Our Home and Studio- what's not working here?

This is the point in almost every painting where I could just turn it to the wall and walk away. The initial buzz is over and I start to struggle. Something is not right with the buildings in this one but I can't figure out what. Terry Miura, who taught a painting workshop here a couple of years ago said, in effect, " Figure out what's wrong and then fix it, don't just muck around hoping it will get better." So I work on the  hills and sky a bit more and leave the buildings until the answer comes.

Every time I stop painting I scape up all the mixed colors and keep the blend in a pile on the pallet. It's a mix of all the colors I am using and so makes a great neutral that will naturally harmonize with the current color scheme.

I do like this glass pallet! It actually makes me want to clean up at the end of each session.

The next day I avoid the buildings further by starting to do something with the trees. I put in the white birches and suddenly see that the house porch looks like it is floating above the studio building and the ground where the trees grow. What the ????  It was tempting to think the problem would just get covered up by the trees, but with bare branches I couldn't count on that. Nor would I have heeded Terry's advice!

It took Dennis' fresh look to see the problem is simple perspective: See how C and D would converge if extended to the left before E or A met them? and how line A is straight across and above the roof line of the building on the left?

 With proper perspective all the lines would meet at a "vanishing point" on the horizon, and you can see below how I corrected the roof lines so they work. The roof of the house porch now meets the roof line of the studio so it no longer "floats". If I had paid better attention to the grid I made when I started, I would not have had this problem. Once again, good planning always pays off.

With this issue resolved I could go ahead with the painting:

...and at this point I will leave this painting for now (after I put a sold sign on it) and return to it with a fresh eye after I attend to some other projects. I'll let you know when it's "finished".

Hope my learning process aids your understanding!  Thanks for your comments and suggestions.

Our Home and Studio- the color

The next day I was excited to get some color on this canvas, but before we get started I want to show you my new glass pallet and color layout.

 

The glass is an old bathroom shelf which is nice because it's sturdy and has rounded edges. I backed it with kraft paper which is a good neutral background that allows me to see the colors I'm mixing without the distraction of old paint stains on the pallet. Because this is a new arrangement for me I wrote the color positions and made a spot of each color on the paper, then I just taped the paper to the glass around the edges. This limited  color set up was suggested in a painting video and I thought I would try it. Clock-wise: Aliz Crimson, Cad Red Light, Cad Red Deep, Cad Orange, Cad Yellow Deep, Cad Yellow Light,(Rembrandt brand recommended for all the Cads. Do you agree?) Titanium White, Veridian, Cer. Blue, Ultramarine,  Brnt Umber, Ivory Black at the bottom. The blob in the middle is Gamblin Gel Medium with some Gamblin Liquid Alkyd mixed in to help things dry a little faster.

Another good tip from the video: keep an old phone book handy to wipe off you palette knife. VERY efficient and saves on rags.

 

I liked the mood of the afternoon winter light...

 

...used a big brush and tried to keep the strokes loose and varied, moving from the shoulder instead of the wrist.

 

I did not like the hills in the backgound. Too green? Too dark?

I 
 

Squinting at it upside down let me see the hard line between the sky and the hills...

 

...so I softened it and bingo! the buildings popped into focus. More tomorrow.

Our Home and Studio- the set up

As you know, we are selling our place and making that happen is taking up a lot of my time and energy. Draining might be the word. I was starting to feel like I work in an office, on a computer all day. The remedy was obvious: get back in the studio! If I'm hung up on our property then paint it. Last year I painted a watercolor of my daughter's house, with a SOLD sign outside, when she had to sell it .

I figured the Universe could use a clearer picture of what needed to happen and she got offers within a week!  Maybe I'll put a SOLD sign in this new painting of our place as well. With oils I can always paint it out later if I want to.

Several days have past and I am glad to report that I feel much better, and since you all seem to really like seeing how I muck my way through a painting step by step I'll take you through this one as well. It's not finished but if I end up chucking it at the end, you'll be right there to see it happen.

I thought about doing this plein air, but it's too cold. I took two reference photos and taped them together to get the whole scene. Then I did a grid on the photos and the canvas to layout my sketch. I numbered the grid lines to make it less confusing.

 

Since I was really itching to dive into the color and enjoy getting something started it took some discipline to do a small value study first.

 

I should have done this first but in this case I don't think it would have mattered much.

Next I played around with some color options. I really wanted to do something bold to play up the light on the buildings and not stick to the "real" colors of the scene.

 

I used some pan watercolors and tried this scheme. I didn't really think about it too much but it turned out to be a split complimentary.

 

How about a split complimentary with purple? 

I have to admit I was looking for something a bit more natural (there's that conservative part of me-again), but our buildings are NOT yellow and orange- they are earthen plaster brown.  My color scheme in the corner is a triadic but the study has bright yellow in it... so much for color theory, eh?

 

A black and white of that color study reveals it to be pretty blah in value range so when I do the painting I better get that worked out first.

 

OK, I had my value and color studies and started on the canvas by blocking out the values making the lights lighter and darks darker than the study.

Let's check out the composition by turning it upside down. I fuzzed it a bit, but squinting will reduce it further to just lights and darks.  The sky becomes a lake with trees reflected in it, the driveway a blustery sky, but the important thing is the lights and darks are not equal which keeps it pretty interesting. It's good enough for my purpose right now, which is to make a painting so I'll want to make another better one.

 

We'll see how the color work progressed in the next post.

Unknown Cowboy

This is another Different Stokes for Different Folks challenge. Karin asked everyone who wanted to participate to send a photo of themselves which she then distributed to the group at random. No one knows who anyone is and the point is not to do a portrait but a good painting from the reference photo. Of course, wanting to capture a likeness is almost irresistible, but no one will know except the person who sent in the photo of themselves. The painting to the left is of me, done by John Wolff, who does not have a web site, so I cannot direct you to more of his work. This is a nice watercolor and it certainly looks like me. It inspired me to try a watercolor of the photo I received.
Here is how I went about the painting:

Session one:
Here's the dude I got.

The first thing I did was convert the photo to black and white so I could see the values better with out the distraction of the color. Then I made a grid on the photo and a grid on my paper and started drawing. I did this because I know that a likeness does not come from details but from the proportions of the face so I wanted to get that right. I also consistently have trouble getting eyes to line up properly, so I added and extra diagonal line for reference.

After I got the sketch done I added a few dots of  latex resist to the right eye the tip of the nose and the stubble on his chin - all whites that I did not want to lose and were too small to avoid.

The guy removed all the background from his head-shot so I have no idea whether he is a real cowboy or not. I think not. I think he was trying to make things more interesting, which is the same reason I wore a red hat.

I'm thinking the black hat is way too bold and will overpower his face so I do some value sketches to see how I might switch things around for a better composition.  I like the last one best, thinking I'll suggest some western landscape in the background.

Now I have to think about the colors so I do a couple of 2 x 2 color studies.

Speaking of color- the color of these photos varies wildly because the natural light in my studio was fading and I was using a study lamp for light.

I'm making the format bigger than I think I want it in the end. One of the nice things about working on paper is the option to crop the painting later.

Here are the first color washes and a B&W to check on the values. I find my digital camera very handy for this and can see things in that small format that I don't see when I'm looking at the painting. It's another way of "squinting", I guess.

 A bit more color and I call it quits for now, leaving him as a Blind Bard for now.

Session two:

I allowed the painting to dry overnight before attempting the eyes. I didn't want the color to bleed and besides I wanted to be fresh when I painted this important element. I'm glad the latex is there to keep that highlight!

Time to check the reference and the plan. The left half of the face is still too light and the nose looks like it's sliding off to the right.

This is better but he's beginning to look a lot like GWB!! Is it the white hat or have I just seen that face TOO many times?

Here's where I decided to stop. I cropped it so his bright eye is about one-third down from the top and one-third over from the right,  a prime focal point. Don't know about the red dots on his hat...hmmm.




Another adventure in watercolors! It sort of looks like him, but I won't be hanging out a shingle advertising portrait painting quite yet!

The Wonders

"The Wonders" 9 x 12 oil on canvas panel  $125

This painting was for another challenge on Different Strokes for Different Folks. I added the child, and her wonder at the light making a great wheel on the floor, and accentuated the preoccupation of the other family members with the wonder of their i-phones. Even with the reference photo provided this was a tough challenge to paint these figures from above, plus making one up (including her shadow), but once again I struggled most with the values. As you will see from the progress below, I realized mid-painting that where I wanted the focus was not going to have the most value contrast.

 

The choice of a red underpainting was pretty random, other than I thought it would make a nice vibe behind the gray-greens.

 

 

Oops! Here's where I realize the focus is on the man, not the child.

 

Bad exposure on the photo, but the contrast is where I need it. What's with the kid? Not working!

 I'm laying on the couch taking a quick snooze with my face in the sun when I realize the child needs to be looking at the source of the light way up there! Turned the canvas upside down to paint her face- amazing how I can forget this is an option. Also decided to crop the canvas- which is also an option with canvas board.

Harvesting Pumpkins

"Harvesting Pumpkins" 11' x 15" watercolor on cotton rag paper

Late in the game I ran into another challenge on the 'net: this one was on Facebook and called The First Annual Autumn Arts Painting Challenge and Competition.
If you have the time to browse through nearly a thousand paintings take a look. I don't think the creators of this challenge had any idea they would get that kind of response! Needless to say you have to sift a lot to find the good ones but they are in there.
My hasty submission was a reprise of the pumpkins I did last year in oils; I was curious to see what I could do with watercolors which are quite the mystery for me. But, isn't it all?

Heart of the City

"Heart of the City" 12 1/2" x 91/2" Watercolor on cotton rag paper $125

Karin Jurick has an interesting blog called Different Stokes for Different Folks, where she regularly posts a photo and challenges artists to do a painting from it. It's very fun and informative to look through the different interpretations. I have been meaning to do this for some time and finally got on board with her cityscape photo. I did the whole thing without the figures, but it didn't feel like me until I thought of the cleaners washing a heart on to the central wall in the composition. I do like to have a little message in my paintings, as you all know.
When I went to post the painting on DSFDF today I found David Larson Evans' submission with wall cleaners washing a peace symbol on the same wall. Yikes!! I know I did not see that painting earlier but it will look like I copied his idea. I almost didn't post mine because of this and then decided it was good if lots of us are thinking about peace and love - it's a universal yearning.

P.S. Dennis didn't see the heart. Did you? or did the title help you see it.