Wild irises along the river, plein air

A beautiful spring day along the American River, I went out to enjoy the river and sun with some friends. Of course I was inspired to do some painting, with the wild irises all in bloom along the banks.
Why do I paint? I paint because it allows me to escape from work and go within to find joy. Painting creates an intimate connection with my subject, in this case, my favorite model, Mother Earth. This plein air painting done at William B. Pond is a perfect spot for demonstrating this: a quiet spot away from the bustle of the city where I can reconnect with nature.

I actually painted this same tree cluster a couple of years ago as one of my first plein air paintings, but from a different angle, William B Pond.  It is amazing to see how much my painting style has improved over the last couple of years.

Fishing at William B Pond

I went to William B Pond for the regular “1^st Sunday” meet-up of plein aire painters at 3:00 in the afternoon. There are tons on places to find inspiration here so it turns out I didn’t see any other artists, but sometimes that just takes the pressure off.  I found a spot on the hill above the fishing dock where a man was fishing with his young son (about 3 or 4 years old).  Now fishing is all a relative term because he was spending more time chasing after his son: keeping him from running off, keeping him from climbing the rail, keeping him out of his tackle box.  I kept thinking how he could expect a child sit for hours watching him fish?

I figured this man deserved a spot in my painting. Other than my self portrait, this was my first attempt at putting people into a painting. OK, well I cheated a little bit by sticking him in a chair and you only see his head, but it’s a start, right?

I  found the most challenging part of this was the railing on the dock. Do I paint the rail first and paint the background over it, between it? Or do I paint the rail in last over everything else? After experimenting a little, I figured out that painting it last was probably the best solution in this case. But being outside, it just wasn't drying and it got a little muddy.

By this point the dad had packed up, and the boy, barely being missed by a bike as he ran across the bike trail, was being yelled at as they headed out to the parking lot.

Sunset at William B Pond

Back in October, my favorite time of year here in Sacramento, I went for a evening stroll with my wife down by William B Pond to catch a gorgeous sunset. An added benefit of this particular evening was there was also going to be a harvest moon, the full moon that occurs closest to the autumnal equinox. This was called a harvest moon because it never gets completely dark between sunset and moonrise allowing farmers to continue harvesting late into the night (as well as letting us hike back to our car!).

The great thing about this time of day is that you see all kinds of colors in the sky and they continually change until it is dark.  These colors are all reflected in the calm waters of the pond to enhance the scene even more.  The problem with painting sunsets is the same reason that they are so amazing: the colors constantly change, it doesn't last very long and soon its dark!  Its hard to really get a good sense of the color even in a photograph (at least not with my camera). So, I just put down  a quick horizon and  then focused on the sky and the clouds. I need to work on my gradient coloring, blending the blue at the top of the sky with the reds at the horizon.

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.