Same Song, Second Verse - 20 More to Come

Well, upon seeing what I had done and posted to this blog, my mentor, Mark Keathley, responded with encouragement and a couple of recommendations.  The first was to apply thicker paint in the lighter areas of the starts where I am trying to portray light.  While I already understood this principle I had difficulty carrying it out.  He provided brief guidance as to how best accomplish that.  He described the application of paint in those areas to putting on icing with the brush held more parallel to the canvas.  He also suggested that I mix about twenty piles of colors to use, including pastel shades, greens, blues and purples that don't come in the tube colors.

For the benefit of those who may want to know, the principle of painting darks thinly and lights with thicker paint when painting in oils is foundational as is painting thin to thick and dark to light.  The reasoning is pretty easy to grasp and demonstrate.  You cannot see the color of dark hues if applied thickly.  They need some light shinning through them to transmit their hue.  By the same token, light colors if not applied thickly will allow darker color underneath to show through.  Also the brightest brights are most often highlights reflecting off some surface and should stand out or sort of sparkle, whereas darker shadow areas should lay back.  This is also controlled by color temperature: cool colors like blues and greens tend to recede and warm colors like yellow and red tend to advance, visually.

Mark also suggested that I do another set of starts using the guidance he offered described above.  Since I enjoyed doing the first set of starts he recommended and feel that I made some progress, I'm certainly going to take his further advice and do another set of starts.  Therefore, I'm now making selections from my photo images that I would like to paint.  Most of these I'll do even smaller in a 6"X8" panel as I have quite a few of those prepared with gesso and some with canvas applied to the panel.  These starts are similar to learning to do scales before performing a recital, but a lot more fun.

The purpose of doing them even smaller is to avoid putting in too much detail in these starts, concentrating more on the design of the compositions. This is done by combining shapes and values to simplify and strenghten the compositions in this underpainting stage.  Doing so will help me gain the ability to more simply and dynamically express what I want to communicate. 

If the composition and design "works" in this small format it will also work when a larger painting is done, and the larger painting will not be as much about copying details as it will be about communicating the emotions I feel about the image I chose to paint.

Following Mark Keathley's counsel is somewhat like the story behind the movie "Julie and Julia" which was partly responsible for my returning to paint and doing this blog.  In the movie, Julie blogs her journey through Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."  It was after seeing this movie with my younger daughter and wife that my daughter challenged me to do this blog and start painting again.  I'm like the young "Julia" and Mark's counsel to me is guiding me like Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."  I'm extremely grateful for his willingness to give me guidance.  I have never been more excited about painting than I am now.  At nearly 66, I'll take all the non-medical excitement I can get.

So, with another set of starts to come, the journey to become a better painter continues...

Acting on Good Counsel - 22 "Starts"

At the advice of Mark Keathley, an accomplished and successful artist, I have spent all my spare time since my last post, doing twenty-two "starts."  Starts, if I have understood what he meant by the term, are beginning of paintings on which one spends an hour to an hour and a half covering the panel or canvas by blocking in the colors, values color temperatures and larger shapes combining values and shapes where possible to simplify the underpainting.  Most will not be very far along when the surface is covered with paint but the basic idea the artist wants to convey to the viewer will be evident most of the time.

I'm including photos of these starts as a group and individually to demonstrate some of my experiences, thoughts and ideas as I discuss them over the next few posts.  Below is a photo of my drawing table and bookcase where I've laid out 20 of the starts.

All of the starts except one are painted on 8X10 canvas (from Dick Blick) or hardboard panels some of which have been given a rougher texture when coating them with Utrecht New Temp Artist's white acrylic gesso.  The one exception was the first start done and it was done on a 6"X9" panel.  All but one of these starts were painted in regular artists oil colors while the one of the carnival ferris wheel was painted with Winsor & Newton Artisan water soluble artists oil colors.  A few of them were started by blocking in the larger darkest shapes with black acrylic gesso and when that dried the entire surface was given a wash of burnt sienna Golden Acrylic before continuing to lay in the underpainting with regular oil paints.  All of the starts were done using only pure boar bristle brushes usually with sizes 6, 4, and 2.  Very little oil painting medium was used but when it was necessary Winsor & Newton Liquin was used.  Turpenoid was the solvent used with the regular oil paints for cleaning brushes and water was used for the one painting started with water soluble oils.

Working with the water soluble oils took a bit of getting used to and I found no advantage in their use other than that of not having to use Turpenoid, which is virually odorless, as the solvent.  I have noticed that drying time is considerably slower with the water soluble oils especially when Liquin is used with the regular artists oils.

Most often my darkest darks including my blacks were made from a mixture of French Ultamarine Blue and Burnt Sienna.  This allows me to easily mix a wide range of warm and cool greys by varying the amount of each pigment and titanium white.  Occasionally I also used Viridian Green and Permanent Alizarin where I wanted a really dark color in rendering green vegetation.

The first attempt at these "starts" since the first painting in 10 years post was made was a 6"X9" covered bridge scene from Tennessee that Mark Keathley had sent me to use as I began acting on his counsel.  He told me, "Do 20 starts before attempting to bring any of them along to a point where you might consider them finished."  His only instruction was that I should not spend more than 1 to 1 1/2 hours on each.  He sent me a couple of photos showing one of his starts and the reference photo used for that start.  I already had an email from him of the finished painting.  This was used to visually show me what the goal was.

I took this first one and several others beyond the "starts" point as I worked my way through the twenty and beyond to twenty-two.  Okay, I'm a bit O.C. (obsessive compulsive) and tend to do more than asked or than necessary figuring that if twenty is good, twenty-two is better.  Mark Keathley told me that when I had finished the twenty starts I'd know what I wanted to do next and would know the road on which I would continue my journey to becoming a better painter. 

Mark was right.  I had a great time doing these small starts each day anxiously looking forward to the time I could get off work and get back to painting.  I looked toward each weekend with great anticipation.  Not all the starts are that pleasing to me but all have some potential for a finished painting and some seem almost finished.  I gained facility in mixing and applying paint.  My earliest attempts have some muddy areas where I tried to adjust hue or color temperature and made a mess of it.  These however can and will be corrected as I move next to work on the starts bringing along the ones that I'm most excited about to a finished piece of art.  This will bear the fruit of another stage of development as I go back and work on the starts and try to know when they are finished.

So, here are photos of the starts without going into much commentary about each one.  All were done very quickly and all are at a basic underpainting stage.  I'll bring them further along to completion over the next few months.  I think it might be interesting, and possibly helpful to other persons wishing to work toward becoming a better artist, to show the source and progress or problems if there be some on each.

The above scene of vineyard in France.  Reference photo was taken by my daughter, Laura Vassberg.

This scene of the San Fransico Bay Bridge will have two rows of lamplights running back in the distance with a very dark foreground while I've only indicated two to get the perspective and spacing.  This start has some pretty muddy areas in it.   Reference photo was taken by my daughter.

This is a hillside full of red poppies in France.  I have just indicated a couple of the flowers to show the complementary colors (colors opposite each other on the color wheel or nearly so) of the red and green.  This will take some time to finish properly even if kept lose.  The reference photo was taken by my oldest daughter during a trip to France.

This scene is San Francisco with the bay bridge in the faint distance.  At this stage I just have the basic underpainting. If you look carefully, you can see the Golden Gate bridge just above the horizon between the two rows of buildings. The large white building will have many darkened windows added as I develop this one further.  Reference is my daughter's photo.

Reference photo was taken by my daughter.  I've pushed the contrasts and colors to get the complementary colors to make the scene more dynamic.

Scene is from England.  I think this has potential due to the great range from foreground to background.  Reference photo by friends of Mark Keathley who passed some on to me for my use in these starts.

This scene is from a scanned slide my father took of my grandmother and mother exiting a restaurant in the 50s.  The three boys on the left are me, in the green jacket nearest the building, the larger one is my older brother, the smaller one is my younger brother probably around 7 years old.  I thought this might be fun.

Another scene from England from photo taken by Mark Keathley's friends.

Scene is Apalachicola, Florida.  I was inspired to do this one due to the complimentary blue and orange colors. Reference photo was taken by me from the walkway of our motel while on vacation in October of 2009.

Cypress tree and lily pads in Caddo Lake near Jefferson, Texas while on a short vacation there.  Reference photo is taken by me and looks a bit like a Monet scene to me.  This was fun to this point.  I'll certainly take this one further.

Oyster fishermen in Port Aransas, Texas.  Reference photo taken by me.

Shrimp boats at Fulton Beach, Texas north of Rockport.  Reference photo taken by me.  Boat on the right is named "Ole No. One."  This start went together easily taking less than an hour.  Finishing it might take some time.

Scene in France.  Reference photo taken by my daughter.  This one was difficult to do in the small scale format and will take a good deal of work to get it where I like it.

Another scene from France with reference photo taken by my daughter.  I like the value range and colors in this.  It almost "works" the way it is.

Another scene from England.  Reference photo taken  by Mark Keathley's friends and passed along to me for use in these stars.

This unusual scene is pretty accurate and is from a photo I took in a swamp on a plantation we visited near Savanah, Georgia on our vacation thorugh the South in October of 2009.  I found the patterns that the light and the shapes of the trees make very interesting.  The area was somewhat mysterious in feeling and I want to capture that as I continue working this one to completion.

Reference photo taken by my daughter while in France.  This one came together very quickly and strongly to this point.  I'm looking forward to taking it to a finish but since this photo I have already struggled a bit with keeping it loose.

This start was done using water soluble artist's oil paints.  I had never worked with these before and decided to experiment on this scene from a carnival in Pharr, Texas.  Reference photo taken by me.  I'm fascinated by the carnivals and games I remember from my youth.  I doubt I will use these water-soluable paints again.  They took several weeks for the underpainting show above to dry.

This is of the lead singer, Alan Barnett, of the Psychic Cowboys, a very entertaining cover band from Austin.  The reference photo was taken by my daughter whose husband play electric bass and signs with this band.  The setting is The Oasis overlooking Lake Travis west of Austin.  This one was done by first laying in all the darkest darks with black acrylic gesso, covering that with a wash of burnt sienna acrylic when the black dried quickly.  Then the brightest values were laid in and "pieces of paint" applied with local color to bring it to this point.  Probably took me about 45 minutes.  I think this one has potential to be very strong.   I pushed both the values and complementary blue and orange colors to get a more dynamic image.  Look forward to correcting some "muddy" areas in the face and bringing it along to finish.  I don't think it has far to go to be finished.

I found the small size of these starts to be a challenge and look forward to completing them and beginning some larger canvases--perhaps of some of these small painting  subjects.  I also have a couple I'd like to try in watercolor and at least one that I want to do in pastels.  I have not done many paintings in either of these media.  However, here's a watercolor that I did of part of the San Antonio Riverwalk near Jim Cullum's Jazz Club that is part of the collection of my oldest daughter and son-in-law.

I welcome your comments and criticism, both positive and negative.  Art is a form of communication as is this blog.  Due to my work I don't get out of the house very much and welcome and enjoy the interaction with friends, family, co-workers, and anonymous comments on this blog.   Discussions are welcome about the art I am producing, the writing of the blog, and methods I'm following.  This is all a learning process for me and one model for learning is placing yourself in an interactive environment such as this.

Thanks for taking time to look, read, and comment.