Scenic Practice: Trees in Winter

So, a couple months ago I got into this intense yearning to practice misty scenes and eerie landscapes.  There were a lot of winter landscapes up here in the northeast, but not a lot of incentive to paint them plein air since it was too cold for my desert blood.  I snagged a couple of okay shots on my phone, but they weren't calling me to paint, and I deleted most of them.  Eventually I saw a glorious winter sunset as I was driving home one day, and while I did not get a photo of that sunset, the image stuck in my mind. I wanted to recreate it, so I went looking around on Unsplash and found this image to base it off of, and combined it with a shot I took of the parking lot the same week.

I practiced the image a few times, because I have trouble with misty scenes.  So I did it in oil pastels, and in watercolours but with different palettes for each one.  Except for the oil pastel piece, I used a limited palette of 3 paints for each one.

Version 1- Watercolour postcard

The first version I did.  Watercolours I used were Winsor & Newton cobalt blue (PB28), Sennelier lemon yellow (PY3), and Sennelier transparent brown (PBk7, PR101).  Khadi Papers rough 4x6 sheet.

For this first piece, I picked mostly paints I was not comfortable with.  Mixing the black was REALLY challenging, and I could not quite get it, but I did love the effect of the odd purples mixed with alizarin crimson and cobalt blue.  I can't remember now how I got those darker blacks.  I may have thrown in phthalo blue or pthalo green to achieve them, but I'm not sure.

Version 2- Oil pastels

Oil pastel version, again on Khadi Papers rough 4x6 sheet.

So I have not used oil pastels since high school, and the only colouring media I've used since high school are watercolour and watercolour pencils, and every now and then coloured pencils for touch ups.  I've been interested in trying them again, so I bought a Crayola set of water soluble oil pastels and tried that.  It was okay.  I'm glad I did not aim higher than Crayola for this because I do not love the medium and only see myself using it for artist prompts.

Versions 3 & 4- Sketchbook

Top palette: Sennelier orange (PO43, PY83), phthalo blue (PB15:3), and alizarin crimson (PR209, PY83, PR179).
Bottom palette:  Sennelier yello ochre (PY43), Winsor & Newton cobalt, and Sennelier alizarin crimson (PR209, PY83, PR179).

At this point I realized I should just turn it into a full-on study and did two more versions of the same landscape in a Strathmore 400 series watercolour sketchbook, 9x12 wire bound pad.  I chose different palettes for each piece and painted them in the same manner as the others.  Since this was cellulose paper it was a little easier to move paint around, but I had to me more delicate with my layering.  It was easier for me to get a misty glow, though.  I need to get into more of these studies, they challenge me in a way that was stimulating but not completely uncomfortable.  I found it to be a good exercise.

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Belgium & France Travel Paintings and Sketches- Better late than never!

I often take photos when I'm travelling or just out, with the intention of drawing the scene later.  I took many such photos during my study abroad trip in spring 2014, although I didn't paint any later until just last year.  Four years after taking those photos!  But I did it, and painting them brings back vivid memories of the travels and the events.  I did do some sketches on location during that trip, though not as many as I intended when I bought a sketchbook for that trip, and that sketchbook is long misplaced.

Anyway, here are some sketches I've done from my travels, from camera or mobile photos after I've got home.  The reference photo, in all their unedited snapshot and hasty glory, are shown to the right of the sketch or painting.

Ponte du Gard I and II
 

Site visited March 2014, painted July 2018.

Painting info: This one was the first time I felt confident enough to tackle some of the study abroad photos I'd taken.  I don't really do architectural drawings, so I knew it would be a challenge, but I did it.  The perspective lines aren't matched, but I think it adds to the pen and ink charm and makes it look like it was drawn and painted from my memory of the visit.  It taught me that the best-looking photographs are not necessarily the best painting references.  I went with a limited palette for it: yellow ochre, primary yellow, phthalo blue, cobalt, and rose madder lake.  I love the vibrancy I was able to achieve on the bridge by limiting my use of the red.

Site info: This is the Pont du Gard, a Roman aqueduct just outside of Nimes, France.  I visited this during a weekend trip of Aix-en-Provence and the surrounding area.  Easily my favourite trip of the entire study abroad experience.  I got to see sites and experience things I've dreamt of since I was a small child and barely old enough to read.  I read about places in France like Avignon, where a second pope was housed for a while, and Roman roads, and aqueducts, and I gobbled it all up.  Wikipedia on the Pont du Garde.

 
I couldn't get enough of the Pont du Gard.  Drawing and painting it brought me back to that place and made the trip feel like it was yesterday.

Painting info:  Watercolours on a pen and ink sketch on Khadi Paper from India- 4x6 Inch 140lb. (320gsm) Pack of 20 Sheets.  I don't love these sheets but they're fascinating to me.  The pen and ink always looks great on them, but they absorb just a tad too much paint and it's easy to overwork.  Simple pieces, like the one below, look fantastic on it though.

Site info: Same as above!  This is the view from the bridge itself.

Fontaine de Vaucluse I and II
 

Painting info:  Postcard doodled July 2018, pen and ink drawing on Khadi Paper from India- 4x6 Inch 140lb. (320gsm) Pack of 20 Sheets again.  Then I went over it in paint.

Site info:  Visited March 2014.  Provence again! I went here on a weekend trip during my study abroad, same trip as for the Pont Du Garde above.  This was Sunday morning, the last day.  I got to see so many things I had dreamed of since childhood- a Roman aqueduct, the Avignon pope palace, and I also got to see a natural well of unknown depth!  Wikipedia on the Fontaine de Vaucluse.

 
Painting info:  Watercolours on an artist's trading card.  Pen and ink with watercolour is my comfort zone, so I wanted to challenge myself and do it directly onto my pencil outline.  Not in love with it, don't hate it either.  It looks nice as an artist trading card.  Paper is Stonehenge Aqua, you can see it here: https://amzn.to/2PL7JSf

Site info:  As above!  This tree is behind one of the boulders in the above photo.

Hingene, Belgium

 

Painting info:  Done in my Khadi Papers softback watercolour sketchbook.  The paper is interesting, much more temperamental than the Khadi Papers watercolour rough A6 postcards I did the first Fontaine de Vaucluse and second Pont du Gard sketches on, but although it's also not forgiving it's much easier to use.  It's hard to get deep values on the paper, but I like that because it's good for quick sketches and practice pieces, and work always comes out luminous.  I love the sketchbook.  Can't seem to find it on Amazon at this time, but it is available on Cheap Joe's: https://www.cheapjoes.com/khadi-handmade-paperback-books.html

Site info:  This is a park in Hingene, in the Flanders region of Belgium.  Nearby, in an adjacent park, is the D'Ursel Castle.  I mean to draw that someday too.

Church in Antwerp
 
Site visited June 2018, painted July 2018. 

Painting info: Very rough pen and ink sketch, with much the same motivation as the first Pont du Garde painting: practice architecture and get the contrast of the luminous stonework and building against the sky and vibrancy of the plants.  Pen and ink sketch with watercolours in a travel watercolour sketchbook.  I actually took that sketchbook to Belgium and painted in it, but nothing I saw there while I was there except for the hydrangea.

Site info:  I didn't actually photograph this one myself, so I'm not super sure what cathedral or church it is, other than it's in Antwerp and somewhere central.  My aunt sent me the photo a week or two after I visited her in Belgium, and I zoomed in on the tower and painted it for last year's World Watercolour Month.  I do remember seeing this cathedral a lot when she took me to Antwerp, but I didn't go inside it during my visit.

Middelheim Museum and Park

 

Painting info: This is a painting of Ai Weiwei's The Bridge Without a Name.  Watercolours with pen and ink on the Stonehenge Aqua artist trading cards again.  Love how this came out, despite the wonky perspective.  Actually, it's my wonky perspective that I like, because it looks like I hastily sketched it onsite.  The small surface forced me to keep just the details  I loved.  It's really striking to come upon in the park.


Site info: Middelheim Museum is an outdoor art museum/park in Antwerp.  It's a fantastic place- totally free, somehow!- and was one of my favourite places to visit.  The art there was so different from one another.  Some quirky and fun pieces, some lighthearted work, some dread-inducing work, some utterly horrifying pieces, and some faintly eerie ones.

 
Painting info:  This was the only piece I actually did while on the trip, in Belgium, that was also related to the trip.  I was fascinated by the textures on these flowers, so I snapped many photos and when I got "home" to my aunt's apartment and we had some downtime, I sat down and drew this.  Painting something white was good practice.  The figure that's cropped out is a doodle based on a woman I saw in Antwerp that day.

Site info:  This was the other half of Middelheim, more of a botanical garden.

The End!
And those are the artworks I've done so far from my travels in the Flanders region of Belgium and the south of France!  I mean to do more, I really do- need to add northern Italy and New Orleans especially.  But hey, in this case it really is better late than never, and the memories of those trips really do become more vivid as you work on the piece.

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World Watercolor Month 2018 Week 3 (July 16-21)

Continuing World Watercolour Month from my Week 1 post and my Week 2 post.  This is a little blog showing my progress per piece and inspiration - basically a more expanded version of what I've been posting over on Instagram.  Yeah, this is late, I know.  I had a beach day on Saturday so I had no scanner for my work and really, no inclination to take a break from a wonderful day.  I'm keeping this up for mostly personal reasons anyway, so I figured it could wait..

In all cases, clicking the image of the finished painting will take you to the full-size posting on deviantart.

July 16: More Maine coastline

Another photo from my Maine beach day two days before this.  It was a view from the parking lot of a wildlife refuge.  The houses are not accessible by car or on foot except during low tide.  I found the view quaint and vibrant enough to draw it.  Because I've been having problems capturing New England skies - so moody and gloomy compared to the vibrant Arizona skies I'm used to - I followed Scratchmade Journal's tutorial on painting skies and clouds.  Fortunately released that day!  I finally nailed that New England sky.

The paper, if you're wondering, is Khadi Papers paperback sketchbook (not the hardcover you've probably seeing all over watercolour instagram).  Paints soak in right away and colours spread all over if applied when it's not bone dry, so it's wonderful for these loose, wild experimental sketches and for more dry brush work.  I love it, but it's certainly not for everyone.

July 17: Plein Air - Great Bay again

I woke up very early, so I went back to the Great Bay Wildlife Refuge and painted some trees I saw on the path.  I also saw some birds, very close to me!  A white-breasted nuthatch, which I've only seen in pictures, two woodpeckers that may have been either the downy woodpecker or the hairy woodpecker, and a warbler that was so bright blue and yellow in colour I think it may have been a northern parula.

July 18: My friend's cat

A couple weeks ago my friend sent me a picture of her cat that I found highly amusing.  It looked like her cat was plotting world domination, so I asked her if I could (eventually) paint the scene.  And I did.  This was my first time using the Khadi Papers rough sheets, which I believe is the same as the paper in their hardcover sketchbooks that I keep seeing people rave about on instagram.

July 19: Seashell from the beach day

During the beach day last Saturday, my boyfriend found a cool, oddly textured shell and gave it to me.  It's probably from a purse or hat rather than something that would normally be found in Maine, but it was still cool-looking and I painted it.  I went for a different, tighter style than I normally do and this was the result.  I was not quite happy with it, so...

July 20: Seashell Re-do

...I redid it!  Went with my usual style, and I like it much better.

July 21: Goddess or Faerie

This, again, was loosely inspired by Eluveitie.  This time it was a combination of the songs "Rebirth", "Epona", and "A Rose for Epona".  This took a lot of glazing and patience, so I'm super proud of it.  I imagine she is is a fertility or nurturing goddess, coming out to a believer who called...whether or not they knew they called her, or were entirely sure of their belief. She may be the goddess of this place, this land, these people only, or she may showing a mere facet of herself in this form and place. I always envision some kind of goddess or otherworld spirit appearing like this when I hear the following lines from "Rebirth":
"In front of Antumnos' gate 
I beheld the mirror in the lake 
Recognize I did not 
Nor did I comprehend."

Of course, she could be aloof (as in the case of "A Rose for Epona"), and I imagine the person she is approaching right now may have that same skepticism of her.

So that's Week 3 of world watercolour month.  I'm still posting these day by day as I go on my Instagram profile, if you want to check that out!

Back to the Art Grind

Recently I've gotten back into art.  Since January 2017 I determined to draw or paint at least one thing a day.  One of my closest, and oldest, friends back in high school and college (I only graduated in 2015) would constantly tell me I was better at drawing than I gave myself credit for.  I never believed her, but last year I began thinking- well, does it matter?  I'm never going to improve if I don't practice.  So I've been practicing.  A lot.  Almost every day.

   

Left: The first attempt in a blank paper journal I bought earlier in the year.  Watercolour pencil.  Lines are poor, but the colouring is better than anything I ever did before that. 
Right: Sketch from a couple months later, same journal, same media.  It's not good, but you can see the massive improvement from the left-hand sketch. 
Note: Image links lead to a larger posting and description of the respective image.

Returning to art was shocking.  I hadn't worked on an actual art piece since high school, just doodles in my notes during college.  Turns out, sneakily doodling the people and objects around me kept me practiced, and my basic drawing skills had improved significantly since high school.  I hit a lazy point for a couple months, but then something shocking happened - Kelly, the friend who had encouraged me, died.  She and her mom were hit by a drunk driver.  Her mom died at the site, and Kelly passed two weeks later.  This past Saturday I turned 25, one year older than she will ever turn.  I threw myself back into an art frenzy and continued the writing frenzy I began that June, to honour her.  She never doubted me in anything, even when I doubted myself.  Hell, she's the one who replanted the idea of study abroad in my head!  So where this began as simple stress relief from grad school, it's now a form of therapy and a way to honour her memory.

Left: A quick painting with cheap watercolours, June 2017.  

Right: Same cheap watercolours, January 2018.  I noticed they were opaque even on this different paper, and not super water-soluble.  I remembered that from doing the sketch on the right.  These convinved me to buy different watercolours.

I haven't stopped drawing and writing since, and this year I even went back to watercolour and bought real watercolour supplies, like sable and squirrel blend brushes to compare to each other, and have been using the high quality synthetic brushes my mom gave me from her days back in college for fashion design.  In January, someone from a journalling group on facebook even gave me some watercolour journals, which I've been using every day, sometimes more.  I've been homesick since last January, so there's a lot of desert and desert-influenced pieces, as well as my usual music-influenced pieces.

Above: Set A is the same as the woman and the canal, other cheap set B.  B is far more vibrant, translucent, and in general very watercolour-y.  This was the last of terrible paper, so I knew I needed a new, proper watercolour sketchbook. 

After many paintings with Watercolour Set B from set above including the one below with the girl in front of the palm trees, I decided I needed to properly learn watercolour.  So I went and bought an artbook from Jo-Ann's.  Took me a while to pick and finally picked out that, on flip through, looked the most informative and was actually trying to teach me watercolour (Beginning Watercolour by Maury Aaseng, if you're interested), some masking fluid, and went back home.  After a bit more research and the wonder of finding Parka Blogs, which gave me detailed information on watercolor sets for beginners, watercolour sketchbooks, and also had video reviews for multiple watercolour and other media (I'd also recognized him from fountain pen videos I'd watched before).  I work with pen and ink and do watercolour over the inked drawing, as does he, plus the way he writes and the way he films his YouTube videos works perfectly for me, and I've learned a lot.

When it came to paper,  I have a 9x12 inch Strathmore Visual Art Journal with 300 gsm watercolour paper I bought back in college and only had two paintings in, but I needed something a little smaller.  Someone from a journalling group I belong to on Facebook was super kind and, when I asked for their personal recommendations on budget-friendly watercolour sketchbooks, one of them offered to send me two. She actually sent me three! Two watercolour, one mixed media that is okay for a single watercolour wash but excellent for watercolour pencil.


Right: Watercolour set B in a Stilman & Birn beta series sketchbook. I've learned much. I'm not good, but I've learned. The awkward light portions on the face, neck, and part of the shirt were scrubbed out after I learned about scrubbing out pigment, a couple weeks after I had actually painted this.









Now I saw that, if I was going to keep at this watercolour thing, I needed better watercolours.  I kept doing my research on watercolour brands, and eventually bought a Sennelier La Petite Aquarrelle tube set.  It's the student version of Sennelier, figuring that I did know I liked watercolour, but wasn't committed or had enough free time to warrant a full quality set in any brand.  They came in just in time for me to pour the tubes into an empty tin and half-pans right before I went to New Orleans for a business trip.  So, the first use for them was in my hotel room during a conference break.  I immediately saw the different between them and any of the under $6 watercolours I had ever used in my life.

 
Left: The first painting I did with the new watercolours, between conference breaks in my New Orleans hotel room, in a Pentallic Aqua Journal I got from that awesome and very kind person!
Right: Similar intensity of pigment use in the same Stilman & Birn beta series sketchbook, from the same person, with the girl in front of the palm tree, with the Sennelier La Petite Aquarelle watercolours.  Excusing my lack of skill, the difference is amazing to my eyes.

So that's all for  now.  I haven't uploaded the last two images yet, but I will soon.  And I'll endeavour to post more often here, especially since I'm still knitting and crochet designing!