Chili Cook Off and Paint out in Locke

Back to Locke again!  This time, painting was a close second to the annual Chili Cook Off.  It was a beautiful summer day (incredibly, one of the very first of the year!), and the cook off and painting were both successful.  The chili was great, the beer better, the crowds fun but mellow.  All the Locke regulars were there, if not painting.

David Peterson giving a demo

Martha Esch had to 'man' the shop all day, so she didn't paint.  But she did manage to talk David Peterson into giving us a demo of his watercolor technique.  David's style is loose and colorful.  He's quite well known around the area and is one of the people who keeps the Sacramento Fine Arts Center running with his endless volunteer work. 

One of David's watercolors

Ning Hou stopped by to chat for a few moments.  Ning's gallery is in Locke, but we don't see a lot of him.  His work is internationally known and much in demand.  His work is in the permanent collection at the Crocker Museum and the Sacramento Conference Center, just to name two that I happen to be familiar with. 


I painted in the morning and had a fairly successful effort.  I've mentioned before what a challenge it is to paint in Locke plein air.  I'm beginning to figure out that the only hope is to paint an "impression" of Locke, otherwise, it is just overwhelming.  So here's my impression of Locke on Chili Cook Off day with main street closed off. 

"Chili Cook Off in Locke"   Oil on 16" x 12" canvas panel  Plein Air

Revisiting a Plein Aire Painting - "Foothill Farmhouse"

As I have mentioned before, I have a stack of plein air paintings done over the last few years.  Most are not worth keeping, and when I get the time, I'll strip them from the stretcher bars and toss most of them.  However on days like this when inspiration has gone on vacation, it's fun to pull one out and play with it a little.  I try to imagine that it was a student's painting and I wanted to punch it up just a bit.
I found this one today and put it on the easel.

I did this one several years ago painting along Highway 160 just before the turnoffs to Jackson and Ione.  It actually wasn't a bad effort and even now I think it works as a plein air sketch.  But in looking at it for awhile, I thought I could see a few possible improvements.  All of the tree clusters seem very flat.  The groups on the left and right edges are particularly so.  Also, as is often the case in my plein air work, the backgound seems too dark, although it does accentuate the trucks of the palms.  The painting suffers from two centers of interest....those palm trunks and the farmhouse itself.  Maybe by graying the background, the trucks will also be slightly less prominent.  Finally, I wanted to break up the severe line along the roadside.  

After an hour, here it is.  the first thing that jumps out at me is the flat sky.  It isn't really as blue as it appears in this photo (I used cerulean blue), but I sure lost the interest that was in the original.  I think the background is much improved, although it didn't lessen the impact of the trunks of the palms.  Actually, I like them.  I was able to de-green the painting somewhat as well.  Breaking up the edge of the road now allows your eye to wander up into the painting.  The painting has a softer feeling throughout with that hard edge gone.  Finally, the trees have a bit more dimension.  When it sets up a little, I'll go back and lighten the sky.  

I don't know that this painting was really "improved" with re-working, but it was fun with a couple of lessons learned or reinforced.  

Keep Painting!

Another Saturday in Locke

I joined my Locke artist friends Ernie Wester, Chris Spencer, Martha Esch and other local artists including gallery owner and painter Brock Alexander for a paint out competition in Locke. The occasion was an Pacific Asian Cultural Festival. Parking was banned on Main Street (Something they should do every weekend) and there was a nice crowd. The weather in the early part of the day was beautiful. I managed two paintings, very unusual for me. The first was done in one of the back alleyways that shoot off Main Street. 

For this painting, I decided to ignore the cars...which wasn't easy!  I had to step to the side and look beyond them to see some parts of the buildings.  I had already toned the canvas with an acrylic wash.   I used a black gesso to draw in the shapes and establish some of the darks.  This is a little gimicky, but I wanted to break out of the normal approach to see if I could get a little energy in the painting.  It went quickly. In no time I found myself beginning to overwork passages, so instead of continuing to overwork everything, I quit for a change. Now there's a new approach!  This makes me think of some sage advice I received from Howard Rees in one of his workshops: "When you see you are putting down the wrong color, stop putting it down!"  In this case, when you see the painting is done, stop painting!

"Behind Main Street" 12" x 16" oil on linen panel.

 I began a second painting of the front of Al the Wops, but it wasn't going well.  I don't think I had much interest in it.  So once again, I think I did the right thing...I stopped, set it aside and got out a new canvas.  Sometimes you will be rewarded by pushing through a tough part of a painting and finding a successful conclusion, but there are times when you are just on the wrong track.  Flogging a dead horse isn't going to make it go faster!
This time I reminded myself I was painting plein aire and to concentrate on shapes and color and capture the impression of the scene.  This was Main Street with the Festival underway.  (" Festival on Main Street, Locke" 8x16 oil on canvas panel.

A Saturday Morning in Locke

I've alluded to my love/hate relationship with plein aire painting in previous posts.  The love is for the experience of being in the outdoors, usually surrounded by beautiful scenery.  What artist wouldn’t love that? The hate part of the relationship is the inability to capture what I see right in front of me.   How could I miss it so badly?  For heaven's sake, I'm literally tripping over it and I can't get it right.

Somehow, the little town of Locke in the California delta region south of Sacramento is the physical manifestation of that love / hate vibe for me.  You really have to see Locke to understand.  It’s a western movie set falling apart.  It’s beyond tattered quaint.  The place just oozes falling down, derelict charm.  You wonder what holds some of the buildings up.  Everywhere you look, there’s a painting.  Or so you get lulled into thinking.  The truth is Locke is HARD to paint!  All those looming balconies and posts, roof lines every which way, dusty windows filled with dusty merchandise or as often as not, abandoned junk.  Sagging stairways, rusty drainpipes and motorcycles! (Al the Wop's is there.  It’s the de rigueur stop on any weekend motorcycle tour through the delta.)  Locke is total artistic overload and more than once I’ve bit off way, way more than I could chew.

T

I can't remember when I first painted in Locke, but I'd guess it was about five years ago.  This picture was taken on one of those paint outs. Over the years, I’ve failed far more times than I succeeded in capturing the rickety little town.  But I keep going back, like a hopelessly hooked golfer who thinks he’ll do better next time.  Last Saturday, I visited Locke to take another swing.  Other painters were there too, including real life Locke resident artists Chris Spencer, Martha Esch and Ernie Wester.  Yes, there are at least three people actually known to live in Locke. 


My painting friend Ruth Andre ( http://ruthandre.com ) and I ventured down a little space between buildings in search of something manageable to paint..  We both settled on a little shed with a vine half engulfing it. 

There isn’t much to this painting.  It could be anywhere.  There’s nothing about it that says Locke, but I was satisfied.  I felt that I kept it simple, and except for the small plant in the foreground bottom right, I resisted overworking things.  I was pleased with the background fade out on the left side of the canvas.  (It’s actually a bit smoother in transition from lighter to darker than the photo shows.)  When I got home and the painting had a day to set, I repaired areas where the easel prevented painting. I also added a few strokes to the wood siding to create a little added texture.  Finally, some light green values right at the door opening created more depth to the plant and brought the center of interest to the door opening.  All in all, not a bad little painting. 
The plein aire session was followed by a hamburger and beer at Al the Wop’s.  It was a good day in Locke.

If you haven’t been there, go.  It’s about 25 miles south of Sacramento.  Follow the river road (Freeport Blvd will lead you through Freeport and onto the River Road) or go down I-5 to Twin Cities Road, head west, turn south again on the River Road for about 2 miles to Locke.  Visit Martha Esch’s gallery, Artworks In Progress (http://www.artworksinprogress.com/), and her shop, the Tourist Trap.  If you see Chris Spencer (he’s hard to miss...he'll likely be holding forth on Main Street - as in the picture to the right - or in Al's) ask him all about Locke and the Delta and his art.  He might invite you into his place which is home, studio and gallery….and you’ll see 30 years of the Locke experience as recorded in his art on the walls, floor and under the bed.  You probably won’t see Ernie, and if you do, you won’t know it.  But if you should get a chance to visit with him, you’ll be talking to a truly gifted painter.  Of course, you’ll need to visit other galleries and shops in Locke (there are only a couple…much of Locke is still in arrested decay and disuse), and finally, you can’t visit Locke without a beer and maybe a hamburger at Al the Wop’s.  If you ask the bartender, he’ll give you a silver dollar and a tack.  Using those you may be able to stick a dollar bill (you supply) to the ceiling with the dozens of others already up there. Hey, it's worth a try....and probably easier than getting a good painting of Locke!

Revisiting a Plein Aire Painting

The plein air experience is wonderful and invigorating in so many ways, but while each painting is a learning experience, the results are not always inspiring.  I have a studio full of really bad, boring plein air paintings.  Most are simply set aside and forgotten, some are removed from the stretchers and discarded but in a few cases, I'll put one back on the easel to see if I can 'save' it.  I've had occasional success with this "repainting", usually by introducing some new, clean colors, pushing the background back a little more and sharpening detail.  Recently I pulled a painting done at Bodega Bay last year during a trip with Howard Rees and artist friends.  The picture was pretty dull and my inclination was to try my usual repairs.  I wanted to put in some clearer, cleaner lights on the pathway and for some reason I decided to lay in the color with my palette knife.  I've done this on a few other paintings, but to a pretty limited extent.  As I began, I was pleased with the strong clean color and I found myself moving to other areas of the painting.  I decided to emphasize the rough craggy nature of the rock on the left and the knife strokes did that well, while at the same time introducing some streaks of color that added interest and broke up the monotony.  In the trees, I found the knife to be perfect in creating some 'accidents' of light and color that added a lot of interest and energy particularly in the trucks.  Finally the knife work in the foreground created texture and interesting color splashes.  Overall, I felt that the original painting had been transformed from a dull and ordinary oil into something that almost sparkles.  I want to try palette knife painting again soon.  I love the clean colors and sharp edges that are possible.

Books on painting that changed everything for me.

Figure Painting in Watercolor (and Portrait Painting in Watercolor), Charles Reid.  Portrait Painting in Watercolor
I still have both these books.  I wrote my name on the inside covers, but didn't put a date.  My guess is that it was late 1976 when I bought them.  Up to that point, I had never painted nor watched another artist paint.  I had grown up reading the wonderful Walter Foster series of art books on drawing and sketching and all my amateurish efforts where in some form of drawing media.  Charles Reid changed that for me.  His first book, Figure Painting in Watercolor, showed me not only the world of watercolor, but gave me the basics of painting.  I followed his step by step instructions and began my first lessons of art with a brush.  Although after a year or two of watercolor painting, including acceptance in one juried show and a one man show at the Mansion Inn, I set my brushes aside for the next 30 years, I never forgot Reid's love of color and bold expression. 

Portraits From Life in 29 Steps, Howard Sanden.
Portraits from Life in 29 Steps

In 2002, I decided to pick up my brushes once again, and in that year, I found this book.  The first time I paged through the book, I was struck immediately by Sanden's obvious abilities as a portrait painter, but even more, I was enchanted with the bold crispness of his alla prima paintings and demonstrations. I so envy the confidence, technical skill, and freedom that such paintings radiate. (And that boldness was a reminder of Reid's work as well.)  I was also struck at once by the seeming contradictions through out the book. Could someone who looks like a doctor, paints in a tie and lab coat in a pristine, lavishly furnished studio really produce such dramatically rendered work? And then there are the 29 steps mentioned in the title. Twenty nine? Not thirty? Not twenty? And finally, the author's "Pro Mix" paint system seemed a little like a paint-by-number approach. But very soon, I discovered it was something else entirely. 

Mr. Sanden has made me understand the importance of discipline in what I do as an artist. His insistence in following a routine (the 29 steps) and using predicable, tested color combinations (his pro mix system) are part of this lesson. Through out the book, he hammers on the concept, "...marshal all your concentration, alertness, and energy so that every stroke of the brush becomes part of the finished statement....concentrate all you effort upon getting it right the first time..." It took awhile and a number of readings before I begin to truely understand, but now my portraits are dramatically improved because of this approach.

As I paint...and especially as I fail ....I think of Mr. Sanden's emphasis on discipline in the painting process and I know why I missed the mark.  It is a constant struggle -the urge to dabble and fuss is powerful - but I constantly remind myself of his direct and controlled process and my paintings are better and better.

This is a recent portrait, done from a photograph.  It's oil on linen mounted on 16 x 12 hardboard.  My experience with this painting reminded me once again of Sanden's book.  I did just about everything wrong from the start, and then spent an inordinate amount of time trying to "fix" things and find a likeness.  I simply forgot his admonition to "concentrate all your effort to get it right the first time."   I think I need to get the book out and re-read it once again.

Books I've Found Worthwhile

In another post on this blog, I talked about two books that changed the way I paint.  I'll leave those two very special books in a post of their own while I talk about other books I find or have found along the way in this post. 

I've just received "Henry Yan's Figure Drawing, Techniques and Tips."  Essentially this is a book on life drawing, primarily in charcoal.  It is 9" x 12" format, entirely in black and white on very high quality glossy paper.  Mr. Yan's work, done in two to 30 minute (or slightly longer) sessions, is exquiste: loose, strong and at times almost impressionistic.  Although I am a fairly accomplished 'draftsman' -  developed during many years in the architectural design field - I have never had any formal art training where charcoal drawing is a fundamental study.  This book has inspired me to try some charcoal drawing at my next life drawing sessions.  Mr. Yan's book can be found at Amazon.  Here's a link, if you are interested.....
Henry Yan's Figure Drawing (Techniques and Tips)