Indian Museum Paint-Out

My first outing with the Plein Aire Meet-up group to Sutter-Jensen Community Park was interesting but also a little intimidating. Not that a little fear is a bad thing, just part of my learning process.  So I signed up for another! This time at the Indian Museum at Sutter's Fort. (and I remembered to bring a chair with me this time!) There are a lot of different scenes around the pond and several artists had already set up their easels, but I was focused on getting my own art started.  That seems to be my biggest challenge: putting that first mark on the page. I'll wander around trying to find something to inspire me, start up a conversation with another artist...procrastinate! But once I get settled in and actually put paint on the page, I can get tuned in.  Maybe that is why I always start with the sky...simple and non-threatening. 

The building I chose was particularly challenging. The first reason being that it was a building! I had always focused on landscape, and although I liked adding in architectural features, it was never the majority of the painting. Painting a building meant that I had  to use straight lines! Another challenge was the white building. The midday shadows made about 10 different shades of white.  Up to this point I had never really thought about how to paint something white with watercolors. It is what you don't paint that makes it white.  I started with a blue wash (as seen it the lower left) then realized I just needed to use black.  A very light wash to start with and then build from there.  The high sun left just a little direct sunlight just between the windows but it kind of got washed out. The lines to imply the bricks was an afterthought but I kind of like the texture it gives to the wall.  I just needed it to be a little more consistant in shape. 

The other challenge I had with this painting is having a light colored object (the Yucca flowers) in front of a dark object (the window frame). The brown color would overpower any other color on top of it so I had to plan the "gaps" where the stems would go while trying to keep a fluid line for the window. I did not plan for some of the lower leaves which seem to be behind the window. I still need to look into this "masking fluid" to keep areas of your painting white.

Overall, I like how my first "building painting" turned out, even with the challenges.  I actually liked the straight lines! And even my oak trees in the background have improved detail from my first trees.  One watercolor artist working nearby commented on how quickly I had finished, as I had started after her and finished before she was done (about an hour total), but art does not lend itself to a timeframe. The painting told me I was done.

Sutter-Jensen Community Park

March 17, 2012 - After meeting Rose and her husband at William B Pond, a couple of fellow plein aire painters, I went home and looked up the Plein Aire Meet-Up group on the internet. (No, I don’t have a smart phone. Otherwise I would have done it right there!) The next meet-up was David Peterson’s Third Saturday Paint Out at some place called Sutter-Jensen Community Park. I had never heard of it before, so the explorer in me found this to be a great new adventure.  

The weather was overcast and cold, and it was earlier in the morning than I usually paint. It was a beautiful undeveloped space with a community garden on one side.  There were several other artists already painting.  I tried not to be intimidated by what they were doing and focused on my own creativity.  I wandered out into a dew-covered grassy field, totally saturating my shoes, and realized I was NOT going to sit down in the grass to paint; otherwise my pants would suffer the same fate.  As I was standing out there getting an idea of what I was going to paint, so guy yells “Hey! You’re outstanding in your field!” As corny as it was, that gave me a boost of confidence!  Luckily, I spotted a chair over by the garden, and ran over and grabbed it and got to work.  

The idea with this painting was to see how many different shades of green I could produce to recreate the pastoral scene (it was St. Patrick's Day, after all!).  I keep saying that I need to develop a better style with trees, and what better place. As always, I started with my blue sky (a little artistic license, since I didn’t want the actual gray sky in my painting). I experimented with some paint-lifting with a towel to create a little texture to imply clouds.  Then, the mixing of color begins—blue-green, yellow-green, brown-green, and everything in between. It got a little muddy in the middle, mostly because I was too impatient to wait for the paint to dry before adding more layers. I do like some of the effects I got with the wet on wet, though.  The “pole” in the middle of the field becomes the focus of this painting because of the white space I left around it.  It was one of the first details that I painted in the foreground.  I think that it should have been added in at the end, after the grass had dried (the grass in the painting, that is). That is one of the challenges of watercolor though…trying to figure out what details need to be laid out first and what can wait to be added in at the end.  One of the other painters there was using “masking paint”, a wax that covers areas of the paper that you want to keep white. I’ll have to look into that.

 I’m also still trying to figure out my style with the edge of the painting: all the way to the edge like the top edge,  a distinctive edge of the painting away from the edge of the paper like the bottom, or somewhere in between like the sides. With this particular painting, I really like the way the bottom edge turned out.

As I wrapped up my first outing with the Plein Aire Meet-up group, I found that I did more observing the other artists than painting. But that is what this journey is all about: learning from like-minded artists with a passion for creativity!

William B Pond, again!

March 4, 2012 - I went back to William B Pond, with my family this time, on a lazy Sunday afternoon (the plus side of having a mild winter).  I found a nice quiet spot on the bank by the “Islands” just down river from the bike trail bridge.  I liked the contrast of nature and architecture in this view.

 I really did not spend a lot of time working on reflection on this painting.  One of the hardest parts of watercolor is having patience enough to wait for areas of the painting to dry enough so it doesn’t bleed when I add another layer. When I first started to add reflection, it bled into the water…not the effect I was going for but let’s make all the reflections blurred to match the first one!

I really played with adding an abstract background. I avoided drawing individual trees but put in clumps of color to imply groups of trees. The bridge was a challenge because I couldn’t figure out the color of concrete. In hind sight, I should have just left it a negative space with a few lines to show the shadows because the black is too dark. This will be a spot to return to later to try that!

The geese were all over the place this day and I almost painted one or two right into the foreground. There’s space in that large area of blue at the bottom.  But I had no idea how to draw geese so I did a little “study of a goose” painting.

After I had packed up my painting supplies (which takes about 2 minutes) my family wanted to walk around and see the other areas of the park.  We headed over to the fishing pier by the pond. There on the pier were two other painters doing the same thing I was doing – bringing their paints outside and painting in nature! I couldn’t believe their set up—chairs, easels on tripods, paints and paintbrushes galore. Although I had been working with a minimalist approach when it came to my supplies, I was quite impressed.  One was working with acrylic, which I had never ventured into trying, even back in college. The other artist, who was working in watercolor, was doing a study of the geese! They were quite inspiring on that day.  After talking to them a bit and watching over their shoulder as they painted (I appreciated this because I know having someone watch as I paint is quite nerve-racking), they told me that they were there because of a Meet-Up group called Plein Aire Painters.  I had never even heard of Meet-Up at this time, and up until this point I was just saying I was painting outside. Now I had a name for what I was doing and apparently there was a group of people in Sacramento that was doing the same thing!  So I was anxious to get home and check it out!

William B Pond

The Islands

My next artist excursion a couple of weeks later, was to William B. Pond at the end of Arden Way along the American River. There is just so much variety here, I could go here many more times and be painting totally different scenes (and you will see later that I have returned frequently). With my backpack of basic watercolor supplies, I hiked over to "The Islands" to be inspired. The first painting I was focused on the reflection again but took a much wetter and blurry approach to it instead of creating a mirror image. It worked out because the viewer gets the sense of moving water instead of the placid water that was at my last spot along the river.  Leaving the white between the bank and the water was emphasizing the shoreline, but is there too much of a gap?  The background is vague and the foreground more detailed, but even with the detail, something was missing. I added more color but what it needed was some shadowing. I tried adding a few shadows but the texture of the trees were still a little flat from my over generalization of the trees. I did get the texture in the water, but I felt my perspective was off a little and my horizon was slanting.

Tree at William B Pond

That gave me an idea, though.  I should be putting some pencil lines down first to keep my horizon level and I can see if my perspective is right before putting paint on the paper!  About a hundred yards down stream, a tree caught my fancy. I laid down a few pencil lines to identify the rivers edge and horizon and started again. Starting with the sky (as I always do) I thought I would try putting some clouds in by lifting paint off. There are three, but two got obscured by the tree. I actually spent quite a bit of time on the background, only to be hidden behind the tree! I did very little reflection work this time ( but I really like how the reflection of the grasses turned out). Interpreting the water movement onto paper was my challenge and then figuring out how to draw all of those cobble rocks on the bank.  So with a lot of "artistic license", I created my own bed of rocks, experimenting with shades of grey.  The tree still came across as flat, even with some shading. Over-generalizing the leaves again is my guess. I will have to work on that. I didn't have the courage to shade it almost black (as in the picture) but as the sun went down and the shadows grew, I knew it was time to pack up. My bottom was numb and I'd have to think about bringing a chair or something next time instead of having to make do with a log or rock.

As you can see, I started taking pictures of the scenes with my phone. Its nice to see the comparison but it makes it easier to be more self-critical. It never turns out exact, but that is not my goal.  My artistic interpretation of what I "see" will always be different than a photo. Knowing this, I think I will continue to take the pictures, but not with the intention of comparing, but to remember how and why I perceived it the way I did.

Sutter's Landing

 So I go to Michael's and pick up the bare essentials: a generic watercolor paint set with 12 colors, a generic set of brushes, a small palette, and a pad of watercolor paper. All for under $20, a small investment for unlimited creativity!  Add in a little applesauce cup and a piece of a car wash sponge and I was ready to go. The amount of supplies was key to be able to fit it all into my backpack and carry it where ever the whim took me.  I had a couple of hours of free time on a Saturday, I think it must have been sometime in February 2012 (that's the problem with going back and trying to remember! Ideally, I'll get caught up on this blog and be able to say "yesterday"). Anyways, the explorer in me decided to try a spot along the American River that I had not been to before - Sutter's Landing at the end of 28th Street. After checking out the area, including a dog park, picnic area, and skate park (can you tell I was procrastinating the art part of this excursion?) I finally settled down on a log along the bank, put my headphones on with some music, and started putting some paint on the paper. I don't know why I put music on, because I usually like working with just the quiet of nature around me, but it seemed to keep me focused on this particular day.

I started with the sky and worked my way down. No sketching out an outline. As I worked, I was particularly interested in capturing the reflection of the trees in the water, which meant I had to draw and exact replica of the tree I had just drawn upside-down (or at least that is what my mind told me). I tried to keep a space between the shore and the river to emphasize this reflection. There was not much color (It was March after all) other than the mistletoe bunches in the trees. The train trellis was way off in the distance (about 20th Street) but it challenged me and it became more of a focus point in the painting. The afterthought in the painting was the dead tree branch and the bank. The painting needed some balance.   It does help break up the vast sky I laid down at the beginning of my painting.

I was pleased with the first attempt of working with watercolors in 20 years. It was very relaxing and rejuvenating. I was already planning my next outing with my backpack full of painting supplies!