Storm Over; Walkers Out

This painting shows the glow that comes after a rain storm. There are some puddles. The walkers are out. I did this painting for my watercolor class. I thoroughly wet the paper so I now have cockles in it but it stayed f;at during the painting. It was a very quick study and everyone was interested in how to create texture and sand.

After the Storm

I did this painting as a classroom demonstration with the objective of varying edges and painting puddles. It was done wet into wet and was somewhat difficult for me to get through in a time that would allow everyone to try the exercise. I have a very talented class that was up to this challenge. It was remarkable to see the results.

On Call

Painted at the monthly Art and Ag out on a beautiful morning. Arrived shortly after 8AM and there were already plenty of people at the site. After meeting with many of the artists, I located a place to paint. There were 4 tractor types lined up along a road. I sketched and started painting when someone came and drove off with one of the tractors that I planned to put in my painting. I only roughly sketched the green tractor. This reminded me of a day on San Francisco Bay when I sketched a pile driver boat that had been tied up for months. I went to my car to get my paints and on return, found it being towed out to sea. I have a tendency to get into the details of something I don't know like this red tractor but you know that the other edited one that got away, is still a tractor. It shows how little detail is needed to make a tractor. We see symbols and our mind puts the rest together.

Morning Bakery Stop

In the downtown area of Davis is the Village Bakery. It is next to the train station. They turn out wonderful bread and pizza. The aroma of baking bread torments as I stood across the street painting this scene. Customers came and went during the early morning. There was plenty of parking. Students were up at 8AM but otherwise, things were quiet. The train kept unloading waves of people who appeared late for whatever they were headed to. I did a quick sketch and determined my values. Then, when I had worked out all of the issues, the painting was a snap. As I was finishing I had plenty of people stopping to chat. One even offered to buy me a cup of coffee.

The Garden Fountain

It was a nice warm morning and the flowers were blooming. My focus was on the fountain with some of the flowers behind. There were many greens to mix, always trying to change the value of color with every plane change. It was a challenge to find different greens because there were so many. The final painting size was 18x24. I liked the painting although I am always uncomfortable with flowers and manicured lawns. My preference is wide open spaces.

The Vacaville Hills

Our Plein Air Group was out this morning in Vacaville. It was chilly at the start but the sun was brilliant and the clouds kept gathering. After a couple of hours it was clouded over with dark shadows and looked like rain (we would love rain here in California). Recent rain has kept these hills green and beautiful. Painting hills means lots of graded washes to create roundness and depth. There is also the 'problem' of greens. I mixed all of the greens using raw sienna and Ultramarine or gamboge and ultra and then burnt sienna and sage green for the darkest values at the bottom. It never really warmed to comfortable but painting was fun.