Lilacs - Still Life

I continue to study still life painting through Dan Edmondson's online course.  I love the rich darks and beautiful colors in these paintings.  This one is on an 18" x 18" stretched canvas.  Medium is walnut oil.  Colors are predominately Rembrandt, with a Permanent Purple by Gamblin added to the regular palette that was a big help with the lilac color. 

Lilacs   18" x 18" oil on canvas

Paint Out at Effie Yeaw

Today I joined several other painters from the Sacramento Plein Air Painters group to enjoy the beautiful woods and wildlife at the Effie Yeaw Center.  This is a wonderful 77 acre preserve along the American River made possible by the efforts of a teacher and lover of the outdoors, Effie Yeaw.   Thanks to Effie,we had a great spot for painting today and for the future.

Watercolorist David Peterson did a demonstration painting to kick off the morning (I wish I had taken pictures!) and then we set off to find our individual painting spots.  The weather was perfect, reaching the high 60's by mid-morning.  The sky was filled with wishy traces of clouds and the sun dimmed then returned then dimmed again all day.  It's still winter in the preserve.  Only the grass shows any green.  It's a challenging landscape for me.  I much prefer to paint architecture...I am at home with the shapes and shadows and textures.  Trees, especially bare trees are a difficult subject for me.  Today I tried to focus, to eliminate and simplify.   I decided to make a particular tree the 'star' of the painting, following advice from recent workshops about finding and identifying a focus point in the very beginning of the painting.  (Thanks Terry Muira and Fongwei Liu!)

I'm very happy with this little study.  I think I created the focal point effectively.  I tried to stay away from attempting to render the tangle of the woods and instead settled for suggesting it.  This is a more subtly colored painting than I usually do, but I think it captures the winter landscape fairly well.

Effie Yeaw Trail   9" x 12"  Oil on canvas panel. 

A Portrait Of Jeff

It's been awhile since I've done a portrait, even from a photo.  This is from the Dan Edmondson Art Masters Program and is a photo supplied by Dan.  The support is a commercial cotton canvas pre-stretched and prep'd.  I added one coat of Golden acrylic gesso to get the canvas a bit smoother and to reduce the absorbancy.  It worked fairly well, but in the future I'm going to begin to use oil based primer for the final coat.  I didn't have any already prepared and it takes about a week for the oil based primer coat to be ready for paint....which means planning ahead, not something I'm real good at.

The background was put in with a turpy wash of Raw Umber,  Rembrandt Olive Green and a little Transparent Oxide Red.  There's a little Ivory Black in there too.  After the portrait was blocked in I added another, more opaque layer to the background immediately around the head, losing a lot of edges in the process.  I'm not crazy about how the background came out, but I think I learned a few things that will help next time.

 The head was "massed in" with a shadow color rather than my more typical approach of drawing in the shape and features with a brush.  Lights were added and then it became a process of working back and forth between light and dark to find a balance and to get the features defined.  he flesh tones are Terra Rosa with white and, in most cases, some Olive Green in varying degrees.  Total time is about five hours.  After I took the photo, I saw several things that need attention, but for now, I'll consider this study lesson done.  It's time to move on to something else.   

Jeff    Oil on canvas  Approx.  18" x 12" 

Plein Air Along Bruceville Road

For the second day in a row, I joined the Sacramento Plein Air Painters.  Today, unlike yesterday, was wonderfully warm.  The sky was blue and cloudless.  We had permission to go onto farm acreage normally closed as private property.  It's impossible to describe the wealth of subject matter everywhere one looked.  Old barns, vehicles, sheds, open vistas....just amazing. 

I was in a bit of a hurry to get back home by half time in the 49er game for the League Championship, so I selected a little piece of all the scenery...probably a good idea, no matter how much time I have. 

Tractor and Shed along Bruceville Rd   Plein Air  Oil on 9" x 12" Canvas Panel

Plein Air at the Capitol

Today I joined with about a dozen other members of the Sacramento Plein Air Painters to paint in Capitol Park.   It was a cold clear and crisp day.  Standing in the shadows for a long time was not recommended!  But it was a good day to be outside. 

I did this study of the east(back) side of the Capitol building as seen from deep in the park.  I had hoped to capture the brilliance of the building against the darker foliage, while also having a feeling of atmosphere and depth.  I think I was only partially successful.  Now that I've had a chance to sit back and look at it, the size of the building is much too large. It looms over the middle ground trees, which was not the case.  This is a common problem for me.  I tend to make my subject too large on the canvas. Often it's just a matter of composition, but in this case, that tendency has worked against the feeling of distance.  If the size of the building was about 3/4 what it is now, I think the depth of the painting would have been much enhanced.  Yet another lesson to be learned...or in this case, re-learned.  

 I'd like to return to try it again another day.

It's on a Raymar panel,  12" x 9"

California Capitol  East Side   12" x 9" canvas panel. 

South Fork Yuba River - A Small Study

Many, many years ago, I spent some of the best summer vacations of my life in a large cabin along the South Fork of the Yuba River, not far from the little town of North San Juan.  My cousins and the life-long friends of theirs who owed the place all called it "The Ranch".  There were half wild horses, forests and the cold clear river.  And, of course, the "diving rock".  Unfortunately it burned down some time ago, but the good memories of swimming all day in the river will remain with me forever.

A few years ago, my cousin Karen and I took a drive back into the past to North San Juan.  Although we couldn't locate where the Ranch had been, we knew we were close.  I took this photo very near the spot where we once swam as kids.  Today I was in the studio, came across it and did this small study.

Memories of The Ranch  oil on 8" x 6" panel

A Cold Morning in Locke!

This morning I joined the Sacramento Plein Air Painters Meetup Group for the regular "first Saturday of the month" paint out in Locke.  It's one of my favorite plein air locations.  Martha Esch led a small group of artists into the slough area behind Locke for a hiking and sketching trip while I stayed behind and painted the town!

In the early morning, the sun was out and, although it was chilly, it felt comfortable.  However, as the morning wore on, it got colder and colder...or so it seemed to me.  Standing virtually motionless at the easel for the better part of two hours was no doubt a large part of the challenge.  Fortunately, hot coffee was available just a walk down main street at Al the Wop's famous dive bar and restaurant.

This little plein air study is 12" x 9" on a raymar canvas panel.  I started out with a pencil sketch and even went so far as to establish my vanishing point and horizon line (thank you Terry Muira!)  And speaking of Terry, I shamelessly stole his technique as well -at least as well as I could - but then that's why I took the workshop, right Terry??  When I returned to the studio this afternoon, I added a few palette knife strokes to establish a few edges, suggest the direction of the building siding, and put in the powerlines.

Locke Cultural Center  Plein Air oil on 12" x 9" canvas panel

  Martha Esch returned with her group and snapped this photo as I was finishing up.