Outside at Last

Today was my first day this spring getting outside to paint.  It was marvellous... I found a quiet spot in the sun by a creek.  It was partially cloudy out and so I would occasionally have very bright sun on the view, followed by cloud cover.  As you can see in the 2 pics below - it can sure makes a difference to your colours and values when it is cloudy vs sunny.  I attempted to get the 'sunny' view - however - I made the mistake of bringing a canvas stained with a deep orange.  I think for my Plein air painting - a lighter warm colour (grey or Sienna) would be better.

Only wildlife, other than geese overhead, was this colourful fly who sat on my easel for a few minutes, warming up.  Would be cool to paint him, but he didn't stick around long enough.

 I did two fairly quick 'sketches' - one is the general view - very thinly done with thinner and oil - so the orange really shows through too much.  The other was just a 'sketch' of the little tree in front of me.  Both I 'erased' after to reuse the board for my next time out.  I just made sure to paint the panel a light grey for next time.

What to do with the failed paintings?

Like most artists, I have a number of canvases with paintings that did not go as planned. I also have difficulty throwing out or wasting the canvas and stretcher bars.  At times I have just removed the canvas and re-stretched some new canvas.  You always have to be careful that your old painting doesn't come creeping through if you do decide to paint over them - so I tried painting fairly thickly over a somewhat thinner painting underneath.

With this painting, I had a large, 36 x 48 canvas that had not worked out.  So I turned it sideways and sketched in a new idea from a photograph I took in Sept. 2019 at an art fair.  I had asked a couple guys with cool retro bikes if I could take a photo of them and their bikes for a potential painting.  They agreed and this painting below is one from these photos. 

Completed 36 x 48 Oil on Canvas Title? - 'Hecks Angel' maybe (or DeathSpoke Rider - which is the name of the retro bike group here in Edmonton)

The first bit of charcoal sketching going on after gridding.

  

I outlined the charcoal in Cadmium Orange Oil paint - cause I love the bright hit of colour it provides

A close up of the face in progress

Figuary 2020 - LIFE drawing

February is FIGUARY!  I have joined in on the FIGUARY 2020 challenge at Vimeo Croquis Cafe, doing life drawing from models on Vimeo.  It is an excellent way to improve on your overall drawing skills and it is FREE!

Often I can not make it to the life drawing sessions available in Edmonton (see Harcourt house courses ).   This is a great alternative way to get some instruction through the lovelifedrawing  instructors on YouTube, then you go over to Vimeo Croquis Cafe for the actual model session.  Unfortunately YouTube does not allow life drawing videos because of the nude models.  Vimeo however does and has some excellent life drawing sessions to practise with.  Posting your life drawing sketches also can cause some issues on Instagram and Facebook because of the nude poses.   (sigh - I would like to go into a long rant here about art / nudes post vs violence / hateful posts but I will withhold my views).

If you have any 'nude' issues than the tamer SketchDaily website has excellent animal and clothed people photos to practise on.  HOWEVER, I find it interesting that a number of the clothed photos on this site are of women in 'sexy' costumes and seem more degrading to women, than any nude models on Vimeo.  In one of my figure drawing classes at university, one of the female models refused to wear 'sexy' lingerie items, as she felt they were offensive to women and I had to agree - the lingerie seemed to create a more 'porn' feel to the pose. Rant over.

The time commitment is minimal as the videos are about 15 minutes long.  It can start with 30 second to 1 minute poses, 2 minute poses and finally one 5 minute pose.  The 2 minute poses are my favourites - not enough time to get into detail, but just getting important lines and movement sketched in.  FUN!

Day 3-  2 min poses

I am noticing an improvement in my sketching in these first 7 days - the tips and instruction on lovelifedrawing  are helpful.  

 Happy Sketching.

Day 7 - 2 min poses

Day 7 - 5 min pose

Values vs Colour

Value in a painting, refers to the lights and darks that are used.  Currently, I am working on a piece that I did some plein air painting on this summer, and took several photos of (it is not yet done, as I am just getting to the foreground reeds now).   As you are working away sometimes you know that things aren't 'reading' exactly right, so it is always helpful to get rid of one thing to simplify the process.  So... getting rid of colour by putting your photo in black and white and then taking a photo of your painting in black and white is very useful.  

 NOW... it is easier to see that the background mountains are a little too mid-value when they should be a bit lighter value and probably a bit softer and fuzzier.  The closer trees on the edge of the lake could go a bit darker too.  You can almost paint this in any colours you choose and as long as the values 'read' correctly it can be a very interesting painting.  I think that is what I would like to experiment with next... some crazy hues of colour, within the correct shade of light and dark.  For now I am just attempting to finish this one first!

Strathearn Art Walk - Fun in the Sun

Finding some shade!

On Saturday, I  set up my booth at the annual Strathearn Art Walk.  It was a beautiful day, with lots of great artists / vendors and the weather helped draw a record crowd. This was my fourth art fair experience and probably the most successful one.  I had lots of wonderful people stop by and received some very positive feedback.  I managed to sell 3 original paintings, a few prints / cards, 3 potential commissions and made some great connections with other art minded people.  

Thankfully, my wonderful spouse helped me haul and set up / take down everything and gave me a break part way through.  I managed to race around the site to check out other booths - there were approximately 300 of them, so it took me awhile.  I especially enjoyed meeting some of the other artists and seeing their work.  I held a free giveaway draw for one of my prints, which was a good idea, as I now have a potential commission from that.

So my take-aways from this art fair:

1)  WEATHER is probably one of the biggest factors to a successful amount of traffic through your booth.  Not much you can do but come prepared and hope it is nice out!

2) LOCATION - the park was a really nice spot and most booths had great flow through of people.  Mine was right on a walking path, lots of people wandering by, you did not get to choose though.

3)BOOTH SET UP - not too crowded with stuff, lets more people wander through and looks clean.  

I did not bring a lot of extra art, so when I sold my pieces I didn't have much to replace them with - lesson for next time

4) SIGNATURE PIECE - wow, so many people stopped in because of my large central painting of the mountain town - trying to guess where it was.  Excellent way to start a conversation.

5)BE PREPARED - I finally had my Square credit card reader, a proper cash box, wrapping material for sold paintings - lots of business cards.  I seemed professional this time!!  I did run out of drinking water for myself and so did many food vendors, so I was pretty parched by the end.  More water and snacks next time.

I brought my Plein air easel and paints but as it was sooo busy I didn't have time for that.  I still think it is a good idea if it were a bad weather day though.

Check out this link for some good tips I reviewed (afterwards for some reason) Bob's ideas for art shows

Plein Air Convention Days 4 & 5

Finally, I have a couple moments as all 'my Boyz' are busy making me Mother's Day Brunch and I have a few minutes to do what I want. So here is my review of the final 2 days of the PACE19, Plein Air Convention. 

 I actually slept in and missed the last 6:30 am Boot camp - dang - these were very useful, but I think I needed to catch up on some sleep.   

The first seminar I attended was Suzie Baker.  She was great. One of the top tips I took away was you should STOP when you see something that inspires you and DEFINE what about it inspires you.  Get that main idea written down so you can paint the thing that inspired you.  (the light on the hill, the colours in the sky, etc). Three pages of notes from her demo - she would definitely be worth taking a workshop from.

The second artist seminar I attended was Joe McGurl.  This guy is serious - seriously talented and pretty hardcore about plein air painting - take a look at his work - he foregoes using photos.  He builds lots of his own gadgets to make his  plein air forays into the wilderness easier and to ensure he gets accurate studies for his studio work.  Joe was awesome about sharing all of this info.  He is like the Red Green of plein air painting.  And I am a fan of self-building and home made gadgetry, so I took lots of notes.

Today we had a nice long afternoon paint out at Lands End Park.  Views all over the place, unfortunately I became overly excited by so much to see and tried to include it all in my plein air piece.  The top photo was my view, and so I tried to include golden gate bridge, the beach, rocks, etc. I think I needed a focus and my painting was a struggle with no clear focal point or path.

After about an hour and a half. I packed up my easel, did some sketches and went for a nice long hike down to the beach you can see in the photo.  I really enjoyed the day and got some good photos, despite painting a little stinker.

 SUNDAY - THE FINAL DAY OF PACE 19

This was the last day of the convention.  We bussed out to Viastra Winery in Sonoma at 9 am to paint until 5 pm.  Finally, a beautiful day with the fog lifting by about 10:00.  I set up facing the main building and spent until noon working on a study.

 After I had some lunch I switched spots and found this little vista which had some wonderful atmospheric affects happening with the hills.  I sat in the shade and really enjoyed just painting for another 2 1/2 hrs with a bit of chatting with a pastel artist close by.  An awesome end to a great trip!

Finished!

I had entered this into the Federation of Canadian Artists Postcard Competition a couple of weeks ago.  Was pleased to know that it was juried into the final judging - final winners are going to be chosen May 1st. Crossing fingers.

36x18" oil on canvas
Spring Thaw

Finally, I have completed my painting of Fernie, BC main street.  This has taken a lot of time and effort, but I am fairly pleased with the result.  It will be one of the pieces in my solo show at the Fernie Arts Station in July 2019.  Check it out in person then.

Hangin' Around the Rosies

I really ended up liking this painting when all was said and done.  Initially I had painted in the purplish, dark bushes behind the roses but took them out and liked that better.  I am now questioning the purple hill in the background, but will let it sit for a week or so before I make any drastic changes.  Nothing I like better than fresh laundry off the line.  This particular clothes line was in White Rock BC, taken when out for a stroll.

11x14 oil on canvas