Painting Process Continued

 So I am close to done on this painting process.  I like to leave it sit for awhile and re-think things before finally signing it if I am finished.

This was almost finished but it seemed a little washed out to me. So I proceeded to paint the sky a much deeper blue around some clouds.  Things I am still considering - is that lake snow a tad too yellow and does the close by snow need some more work.  Sometimes I just need to ignore it totally for a week or two before I have fresh eyes and decide if it is okay.  Time will tell

Painting Process

How I sometime tackle a painting, some beginning steps.

First you must go on some kind of outing or adventure and snap a ton of pictures.  This was a super day we spent cross country skiing near Fernie, BC

Decide on a picture and do some ROUGH sketches to help determine what is relevant to paint

I like a vivid acrylic underpainting that will show here and there with some pops of colour later

 and warm up the painting a bit - especially in these snow scenes

I use some black gesso to establish some of the darkest dark areas - it will mostly get painted over.  You can't really see it but I did a transparent red earth glaze of oil paint over the large tree area to add warmth to the trees later too.  I begin laying in the sky first, then randomly start working all over.

This is as far as I got this week.  I will let the painting dry before I tackle the closer trees, as they have that red glaze I don't want mixing in and making muddy later.  

Now I hope that it will continue to work out and sometimes I lose courage and don't want to go farther cause I haven't done anything I do not like yet.  I always fear it could go south on me, but if I plan properly, mix my paints out first and not rush it, it tends to work okay!  I WILL post the results when it is finished. Fingers crossed.

 

Covid Activities

A lot of artists and musicians have been posting tutorials and videos on-line during this challenging time. It's been great to watch or join in.  One bright light for me has been the Portrait Artist of the Week event.  Hosted by Sky Arts TV in the UK, there is a live sitter and one of the winners from the past Portrait Artist programs painting live on Facebook on Sunday mornings.  You can join in by painting the sitter yourself then posting it with the hashtag #mypaotw for all to see.  Luckily the event is recorded, since it is 2 am here when it starts in England.  I have managed to take part in 3 of the 4 painting challenges.  Above is some video of my painting author Bernardine Evaristo, below is my 4 hr stab at getting Robert Rinder , judge and UK tv star on canvas.  Fun, I get up early on Sunday's when no one else is up yet and enjoy painting along and listening to the banter (or the one-sided conversations, since the artist is busy trying to paint the subject).

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... what to do...

Well... things have certainly changed in the last month... I am very blessed to be home and healthy with my family.  Being somewhat of an introvert, I find I am kind of used to spending time on my own, working on projects.  I do miss work, teaching the kids and getting out of the studio was a nice change of pace.  Hopefully we can all get back to our own 'normal' soon!

My attempt at creating a night time painting, with lights

I have been doing lots of cleaning, baking, homework nagging and a few paintings.  I have also been trying to improve on my 'weak' areas of painting - and it seems like there are several!  In doing so I have been sketching more and watching some instructional videos.  There are many great artists putting out instructional / on-line videos.  Streamline Art Videos have been my favourite so far.  Every day, they show a free 45 min to 1.5 hour portion of an instructors video.  If you like what you see you can buy and download an on-line full length version.  I had purchased Brian Blood, Shelby Keefe and Mike Hernandez in the past few years.  Today I downloaded Christine Lashley, to help me learn how to do night lighting effects.  Very informative! Although it may seem pricey - considering the cost of getting to a workshop is several times more expensive - I feel it is worth it.  I can pause and play it SEVERAL times, which I have done with all of them.  James Gurney is another favourite, he has tons of free stuff on his YouTube channel, including lots of outdoor - plein aire painting tips.  Happy painting and stay safe!

Escape to Art

I am continuing to practise by covering up some of my old paintings.  The painting I am covering today was from one of my art courses where we had to copy one of the Master's - I chose Van Gogh's room.  It was enjoyable getting the textures of wood and colours but it is in my paint over pile...

So I chose a photo from an amazing trip we took to Spain a few years ago.  As it is cold and snowing again, it felt like a good escape from reality and brought back some warm memories.

I did a very quick sketch and decided I wanted to widen the view and make the 'bridge' over the road wider and the amount of wall on the right, less.  

 My final painting is a bit too light and chalky (too much white in there) but I have areas I love - primarily the palm tree and the garden and shadows below.  I often find I like certain parts of a painting and perhaps parts I am not thrilled with.  But... it is always a learning experience so on to the next one!!  I may let this dry and try glazing some transparent blues or purple over the left hand side and the bridge building, so I have more mid- tones and less light tones going on.  I think it would make the lights POP out more.  If it goes well I will post it again, if not it goes in the paint over or campfire pile!

Updated - This is the glazed version, where I used a transparent Ultramarine Blue to darken the buildings that are not in full sun.  Not sure if it has helped, so I think this is in the paint over pile!

Winter - I love it!

A little cross country, downhill ski on the Family Day long weekend

I am an unashamed lover of winter and snow!  I grew up relishing those cancelled school days when it dropped below -35 and we would go outside to play.  We cross country skied, tobogganed, ice fished, curled, skated on ponds & outdoor rinks and pretty much enjoyed any winter activity available.  If you are going to live in a cold climate you MUST dress properly and get out and enjoy it or it could be a LONG six months of darkness for you.  

Right now I am enjoying attempting to paint various scenes that have snow, the most challenging for me being the partially snow covered coniferous trees.  Have a Google of  Lawren Harris' fabulous winter trees or check out Clarence Gagnon's cozy, nostalgic scenes of Quebec in winter - beautiful!

A bright, sunny winter's day provides the best shadows and highlights imaginable for painting.  I am attempting another one today of a buried camper van, waiting for spring to return.

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

Art and Technology

I have been tweaking my website and blog lately, trying some new styles and themes.  Technology and the ease of creating your own website (I made mine by just following YouTube videos) can be a great help to artists.  It can also be a large time waster!

I find when I am stuck on a painting or hesitant to ruin a new canvas, I start looking for inspiration on Instagram or on-line, or start doing 'business related' tasks.  Anyhooo... that's what is happening now.  I have a painting I am trying to do in acrylic vs oils and I am unsure about my background - so I am changing themes and styles and working on the blog.  Above is a video recorded in time-lapse mode on the iPad of the drawing portion of my painting.  The process for making these time lapse videos used to be longer and much more challenging - now most phones have a time-lapse button and you can have that sucker on instagram faster than should be allowed.  Ah, tech... I love / hate you.

Another Process Post

the grid and drawing

One of the BEST places to visit on this planet is Haida Gwaii, on Canada's west coast.  It is spectacularly beautiful.  I travelled there with my family a few years ago and we had a wonderful time.  We learned a lot about the Haida people's culture and history, we ate great food, we met friendly people and we took an epic trip on a zodiac boat to one of the culturally significant sites.  I have painted a couple pictures from photos, but I took soooo many photos that I could probably keep painting.  I hope to get back there again some day to do some Plein air painting.

starting in with the oil paints

Nearing completion - picky details will take another couple of days

Winter Update

Winter has arrived and so I attempted some paintings of winter streams recently, as well as tackling some Christmas needle felting.  Also, work is always a bit busier in November / December so I haven't had as many opportunities to paint.  With Christmas around the corner, there will be lots of visiting, merry making and outdoor activity, so I don't foresee too many paintings flying off the easel for a little while.  Hope the Holidays are peaceful and joy-filled for all.  More posts next year!

16x16 Oil on Board

Wool Needle Felted Ornaments - my talented son did the penguin

More wool felting

The start of another creek painting - some more work is required on the shrubbery

NOTE:
About 2 days after my last post, I received an email that the Federation of Canadian Artists would be opening a Chapter in Edmonton, early in the new year, so YEAH my wish for some artist contact has come true.

Start to finish

A little blurb on the painting progression for 'The Royal', 20 x 20" oil on canvas.

My photo reference I took, with the hubster, child and dog baby in foreground.  I saturated the colours in my photo editing as much as possible

Toned the canvas with orange acrylic wash

Gridded the canvas and started my drawing (long process!)

Laid in the large areas of sky and mountains - boosted the size of the mountain

Changing a few things along the way - eventually I got rid of the high power lines and the mural as they were distracting my eye  too much

Nearing the finish.  In the completed version I got rid of most of the cars, the mura,l a few power poles, added some power lines where I liked them.

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!

First Artist Demo

Yesterday was my first ever artist demo at The Fernie Arts Station. Being a beautiful Saturday afternoon I was not surprised that the audience was small, but that was probably a good thing as I wasn’t nervous and they were nice with no heckling!  I was surprised how quickly the 2 hours went by, initially thinking I would wrap it up early, but did not.

What worked well:
I did the demo in a similar fashion to the baking shows.  I had 3 canvases of the same size. One was just a gessoed and toned ‘blank’, the second had a completed under painting and the third was the fully finished version.

I started with my blank toned canvas and described how I prepped the canvas. Then I showed my sketchbook and talked about my drawings and studies for prepping and planning
I began the drawing on the canvas with diluted oils and got half way done, then asked if they had enough and wanted me to move on to painting.  UNANIMOUS yes.

  Hmmm... it was a good time to throw in a joke - why did Van Gogh become a painter? Because He didn’t have an ear for music. GROANS. Moving on.

Started the darks and shadows first with thinned oil paint.  Then mixed up sky colour, then lightest grass colour and covered the largest areas first. Then tackled the house and soon enough time was up.There were of course questions throughout which I hope I answered without babbling too much.  I think I would sometimes go off on tangents but hope they got their questions answered.  I showed the completed version earlier on in response to a question.

I think I would be good to go if I ever had to do another demo someday.  The pre-planned and finished painting steps worked well for me, as there were no surprises.  I do like to plan ahead!

All in all a positive experience for me, hope it was okay for the audience.  It would be worthwhile having someone video the talk so I could cringe and watch it all later to see what was working best. Many thanks to Jackie at the Arts Station and the women that attended!

Fernie Arts Station
 
Photo courtesy of Jackie from the Arts Station

The Wonderful Encounters When Plein Air Painting

Today being another beautiful day I decided I would race out before noon and find something to paint.  I casually meandered onto the U of A farm and set up to paint this cool red & white barn.  On my way out I stopped to check out another barn, hidden behind the Saville Sports Centre.  I stopped to ask a man who was at the barn if he minded if I took some photos for later painting inspiration.  He was SUPER nice (Mr. Norby?) and proceeded to tell me all kinds of wonderful history of the U of A farm and these two barns.

This horse barn was originally built around 1915 and was located a few kilometres away right in the same spot the Stollery Children's Hospital is now.  It was chopped into 3 parts and moved south onto what now is the location of the Saville Sports Centre.  It was moved again (by the same company that originally moved it) to its current spot in the field near the pig barns.

Inside the white, former dairy barn is the A.L.E.S. museum, the U of A's Agriculture, etc historical museum.  It is FULL OF COOL old farm equipment, sleighs, etc.  ALES museum can be accessed by calling or emailing and making an appointment or if you happen to be nearby and someone is inside they will gladly let you have a look around.  I only saw a small portion of it but will be heading back with some family to check it out ASAP.

Art Fair - To Do or Not to Do...

Last night was my first 'Art Walk / Fair' of the year.  This one was Art Walk St Albert and it is held on the first Thursday of the month from May until September.  I was actually supposed to have also been in the May Art Walk, however it was snowing and cold that day before and morning of, so I pulled out of that one, fearing for my art and my toes. Here is some info for VENDOR artists considering a booth at any art fair.

- The  Cost. St. Albert Art Walk is free for outdoor vendors to set up, who have applied.  This is great if you are just starting out and want to test the water's. ( It's great for anyone really).  check out prices of applying when you want to do an art fair.

- The location. This one was great, as it is in front of St. Albert Place which holds a library, studios, City Hall, the Arden Theatre.  Quite busy with people coming and going for the first while.
You get plenty of exposure, even if you aren't making sales.

- The Duration of the Art Walk.  Lots of work to prepare for a short duration Art Walk - from 6 until 8:30 pm.  I spent most of the day before-hand setting up my tent to make sure I had all the bits, laying out my paintings, making portfolio, labels, price lists, etc.  With time I will get faster at doing this.

- Weather - it is uncontrollable - I came prepared with gloves, toque, layers - but we were all a little chilly.

-Your set up.
Costly Version.  We lucked out, the rain held off and the wind was moderate.  Saw 2 easels go down and I was eyeballing my neighbours tent as it was not pegged or sandbagged.
Your options are - going big and getting the tent and its accoutrements - which DEFINITELY REQUIRES 2 PEOPLE for set up and takes MUCHO time.  I purchased my tent on-line from Impact Displays for about $380 and search their website well, as I found a package that includes all 4 walls and a small awning for just about the same price as just the tent.  It comes in a handy wheeled bag that almost fits everything back in again, but not really.  My display racks were 8' lengths of wire shelves from Canadian Tire or Walmart, that are zip tied together.
- Staying small and portable, which my neighbour on the other side had, with a nice professional display rack and table that looked like if it started raining she would be warm and dry in her car before I could hardly get started!  She had an additional box of prints and other items to show people who were interested in her art stored neatly under her table.

- The People.  This was a very friendly location.  Most people had positive comments and didn't mind chatting.  I gleaned information on which paintings they reacted most positively too and kept track in my guest book.  (COWS!) Most were just browsing but I enjoyed chatting.

- The other artists - all super friendly and very willing to share their tips and tricks.  THANK YOU for sharing info on who your printer is, where to get the best prints, etc.  It was recommended that I get some prints made of my work to sell at a lower price point for those who could not afford the original oil paintings.  Guess what I am doing today!

DIY Easel up cycling

This was a table top easel I got years ago fairly cheaply.  It has been  gathering dust for some time now since I graduated to the big girl stand up easel.  I had a brainstorm to take off the easel portion and find my lightest camera tripod, to adapt them into a nice light weight plein air easel set up.

I purchased a guerrilla universal tripod plate ($24.) from my local art store.  I had tried  to cheap out and find the hardware in the nuts and bolts section of the hardware store but was told they didn't have anything like what I was after.  However, I was given a big piece of FREE plywood from Ron at the hardware store since I only needed a small piece. I bought a  camera tripod attachment plate at the camera store ($16.)  I attached the plywood to the easel, which I had removed from the base.  Then on went the plate and now I can quickly attach it to my camera tripod. 

Because the easel had adjustable support arms when it was on the table top  easel, I left them on and they are perfect with two baby bungees to make the whole setup more stable in terms of blowing around.

This is what the tripod and easel look like and really is light weight compared to my guerrilla box, should I want to do hikes into the hills this summer.

in progress painting, the top arm can slide down snugly to hold it in place

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.