Most of those grey days were also rainy. Regardless, I still have the view from my studio of Druid Hill Creek.

Now that the days are longer and somewhat warmer, the honeysuckle along the creek has burst into leaf. The frothy green is beautiful against what's left of leaf litter, bare branches, and dark soil. Yesterday I stood in the window and did a small watercolor in one of my sketchbooks.

April Sketching

The advance of spring has been glacial so far. Even into early May we've had grey skies and rain. The warmth you'd expect has yet to materialize. Farmers are behind in their plantings and I'm behind in outdoor painting. The Saturday sketch group remains intrepid though, going out rain or shine on Saturday afternoons. These little watercolors that I make are great fun and help me mark time until I can manage full-scale plein air oil painting. 

"Early April, Gray's Lake," watercolor on paper

April was less cruel than you might expect, but stayed cool and mostly cloudy. The watercolor and ink sketch I made that first week of the month shows the drabness of the woods at the edge of Gray's Lake. The grass hadn't even begun to turn green.

"Waterworks Park, April," watercolor on paper

Three weeks later (above) the grass in the park across from the lake has gone bright green and hints of green are showing in the woods beyond the Raccoon River. This view is a road through Waterworks Park that winds along the river and into even wilder areas. I love to paint there. This particular watercolor was done from my car--a cloudburst kept me there for the entire painting time.

Looking Back

This is a good time of year to review previous work. The winter is over and spring is warming the countryside, so it won't be long until most painting time will be outdoors. Thinking of the plein air year to come, I've looked through some of last year's work. 

"Adirondacks," oil on panel, 12x9

This view of a peaceful little lake in the Adirondack Mountains is an outdoor work from a retreat I attended there last June. We painted two or three (sometimes more) small plein air works every day for a week. It was a fine event, full of new friendships and lots of inspiration from the beauty of the mountains and the quality of the work. 

"Upstream," oil on panel, 9x12

Later in the summer while spending time with friends in Virginia I had time to paint the view from their front yard--a placid river. Like so many of my outdoor works it's on a standard size canvas panel that fits my pochade box. The canvas is glued to a Gatorfoam board (a kind of styrofoam sandwich) that is very light and easily portable. Another plein air work of the same locale, "Across the River" (below) became the basis for a much larger studio work over the winter. The woods on the opposite bank glow brightly near sunset.

"Across the River," oil on panel, 9x12

Reviewing past work is useful because it jogs my memory and brings more possibilities to mind, both for upcoming outdoor work and new studio pieces.

Unvanquished

"Invictus 2020," oil on canvas, 36x18

As noted elsewhere on this blog, cities are where the majority live today, both in this country and in the world as a whole. So although plein air landscapes and studio landscapes have occupied a great deal of my time lately, cities haven't been far from my thoughts.

"Invictus 2020" is a recent cityscape that celebrates how the United States and New York City were able to transcend the covid pandemic. Invictus, of course, is Latin for unconquered. This large studio work was inspired by a 10x8 oil sketch of the famous Chrysler building that I had called "Invictus," and painted to celebrate how Manhattan had overcome the attacks of September 11, 2001. In that time, before the pandemic, the attack was likely the biggest trauma and challenge faced by New York. I wanted to comment on how well the city was responding to the pandemic but wanted to set this work apart from the earlier one.

 

 

 

 

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Related:

 Cityscapes

 Cities Full of People

AAPL Spring Show

About a year ago I was honored to become an Elected Artist Member of the American Artists Professional League (AAPL). With that election came the opportunity to exhibit with other professionals in the League, both online and in person. These days, even though the pandemic seems to be waning, opportunities to exhibit work virtually is a plus. 

Not long ago I was notified of acceptance of a piece previously posted here several times, "The Golden Hour," into the AAPL Spring Members Show (click the link to view it on my website). This particular work has also recently been featured in a Salgmagundi Club exhibit in New York. It's a view of a Virginia river during that fleeting moment when the sun sinks to the horizon and sets the world aglow. This one is an oil. 

"By the Creek," casein on Bristol,

In contrast, "By the Creek," which was my first acceptance to an AAPL show, was done in casein, an unusual medium today that reminds many of acylic because it is water-based and dries like lightning. 

"Fall on the River," casein on Bristol

Another favorite casein of mine is "Fall on the River," which was actually done outdoors an not in the studio. In this case my intent was to abstract the shapes and colors as much as possible, with less attention to detail. Perhaps I'll do some more plein air casein work this summer.
 

Watercolor Wanderings

One of my habits when traveling is making watercolor postcards to mail home to friends and family. The time and expense involved is minimal and recipients seem happy with them, so I've kept up the practice for years. 

"Schefflera Sunset," watercolor postcard ca. 2000

This particular postcard was one of my first watercolor postcards, decades ago, and unpublished until now. The second postcard, below, is from a vacation in souithern France, also long ago. Whatever these works lack in finish is offset somewhat by spontaneity and chutzpah. Regardless, they keep me working while traveling and provide something that friends back home like to receive. The foreign postage and cancellation and the personal paintings are an important part of the pieces, too. Several of these are framed and hang happily in various places.

"The Yellow Cafe, Arles," watercolor postcard, 2012

 

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Related:

Travel Postcards 

Postcard Travelogue

Sketches of Spain 

Memory of Washington

As mentioned in several previous posts, one of my winter-spring studio rituals is searching out and reviewing previous work. Sometimes that means dusting off older sketchbooks or even resurrecting drawings or paintings that have somehow been shuffled to the bottom of several stacks of such materials. So this week I found a watercolor sketchbook full of drawings and ink and wash paintings of a visit to Redmond, Washington. 

The area around Seattle, including eastern suburban communities like Redmond, is mostly forested with evergreens of several kinds. For someone like me from the Midwest, the backdrop of spruces, and the like is jarring at first. This sketch, from 2009, was done one dawn in a pocket sketchbook that I carried back then. The tall, tall trees against a different sunrise than we see in Iowa made this one a "keeper."

The basis for the sketch was actually an ink drawing of the trees and underlying foliage. I overlaid wide washes of "dirty" sky colors and then mixed a dark, cool array of greens for the evergreen boughs and underlying shadows.

Bottles and Light

Although the past several years of my painting interests have involved painting water and light, among other things, it is light that forms the thread of my works. A few years back it was glass and light in still life works. The real fascination for me is what happens as light encounters either of those two. Water and glass alike can transmit, reflect, and refract light. Their perceived appearance in fact depends heavily on the angle of incident light, too. 

"Winter Bottles," oil on panel, 8x10

"Winter Bottles" is a good example of how light can seem trapped inside a glass container. I saw this on my work table one winter afternoon and quickly painted it. The light was bright but indirect but somehow a small bottle of linseed oil seemed to possess a hidden glow.

New Fall Landscape

Although the spring season is moving along, damp and cold weather plus other circumstances have kept me in the studio. It's a good time of year for making more finished landscapes, like "Fall on the River," below.

"Fall on the River," oil on wood panel, 9x12

The setting of this painting is a bank of the Raccoon River. The river meanders and winds through lowlands not far from my studio, making it a constant target of opportunity. This painting is based on plein air sketches from early last fall as well as much personal observation. In the distance, sunlight is reflected onto the woods and rock of the bank as the river turns. Trees along here that change early in the fall seem to fade from green to yellow-green before going golden. The sky begins to look a bit colder, but summer isn't finished just yet.

Rainy Day at the Dome

About a month ago the sketch group dwindled in the face of cold, dreary conditions to only a handful. Thinking that the weather might close in, we made our way to the domed Des Moines Botanical Center, a wonderful melange of indoor specimens under the dome and extensive outdoor gardens. The Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden (to use it's official name) opened as the domed Botanical Center in 1979 and now has grown to a much larger facility, but the dome remains the centerpiece. 

The dome seemed a good choice that day. Dark clouds boiled along the northwest horizon, across the Des Moines River, as we went inside. No sooner had we ducked into the humid interior but a violent thunderstorm exploded overhead, complete with thunder and lightning. We settled on a balcony that overlooks a tangled mass of tropical vegetation that includes several species of palm trees, including banana palms, orchids, ferns, and much more. It's a wonderful and warm refuge during the cold months. 

"Under the Dome," watercolor on paper

With a cup of hot tea to warm up, I made this watercolor sketch in the usual order. That is, graphite layout sketch, then large masses of color, then details, then ink lines for definition. Several other groups of people were there, one woman on her computer. The ribs of the geodesic dome and the translucent panels made an interesting backdrop for the selection of figures I decided to include. The mini-jungle protrudes above the balcony railing. The blurred and unfocused outdoors was one of the challenges that made me want to do this one. 

Watercolor is a great choice for sketching on the fly, whether indoors or out. You can carry a little half-pan palette, a pencil, tech pen and brush in one pocket. And of course water is readily available, though I also like to use a waterbrush.

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.