Box car

I took a bike ride through the NW industrial zone this morning. I especially like these kinds of sites on off days when they’re deserted. It wasn’t really cold but the sun kept ducking behind the clouds and it was a bit breezy. I wish I had dressed a bit more warmly.

I sketched this box car a couple of times. It was a really relaxing and enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.

I’ve attempted a couple of plein aire oil paintings over that last week and have found it even more challenging than studio painting. The primary thing I’ve struggled with this week, is learning to simplify what I see and distill the information down to a few essential values. Yesterday, however, I accidentally discovered a tool that’s been very helpful with this. Out of a scrap of mat board, I made a small frame, about 3 by 5 inches, to frame what I’m drawing. In side of the frame I taped a piece of visqueen and drew a 1 inch grid on it with waterproof ink. This is a pretty standard tool for plein aire artists, I think, but what I didn’t expect was that looking through the visqueen, which is old and not as clear as it may once have been, distorted the image in a way that made it much easier to simplify the shapes. This little tool has been very helpful. It’s kind of like squinting without having to squint, I wonder though, is it cheating?

Nah! Painters over the ages have used all kinds of crap to help them translate life into paint. I even read recently in a plein aire painting book a suggestion to use photoshop to blur a photo to paint from. Now that seems like cheating to me, but is it really any different than this?

14th World Wide Sketchcrawl

I only spent a little time sketchcrawling this time.

Some may say that I don’t portray the most picturesque views of Portland but there’s something I find very attractive about industrial sites. They’re raw and show the use to which they’ve been put. You find very few straight lines or perfect verticals or horizontals. They are skewed, bent, scraped and bruised.

This site is close to an area that has been gentrifying very quickly and I suspect it will see some dramatic changes in the near future.

See the results of other Sketchcrawlers around the world at the Sketchcrawl forum.

Strawberry

Oil on gessoed paper 6 by 8 inches

Oil Sketches

Two of the oil sketches I’ve been working on have dried enough to scan.

They are about 6 by 8 inches on gessoed paper using the limited palette of colors I mentioned before. My goal is to work as quickly and loosely as possible not worrying about anything but making a convincing painting of an apple or bar of soap or whatever the object is. Easier said than done.

These are looking pretty fussy to me. I always think I should be able to do something like this in like 3 or 4 brushstrokes. Practice, practice, practice …

Painting struggles and Strawberry

I’ve been continuing doing little still life oil paintings. I’ve limited my palette to force myself to learn more about mixing colors. I’ve always been lazy about that. My current palette includes Titanium White, Ivory Black, Ultramarine Blue, Pthalo Blue, Cad Red Med, Cad Red Light, Alizaron Crimson, Cad Yellow Light, Indian Yellow, Yellow Ochre and Paynes Gray.

I’ve always loved and depended on Sap Green but I’m mixing all my greens now. It’s pretty challenging to get exactly the color I’m after. Other colors I’m missing are Prussian Blue, Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber.

The other thing I’ve always struggled with in studio painting is lighting. I like to have fairly dramatic light on the subject but that makes it difficult to light the canvas and palette. I’d appreciate hearing how others have solved this problem.

I did this little postcard this morning to write a note to a friend.

Sombreuil

This is the first rose to bloom in our garden this year. It’s an antique rose named Sombreuil.

 

I worked as a landscape contractor for many years and during that time I built a substantial garden at our house. Since I’ve stopped gardening, I’ve left the garden go wild to a large extent but since I landscaped mostly with shrubs and trees, the bones of the garden are still there and, if you don’t look too closely, it still is quite nice. It’s at it’s best right now as the roses and flowering trees start to bloom and before the weeds take over.

Netty Pot and Geranium

I’ve been trying to do some little still life oil paintings to improve my painting chops. I’m a very slow painter and it’s going to be a while before I’m able to do a passable painting in a day, no matter how small. This is a sketch I did of my current still life setup.

 

It always strikes me how hard it is to make a simple little painting that looks fresh and not labored. It’s very frustrating until it starts to come together and then it’s equally exhilarating. But at the completion of a successful painting, I’m always nervous about starting the next one.

I’m sure that doing a painting every day would go a long way toward making me more confident in my ability to produce reliably convincng work but my problem has always been discipline.

Yellow Jacket

I haven’t posted in a while.  Inspired by the ‘Painting a Day’ blogs, I’ve been working on oil sketches which take a lot longer to dry.

This fellow/lady greeted me in my studio the other day and I was sorry to have to do away with him. I was glad, however to have the opportunity to study him/her more closely.

Hospital

My wife recently moved her mother to a nursing home near us from NY. Unfortunately, she fell not long after her move and had to have surgery for a fractured hip. I did this sketch while visiting her in the hospital.