Grey Heron - Adapting to One's Environment

Adapting to One's Environment, 12x16, available

The photo I took for this painting was taken while visiting my son in Kanazawa Japan. He had moved there to teach English a few years after graduating college. This would be around 2006. The city sits between two rivers, so I am not sure which river this is along, but as you can see, it is concrete and granite banking the river. Kanazawa sits along the Sea of Japan on the western coast of Japan. I took the photo from across the river, so the actual image is quite grainy. I had to fill in some areas that did not read well, especially around the eyes.

1. Getting the Shapes in

I sketched the bird in with a crimson colored pencil, which you can see still in this block in as I figure out relationships in shapes and values. My thought was to have the Heron blend into his 'environment,' so I used the same color palette for the granite wall and the bird.

2. Darkening down the wall

Even thought I liked the colors in the granite wall, I decided it needed to be more neutral so I added a darker value of a greyed blue overall. Dry-brushing it on to allow texture. I added a pinkish color to the concrete surface which as up to this point, I had left blank canvas. 

3. Finishing the bird

Now that the surrounding area is where I want it, I start work on finishing the bird. I softened the hard dark blacks and darkened the greys of his feathers. Also added some soft yellows and purples to his neck and head.

All these images were taken in my studio with my iPhone. I find it interesting that the earlier photos look darker than the last. 

Kevin Weckbach at Gallery 1261

I apologize in advance for not getting this out while the show was up. However, it appears to still be up on Gallery 1261's website. I went to the opening two weeks ago and was there early enough to get a chance to talk to Kevin, although not for long. He posed for his girlfriend to take this photo, so I did likewise. For those who don't know, I consider Kevin my mentor. I took his year long master painting class more than once, and though it has been many years since then, his teachings stay with me - at least most of the time.

There are so many good paintings in this show, I am surprised it did not sell out. In my opinion, he is one of the best painters of our time -based on my limited knowledge of all artists of our time. His use of color and his strong values that show up in his paintings are rarely rivaled. He paints so abstractly yet the abstract shapes pull a scene together so succinctly.

The depth!

Detail-so abstract

Detail-the blue of the river! 

Look at the brushwork! The colors!

Detail of water in the light from painting below

look at the color in the shadow side of the snow!

Wow! pure blue. The warm and the cool- no one does it better

Photos don't do justice to the vibrance of Kevin's work.  He continues to inspire me.

Sargent at the Legion of Honor

 

Detail from Landscape below

Detail from Landscape below

Spanish Hills-details above

Stunning light!

A familiar one

I am a late in posting about this exhibit, but there is still a month or so left if you happen to be in or near San Fransisco before May 14th, 2023. I was there last month, working a visit to the Legion of Honor into visiting family. It is funny how I manage to do that! (It was a rainy day or else we would have also taken the trail along the cliffs from the Legion of Honor) This is my third out of state trip to see a John Singer Sargent Exhibit  (two were in NYC and Brooklyn). This one focused only on his time in Spain. https://www.famsf.org/exhibitions/sargent-and-spain  He was so prolific there has been very little overlap in going to see his works. Thankfully, he had the ways and means to paint as much as he wanted, and we are all the richer for it. 

Sargent sure had a way with color and light. Some of these paintings positively glowed from across the room. Thankfully the day we went it was busy but not crowded so one could see both close up and from across the room. And take ones time. These are just a few examples of what caught my eye. The landscape was atypical for Sargent in my experience, but so rich in color and nuance. The last three above from the fountain to the girl walking down the street, show the continuity of his palette and how he can make the light around the fountain dance as well as light up the street from a distance or bring to life the Alhambra using very similar color mixes yet achieving very different effects.

The only disappointing aspect of this exhibition was the 'swag' being sold. The postcards chosen for reproduction did nothing for the paintings they represented and usually postcards are the better than what is printed in the books.  I tend to buy coffee mugs as I travel, and the only mug was of one of my least favorite paintings in the show, a pomegranate tree. Even my old iPhone captured the light dancing around the fountain with the beautiful reflected light! This is the third exhibit (Alice Neel at the deYoung Museum in SF and recently here at the Denver Art Museum) I have gone to in the last few years where the quality has decidedly gone down in the Museum gift shops...I can't figure that one out. Cost more, quality sadly lacking. What could possibly be the excuse? I noticed I wasn't the only one walking out without buying anything, not that I believe that to be unusual...

Struttin' his Stuff - Giant Blue Heron

Blue Heron - Strutting, 6x6, oil, available

 I did 3 sketches from life of this Blue Heron, as he hung around the beach in Pensacola FL a few years ago. He just kept walking back and forth and up and down! One sketch I cannot find, it was pen and ink- very different from this pencil sketch and the other is much like this one below, except the legs are too short in it. :-0   Finally did this small oil painting. It was intended to be submitted to the Randy Higbee 6x6 show in December, but it wasn't where I wanted it to be by the deadline. I have had this post sitting here as I tried to find the pen and ink drawing, but alas, I have given up. 

The colors of this bird, though 'blue,' are really quite varied. Such an elegant creature!

pencil sketch

 

Cabin Kitchen, oil and linen, 40x30

Here is a painting I started about two years ago now. I had driven to Arizona to visit an artist friend of mine. She had recently moved and was wanting some company to go plein air painting with. I was happy to oblige. It was mid-April, and much warmer than snowy Colorado. She had made a new friend recently who invited her to come to her cabin. I was included in that invitation, so off we went. This new friend was also a creative type and the yard of this cabin was full of these lanterns she had made. See example below. She made them out of vases, and bowls and ashtrays (from thrift stores) - whatever glassware she thought would work and then she adds a string of lights to the interior base which, though I didn't get a chance to see them lit up at night, I am sure is stunning. What a fun way to recycle and repurpose. There were LOTS of them, in all colors. They look like fun mushrooms sprouting all over the landscape. The 'mushroom' is glued to a stone base to prevent them from toppling over and breaking. 

So back to the painting. She gave us a tour of the interior of the cabin as well. They do not live in the cabin full time but it was as funky inside as it was outside. This kitchen painting is only the first I hope to do of the interior of the cabin. (I did ask permission to take photos inside.) It is a large, for me, painting, with so much going on in it, I had to let it sit, sometimes for months, to be sure the perspective was right and I wasn't getting to nit picky about details, which I am prone to do. This sat for months again once I felt it was done, and when I didn't feel inclined to go back to it, have deemed it 'finished' - at least enough to post it. I found this kitchen to be inviting; where you just want to walk in and explore. Hope you do too! 

Before and After, Debbie's Place

Debbie's Place, Hopland CA, oil, 11x14

This painting was started as a plein air painting in 2007. Debbie was a neighbor of my in-laws up the road in rural Hopland CA. I regularly brought my plein air gear when visiting and did many paintings over the years of this area. Debbie raised these sheep for their wool which she sold to weavers all over the country. I have sold many paintings of her sheep! This was one of my more adventurous paintings from that time period. My vantage point is looking down the hill from behind the fence, standing on the side of the dirt road that is basically one lane. Traffic was not usually a problem.

I recently reworked it yet again as I can't seem to get it where I want it. I think it is as good as it is going to get. When I can't get motivated to paint on the current round of canvas's I have going, revisiting an unsold painting is an easy way to get me interested. Nothing is ever finished around here until it goes out the door! There is a wedding in the family coming up and I was wondering if I should do a new painting for the happy couple or one that the bride would relate to from her childhood. That was the motivation on picking this particular piece to revisit. Some of the photos below are darker than the painting would have been due to the changing digital photo technology but they are not tampered with.

Original, plein air, 2007

First Revision, 2008, looks like a yellow filter! but not

It looks like I corrected some of the drawing on the sheep's shed and took out the blues and dark greens from the grassy hill. I wonder if that was shadows from the trees originally as the roadway was bordered by trees? It is too long ago now for me to know what is was that I was doing as the photo I took has the hillside in sun.

Second Revision, 2011

I have not included the 3rd or was it the 4th revision as it is very similar to the second except I added the dark sheep in the middle ground in the middle. The original plein air is not as bad as I expected it to be, but then, I have a history of not liking what I do on site and can't keep my hands off of it. Either I wipe it off then and there or I keep finding fault in it. I have gotten better about these high expectations over the years, but I don't paint outdoors as much and I have learned the hard way that they are not normally as bad as I think they are if I let them sit for awhile. Those painting that do end up being as bad as I thought, I have been painting over, which I enjoy doing.

White Phalaenopsis

block in

White Phil, 24x12, oil, available

Here is a painting I did recently. I am not convinced it is finished, but I was done. It has been awhile since I painted an orchid from life and with 4 orchids in bloom right now I went with the one that was most advanced in its bloom. It took me longer than I care to admit, working on it over days, trying for the same time of day, which isn't always that easy.

In the block in I was thinking I would add an abstracted version of the desk that is the background of this none set up. I literally just brought the orchid and set it on the computer table I have next to my easel. I then decided I didn't like the idea of the desk but I kept the dark band across the white orchids for contrast. as well as the color of the wall behind the desk. The only color I made up is the golden color in the middle. That would be very dark as well otherwise. I have a gold screen I often use as a simple backdrop for these impromptu still life set ups so that is, I am sure, why I picked that color.

An artist friend of mine was over the other day and I asked her opinion on whether this needed any more work and she said 'no.' I signed it and am posting it 'as is'. I am trying hard to not keep 'fine tuning' it as is my won't.

A better photo added later: