Landscapes

More studies for landscape paintings. The sea cave image was from my trip to the coast, I used the sketches that I had and created this color study. Then I went back down to the river a few days ago and did a few more drawings, this was one I liked. Then a day or two later I created the color study of it. I just was using my memory of the day and colors that I was feeling at the time.
I have to jump into one of these now and create a finished larger scale oil painting from the color study.

Exquisite

18x24 inch oil on wood panel
I was enlightened by a artist friend of mine to have the title of your painting in your head before you even start the painting. Working mostly as a mural artist or an illustrator the fine art thing is really new to me on some levels. I do not believe you have to name any painting, who makes these rules anyway. Is it a law, it is not a painting until a title is attached to it. Well I am not saying a title is bad, but it could come after the painting is completed. Up until now I never really put the effort into the title as I guess I should. This painting is entitled Exquisite, part of the Parasol Series. Sounds pretty nice.

Sketchbook Studies

Here are a few sketchbook studies. I find my self using my sketch book more lately to capture little compositions of landscapes in my day to day. Instead of just doodles of faces and cartoons all the time I try to gather enough information to create a painting back in the studio with my little sketches.

Landscape

I had a chance this morning to get out and use my park pass. I walked down to a shady spot next to the river. With a small set of materials in my back pack I did some sketching. First the tree then the landscape. I spent an hour or two and watched people float past in rafts and kayaks. So after gathering my information it was a short drive back home for lunch. Then with my sketch and the memory of the day fresh in my head I created a color study. I left the fisherman out of the color study, he was drawing to much attention and so I cut him out. I might try to do one with the fisherman as the focal point at a later time. Now I should take this one to the next step and do an oil painting of the color study.

Figure Painting & Drawing

18x24 inch oil on canvas
8.5x11 inch ink on natural tone paper

A bit of life drawing is a good way to explore with new things. So I was given a few Utrecht brand paints to try from the store a few weeks ago and I thought I would give it a go. I am not going to get into a whole thing on products here, they just did not work for me. I had some other colors with me so I still had fun doing the painting.

Parasol

10x15 inch oil on panel

Workshop Sketches

A two day Gouache & Watercolor workshop with Eric Tiemens in Mendocino California, what a treat. This was one of the sketches I did on the first day. Eric sent the students out to gather information in the form of a sketch. Being in the town of Mendocino it was not hard to find great views of ocean cliffs or an old historic town all right there as soon as you walk out the door. Seeing that I live in Sacramento and do not see the ocean much I decided to try it out.

Back in the class room I did a little color sketch from memory. Eric did a ton of demos and taught us about composition and even gave a little history lecture on Artists. He had the biggest collection of art books I had ever seen. Pretty nice of him to have lugged all those books for us to see.




On the second day of the workshop I went back out to gather some more info and it was raining so the cliffs edge was pretty windy. So I sat in my truck and caught a foggy seen of the landscape.
Back in the class, more great demos showing us that we control the lighting in the seen. Make it a night seen or just before dusk, play with the color and lighting in little sketches, do not just stick with the first thing you do. Well this was a big learning curve because not anyone can just make this stuff up, it takes years of being out there and studying the landscape and lighting conditions.
Well this was an advanced class, so I did many other sketches that I did not include, he had us do warm ups and just play with the medium and different papers.
In the end we where to work up a more finished sketch and this is were I fell a little short. I dropped my first cliff drawing and decided to do the landscape instead. It was mainly because of the focal point was not totally resolved in my head. Was the focal point to be on the cave I first intended or the crashing waves to the left as it appears in the color study. So I figured that I could deal with this stuff back at home. The landscape was fun and simple to do, but I did not get wild and make bold moves, I stayed in my safe zone. This was where I fell short, and should have dove in and did not. Well I still liked my little landscape painting and the next step would be to use it as a starting point for a larger oil painting. And now that I am back at home I can create the cliff painting, and explore more.

Mendocino Workshop Weekend

Last weekend I attended a two day Gouache & Watercolor workshop with Eric Tiemens in Mendocino California. I left a day early to stay with a friend that lived 20 miles or so from the workshop. This trip I was really going to be doing some camping and packed all my food for the three day voyage to save some money. I popped a tent next to my friends home, pretty remote living off the grid as they call it. Only five bumpy miles to the oceans edge so at night the swell came in that first night and you could hear the ocean dance. This was music to my buddies ears because the surf was going to be up in the morning.
That day I did a few drawings and was relaxing before the workshop. My friend had this old wagon in his yard and it was to good to pass up. Then we went down to the ocean and this boat was on a trailer in the parking lot, so I did a drawing of it, I like all the little stuff that is on a boat like this one. I will post my stuff I did at the workshop later.

Oil Painting

11x14in oil painting