Half Dome in Mist

So my third Yosemite inspired painting... Half Dome. This one is still a work in progress. I'm taking a step back to figure out where to go with this. My foreground trees are taking too much focus away from Half Dome, as it gets lost in the mist.

It's a nice painting at this point, but now I have to take some risks to bring the focus to Half Dome. Since I don't have a "revert to last saved" button, this painting will only be saved here as I attempt to problem solve.

Bridalveil Falls and Leaning Tower, watercolor

Yosemite has always been one of my favorite places, although I have never used it for inspiration in my paintings. Luckily Sacramento is just close enough to make it a spur of the moment day trip ( a very long day!) I had actually packed all of my gear for plein air painting, but once I got to the valley floor, afternoon thundershowers were threatening, so I decided to just take some pictures and not risk getting soaked. So here is the first of several Yosemite inspired paintings.
Bridalveil Falls was flowing very strong, as to be expected in the spring. You could only get so close before getting wet from the spray. The lone outcropping next to it is called Leaning Tower. (Even having been to Yosemite many times, I did not know this.)

I used masking fluid on the falls and the spray to keep it white but then went back in and added some shadows and a few trees in front of the spray after it had been removed. The falls are so majestic in person, I hope I have done them justice.

Black Hole of Calcutta Falls, watercolor

This is a piece I have been meaning to do for a while but it it has just sat in the shelves of my brain waiting to be dusted off. I originally posted my plein air pencil drawing of the Black Hole of Calcutta Falls  about 3 years ago. When I finally decided to recreate it in watercolor, I decided not to just work directly from the pencil drawing, although I did do the preliminary sketches from it, so there are some similar shapes. But to accurately capture the colors and feel of the falls, I needed to make a day trip up to these falls, just off the confluence of the north and middle forks of the American River. Since my last visit 3 years ago, they have built a foot bridge over the creek, but the charm of the falls was the same, other than a lot of other people on the day I went. It even had close to the same average flow of water as it did the last time. I took some reference photos of the falls as well as some other pics for future projects before heading home.

This painting is the first time I used my masking fluid, which seemed necessary to depict the water splashing over the black rocks. I was worried it would never come off since it seemed to become part of the paper as I painted over it, but after the paint dried, it rubbed right off using a clean finger. Then I went back in to lessen the stark white that had been left with some light washes.

Fantasy watercolor landscape

 I usually base my landscapes on a photo I've taken, but this landscape was fabricated from my imagination. Well, maybe not completely from my imagination because I did use about 4 different reference pictures and combined them into this fantasy landscape.

Figuring out where the light souce comes from is one of the most challenging parts of creating an imaginary landscape. It seems kind of like a night scene with the stars and "moon", but the rest of it seems like daytime. Maybe I should go darker with the sky and redo the stars to make them stand out more. I will let it sit for a while and come bake to it...what do you think?

Quetzal watercolor

The quetzal is the national bird of Guatamala, as well as being on their flag. The more colorful one, shown here, is the male. The reason that I decided to paint this though is because my nephew's daughter is named after the bird. She is graduating in June and I thought a painting of her name-sake would be a cool present.

This painting actually took longer than most because I got "stuck" several times. It started with having to alter my reference photo because it was too long for my paper. I curled the tail feathers to accomodate it all. Feathers have always been a little intimidating, but I think that I depicted them quite well. Then the background got too muddy, but I lifted some of the paint to create a jungle backdrop. Now my challenge is to find a frame that this odd sized painting will fit into.

trees

I first started this "creative journey" of mine back in 2012, and every once in a while, I like going back and looking at some of my older work to see my progress. I came across my painting of "trees" in one of my friends' living room. He had purchased it from a silent auction that I had donated it to. I had never blogged on this painting, but I remember it well. I painted this in February 2013 plein air along the American River. It was a quiet spot at a bend in the channel by the islands near Rio American HS. (Right around the corner from where I had painted plein air painting small rapids almost a year later, one of my favorite areas along the river!)

My friend had told me he had felt a connection to this painting because another friend of his had created a similar watercolor, based on a poem that he had written. Here is the poem that my friend had written:

And here is the painting that his poem inspired:

Autumn along the river

It is finally feeling like fall weather here in Sacramento! Yesterday was a sunny but crisp morning in the 40's and normally I would not venture out in the cold this early (8 am on a Saturday) but my daughter had an appointment to go to, so after dropping her off, a headed down to the river near the Sunrise Blvd river access along the American River. I had most of my painting supplies with me but was only inspired enough to take a few pictures with my phone due to the cold. The leaves of the trees along the river are starting to turn their many colors, and the river, although very low due to a very dry year, was peacefully reflecting those colors. An egret, which was actually sitting in another spot along the river, seemed to be enjoying the early morning calm as much as I was, so it seemed fitting to place him in the painting.

Iao Needle and stream

Iao Needle, located within the Iao Valley State Park is one of the most recognizeable landmarks in Maui, not only for its striking natural beauty, but also for its historical significance.  It was here in 1790, that King Kamehameha battled with Maui's army in his quest to unite the islands. Even with the Iao Needle serving as a lookout point, Kamehameha defeated Maui's army in a ferocious battle that ultimately changed the course of Hawaiian history.

OK, enough with the history lesson...there are so many shades of green in this valley, and trying to capture the beauty of this place is challenging. I used stippling, lots of dots, to represent the leaves of the trees and to give the painting some depth as well as texture. The bridge brings out a nice architectural contrast against all of the foliage. To the right of the needle, I was trying to capture the look of the clouds descending into the valley...was I successful?

Maui Sunset, watercolor

One of our vacation routines that my wife and I have gotten into is finding a spot near the beach each evening to watch the sunset. We end up taking endless photos trying to capture the colors as they constantly change. I don't think we have seen a sunset with a clear sky yet, but the clouds just add to the uniqueness, beauty, and the colors even after the sun has gone below the horizon.

Here is my attempt at capturing the sunset in watercolor. As beautiful as this is, I don't think I have captured the brilliance of the colors yet.

Maui coast in Kihei, watercolor

I've been busy vacationing in Maui...seems like an oxymoron, but the way that I want to see everything there is to see, maybe it's not.  I've slowed down a little this week and had time to get my paints out. This painting was done from a picture that I had taken a couple of days before and now I'm just relaxing on the lanai of the house we are staying at, and painting.

Round Mound and Nevada Beach

So I decided to find a spot without the crowds..a tough thing to do anywhere along Lake Tahoe. I went for a walk starting at Lakeside Beach and went past the No Trespassing signs (with fine print that says "ok to pass at waters edge"). I found a nice shady spot under a tree, and started to paint Round Mound...yes, that's the official name, I looked it up.  My main focus of this painting was the clouds (but I did get caught in the trees). The thunderheads were building quick, and you can tell by the how dark it got that I finished just in time.

American river plein aire, Untitled

Many artists that I have talked to do value studies with a quick pencil sketch before they start a painting. I usually just throw a couple of pencil lines down on my watercolor paper to help with placement but don't really think a whole lot about values. So I decided to give value studies a try to decide if it is a value-able use of time and effort :) 

This pencil sketch only took 5 minutes and I can see how important it would be if I was going to take the painting back to the studio to work on it. Instead, I finished painting all on location and found that it was easier just to refer back to the real scene than my sketch. I did find that some of my artistic choices were thought out ahead of time with the sketch instead of while I was painting.

Since I was experimenting with value studies, I decided to do another sketch that I will take back to the studio and see how that works out...

Mountain landscape - pencil sketch

This sketch was inspired by a demonstration put on by WASH (Watercolor Art of Sacramento Horizons) at Sacramento Fine Arts Center.  The demo was done by Dale Laitinen.  I really enjoyed his style of watercolor, and even though he was painting a scene from memory, he really captured the essence of the Sierras.  
So here is my interpretation of his painting, but in pencil.

Untitled, by Dale Laitinen

Autumn leaves, watercolor

This is my favorite time of year, and with the beautiful weather here in California, I have been enjoying going for walks along the American River.  The fall leaves have slowly been turning colors, and it just amazes me how the colors just blend into each other on every leaf, each one a little piece of art!
I decided to try my hand at blending the leaf colors together. I worked with wet-on-wet to bleed the colors together, with lots of little accidents along the way...some good and some bad.
And here are the results...

Abandoned art, watercolor squares

I started this project a while back with some Earth Day art, and it was supposed to be an "abandoned art" project where these pieces were left in public places for people to find. Somehow, it never came to fruition. The part that was missing seemed to be the most critical part of the project, a scannable code or URL on the back of the artwork to direct whoever found the piece back to a website to get information about the artist.
So here are the pieces that I had created to be abandoned. I'm kind of attached to them now and I don't think they deserve to be abandoned any more. All of these are done on 4x4" squares of watercolor paper. Great for Christmas gifts or maybe I should mount them into a grid in a collage frame to display them as one piece.

Just some thoughts about the art...
For some reason I was stuck on creating negative spaces...for the lettering, the flowers, the eye.
I love the eye, but realize the challenge in portraits is not in creating one eye, but in creating a second mirror image that matches! The "imagine" piece is a bit chaotic, but I suppose the universe as well as my imagination might seem like that.

Should I make one more to finish the 3 by 3 grid? What word would you use?

Kiva beach, plein aire

There are so many opportunities to paint plein air at Lake Tahoe, sometimes I get overwhelmed. I just want to soak it in mentally, take pictures, and say I'll do it later at home. That defeats the purpose of plein air though. So on a beautiful fall afternoon, I finally decided on a spot out on the Camp Richardson pier...the beach was all shady and cold. The sun seemed to be going down really quick and the shadows were changing even quicker. I did the majority of this piece in an hour. When I was finished, I was looking straight into the sun.
My goal was to make it look like the foreground trees were all in shadow with the light filtering through. I tweaked the details a little more once I was home. I think I could have gone even darker for the shadows, but I always worry it will go too dark and lose the color. 

The fun part of this was that every 10 minutes or so, people would be walking down the pier, stop and watch for a few minutes, make a few comments to each other about my painting and then keep walking. At first it was a little intimidating but then I got over myself and enjoyed the commentary.

Experimenting with pan pastels

It has been a while since I have posted a blog, but life gets busy! Being inspired to try something new by my Artist's Way group, I experimented with a new medium, pan pastels...basically pastel powder packed into a container. It is applied with sponge applicators, and I also used makeup wedges. It is challenging to get any sharp lines, but it works great for blending. I was using some scrap paper, so it wasn't a very heavy weight.

 

 I started with a basic landscape, adding layers of color, but I should have combined it with some pastel sticks to incorporate some detail. Even with the smaller sponge applicators, I just couldn't get a sharp line.

 This piece actually started as my "sponge cleaning" paper, just to get some of the extra pastel off the sponge, but then I started creating something out of it, using a big pink eraser, which picked up the pastel quite well.

Overall it was fun to play with these pan pastels, and I could see using them in a mixed media application.

Tree on the edge of a field

Another beautiful day for outdoor painting in Georgia. I took advantage of some quiet time while 2 of the grandkids are at school and the other one is napping.  
I got so caught up in creating the background, and then most of it ends up covered by the tree in the foreground. I might go and paint just the field tomorrow.
I liked the detail of the gourd birdhouse hanging from the tree. It was actually hanging on the other side of the tree, but when I moved it to the left, I put the shadow on the wrong side of the gourd!

Plein air watercolor barn in Georgia

Another day plein air painting in Georgia. The barn was just begging to be painted. The clouds were kind or threatening to storm, as they have been every afternoon this week, so I got to finish most of the painting outside, but then had to finish it up inside.

I debated whether to but the lines on the barn to show the wood planking. The barn looked a little flat without it, but a little busy with them...

Stand of pine trees, Plein air watercolor

While on vacation to visit the grand kids in Georgia, it's challenging to find time to paint. Sneaking off to the edge of the property, I found a stand of pine trees to paint. It only lasted a short while before my 4 year old granddaughter found me and wanted to paint, too. With a little help, I got her set up with some paint brushes and paper to paint with me. She had to share my palette though, so that made things a little tougher. This piece still needs a little more detail work, but I figure I can do that later when I have more time and less distractions.