Sunbeams and Faceless People

Tags

30th Street Station, 30th street train station, Painting, Philadelphia, sketchbook, Sunbeams, Train Station, Watercolor

I’m always struck by the amount of pleasure I get from doing a painting, regardless of the subject. When I get some down-time during travels, I always face the dilemma: Read? Nap? Zone Out? Watch another episode of The Office? or… Paint! I don’t naturally gravitate toward the last option (it takes discipline and intentionality to paint, whereas you can just slide into a nap or a book), but I’m trying to choose it more frequently than the others. And when I do, I never regret it.

So, I was waiting for a train at the 30^th Street train station in Philadelphia during a recent business trip and was struck by the grandeur of the high ceilings, windows, chandeliers, and pillars.

I decided to try to capture the depth and height of the station. As I sketched and painted, I called to mind an old WWII-era picture of grand central station with sun streaming in (courtesy of CNN.com).

While the sun at 30^th Street wasn’t gracing the dust motes quite as it is in this photo, I decided to exercise my artistic license and go for that effect.

To get the sunbeam effect I wet a stiff brush and ran it across the paper, rubbing out the paint in lines. I blotted each line/beam with a tissue. I also left the areas white where the sunbeams land on the benches and people. To further the effect, I painted over the rest of the painting with a brownish mix of burnt umber and other colors that I can’t recall. Overall I like how it turned out.

Then there’s the question of the faceless person. I usually draw in a hint of eyes and nose on my faces, but this time (and in a few other recent paintings) I left my people completely faceless (except for a small face in the background). It seems a little less “cartoon-ish” than putting in faces, but at the same time, it’s a little creepy. What do you think? Do you like rough features on the face or no features? You can look at my last post (Hotel Lobbies and Painting Checklist) to see faces with simple features.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments!

Hotel Lobbies and My Painting Checklist

Tags

Andels, Architecture, Hotel, illustration, Lobby, Lodz, Monaco, Philadelphia, Poland, sketchbook

Yes, I am blogging about hotel lobbies. And why am I blogging about hotel lobbies? Because I spend a lot of time in them. So I decided to paint them. Most are unremarkable, but two that I stayed at recently definitely warranted the time to try to capture them on paper.

The first is the Hotel Monaco in Philadelphia (click here for photos of the Monaco lobby). I stayed there recently on a weekend business trip. My meetings weren’t until Saturday afternoon, so I decided to spend some of Saturday morning with a cup of coffee in their very eclectic and colorful lobby.

I tried to stay very loose with the sketch, capturing various people as they moved through the space. I’m trying to bring more texture to my paintings by adding darker colors for shadows. You can see it clearly on the red pillows in the foreground. Color mixing was a challenge and joy for this particular painting. I don’t know what the designer was thinking (or smoking?), but somehow it all works. These colors are pretty close to the colors of the actual lobby, believe it or not. It was very tricky to capture the range of colors, shapes, and textures without overwhelming the painting (some might say I didn’t succeed…).

The second hotel is Andels Hotel in Lodz (pronounced Woodj), Poland (click here for photos of Andels). Andels is a beautiful converted factory building (Lodz was the center of textile manufacturing in the Russian Empire). The scene in the painting is the view looking from the lobby area into the restaurant. Again, I tried to capture more dimension by adding textures, highlights, and shadows. I like how the pillars turned out, as well as the people sitting on the bench/couch in the restaurant. I also like how the brickwork turned out.

I’m not crazy about the purple ceiling (I was trying to capture a shadowed ceiling, but I think I would have done better to use a light gray). And the perspective on the second roof beam from the left is off – it should be straighter. But perhaps the biggest problem is the composition. A common mistake that I make is that I paint what I see without giving thought to exercising my artistic license. In retrospect, I think I should have split up the foreground objects (the 2 people sitting and the large plant) and located them on opposite thirds rather than in the center of the painting.

Another thing I painted without much thought is the windows. Specifically, the bottom ledges of the windows were at eye level, which, when painted accurately essentially hides them. While this is accurate, I think it makes the perspective of the windows a little strange. Again, with a little forethought and artistic license I would have raised the horizon line slightly so that the bottom window ledges would be visible.

In talking this over with Ellen when I returned, we had the idea of a pre-painting checklist. So now I have a sticky in my sketchbook that I can move to the next blank page after each painting to remind me to be thoughtful before I dig into a painting. Here’s what it says:

Before starting:

• Draw a border (rather than painting right up to the edge of the paper)
• Composition (it helps to stand back, consider how you might want to change reality, and then draw a composition sketch before starting the real painting)
• Perspective lines (I really need to spend time studying the perspective lines to get them right)
• Shadows and light (either I need to really study the lighting as it is, or if I don’t like the lighting as is, I need to be thoughtful about how I will paint the lighting)

Painting Reminders:

• Blur the eyes to see the predominant colors (rather than painting a bunch of separate colors, there is often a predominant color that my eye ignores because it likes to go for the color variety (this was relevant in a recent painting where I painted individual book colors in a bookshelf rather than the predominant colors, making the painting very busy))
• Clothing colors can be bland in reality (when I’m painting a painting with a lot of people, I tend to create a greater variety in color than really exists, creating a painting that’s too loud)

In general my goal is to not spend as much time in hotel lobbies (or anywhere else in hotels, for that matter). But as long as I find myself in beautiful lobbies, the next best thing is to sit down with some coffee (or whiskey…) and really notice what’s going on. And there’s no better way to do that than to sketch and paint.

The Milkhouse at Clayton’s Farm, New Hampshire

Tags

Architecture, Clayton Farm, Farm, Farmhouse, Joan Gessner, New Hampshire, Red, Rustic, Stone, Technique, Watercolor, Workshop

I recently took a watercolor workshop from Amesbury (Massachusetts) watercolor artist Joan Gessner during a 4-month leave of absence from work. Joan is a highly technical artist, and her instruction focuses on technique. I thought this focus on the process would be good for me (and help me overcome my tendency to fixate on the outcome).

On my first day of class I thumbed through a set of Joan’s snapshots and came across one that intrigued me. This is the milk house at Clayton’s farm in New Hampshire:

Note: There are two barns in the picture: a brown barn in the background and a red barn in the foreground. I’ll refer to the background barn as the “brown barn” and the foreground barn as the “red barn.”

I’ve always been enchanted by stonework, and I’m drawn into paintings where the artist has been able to capture a rock or stone wall. I thought this would be a great opportunity for me to learn how to paint stones.

Each class was 2 hours, and over the course of 6 classes (and some work-at-home), a painting emerged that I never imagined being able to paint. Joan provided guidance each step of the way in terms of helping determine what to do next as well as giving technical pointers and tricks of the trade. Unlike some instructors I’ve had, Joan was very respectful when she needed to demonstrate a technique, always asking if she could enter my painting. I had an instructor who would take my brush without asking and paint in my painting until I asked her for the brush back. Joan would demonstrate a technique by painting a very small part and then turning the brush back to me. Often she would demonstrate on a scrap piece of paper.

If you’re interested in the blow-by-blow account, read on! If not, you can just scroll through the pictures to see how the painting developed.

1. Sketched the photograph using T-square and triangle to get the angles right. Applied masking fluid to preserve white areas, including the foliage lines (first coated the brush with soap so the masking fluid wouldn’t ruin the brush). Taped the photograph to my painting board (not shown in the image) so that I could transfer angles to the painting easily. Joan is a firm believer that if you don’t get the perspective and lines just right in the sketch, then your whole painting will be on shaky ground (so to speak).

2. Applied background washes. Drew in stones with pencil (looked at the photograph often to get the feel of the stone shapes). Lifted paint out of the shadow (left) side of the brown barn for clapboard effect. Drew in clapboard lines with pencil on both barn faces (being careful to get the perspective angles right).

3. Added detail (clapboard and weathering) to the brown barn walls. Darkened the red barn shadow (left) wall. Started stonework, painting each stone different shades of brown and gray and then adding a shadow color to the underside of each stone. Painted mortar lines between the stones with a mix of ultramarine blue and burnt umber. Painted in clapboard lines on the red barn.

4. Finished the stonework, adding a very light wash of violet for shadow on the left face. Added a background wash to the barn door to create a weathered look (started with a very light wash of burnt umber and ultramarine blue and then dropped in a darker gray (same mix) to the wet wash). Painted vertical lines on the red barn walls for shingles.

5. Added splatters to all barn surfaces for texture and dimension (used a hard-bristled toothbrush and very intense mix of the same paint color as the surface being splattered). Painted panes of the front window on the red barn, pressing my thumb into the wet paint to give texture. Added cerulean blue to the windows on shadowed sides for reflected sky. Added a cast shadow under red barn roof. Removed masking fluid from the barn (felt very good to finally see the white!). Lifted some paint out of some of the stones to give them more dimension.

6. Painted panes on the side windows of the red barn. Added burnt sienna for rust on the door hinges (ran a dry brush with burnt sienna down from each hinge to create the rust-stained look on the wood). Removed masking fluid from the foliage edges. Painted peeling paint on all white surfaces of the barn (dry-brushed masking fluid and painted over it with light burnt umber and ultramarine blue mix, leaving white areas when the masking fluid was removed). Lifted paint with a fine brush to create window panes on the window under the peak of the red barn roof. Added slight violet shadow to the roof fascia.

7. Painted foliage on right side with sap green and burnt sienna/sap green mix (for darker green) – first painted a wash of light green, then dropped in dark green to the wet paint (I never would have thought of using burnt sienna to darken the green, but it created a warmer green than using a blue to darken it). Added salt for texturing and spritzed with water for a mottling effect (the image shows the still-wet paint with salt crystals). Added paint to the left windows for more complexity (using the thumb-in-the-wet-paint technique). Added knots to the wooden doors.

8. Painted trees behind/above the barn (spritzed water on the paper and then loosely connected water spots with green paint – a very cool technique). Began foliage in lower left corner. Painted sunlit field in background with mix of yellow ochre and hansa yellow. Notice the foliage on the right side – after the paint dried, the salt crystals and water spritz created the leafy texture of this background layer.

9. Added additional branches to the tree behind the barn to break up the line on the top and the side of the tree (Joan is always looking to break up space and get rid of lines where there should be randomness). Added shadows to define the underside of branches on the right foliage (darker mix of sap green and burnt sienna applied after spritzing the dried background layer). Painted the background for the bottom foliage (using salt and spritz techniques).

10. Added violet flowers to the bottom foliage by putting down water and then dropping in violet paint. The photograph didn’t have flowers in the foreground, but Joan thought the painting needed something different to break up the foliage in front of the barn – I think they add a lot to the texture and composition of the painting. Added shadows to define the underside of branches in the left foliage.

11. Darkened the foliage behind the flowers to push it into the background. Added grass stems, both lifting paint and adding paint (first a green mix, then a yellow/brown mix). Added texture to the sunlit field in the background with a darker mix of the same yellow ochre/hansa yellow mix. Splattered cerulian blue (!!) on the shadow side of the barn and the front foliage to add texture and tie into the sky (I never would have thought of that on my own). Added a very dark green mix to the edges of the foliage on the right side to better distinguish the line between barn and foliage.

12. Added my signature to the bottom right corner. Belabored this decision: Initials only? Full name? Upper or lower case? Location? Kind of wish I’d gone with “D. Ronka” closer to the lower edge. (See more on signature angst).

Here’s the photograph, again:

Here’s a slideshow that shows the whole progression of paintings:

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So, what did I learn?

• Joan Gessner is an incredibly patient and technical teacher. She helped me to think through what each next step should be. I’d like to blog at some point on the differences between the various teachers I’ve had.
• A painting of this scope takes a LONG time – no wonder original art is so expensive!
• Finding the right color mix is not easy. Joan would often help me, and it seemed that she had a sixth sense for color mixing. In her words, the only way to get better at watercolor is through “seat time.”
• Foliage normally freaks me out, but the techniques that Joan taught me took the fear out of the foliage – salting, spritzing, mottling, and shadowing the undersides are all now part of my repertoire.
• You don’t always paint what you see. The sunlit field adds depth to the painting, where the picture only has more foliage in the background. Also, the field with flowers in the foreground breaks up the mass of foliage in the picture.
• Masking fluid works wonders. But you can’t leave it on too long or you may have trouble getting it off.
• Splattering is a cool technique for creating dimension and breaking up space, but it can be over-used. Finding the right balance, I’m sure, is the result of ruining a painting or two with over-splattering.
• There are very few men who take painting workshops in the middle of a weekday morning (thank you for your encouragement and painting camaraderie Lynn, Casey, Arline, Suzanne, and Liz, and thank you Joan!).
• Stones are cool. But I already knew that. And painting stones is way cool. The step-by-step of drawing the stones, painting the mortar, painting each stone, shadowing the underside, and lifting paint out of the top or center takes the mystery out of stonework. I look forward to putting this technique to use on many rock and stone walls in the future!

What’s so great about watercolor is the myriad of approaches and techniques. Sometimes you stumble on a great technique, and sometimes you pick it up from a fellow painter. I’m grateful for all of the artists who are willing to pass on what they’ve learned.

Creating Art for Sale Part III: Cropping

Tags

Art Retail, BNG, Breaking New Grounds, Cropping, Market Square, New Hampshire, Portsmouth, Selling Art, Watercolor

See Part I and Part II of this topic for the background on this post… Here’s the final version of the Market Square painting (Portsmouth, New Hampshire), as scanned by a local print shop:

As I looked at the painting with Ellen, we thought it might take on a different look if it were cropped. To explore this, I brought the image into PowerPoint to play around with it. I’m a wiz at PowerPoint (thanks to my consulting experience), but I should probably learn Photoshop at some point in the future (I do my color and lighting adjustments using Picasa). I created a couple of “virtual mats” in standard sizes in PowerPoint (5×7 shown below):

Then I played with positioning the mats and resizing the image to see what kind of prints could come out of the painting. Here are some of the options I came up with:

I was quite surprised by the difference this framing/cropping process made in terms of the feel of the painting. It allowed me to focus in on the parts of the painting with the most energy (which Ellen pointed out is the area with the little people).

Here’s the full painting framed within a mat:

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the crops.

I’ll show these to Kennedy Gallery and get their feedback. Then it’s a matter of figuring out how to get the highest quality prints and how to package them (I’ve found a website that sells retail kits with mat, backing, and cellophane wrapper for about $1/unit — redimat.com).

Have you sold your art? Do you crop and sell different versions? Do you sell with or without matting? I’d love to hear your story!

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner can carry about 250 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,700 times in 2012. If it were a Dreamliner, it would take about 7 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Creating Art for Sale Part II: The Signature

Tags

Art Retail, BNG, Breaking New Grounds, Cropping, Market Square, New Hampshire, Portsmouth, Selling Art, Watercolor

See Part I of this topic for background to this post.

Signature. This step always strikes fear into my heart. Why? Ellen is a psychotherapist, so I have plenty of opportunity to talk about the pathological implications of my signature angst without having to dish out a copay. It feels so permanent. And so personal. So, before dropping anchor, so to speak, I decided to experiment.

Options were: sign the original; sign each print; sign on the painting; sign below the painting (which would leave a white border inside the mat); sign with full name or just initials; etc., etc., ad nauseum. I signed a blank piece of paper with several different signatures, scanned the page, and then brought the image into PowerPoint, set the background color (white) to transparent, and cropped each signature. Then I went crazy and tried out different signatures and different placements.

Here’s a “where’s the signature?” gallery. Click on the the first picture to enter the gallery and see if you can find the signature on each picture (I experimented with placements for three different versions of my signature: dpr, D. Ronka, and David Ronka).

After getting Ellen’s feedback I opted for initials right next to the crosswalk. Initials seem less obtrusive on a small painting than a full signature, and it also seemed to match the energy of the painting. The placement of the signature is also visible when I crop the painting into different views (Part III of this topic will be on cropping). Whew! I’m still not comfortable signing a painting.

Here’s the final version:

I’d love to hear your opinion:

Does anyone else have signature angst? How did you overcome it? Do you use different signatures for different kinds of paintings? Do tell!

Creating Art for Sale Part I: The Painting

Tags

Art Retail, BNG, Breaking New Grounds, Cropping, Market Square, New Hampshire, Portsmouth, Selling Art, Watercolor

I recently created a photo calendar (photos I took of doors of historic homes in my neighborhood) that’s being carried in a few retail stores in downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The process of creating, producing, and finding retailers for the calendar opened my eyes to the world of art retail. So I had the thought of showing a few of my sketchbook paintings to one of my calendar retailers,  Kennedy Gallery. I showed Wendy, the owner, a few of my urban scenes:

Since Portsmouth attracts a lot of tourists in the summer, Wendy said that they’re always looking for work from new artists, especially on Portsmouth scenes.  She thought there was a lot of “energy” in my work—how exciting! So I decided to set out on a mission to paint 8-10 quintessential scenes within historic Portsmouth. My first attempt was a few Sundays ago. It was a crisp, sunny fall day — perfect for hanging out with my paints downtown. Adding to the ambiance, I was accompanied by a crooning mandolin player (and check out those window boxes!):

First, I did an initial composition sketch before tackling the actual painting. I drew in lines to mark off the vertical and horizontal thirds and then laid out the scene in such a way as to place the high-interest areas at the thirds (e.g. the corner of the building at the left third line, the street light at the right third line, the top of the building at the top third line, and the awning at the bottom third line).

Instead of using my Moleskine sketchbook, I cut an 8×10 piece from a sheet of 140# Kilimanjaro paper. I taped the sheet to a plastic board, and sketched with the board in my lap. Setting up the painting this way (using high quality paper, sketching it out first, etc.) somehow seemed more “professional,” and therefore increased the perceived stakes (as in, “You’ve got to get this one right!”), and I found myself being more careful and less loose than I am when painting in my sketchbook.

The sketch took a couple of hours. Another artist (Beaman Cole) had set up an easel across the street, and he came over to chat at one point — giving me the sense of being part of a local artist community. I’m still growing into this sense of being an artist, so that was a boon. Before packing up I clicked a set of snapshots to capture the scene. Back at home, I compiled them into a collage and used this as a reference when I added paint.

Here’s the painting in draft and final form.

Draft:

This draft was scanned using my 3-in-1 desktop scanner. Kennedy Gallery recommended that I scan rather than photograph, but I don’t think the colors came out very well. But more than that, there were four areas that seemed a little off: the sky, the background trees on the left, the cast vertical shadow on the front of the building, and the horse and buggy.

Sky: I tried to do a sky similar to the sky in one of my Lithuania sketches (Old University), but it didn’t turn out quite like I’d wanted. In the Lithuania sketch I laid down a light wash of ultramarine blue, and then after it had dried I “wandered” with a very wet brush of ultramarine blue to create soft and hard edges of darker blue. It didn’t give me the desired effect in this painting—somehow I ended up with blue blobs that were in the shape of clouds, causing the eye to perceive the blue blobs as clouds. Ellen said that she couldn’t get her eye to see the white as clouds. So I wet the paper along the edges of the darker blue blobs and, using a stiff brush, I scrubbed out some blue to blend it with the lighter areas. This resulted in a less severe version of a cloudy sky. This highlights the difficulty in watercolor of painting negative space (i.e. painting clouds by NOT painting clouds).

Background trees: I liked the effect of sunlight on fall trees in the background, but it just didn’t turn out quite right. The intensity of the colors drew my eye to the left, off the painting. To keep the effect but lose the strength of the color, I lifted out the paint until I was left with more of a faint, distant glow that blends with the sky. Ellen thinks the final version looks like a sunrise coming from the left of the building…

Cast vertical shadow: The front of the building had a shadow that was cast by another building. But when I showed the sketch to one of my watercolor workshop instructors (Joan Gessner), she pointed out that, while technically accurate, the building that cast the shadow is not in the painting, so the shadow looks a little out of place. I lifted out the shadow and did my best to blend.

Horse and buggy: Ellen pointed out that the horse is too small for its position in the painting. Given the size of the people in the crosswalk and the couple walking away in the background, the horse and buggy should technically be a bit larger. I think I paid more attention in the sketch to capturing the horse’s shape and movement than getting the right size. I could have redrawn them, but I really liked how the horse turned out, so I left it. Wendy (at Kennedy Gallery) said this was something that a painter might notice and care about, but that few others would. Plus, in my cropped versions (see Part II off this post), the  horse and buggy are nowhere to be found.

Additionally, I added some paint to the left side of the building to increase the intensity of the shadowed side of the building (and chimneys).

Final Version:

The final version was scanned using a local print shop rather than by my desktop scanner. I think the colors turned out better and I’m satisfied with how crisp the image is. I’m still working on getting a better scan (some of the lightest colors in the sky are lost). Any thoughts on how to get the best digital version of a painting are welcome!

Thanks for your feedback! And stay tuned for further thoughts on creating art for sale — Part II, signing the painting; and Part III, cropping the painting.

Painting Austria

Tags

Danube Cruise, Dürnstein, Franziskanerplatz, Hofburg Palace, Kleines Cafe, sketchbook, Spitz, St. Michael's Wing, Stempel-Schilder, Travel Journal, Vienna, Watercolor, Wien

Ellen and I recently visited Vienna (on the tail end of my Lithuania business trip). Vienna is one of my favorite cities – beautiful architecture combined with great restaurants, quaint coffee houses, and friendly people. I have cousins who live there, as well as a friend from elementary school and his family (that’s us on the right with them on the left). It was an exhaustingly full trip, but I was still able to catch a few moments to sketch between museums, cathedrals, the opera house, a boat trip, walks though Vienna’s extensive parks, window shopping, and meals with cousins and friends.

We took a day trip out of Vienna, taking a train from Vienna to the little town of Melk, home of an abbey (wow—check out these Melk images) and then catching a boat to return via the Danube. I captured the trip in a sketch with thumbnail scenes from each town we visited. I like doing these little sketches. There’s not much detail to get hung up on and it’s fun to try to capture the essence of a place or experience in miniature. I feel like it gives a feel for the whole process that a single painting of one scene could never do.

There were so many paintable vistas along the route – castles and churches and vineyards around every bend of the Danube. As we approached Spitz I grabbed my sketchbook and tried to capture the whole breadth of the town, which seemed to have it all – vineyard, castle, and church with a quaint roofline to boot.

Like a lot of sketches, I like parts of it better than others. I really like how the little castle on the far left turned out (raw sienna base with burnt umber shadow). I tried to capture the vineyard rows on the hills, but I’m not sure my dark line blobs quite do them justice. The tree in the foreground seemed like a good idea at the time, but I’m not sure the picture has enough depth to account for the size of the tree. It looks more like a giant sequoia dwarfing the village.

But there were more opportunities! As we approached Dürnstein, I was captivated by the castle ruins where King Richard the Lionhearted was held captive by Duke Leopold V of Austria during the third crusade.

I did a quick sketch while on the boat, and added paint back in the concierge lounge at the hotel in Vienna (below). This is image shows the first washes of yellow ochre and light sap green.

There were a couple of tricky parts to this painting. The rock cliffs presented the first challenge. I’m never quite sure how to paint the crags and faces of a cliff – you have the bright surface of a sunlit rock right next to the deep shadow of a crevice. I first painted a base of yellow ochre, and then painted layers of darker color (burn umber and ultramarine blue mixes) for the shadows.

The greenery presented a second challenge. I made three mixes of green (sap green with a touch of yellow, pure sap green, and sap green with ultramarine blue). I first laid down a wash of the lightest shade and then dropped in the medium shade (wet in wet). After that had dried considerably, I added the darkest green, trying to keep a hard edge on one side and a soft edge on the other side. The intent was to create the effect of stands of trees with shade on the left side and sunlight on the right.

The little buildings in the lower right were nifty. They were actually built into the cliff, with the roof flashing connecting the roof to the cliff rock. It made me wonder if the interior walls were rock. Very cool.

The next day (our last full day in Vienna), Ellen and I spent some time in the Innere Stadt (inner/old city). We climbed up Stephansdom (the massive cathedral in the old city), window-shopped, and people-watched. Ellie (my cousin) met us for lunch, and we ate at a little outdoor café in Franziskanerplatz. The photo below is the view from our table.

I was able to complete a pencil sketch of the scene while we finished up our meal. (I can usually carry on a conversation and sketch at the same time, although I’m not sure how the person on the receiving end feels about my sketch/talk multi-tasking.) I created the pen sketch while at Ellie’s house later that evening (chatting it up with my cousin, Thomas).

I finished the painting after I returned home to Portsmouth. This is the only one of my Vienna sketches that contains my little people. Ellen really likes the energy they convey, and I must confess that I do enjoy the process of creating them. I really like how the window on the far right turned out with that mottled reflection look.

After lunch, Ellen and I made our way across the old city to Demel, the famous bakery, confectioner, and cafe which Ellen had read carries some of the best kuchen (cake) in Vienna (locals would probably disagree). Since Vienna is famous for its cake, it was her goal to experience at least one piece of Viennese cake per day while we were there, and we’d fallen behind. I wasn’t feeling well, so while Ellen shopped for some cakes to bring to dinner with my cousins, I parked myself on a bench in front of St. Michael’s Wing of the Hofburg Palace. Again, that choice: sit and do nothing, or pull out my sketchbook. I decided to see how quickly I could do a sketch of the view (pictured below).

I completed the pencil version of this sketch in about 10 minutes. I tried to keep up the speed when I did the pen version later, and also when I added paint. My sister, Katie, thinks the faster I sketch and paint the more energy there is. I can agree that when I go fast my mind is in the background, and I seem to be able to tap into some kind of “flow.”

I’ve mentioned that Ellen edits my blog posts. Get this… as she was looking over this post, she mentioned that I should talk about the mishap with the perspective in this painting. Mishap? What mishap? When she pointed it out, it was plain as day (when compared to the photo, that is, but clearly not when I was sitting in front of the palace). My painting makes it look like the building curves away from the viewer, when in reality it curves toward the viewer (see the photo above). She’s right. The wings should slope up, not down.

I often catch myself in this mistake (usually soon enough to correct it!). My brain will tell me that a roof or a chimney line slopes down, and then when I hold up a pencil horizontally (which I frequently do when I sketch for this very reason), I see that my brain was wrong. That’s the difference between painting what you see versus painting what you think you see! I find it fascinating that I could look at the sketch so many times and not see that. Ellen likes to think she has the superior artistic eye, but I think she was able to see it so clearly when she looked at the photo, because in a photo the three-dimensional scene has been converted into two dimensions. Let’s put her in front of a real building and see just how well she does!

I tried to set up my paints on the plane on the way home. It worked reasonably well until we hit turbulence. Ellen snapped this picture before she snoozed off (she’s among the lucky ones who are blessed with the ability to nap at altitude):

While Ellen was napping I took the time to contemplate how awful Austrian Airlines’ colors are. Candy-apple red, yellow, white, and that dreadful heading-toward-aqua kelly green color. Who thought that was a good idea?? It made me wonder if flight attendants choose which airline to work for based on uniforms. If so, I’m surprised Austrian Airlines is able to staff its fleet. I snapped the picture below as I debarked so that I could remind myself that no matter how poorly my paintings turn out, they’re better than the inside of an Austrian Airlines plane. From the look on the face of the guy to the right, I don’t think I’m alone in my assessment. And did I mention that the flight attendants’ legs are that crazy red color? No kidding: candy-apple red nylons.

Summer Nights Passing

Reblogged from Ruth Bailey, artist:

This was one of the watercolor paintings I presented at the concert by the New Score Chamber Orchestra last night.  It is based on the composition by Frederic Glesser, Summer Nights Passing.

Before going to the concert, I had written up some comments about each of the pictures I was presenting, but there was no appropriate place to post them in the venue.  

Read more… 452 more words

This is an incredible story that demonstrates the power of the arts to convey meaning and feeling in ways that tap into our shared human experience. Thank you Ruth.

Pesky Puddles in Your Mixing Tray?

Tags

Ajax, Mixing Paint, Mixing Tray, Watercolor

So, I’ve been frustrated with a mixing tray that looks like this:

Notice how the paints puddle and don’t spread evenly across the tray. It’s not only difficult to mix paints when this happens, but it just looks kind of sloppy, and that grates at my OCD tendencies. Instructions that came with a palette that I recently bought said to treat the surface of the mixing tray with sandpaper. SANDPAPER?? I don’t think so.

At a recent workshop I learned the secret to solving this conundrum.

Ajax.

Or any abrasive cleanser.

Yes, it’s that simple. You put some Ajax (I used Comet) on your finger or on a toothbrush and lightly rub the surface of the mixing tray. I had to do it a few times to get the desired effect, and this is the (very gratifying) end result:

Notice how the paints spread oh-so-smoothly throughout the mixing tray — none of those paint puddles. Just looking at the before and after sets me at ease.

And it’s a good thing I didn’t go with the sandpaper recommendation. At the aforementioned workshop, the workshop leader said she had a student who followed the sandpaper advice and ended up with visible scratches all over the surface of her mixing tray.

And there you have it.