Golden Ponds II

Golden Ponds II, watercolor on hot press paper, 22x12

This is my first painting in more than a month (finally!). I went to Golden Ponds in Longmont with my wife and our baby for a walk two weeks ago, and found the quality of light on this cool late morning irresistible. I took many reference photos and worked on this rendering in the studio over many nights.

I chose this view of the scene, with the rhythmic spacing of the trees, and the bright highlights on the grasses. A multitude of techniques were employed: soft wet-on-wet passages in the background, applications of color over ivory black on the trees, free caligraphy on the branches, watercolor pencils on the grasses, splattering with water on the pond... Definitely fun to experiment with all these techniques.

Here's a detail that shows the varied approaches to the different areas.

Graphite and the painter's mind...

Ever since the workshop with Mel Stabin, I have felt encouraged to do close-up figures and portraits in watercolor--the ones I did at the workshop were really exciting and fun to do. So when I did a sketch yesterday, I chose to plan for a portrait of this interesting character I met in the Caribbean.

Sketching already takes me one step into the painting, it prompts my internal dialog: "what kind of brushstroke will I use for this stretch of hair? which "strands" should I make dark and which should I make gray? how light should I make his long gray beard? how far can I obliterate detail in the face area and still leave enough of a sense of expression? is it important to leave some sense of the man's age, or is that irrelevant? how can I portray his gentleness and peace and avoid making his face hidden in shadow scary? how much do I need to describe his t-shirt? how much overlap to create between his hand and his head? which edges should be lost, and soft, and which should be hard, and found?" ...and I'm not even thinking color yet!

Those questions were set in motion and now will live in my mind, much like characters do in a for a writer during the writing of a novel, and I know the answers will oscillate back and forth until I finally pin them down in the painting itself.

Time away from the brushes...

The first month of fatherhood and an intense work schedule have been keeping me away from the brushes most of the time these days. I have missed entering a show, have been away from the weekly plain air sessions, and have missed some exhibit openings... This does not mean I am totally removed from artistic activity though: I've submitted to two shows, have contributed an article to the October issue of the Colorado Watercolor Society newsletter, and managed to attend the society's monthly meeting this week. (The CWS website, by the way, has gone through a nice transformation the last few months, and is worth checking out, at www.coloradowatercolorsociety.org.) I am also taking the opportunity to review some of my older paintings and plan some new ones; hopefully the incubation period will yield good works soon...

Late Summer Days: Landscape on Yupo

Late Summer Days, watercolor on yupo synthetic paper, 20x26 inches

This is another piece on yupo, the second one I did. It started with a technique learned from Mark Mehaffey: I applied Winsor red, cadmium yellow and cerulean blue almost straight off the tube, diluted with very little water, and allowed the colors to merge and move on the surface of the yupo. After letting the mixture dry overnight, I chose a scene to "carve out" of that background by lifting pigment back to white, and layering other colors.

The green color was lifted partially to reveal the sky and negatively shape the tree masses. The white barn was lifted completely to white, with a brush wet with clear water. The silo was given a rough texture by applying multiple layers of color. Watercolor pencils were used to add random lines for texture and variety.

The detail below gives a better view of the main shapes and the techniques used and textures achieved. You can click on the image to view and even larger version.

Late Summer Days, detail

It was very exciting to work with the loose characteristic of yupo and still try to impose some measure of control in the creation of shapes and details!

The Season Bells

The Season Bells, watercolor on paper, 12x16

This was an exercise in which I worked without any preliminary sketch or pencil drawing, and used mostly two colors: perylene maroon and phthalo green, with some cobalt blue and cadmium red. I started drawing/painting directly with color, with the bell tower, and worked my way out and down from there. This approach sacrificed some of the perspective, which became skewed, especially in the case of the foreground buildings. This was based on a photo of Venice on a dark, rainy day. It made me think of a cold Christmas eve and the church bells calling the devout to navigate the labyrinth of wet streets for their prayers. So I introduced figures in procession towards the church. The main couple was taken from another sketch I made of rainy Venice... This was a fun exercise, but definitely challenging.

Boston Harbor: From Sketch to Final Work

I had meant this study to be more of a step-by-step demo, but I ended up forgetting to photograph more often or more evenly during the painting process, so now all I have is some snapshots of the work in progress. They still provide some insight into how the painting evolved, so here is the development of Boston Harbor:

1. Pencil sketch, fairly detailed. My goal was to practice painting water, and to use a combination of colors I hadn't used before: turquoise and scarlet. I was attracted by the diagonal lines that lead to the main boats. I "invented" some details, such as the figures. In my reference photo, somehow, the scene is deserted.

2. First washes, using cadmium scarlet and cobalt turquoise in various combinations, with some cobalt blue and some magenta as well. I didn't want the sky to be blue, so I used the diluted scarlet for a pale orange hue.

3. I added glaze of cadmium scarlet to unify the distant buildings, and of cobalt turquoise over the scarlet on the nearby buildings, to darken and cool down the color. It was difficult to work the sunlight because this photo was taken in the middle of the day, with the sun high in the sky. It is trickier to define shapes without longer, darker shadows.

4. I added the water very quickly, with loose strokes of a large brush, with cobalt turquoise and a little scarlet to gray it down in shadow or reflex areas. I pulled some of the cobalt turquoise onto the boats as a reflected color. I added darks and other details, using indigo mixed with the previous colors.

5. I got tired, moved on to other paintings and left this unfinished at this stage for a couple of months, until I finally got back to it yesterday. I finished the shapes of the boats and added details in the middle ground (too much I think). I used watercolor pencils to add lines and details and color in some areas, as in the poles, for instance, to finish the piece.

Boston Harbor, W&N watercolors on Waterford CP paper, 22x15

Sketching the Passage of Time...

Miguel Lucas turned one week old today! Christina's prenancy is over, but it was a joyous time of anticipation, and I am glad to look back and find it documented in so many photos and in my sketchbook. It was only a week before the birth that I made this sketch:


And before that, I had sketched her in color, rehearsing with her Balboa group for a dance performance at an event. She was seven months pregnant then.

And earlier still, at four months, when her belly was just beginning to show...


Now we are beginning a new phase in our lives, with many more sketches to come, to mark the passage of time with the scenes that touch the heart and spill onto the paper...