Current Update

What's that saying...can't see the forest for the trees? That's somewhat akin to what I'm experiencing with my painting at this point. I can't just sit down and paint for worrying about the details. I finally set the bell tower aside for now. It's a worthy subject and I will paint it some day but I need to find a way to capture it's beauty without driving myself crazy with the details.

I'm reminded of something a painter said in an instructional video I once watched. He said something to the effect that you learn more from painting 50 1-hour paintings than painting one 50-hour painting. So, I'm off to paint my 50 1-hour paintings. I shall not fear (LOL).

Shifting Gears Again

I took my bell tower painting off the easel and sat it on some shelves in my office/studio (a.k.a. living room). I was dismayed…stuck, if you will. I wasn’t satisfied with what I was doing but I didn’t know what to do about it. So, I contemplated it as I went about my day-to-day business. What to do. What to do.

I had been painting it using several photographs from different angles as my resource material. I wanted to capture the variety of color and variety of stones used in this beautiful structure. But the way I was going about it I was going to have to paint each and every stone and then detail it. That’s not the look I wanted nor was it the technique I wanted as it sounded tedious and boring.

In my blog of 05/20/08, you can see where I was going with my plan. I had painted quite a bit more than shown in those pics but I didn’t photograph it at that stage. After I made my color chart (see second blog entry of this date below), I was more confident that I could accomplish the various colors in the rocks I saw in the photographs. So, I had no choice but to rework all I had done on the stonework.

I painted the inside of the belfries and the end of the structure on the left. After painting the end of the structure with the underpainting, I went back and dry brushed in the suggestion of the rocks. As you can see here, it gave a much more realistic look. I was pleased with that effect. I may have to tone down the blue although there are some rocks that look particularly blue in the photographs I have.

Next, I painted in the areas where the stucco was still on the walls and then painted over all my stones with an underpainting. Here’s what it looks like now.

I think this new technique of dry brushing the rocks in will work much better. I'll go back and add highlights to some of the rocks. But this way, I can use the underpainting to give the texture to the rocks as I let it show through the dry brush strokes. I’m going to paint a little looser and trust my artist’s instinct a little more. I’m going to exercise my artistic license a little more and lighten up. This is supposed to be fun!

Color

Well, I’ve been feeling kind of stuck with my painting this month. That’s why I haven’t been painting. If I’m not painting, I’m not blogging either. So, there…

However, a few things happened to kind of jump start me again. This process continues to amaze me. I’m glad I’ve decided to journal this experience so I can have documentation of the various steps and how they unfolded.

I didn’t realize it but one area in which I was still feeling sorely inadequate had to do with color, specifically mixing and using color.

As has happened so many times on this journey, if I keep my eyes open, someone comes along to take me through and impart wisdom. So it happened with my education about color. PBS started airing a new instructional video, or new to me. A married couple, Gary and Kathwren Jenkins, teach how to paint beautiful, large-scale floral paintings. In their instructions they talk particularly about utilizing color to paint vivid, full-of-life paintings.

Gary emphasized using pigment-rich paints. This is something I’ve discovered and I believe I talked a little bit about it in another post on this blog. Using the more expensive paint really gives a richer look to the painting. He also talked about the fact that a white object in a painting really has many different colors. He painted a magnolia blossom which we all know is white. However, to paint it richly many different colors were used in the shading of the pedals and the shadows. He talked about looking at a white wall carefully and seeing the different colors that are really there, that we kind of take for granted. Those are my words, not his.

As he described how he used color in his painting, I saw that he would plan his paintings so that a huge yellow blossom would ultimately go over a part of the background that had been painted purple. Since those are complimentary colors, the yellow looked like a richer yellow because of the purple in the background. Other instructors have talked about complimentary colors but Gary talked about the subject in such a way that I saw it differently.

If you haven’t already done so, I urge you to do some research and learn about the color wheel.

Another recent development that has restarted my painting is the creation of what I call a color chart. I took a 16x20 canvas and marked a 1-inch grid in pencil across the face of the canvas. Skipping the first square in the top left corner, I labeled each square across the top with the name of a paint in my pallet. Again, skipping that first square in the top left corner, I labeled each square going down the left side of the canvas, one color in each square, and in the same order as the paints across the top.

In any given block on the grid, I took the two colors at the top and side of the canvas and mixed equal parts of those paints. I mixed right on the canvas and left a sample of the mixture in the grid.

In this method, each color intersected each other color twice on the graph. So, in the lower left half of the grid, I also mixed a touch of white with the two colors in the original mixture. I did this because many of the colors were rather dark and mixing them with white would allow me to see exactly what color I had.

Here’s a photograph of the chart. I’ve already found it very helpful because I can find the shade of green or blue that I want for a particular item and then adjust from there. Before making this chart, I wasn’t sure how to get a sage green, for example.

Redrawing the Roofs and Placing the Rocks

Well, it’s been a while since I tended the blog and a while since I really got to paint. However, since then some important things have happened. I’ve graduated from student grade paints to artist grade. Funny thing is I thought I was already at artist grade although the word “academic” should have tipped me off, huh? I guess it’s the forest for the trees phenomenon. Anyway, getting artist grade paint has been a real delight and I’m looking forward to going forward with them. They just feel better and perform better in many ways. The color is more brilliant and alive. Great fun.

Now, since I last blogged, I’ve decided to do a couple of things with my painting. In the close up above, you can see some detail on the left part of the roof tiles. That was me playing with my new paints. But something was dissatisfying to me about the roofs. So, I went back to my reference material. Even though I thought I had carefully gridded and drawn in my components, somehow my roof lines had become whomper-jawed, as we said when I was a kid. When I looked at my reference material, I could see that the lines for both roofs always ran at the same angle. In my drawing and subsequent painting of the roof tiles, I had gotten them out of kilter and they looked cartoonish and cock-eyed.

I also saw where the depth of the roof didn’t stay consistent from the left to the right. As well, my walls on the left side of the bell tower weren’t truly vertical. So, I took a ruler and a T-square and drew in some white guidelines for the roofs and tiles. I also straightened up those walls on the left side. Now, I'll go back and redo the roof tiles to get them in the right place and make them uniform across the roof lines. With my new vertical guidelines, I'll have a more accurate wall.

You can also see that I’ve begun laying in some of the stones. I decided my best tack was to place all the stones before I began detailing any of them. So, I’ve just taken various shades of gray and begun laying them in. Since these are river stones and many of them are rounded, I’m using a couple of different sized filbert brushes. To paint around the openings in the belfries, I wanted to start my brush stroke in the opening of the belfry and paint to my right, since I’m right-handed. To most comfortably do this, it was easier to turn the canvas upside down to paint the left side of each belfry opening.

Ultimately, I'll have greenery in the form of trees and shrubs in the foreground but I’m going to paint the bell tower complete so that anything that shows through will be complete. This may take a little extra time than if I were to plan the trees ahead of time and then leave the area behind each tree unpainted. But I like to have a finished item in the painting and then I can place components in the foreground wherever I want without worrying about going back and finishing up something that I hadn’t planned to show through. Also, I just like painting the component completely at this point in my painting because it’s fun to see the finished item. I enjoy that part of the process.

I’ve heard other artists explain how they give their paintings life, so to speak, as they paint and I’m really having fun with that on this one. As I look at the reference material, I see different shaped stones and there’s even quite a variety of colors—blues, mauves, tans, beiges, whites, browns. As I’m underpainting the rocks, I try to imagine how it must have been while they were building this bell tower. I imagine how the stones must have felt in their hands. I notice that the stones near the bottom tend to be bigger than those higher up. I imagine how they picked out the stones down at the river. I guess they didn’t worry about any kind of pattern since the rocks were to be covered by the stucco. But what a surprise to see the beautiful pattern of rocks when the stucco wore away. I wonder if they wondered about people three centuries later enjoying their handiwork.

Happy trails 'til we meet again.

One Quick Thought

I was online watching Robert Davies demonstrate an acrylic painting (see http://www.how-to-paint-and-draw.com/). As he painted, he discussed how one could change one's mind at any point and take a different direction in an acrylic painting. It was so simple just to paint over what is there already and paint something different. That's when he commented that he guessed acrylics could be said to be the medium for the undecided. Initially I embraced that description but as I'm typing this I think I would rather say that acrylics is the medium for those who wish to keep their options open. Is that the same thing? Anyway, check this guy out. He's pretty interesting, especially if you like Brits.

Underpainting and the Belfries

I went surfing for new Web sites about acrylic painting and came up with some good ideas. After all, this is Evolution a Painter not Miraculous Birth of a Painter. So, I’m still learning. One idea I found that I'll be trying in the future is to draw my composition in charcoal or graphite pencil and fix it with a spray fixative so that as I paint over it, the drawing will not smudge or contaminate the paint.

As you can see, I’ve now underpainted the structure with a dark gray and sketched in the bells. I’m not pleased with the way the roof has become a little distorted so I'll work to fix that. I’ve learned that certain parts of a composition can grow as you work on them and become grossly exaggerated. I once began painting a liter bottle of wine in a still life and ended up with something more akin to those boxes of wine one can buy at the grocery store.

Now, back to the present. In keeping with the idea of beginning to paint from the back and come forward, I’ve decided to begin to paint the inside of each belfry. I don’t know that belfry is exactly the right term in this instance since this is not an enclosed bell tower. But you can see the area I’m referring to in this close up.

Now, the danger I see for myself at this point is spending too much time on a part of the painting that will ultimately not be a focal point. As I’ve said before, I don’t necessarily want my paintings to have a photographic flavor but I want them to be realistic to a certain extent. So, I want to paint the stones inside each belfry (Answers.com says “the part of a tower or steeple where bells are hung”) first.

I’ve not painted too many stone structures such as stone walls or water wells, for instance. So, I’m a little shy about my ability to make a realistic looking stone surface inside the belfries. That’s what sent me on my recent surfing expedition mentioned at the beginning of this blog. However, while contemplating this, I realize that I shouldn’t agonize too much over these small, less important parts of the painting. I decide to get some paint in those areas but will wait until more of the painting has revealed itself before I try putting finishing touches to the stones in that area. As the painting develops, I'll adjust the tones and values in these areas to more closely fit the rest of the painting. For now, I just want to get the texture in there so I can paint the façade of the bell tower

This particular structure is so appealing to me because of what is revealed as the stucco falls away. Usually, an old stucco structure would be built of clay bricks which would show through as the stucco wore off. However, this bell tower reveals colorful, interestingly-shaped river rocks. As I look at the photographs I’ve got, I wonder what those rocks felt like in the hands of the men and women who built this bell tower. How old are those rocks that had been smoothed and shaped by decades or centuries of the water running over them in that river?

Let’s hope I’m up to the challenge of representing this beauty in my painting.

Painting the Roof

Using burnt sienna with a touch of cadmium yellow light, I underpainted or blocked in the tiles on the roof. I found a synthetic bristle brush that would hold a sharp chisel edge on the bristles to paint the tiles. From the perspective I chose for the painting, the tiles are on a diagonal running from upper left to lower right. So, when I painted a stroke, I moved the brush as if I were actually painting a tile that was already in place. I lay the chisel edge of the brush along the left side of the tile angled diagonally and made the stroke in an arc. That left the bottom of the roof with an inverted scalloped edge. Blocking in the tiles using this directional stroke method will make detailing the tiles easier later in the painting. It will help them look more realistic in the end.

After the undercoat dried, I mixed in more yellow and a touch of Gesso to lighten the mixture. I’ve determined that my light source will come from right to left. So, I went back over each “column” of tiles and followed the same stroke pattern. This time I just painted about ¾ of each tile on the right side. That made the tiles a little lighter where the sunlight would be hitting them.

After it dried, I saw that the lighter color was too yellow. So, I added more burnt sienna and another touch of Gesso to offset the yellow and dry brushed over the tiles again with the altered mixture. I’m not through with the tiles yet because I want to come back in and define the individual tiles.

One thing I’ve learned about painting with acrylics is that it can be very forgiving. However, to use this to your best advantage, you must remember one thing. Never leave a hard edge or lay on the paint thick enough at this stage to leave visible paint strokes. When blocking in areas on the canvas, be sure to feather the edge of the area you’re painting.

For instance, if you outline the side of a square shape by dragging your brush along the edge of the box with the chisel edge of the brush perpendicular to the edge of the box, you’re likely to leave a little ridge of paint along the sides of the box. Maybe that box shape was the front of a house or building. Later in the painting, you might decide to paint some shrubbery in front of that building or maybe you make a major change and eliminate the building all together replacing it with a differently shaped structure. Unless subsequent coats of paint are thick enough to hide it, that little ridge of paint along the edge of that square shape will show up if you look at the painting under certain lighting conditions or from certain angles. So, someone looking at your painting will see a straight line reflected from the light in the room and this straight line runs right through the tree standing at the front corner of this house.

It would be much better to hold your brush with the chisel edge of the bristles parallel to the straight edge of the box shape. Place the bristles almost on the line and drag the brush towards the center of the box figure, making sure not to deposit too much paint on the canvas at the beginning of the stroke.
This, ladies and gentlemen, I speak of from personal experience.

Background - Cleaning the Brushes

This is The Master's Brush Cleaner and Preserver and it's THE BEST I’ve ever found. It reminds me of the saddle soap my dad used to use to shine some of the shoes on Saturday night for Sunday church. It’s very simple to use. You just moisten the brush, rub it on the surface of the soap to pick some up, and then agitate it on the palm of one hand until all the paint is out. Then you rinse it and let it dry. If you want, after you’ve cleaned the brush you can reload it with soap. Shape the bristles and let it dry. The brush is like new!

This stuff works really well. I had an old brush that had been allowed to dry with acrylic paint on the natural bristles. I thought the brush was a goner so I didn’t have anything to lose to try to clean it. It took several applications of the soap and some strong agitation but that brush is back in use.

Maintaining your brushes will give them a longer life and make your painting easier. When a brush gets a buildup of paint at the base of the bristles, near the ferrule, the bristles are splayed and the brush will not hold the proper shape. That prevents you from getting a dependable stroke from the bush. So, it is important that the brush be cleaned routinely to prevent that buildup.

Background - The Brushes

My PBS mentor, Jerry Yarnell, uses mostly bristle brushes, a couple of small sable brushes, and a Hake brush for background work. I started off with those brushes but have added other brushes as I’ve gone along.

The only thing I’m an expert at in the art world is knowing what I like. So, I can’t pass on any wisdom about the best kind of brushes, either by type or brand name. However, as with so many things in life, I’ve learned that I get what I pay for. So, the cheapest brushes are no good. They fall apart or they are not shaped properly. I haven’t ever bought a really expensive brush so I can’t speak to those. I mostly buy medium priced brushes. If I find a particular brand of brush that I like in one size, I’m likely to buy it in others.

Even though I’ve decided to work in acrylics, I’ve watched instructional shows and read books about painting in other mediums. I’ve learned about different kinds of brushes that way. The way I figure it, a particular kind of brush will make a similar stroke whether it’s loaded with acrylics, oils or watercolor.

As well, every artist I’ve seen uses the brush a little differently. I’m not afraid to experiment and emulate anyone I see. So, with all that input, I’m pretty sure my own style will emerge and I will find the types of brushes I’m most comfortable with.

The collection of brushes in the photograph above is from my larger collection. These are the brushes I thought would work best with the painting of the bell tower. Since the river stones that are exposed in the structure are rounded, I thought filbert brushes would work best to paint those. The tile roof needed a brush that would hold a sharp chisel edge to help define each individual tile. For that I used a synthetic bristle brush that would be able to hold that sharp chisel edge while I painted the little arcs that would represent the clay tiles of the roof.

I’m also showing my brush cleaner in this photograph. I'll talk more about that in the next blog.

Background - The Palette

I am self-taught as a painter through books, the Internet and PBS instructional painters (most importantly Jerry Yarnell School of Fine Art). I use Jerry Yarnell’s acrylic palette which you can find on his Web site.

From lower left to upper right, the palette includes these colors: white Gesso, cadmium yellow light, cadmium orange, cadmium red light, Hooker’s green, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, dioxazine purple, Thalo yellow green, alizarin crimson.

In the photograph, you might see streaks of blue in the white Gesso. I had used this pallet to paint the background for this painting. So, there’s a little blue in the Gesso. I use Gesso instead of white paint because it helps opaque some of the colors that might be more transparent than I would want. Of course, the danger as a novice is that I'll get too much Gesso in the mix because a little bit goes a long way. If I’m not careful, I'll end up with a bucket of the color I’m going for because I had to mix in more paint to offset the Gesso I put into the mix. Ah, well, that’s what this is all about—learning.

As far as the palette box, I’m using a Stay-Wet palette. It is designed to keep the acrylic paint moist enough to use over an extended period of time. This particular palette has a thin sponge that fits in the bottom of the box. There is a special palette paper that you can use with this palette box and I used this system for quite a while. Then I decided to take a hint from Jerry Yarnell. He uses a piece of glass as his paint mixing surface.

So, this is how I assemble my palette box. The yellow sponge is wet almost to the point of dripping wet and laid first in the bottom of the palette box. Then I wet both sides of a piece of white palette paper and put it atop the sponge. The main reason I use the palette paper now is because I don’t want see the yellow under the paint I’m mixing. The white palette paper will work better as a backdrop to my paint mixtures.

After I lay the white palette paper down, I lay down the piece of glass which is maybe ¼" smaller each way than my palette box. As you can see, I’ve folded papers towels and laid them along the left side and top of the palette surface. I find that using the glass helps the paint stay wet longer than just using the palette paper alone.

If I’m painting for a long time, I'll sprits the whole surface with my spray bottle set to the finest mist setting. If I find that my days are too full to paint, I'll check on the palette every other day or so and mist the paint and palette surface. I'll also check to make sure the sponge is still sufficiently wet. If the paint mixtures dry on the glass, I can scrape them off with my palette knife and start over. The actual piece of glass I’m using is from a picture frame I wasn’t using. If all the paints dry out, I simply start over.

If the paints mold, I’m told that won’t affect the painting. Simply scrape off the mold and discard. A couple of things to reduce the likelihood of mold is to use only distilled water in your brush bucket, in your mister bottle, and on your palette. I’ve also heard that if you put the palette box in the frig between painting sessions, the mold will not be such a problem. I may try that this summer as it heats up here in southern Texas.

When I clean up my palette, I'll toss the sponge in the wash by itself to get it good and clean. This doesn’t work with every brand of stay-wet palette, however. I learned that the hard way. The sponge from a competitive brand disintegrated in the wash.

Pencils Down - Sketch is Finished

I think the grid process has worked pretty well. Here’s the pic of the canvas with the outside edge of the larger image, the tile roofs and the openings for the bells all penciled in. I’ve erased the grid outside the image. With the underpainting and detail painting the only place I might still have grid lines showing will be around the bells where the sky is showing through the openings. But using a drawing pencil with a harder lead and an eraser meant to erase pencil lines off canvas, it’s not too much trouble.

So, now, I’m ready to start underpainting the bell tower and the different roof lines. I’m going to experiment on a scrap canvas before I begin on the real deal. I'll share that next time.
Ta-ta for now, dearies.

Brush Up - Paint the Background

Here are some of the images I printed off the Internet of the bell tower at Mission San Miguel Arcangel, San Miguel, California. The one in the center of the photo is the one I created the ½-inch grid on. See my post of 8:23 p.m. on 03/31/08.

I’m going to write a separate post about the palette I use. I’m self-taught, for the most part, from PBS instructional painting shows. Since I like acrylics, I’ve learned most from Jerry Yarnell, Jerry Yarnell’s School of Fine Art. My basic palette is the one he uses.

So, now, to actually start on the painting. As I said earlier, I’m using a 16x20 stretched canvas. I began by wetting the canvas and applying a coat of white gesso using a 2-inch Hake brush. Then starting at the top of the canvas, I applied Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna that I had double loaded onto my brush. It just took a touch of each but I actually used too much Burnt Sienna. So, I had to work with the Ultramarine Blue and more gesso to get the lighter blue I was looking for. I had to rewet the canvas, too, using a spray bottle of distilled water set on the finest mist possible.

After I was satisfied with the blue, I cleaned my Hake brush and took a touch of Alizarin Crimson and started at the bottom of the still-wet canvas. As I blended upwards, I overlapped the blue already on the canvas. Since I neglected to take a photo of the canvas before I began drawing the grid, just imagine this photo without the grid.

Keep in mind that I am still learning this craft. So, while I share my techniques and methods, I am most open to suggestions of more experienced painters or, for that matter, less experienced painters. This blog is meant to share from the perspective of trial and error, not necessarily instruct from the perspective of experience. It’s a group experience, if you will.

After the canvas dried, I began creating the 1-inch grid on the canvas. I used a hard lead drawing pencil to create the grid using a very light touch. I have a couple of T-squares one of which is exactly one inch wide. I used that one to move across the canvas and mark the gridlines. Since the ruler on the T-square was exactly 1 inch wide, I overlapped the previous line to adjust for the space the pencil line added. In other words, if I had laid the ruler where I could see the previous line and then marked the next line, the two lines would be further than 1 inch apart. I had to take into account the width of the pencil line and the amount of space between the pencil line and the edge of the ruler. Even though it’s minute, it adds up as you move across the canvas.

In this photo you see the finished grid and the image off the computer that has the ½-inch grid. Hopefully these will help me to get the proper proportion as I work to get the image onto the canvas.

’Til we meet again, adieu.

Realistic Impressionist - that's me

Here's another view of the subject of my next painting, the bell tower at Mission San Miguel Arcangel in San Miguel, California.

At this point in my painting career, I don’t want my paintings to look like photographs even though I really enjoy studying paintings by other artists that appear lifelike. It’s not necessary that my foliage be identifiable by a dendrologist (a person who studies trees and other woody plants) but I certainly don’t want a viewer of my paintings to have to spend too long deciding that what they’re looking at is, indeed, a tree.

Most realistic paintings start with a drawing. Since drawing is an area that I’m still struggling with, I had to decide how to get a realistic drawing onto the canvas to paint. One of the ways I’ve transferred photographs to canvas was to enlarge the photograph to the size of the canvas and trace the elements I wanted to paint.

With this painting, I’ve decided to use a grid process. I'll be painting on a 16x20 canvas. So, I enlarged the photograph that would serve as my basic reference to 8x10. That is about half the size of the canvas (lol). You can see the photograph in my blog entry of 03/31/08. After enlarging the photograph to 8x10, I used the drawing feature of MS Word to place vertical and horizontal lines every half inch to form a grid across the face of the photograph.

After I paint in the sky on the canvas, I will use a T-square and lightly draw horizontal and vertical lines to form a 1-inch grid on the canvas. Each ½-inch square on the photograph from the computer will correspond to a 1-inch square on the canvas. This breaks the design down into smaller, more manageable areas and enables me to just draw what belongs in each square to ultimately reproduce the subject of the painting, in this case, the bell tower.

When I begin a painting, I start with the background and work my way forward. I’ve done underpainting on most of my paintings which means I paint in the object with the darkest value and then using ever lighter values and tones, I paint in the details of the object until it is as refined as I want it to be. Since this will be the first time I’ve really attempted to use the grid method to draw the subject, I’m not sure how it will work with my usual technique of underpainting. I don’t know if I will have to keep redrawing the grid or parts of it. But, then, this is why I started this blog. I wanted to journal the method to my madness so that those more experienced could offer their wisdom and those still eager to learn, like me, could learn and share their insights, as well.

Happy trails ’til we meet again.

What to Paint - The Bell Tower at Mission San Miguel Arcangel

I came upon this subject by a circuitous route but such is life, in general. I was searching for images of the entry way to Mission San Miguel Arcangel in San Miguel, California. However, when I saw this bell tower among the images in my search, I immediately knew what part of this mission I really wanted to paint.

The bell tower is interesting to me because of the variety of the shapes of the bells. Also, the roofline over the three bells is stepped up which I think adds interest. For some reason terra cotta tile roofs have always appealed to me. As well, the delicate cross atop the left most bell, added another layer of contrast against the massive middle bell.

Another interesting aspect of this bell tower was that where the stucco had worn away, there wasn't the usual brick pattern. With a little research I learned that the bell tower, unlike much of the rest of the structure at the mission, had been built using stones from a nearby river. Their variety reminds me of the pebbles you can buy for the bottom of your fish tank. This array of color would add another layer of interest for the potential art lover viewing the finished painting.

All of these elements of this picture made me want to paint it. There were several images of the bell tower from different perspectives and distances. So, I printed them all and studied them as I planned my painting. I decided that this view would be the basis of my rendering of this beautiful relic of times gone by.