This is the little studio where I draw, not the room where I paint.
Jackson took my chair.
This is the room where I paint, called the workshop.
Two little poppy paintings, drying for Stem & Stone, a new gift shop in Three Rivers.
One little sequoia, also drying for the new shop.
Jackson joined me in the workshop because that is also the cat’s home/cafeteria.
I spent a morning inside that open door, working on the unusual commissioned oil painting.
Let’s do a series of progressive painting photos (the first two appeared on February 27).
The studio sat empty beneath the flowering pear tree.
Pippin waited for me patiently, until he found something more interesting to investigate.
This painting seemed too bright. After studying it awhile, I decided to only tone down the brilliant green in the distance to push it farther away. (“Push it” visually, not warp the canvas.)
This is after:
Hmmm, that’s a pretty subtle difference, perhaps even dubious*. Might want to try that again later. In addition, the photography colors are significantly different.
Never mind. Let’s move ahead, shall we?
This painting looks scary in its beginning stages unless you happen to see it while galloping by on the back of a fast horse (or see it the size of a postage stamp on your phone).
After these fairly dissatisfactory adventures in oil painting, I returned to my pencils. This one has a story, which I’ll tell you when I know the ending. This is the sketch I sent to the customer to see if it matched her design expectations:
To be continued. . .
These paintings only show on my blog because I can’t remember how to get more than a handful of paintings to appear on the store part of my website. You may call or email or text if you’d like to buy any of these. Use the contact button on my website, because if I type the info in here, the cyberjerks might harass me.
Painting these is almost just as much fun as drawing with pencil, especially when I get to the third pass over the painting, where I get to draw with my paintbrush.
P.S. There is sales tax if you live in California. Figure in $8, and I’ll pay the postage.
After spending a week doing plein air paintings at the beach in October, I could not wait to get home where I could paint waves and the ocean in my painting workshop, where the waves were frozen in motion on photographs. I love those blues and teals and greens and splashing whites, and I wanted to capture that in over-the-top detail.
“Over-the-top” hasn’t quite happened, but I am pretty happy so far. I’ve shown you Pacific Ocean I, II, III, and now it is time for IV, V, and VI.
A friend knows someone with a store somewhere in a town on the California coastline, and she is SURE the paintings will sell there. The store has very limited shelf space, so instead of putting the paintings on little easels like I had envisioned, she said they will need to hang.
That took some searching, but I eventually found something. The choices were to buy a package of 2 for maybe $4, or a package of 100 for $8. After a brief struggle between the frugal part of my brain against the side that doesn’t want to own extra stuff, I ordered 100.
Pacific Ocean VII, VIII, and IX are wet at the time of this writing.
Once again, I am counting my chickens before they hatch, which might be my strongest talent.
When I started my art business, I named it “Cabin Art”, or perhaps “Cabinart*”, because my favorite subject matter was architecture, mostly cabins.
As my skill and confidence grew, my favorite subject to draw (and eventually paint) was the Oak Grove Bridge.
During a particularly wet winter after several dry ones, I became enamored with rushing water.
Next, it was orange groves with foothills and mountains in the distance.
After a handful of years of painting multiple variations on this theme, I seem to be transitioning into beach scenes.
More on that later. . . Monday is time for a monthly Learned post.
*For a typo-psycho, I certainly am ambivalent about the spelling of my own studio name.
In 1996 or thereabouts, I drew this in pencil. It is a compilation of photos taken in Pauma Valley, Lemon Cove, and maybe even in Ivanhoe and Exeter. For some reason, a reproduction print was still around during my show last fall. It sold quickly, and a friend asked me to paint the scene for her.
I’ve never painted from a pencil drawing before. Since I have experience in the subject matter, and I can still locate most of my reference photos, I said yes. (Everything is easy compared to those miniature faces.)
First pass over the canvas.
Second pass.
Third pass.
I will be taking my time on this since my friend said she would like it some time in April. This remains my current favorite subject matter, and it brings to mind all the phases of favorites that my art has gone through. More on that later. . .
There is an excellent museum in Three Rivers, and parked in front are some old fire trucks plus this tow truck. I had to wait for a couple of friends stuck at one of the many ongoing lengthy roadblocks, so I wandered around with my inferior phone camera.
On a recent walk, I took this photo because it reminded me of my painting titled Swinging Oak. You can see it below with a convenient link for purchasing from my website. It’s just business. (I’m tryna earn a living here!)
Where’s the other chair?
Why am I not showing you any paintings or drawings? Because I am spending most of my time in the studio, editing another book for another writer on another topic.
And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
Someone I met through giving my How To Draw talk back in November expressed a desire to take an oil painting workshop from me. She is a can-do, git-‘er-dun kind of person (takes-one-to-know-one), so we set a date, and she gathered 4 other interested people. I learned that she is an art teacher, as is another attendee from the talk. They were joined by a third art teacher, along with a couple of family members for a day of oil painting.
We sat together for some chit-chat (a talk about the tools and techniques), and then they chose what to paint from photos that I passed around. (One overachiever chose two.)
I was ever so slightly intimidated by these well-educated art professionals, but there was no reason for that foolishness. They concentrated, asked relevant questions, and we enjoyed the time so much that I forgot to take photos until the 4-hour session was almost finished.
Excellent start! Because my style of painting is called “glazing” (layer after layer after layer), it is my hope they will finish these paintings on their own. (And if they need help, I hope they will email or call).
P.S. They learned about layering, working “lean to fat”, getting the design on the canvas without first drawing it in pencil, mixing colors from a double primary palette (2 blues, 2 reds, 2 yellows, + white), how to get the paint onto the canvas to look like what you want, how to put leftover paint back in the tube, and how it takes FOR-EV-ER to complete a painting.
… is in bloom in my yard in January. They are called “paperwhites” and are very fragrant.
… was completely blocking everything in the driveway one day. My neighbor is an outstanding tree service guy, and it was time to do some serious tree trimming on our property. (Not going to plug his business for him because he doesn’t have a website and doesn’t want jobs outside of the area.) I didn’t watch him and his crew do their interesting and skilled work because I was doing a year’s worth of bookkeeping in preparation for taxes. Ugh. That again. (year after year after year after . . .)
What is this? Gessobord is a smooth surface on which to do very detailed oil paintings.
After my week in Monterey, I wasn’t convinced that plein air painting is for me. (Still not convinced.) However, I was convinced that I love the beach (this is not news), that I really love mixing these colors, and that I want to do some very detailed paintings of the waves. This means studio paintings from photos, because you may have noticed that those waves will NOT hold still.
First, a thin layer to cover the surface and establish where things will go. Just the opportunity to use non-mountain, non-citrus colors thrills my little heart.
The second layer gets even more thrilling. (I didn’t show you the beginning layer of these two.)
After these dry, I will add even more detail, then sign them. After they dry yet again, I’ll scan them so you can appreciate them more.
Finally, you can see them in person when I have my next solo show, coming in August*. The paintings always look better in person.
*Hold your camels; I’ll let you know more about it when the time is right.