Fall is the Wrong Season as we see Spring on the Horizon

Smith Lake-Fall Reflected, 18x24, oil...available

As I walked the park this morning there was decidedly Spring feel to the air despite the temperature which was 19 degrees. The air was clear and there was a bird singing that heralds the change of seasons. That is in stark contrast to the painting I am posting today. I started this painting in early fall last year (or could it have possibly been the year before?) and finally was motivated to go for it. I never had gotten far, and had somehow lost all interest in. It is not my usual style, which is on purpose. I would like my landscapes to be more abstract which is how I started this painting but ended up being more loosely painted. I would like to believe I was listening and dancing to some lively music, but that was really not the case. More a wanting to do something completely different for me.
I have walked this park so many times I am surprised that there is no groove to prove it!

Urbino Alley, Italy

I don't believe I have posted this painting before. This painting was started in 2014, or possibly early as it is from a trip I took in the Fall of 2012. It is one of those "problem children" we artists sometimes give birth to.  It is a LOCAL TONE with light and shadow. What I mean by that is, since most of the subject is in shadow, it is painted with more flat surfaces, not impacted by light. But there is that streak of sunlight coming in on one side which produced some reflected light on the opposite building which can get tricky, so I just downplayed that reflected light. It was causing confusion, so it had to go. I also had trouble with the light coming down on either side of the bridge. I could not seem to get past a candy stripe effect on the street, so I finally down played that contrast as well. I will not publish all of the phases this poor painting has gone through, but suffice it to say, it is now the best it has looked. Darkening down all the values did make a huge difference. I also ended up redrawing the whole bottom left side so that the lines from the doorway did not go off the edge.

Urbino Alley 2014, 30x20, oil on linen

Urbino is a wonderful medieval walled town in the Marche region of Italy. I wanted to go to this region because one, I wanted to go to the Adriatic and two, I heard it is very similar to Tuscany in terrain but much cheaper! I found this to be true, especially in the off season. Heard very little English. We took the bus to Urbino for the day, as it is not an easy place to find lodgings. I enjoyed staying a half block off of the sea, so that was no problem. A pit stop on the Adriatic was a good way to take a needed break during our trip. Started in Paris (crowds), then went to Venice (more crowds) and from the Adriatic we headed to Rome (even more crowds as the day we arrived in Rome was the Marathon AND then Pope Benedict was canonizing 9 saints from around the world so Think BIG Crowds and the city shut down to normal traffic!). No crowds in the off season in a beach resort town Here is the post of the painting I did from one of my walks on the beach. The town on the Adriatic where we stayed was called Pescara.

Vail Pass Descent

Vail Pass Descent, 30x30, oil on linen, available

I posted this when I had it on the easel for it's block in last April. This post was started shortly after, but I just found it was still a draft. Guess it is time to finish this post up.

I did try to keep that energy and rhythm that I had in the block in going while I worked on it. That is not an easy thing for me to do, but I believe I succeeded on this one. Since the block in went so well this painting took no time at all to finish. Big Shapes; Three Values; Local Tone; what's not to like?

I forgot about finishing this post up way back when that this painting is now hanging at the Framed Image (Happy Canyon Shopping Center, 5066 E Hampden Ave, Denver, CO 80222) through the end of December for the Snow Show. Stop in and check it out if you are in the area.

Randy Higbee Gallery 6x6 show

Just a wee note to let you all know that I got the 3 pieces I submitted accepted into the Randy Higbee Gallery for the annual 6x6 show. The gallery is in Costa Mesa, CA the month of December. I had one accepted last year out of three and it sold. Sure hoping I sell at least one again but all three of course would be lovely. Randy has posted all accepted paintings on http://www.dailybrushwork.com so you can see them online.
Below is the only one of the three I have not posted on my blog. It is coming out of Glenwood Canyon on I-70. A year ago I went to Glenwood Springs with my two adult children to take in the hot springs. What a lovely time it was, too. Gorgeous weather and outdoor pools. I could use a bit of that right about now, too.

Homeward Bound, 6x6, oil on panel

CR 519, 6x6, oil on panel. Available

In my pursuit of keeping things simple, here is a small version of the county road I have been painting the past few weeks. I have so enjoyed working with this simple subject. I like roads anyway, which is not new, but I enjoy the ribbon effect of the county roads throughout the mountains. The colors in this landscape were stunning.

Coming up to Tiger Wall

Another new one off the easel recently is from a trip I took on the Yampa River a few years ago. It is a larger format for me. I wanted to show the grandeur of Tiger Wall, a monument we all love to kiss as we float by. You can see the size of the wall by the tiny two man raft floating towards it. The raft is hard to see in this size of an image, I grant you that!

 Approaching Tiger Wall, 40x30, oil on canvas - available

I am going to post this now as for whatever reason, this blog is going cattywampus on me. I wrote a post before this on a completely different topic and gave up after two days of trying. I don't like getting frustrated by trying to write a post because this application doesn't want to cooperate. I may have to look for another option for my blog.  I take no credit for however it ends up looking as nothing I do to adjust the format is working lately.

Park Along the Bay 22

Park Along the Bay SF, 6x6, oil on panel

Squeaking by to Day 22 in the 30 paintings in 30 Day challenge! Keeping to a simple subject so I feel like I am accomplishing a painting and not just a block-in. This is right near SF bay on a very wet drizzly day. The rain had stopped for awhile but it was only a matter of time before it began again. We were in San Francisco to see the Impressionist Pt 2 from the D'Orsay Museum in Paris. It was Pt 2 because it was the second of two exhibitions on loan from the D'Orsay while it was undergoing renovations and it was the later "Impressionists" as they moved on to other directions. So the show included VanGogh, Bonnard and Vuilliard among others. Pt 1 had the more typically known names associated with the impressionists. We could only go to one and I wanted my husband to see these later names. He had never seen a VanGogh in person before. He was suitably impressed.

http://lesliesaeta.blogspot.com/2015/01/thirty-paintings-in-30-days-day-twenty_22.html

Lonesome Highway

Lonesome Highway, 18x36, oil

This is my Day 12 of the 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge. Many of you may recognize this scene as I painted a very similar painting a number of years ago that has since sold. The Denver Stock Show is in progress right now which inspired me to paint another version of this typically American West scene.

As I had just started the challenge I wondered how fast I could paint this large canvas and gave myself a week. I painted the majority of it in two half days, while also working on the smaller paintings for this challenge as well as a couple of other larger pieces I had going in the studio. Faster is not necessarily better, as we all know, but my goal right now is to paint more expressively. Painting in a shorter time frame allows some of that to show through as well as to train myself to let go of my "need" to make things tidy. My block-ins are usually very expressive and free. I realize this painting still reads rather tight in this image, but the landscape is loosely rendered, and for me the car is not as tight as I am wont to do. Baby steps!

Windswept

Windswept, 9x12, oil on linen

A fun little painting I did last week. I was playing with texture. I used a different brush size for each of the main components. i.e., a big brush for the sky, a medium brush for the tree and a small brush for the grass. For the path I used the large brush first and them the small brush. The exercise was to equalize the texture within any given area. That is why the pattern in the grass is a different pattern or texture than the greenery of the tree or the ocean or sky.

The scene is the cliffs above the Pacific Ocean at Half Moon Bay, California. We were there for Easter and a walk on the beach seemed so perfect. It was a beautiful day, though still a bit chilly. The cliffs are so amazing. I hope to do at least one painting of the cliffs. Here is an image of these same cliffs viewed from the beach although the photo is a bit north of where the tree was. The painting I highlighted in this recent post was also painted from our walk that day. I do love being on a beach no matter what the weather. 

Sunday Morning-Dun Laoghaire side street

Sunday Morning Side Street, 30x24, oil on linen

We don't often think of Ireland being sunny, but here is an example of a beautiful, quiet Sunday morning in the coastal town of Dun Laoghaire which is just south of Dublin by commuter train. It is pronounced Dun Leary I learned when I was trying to catch the train and I was making sure I was on the right side of the tracks. My sense of direction was not tuned to the area yet. It was not that early in the morning but I felt like I had the town to myself as I wandered around. Although the sun was out it was quite chilly near the water so I explored the town first. 

This little street scene reads more like an alley but it was a street as you can see by the stop signs. I was attracted to it because of all the colors. and repeating shapes. Pink, green, blue, yellow and that great terracotta in the sun at the end of the road. I was in Ireland in March but the planter boxes were already green and flowering.

The visual approach for this painting is light and shadow. This is my first painting from Ireland but I do intend to do more.

Montmartre and Sacre Coeur

Montmartre with Sacre Coeur, 15x30. oil

Here is a new one for you. I started this months ago but only now have gotten it close to where I want it. The first draft I went very graphic with heavy outlines on the buildings. But I kept the cathedral more realistic which made it feel like two paintings in one. Since the idea of outlining the cathedral did not seem appropriate I painted over most of the lines in the rest of the painting and also removed windows and blended buildings together, leaving just some here and there. The trees remained the same, just one dark shape broken up by lighter shapes. I may at some point paint this scene again with a very graphic fun style. I am seeing it in my minds eye as I write this post. Take it in a totally different direction. Maybe paint it a little larger than this one.

This is a local tone painting, meaning it has three distinct values: light, medium and dark. The lower half is also a study in equalization. Equalization is a visual approach which brings a uniform sense of pattern to a painting. The goal is to create a visual rhythm out of the pattern. It does not mean all shapes are equal in size and shape but are similar in size and shape, no two alike. I also was doing color harmony as an element where every color has blue in it. That is still true but I did not take it as far as I could have.

The reference photo for this painting was from my two weeks in France 7 years ago. I have so much reference material from that trip I am still discovering. A real treasure trove. This is not the typical view of Sacre Couer but I love the fact that it shows so much of Montmartre a great little village built on a hill in Paris. Be sure to visit this landmark when in Paris. The cathedral is beautiful inside, the view from there across Paris is amazing and the streets are so much fun to explore. There is a funicular for those who can't walk that much.

Gurgy sur l'Yonne aka the Painting from Hell

18x24, oil on canvas

We all have something in our lives which humble us along life's journey. Here is one of mine. I called this piece the "Painting from Hell" for many a year. I started it in the fall of 2009. I can't even show you how far it has come over the years. It is just not pretty. I try to look at these "hit the wall" times as a time of growth. I am obviously not where I need to be, but with persistence, I may get there. I know intellectually what needs to be done but I haven't quite figured out how to apply that knowledge. I walked this painting to the dumpster at least three times and as it hovered over the abyss I would ask myself if I was really going to let this defeat me. (Please note that I do throw paintings away; that is not a difficult thing to do when it is called for.) When I started this painting, I was trying to harmonize the color using the sludge out of my brush cleaner can as the color base or "mother" color. I am still using a mother color in this painting just not sludge. I went to the color of the fog instead. That was not the problem holding me up however. I think it was my very strong natural graphic approach coming up against the subtleties of fog and bringing objects into clarity as they came closer to the viewer. In Colorado where the air is thinner, we do not often have such shifts in the atmosphere. I am not sure this painting will ever be done as long as it is in my possession but it is now acceptable and I hung it at work where it was well received.

This is the village where the previous posted painting was also located. That painting was in the evening, this one in the morning, but they both shared fog. I was on my into town to find a Patisserie to buy breakfast before we headed up river.

Docked Dinghy

Docked Dinghy, 24x24, oil on canvas

For this painting, I used "Blue" as the visual approach. I painted this as a local tone (three values with a flat feel) with the street lights providing the subtle light and shadow. For this to be blue as the visual approach, it means that every color in this painting has blue mixed into it. I used the same blue throughout, a very strong color, thalo blue. I rarely use thalo blue since it is so hard to tame, but it was the only blue that would give me the color I wanted for the fog/water.

This scene is along the Yonne River in Burgandy, France. We were on a 5 day boat trip. We were behind schedule this day and therefore what we thought would be our last lock was closed before we could get there. We found this little village to tie up to, Gurgy sur l'Yonne. Just like this dinghy, we were next to a small concrete pad which signified a place to dock. I have done more paintings from this little village and our unplanned pit stop there. The painting I am currently working on is a scene taken from just about where the road starts on the right side of this painting.

Tomales Bay - Local Tone

Tomales Bay, California . 30x30, oil on linen

In my last post, I talked about local tone using just THREE VALUES. This painting is local tone, with three distinct groupings of a light group, medium group and dark group. But there are more than three values. My light group, as is very obvious in this particular painting, is the sky, the sky reflected in the water, the yellow house and boat house and the white roof. They create a wonderful circular pattern in this painting. The mediums are the rest of the houses (blue and red) and the 3 roofs in the center. The dark group includes the trees and the dark gray roof and the corresponding reflections including the darks under the docks to the right. The docks themselves are both light and medium and create their own pattern.

I currently have a number of other LOCAL TONE paintings in various stages of development. Local Tone is, I believe, my favorite visual approach. Stay tuned! But my next big painting will be light and shadow. As Kevin Weckbach likes to say "the foundation for a good light and shadow painting is a solid local tone."

Tomales Bay is in Northern California, or almost directly west of Petaluma.  Every time my husband and I travel to visit his family, we drive to Tomales Bay to get fresh oysters. We then eat oysters for days! Yes, most of them are eaten raw, but the chef will BBQ "some" for those who just can't eat them raw. But oh, my, talk about tasting of the ocean. I do love a good oyster, and Tomales Bay is where we go to get them. I have heard that there is now an outlet from the farm we go to in SF.  The Farm is called Hog Island. I highly recommend it.

Three Value Study

9x12, oil on panel

In preparation for doing a local tone painting, I did this study using three value groups. To do this you can have variety of color but only one light value, one medium value and one dark value. So my dark value is the black and the browns.There is a little glare on this painting so some of the darks don't look as dark as they are. The medium group is the largest group and it is the grass and the barn itself. I used yellow green at the top left side of the hill down to a blue green where it hits the fence, but it is all in one value if you squint down. On the barn, to keep it from feeling too flat, I add blues to gray the reds down on the "shadow" side, yet kept it in the same value as the front, which is a richer red. The light group would be the sky and the roof and the sheep in the field. The roof is a greener gray and the texture I used also helps to differentiate it from the sky, which has more blue in it. But again, if you squint you will see how they merge into one value. This was a fun exercise and has me primed for the next painting, which will be local tone. Stay tuned.

Gray-scale showing three value groups, light, medium and dark

This barn was a "drive by" as I was traveling with my aunt through North Carolina. We were leaving the Smokey Mountains and starting to head East towards Raleigh//Durham. The road was amazingly narrow, rolling and curvy. Luckily, I was not driving at the time so I was able to hang my head out of the window trying to snap some photos as we whizzed by.

Ogden Street Alley Recaptured

I realized while I was writing the post on the Moonshine Yarrow painting, that I have stood, in a relatively small area of our alley, and done a number of paintings. I thought it might be fun to recap some of them in a post so that they all can be seen together. I have looked north more than south with an east thrown in. My first painting was in the Summer of 2006, and it was painted plein air. A bunch of hollyhocks had grown up against the neighbors fence where I had thrown some in a pile while cleaning up my garden the year before. I piled them high before putting them all in the trash at once so I would not have to stop while in my gardening frenzy. I was so taken with the crop of hollyhocks that volunteered there, lovely in the afternoon light, that I got out my gear and set up. I am facing east here, but standing in almost the same spot I stood to do the Moonshine Yarrow painting. This is the first year since 2006 that these flowers did not do well. I think it was all the rain we had this summer. These guys definitely prefer hot and dry.

Jeff's Fence, July 2006, 24x12

A few years later, I did this 36x24 studio piece from the photos I had taken that day. This painting was in the National Oil Painters of America show of 2010 in Scottsdale AZ. I had so much fun painting this. I loved all the colors in the big heart-shaped leaves and the way the leaves layer and cast shadows.

Hollyhocks in the Alley, 36x24, 2009

My next painting from my alley was in the Fall of 2009, and it was also painted plein air. I remember being attracted to the way the white truck, garage and tree trunk were carved out by the grays of the leafless trees behind. I was also attracted by the repetition of oranges of the fences, the garage and the bush being hit with the afternoon light. Monochromatic with a splash of fall color!Or a study in orange and blue, which are complimentary colors. I stood on the corner of our driveway to get this view. This painting was in the Plein Air Artists of Colorado Show in 2010 when it was held at Saks Gallery in Cherry Creek.

Alley in Fall, October 2009, 14x11

Work in Progress, 24x36, oil on linen, 2010

I did a plein air study for this larger studio piece one cold snowy day. It was quickly done as I was standing in the alley on the hill and it was very icy standing in the shadow of the house. There was not a lot of room if a car slid going up or down the hill. I was mainly focused on the shapes and repeating angles of the garage roofs. I had driven home from running errands and saw the guys working at the end of the alley and decided I Just had to capture it. I had about an hour before they broke for lunch. This finished painting took the blue and orange theme I had started in the first painting to a deeper level. Having the snow on the ground was a huge asset. I like the scene from the middle perspective down the alley and just at the crest of the hill in the studio piece.

WIP study, 11x14, February 2010

Then in July of 2010 I did this painting of the hollyhocks. I am standing on the edge of Jeff's driveway right across from our garage looking south. (His fence was in the first painting of the hollyhocks.) One of my friends at work had complained about my putting dumpsters front and center in my alley paintings, so I angled myself so that the dumpster was hidden by the hollyhocks. Hollyhocks at High Noon.

Right Up My Alley study, 14x11, early July 2010, oil on linen

I intended to do the larger painting from this study in my studio, but I ended up painting it outside as well. It took me two weekends to do it, but I went out at the same time each day  (11 a.m.-12: 30 p.m.) and did what I could before the light changed too drastically. I decided to lower the vanishing point in the second painting, but the more I look at the first one, the more dramatic that angle seems and I like it. There is now a 6 foot privacy fence where the chain link fence is so the little alley house cannot be seen from this angle any longer. :-( I am noticing more and more of that since I started to document my neighborhood and its alleys. Such a shame. What are people trying to keep out is what I want to know? I would miss chatting with the people who are always walking by our corner lot house, still with an old chain link fence.

Right Up My Alley, late July 2010, 24x18, oil on canvas

Here I am reverting back to looking north. I see this view so often in my rearview mirror as I park, that it is now an old friend. Again, I was coming home around lunchtime from doing errands or walking the dog, and had to stop and take photos. it is just a quiet peaceful scene. I just finished this painting this past spring and have not posted it before now. Just goes to show you that the everyday and commonplace can continue to be "new" and "exciting" if you just don't get to stuck on it being "commonplace,"  or thinking you know it. The only time of year I have not done yet in my little world, is spring. I will have to see what next year brings.

Gently Falling Snow, 18x24, oil on board painted Spring 2013

 

Where to begin?

We will chalk off no posts for 6 weeks (has it really been that long?) to my brain taking a summer vacation and leave it at that. I am determined to post today before I start anything else.

I will start off where I left off on my last post http://victoriasart.blogspot.com/2013/07/moonshine-explosion-in-alley.html

Moonshine Yarrow, early morning light . 30x22, oil on panel

Here is the painting I did from the photographs and the plein air study that I did one early morning around July 4th. I started right about 7 a.m. on the study, thinking I had "plenty of time" and by 8 a.m. I had to stop as the sun had come over the house across the alley and was hitting the side of my face and it was Hot! I am standing on the edge of our alley vegetable garden, looking north. This particular patch of yarrow I have tried to dig up many times over the years, but as you can see, it is still thriving! There are usually tall hollyhocks on the other side of the yarrow, but all the rain this year has not been good for hollyhocks and they were stunted. Just after I started this painting, my neighbor across the street, on the left, whose garage door and side of her garage you can see behind our blue garage, had her house painted. After years of painting this alley and her garage, it is now a different color scheme...The every changing landscape of a neighborhood.

Another post coming soon will continue with this alley as I realized I have painted from this particular 20 square feet or so of alley, many times. I believe the only season not captured thus far is spring.

Reflecting on Reflections

Reflection, 18x36, oil on linen; After

Before

I know I have been quiet for awhile. Only because I have not had much to say. I decided to spend the summer reworking and refining those paintings that need it even if at one time I thought them "done." I have found "done" is a relative term when it comes to a painting. I have this painting facing me when I sit at our dining room table, and since I sit there at least 3 times a day, I have had a year or so to look at it. I did not make major changes to it, even though I did repaint pretty much the whole thing.
Just so you don't have to strain your eyes to figure out what is that different to warrant painting it over again...the thing that bothered me the most was the spit of sand that is the darkest near the end of the horizon line. It was too prominent and the water did not flow naturally around it. The beach did not have the cant I wanted so I redid the beach, adding more dark value in the lower left hand corner. That value needed to read as the same value as the distant hills. I am still debating whether that corner is dark enough, but I think the slope of the beach is better. After I redid the sand I lightened the sky and to both, I added texture. My new thing is to not paint so smooth. In the original I wanted it to be more glass like, but now, no. I want it to feel wet not just misty. Last, but certainly not least, I redid the figure. I started at the top and worked down; darkening his head so it doesn't disappear into the mist while the rest of him was with us; lightening his jacket, correcting some drawing along the way; then the reflection had to be touched up too. Comments are always welcome no matter if you agree with me or not!

Rim Meadow, Fall

Rim Meadow, Golden Gate State Park, CO - 20x30" - oil on linen

Here is the "finished" painting from my last post. I say "finished" lightly as I just because I am "done" for now does not mean I won't work on it again at a later date. I made the changes that I talked about in that post. Bringing some of the rhythms from the original block in back. Someone at my office said, "You can smell the forest." I take that as a high compliment. It has been awhile since I have painted a true Colorado landscape and I enjoyed it very much.

Color as a Visual Approach in blue

Along the Adriatic, 24x24 oil on board

As I wrote last week, this project is Color as a Visual Approach. I chose an easy one to do in blues, since most of it already tended toward blue if it wasn't outright, like the sky and the sea. The only thing I really had to work at was the sand and the woman's face in the sunlight. It is reading as sand, but that sand actually has a lot of blue in it, making it a greenish color. See patch below and how green it looks on its own. BUT next to all the other blues, it still reads as sandy colored. Her face is basically the same pasty green but it reads as if it is in the light. This has been a good exercise for me. Even though the sand in the shadow has a lot of oranges and greens, the over color is blue if you squint down. That is the key. To use your whole palette and still keep the over color bluish.

Kevin critiqued this at the end of Monday's class. He likes it but said two things need to be done. The tire tracks on the right hand side are too soft and need a bit more graphic quality to them to match the overall graphic feel of the piece and to tie the shapes in the sand to the bicycle.