Autumn in the Mountains

 A few weeks ago I spent quite a bit of time hiking, sketching and taking photos in Big Cottonwood Canyon, the biggest canyon in the Wasatch Mountains here in northern Utah.  Using the reference material collected I made a couple different paintings based on a scene(s) in Brighton and I made them the same size and similar style so that could display well together.  They also are painted on cradled panels with the sides painted black and hanging wire already installed so they can be hung without a frame.

"Autumn Spring in the Mountains" Acrylic 20" X 10"

"Mountainside Rock in Autumn" Acrylic, 20" X 10"

Daily Sketch Challenge May 2020 - Day 31

It's finally the last day of my daily sketch challenge. What better way to top it off than to head up Big Cottonwood Canyon and do some sketching in the mountains. I picked kind of an unusual subject for a mountain sketch but I couldn't resist it when I saw it. Mountain homes have always intrigued me, they usually have a very distinct design and usually an interesting interaction with the natural shapes around them. I never noticed this house before, I suspect before long the foliage will be full enough that you can't even see it from the parking lot of Brighton Ski Resort which is where I was when I sketched it.

Day 31 - Mountain Home - Daily Sketch Challenge Day 31

When I was young I seriously considered pursuing a career in architectural rendering, I'm glad I didn't for several reasons, the primary being that computers took over and took all the fun out of it.

As I mentioned before I said I would share my larger sketch kit that requires a backpack to carry around.

Pencil Case

The first photo is my pencil case full of not only graphite pencils but pens, erasers, a water brush and a sharpening pad. 

Watercolor Palette

In the second photo is my watercolor palette. I don't know who the manufacturer is, it's a clamshell type and has a rubber seal but doesn't really seal all that well. I screwed a piece of aluminum to it that I can clip medium cups to. The paints are all Holbein.

Easel and Tripod

In the third photo you can see my watercolor sketch block resting on a board that I installed a 1/4-20 nutsert on to allow it to be attached to the mini tripod below.

Brushes

The last photo is my brushes, a Jack Richeson portable brush set. 

I also sometimes use a 6X8 mixed media sketch book (spiral bound) and set it on the lid of the watercolor palette and just hold it to the palette with my hand doing away with the board and tripod and use a water brush instead of the medium cups and brushes for a more simplified setup.

From Abstract to Representational

Recently I participated in a challenge on an artist forum.  We were given several photos to choose from to use as references, the catch was the photos were all very blurry and just contained abstract shapes.  From these reference we were to come up with all the details.  This is the photo I chose to base my painting on;

Of course I picked this one because it immediately suggested a landscape to me.   I could see a tree and bushes bordering the right side and pine trees in the distance, but what else?  I started the painting by blocking in using a brush and only the abstract photo for a reference.  Doing that was kind of an exercise that jump started my creativity and the rest of the image came into focus in my mind.  This is the result;

Click on image to enlarge

"Mountain Lake"

 8" X 10", Acrylic on 1/8" panel
Original - $100
Prints Available

As you can see I modified the composition a bit and switch to palette knives.  I moved the background tree shapes a but more to the left and extended them to the left edge.  I also added the distant mountain shapes and altered the foreground shapes a bit.  So, from a blurry photo of nothing emerges a mountain landscape with a lake and evergreen trees, who'da thunk it?  That's the advantage of having spent a lot of time painting and sketching from life, I've got thousands of images embedded in my brain for helping me come up with something to fill a space when the photo reference is lacking, and in this case the reference was lacking just about everything.

Here are a couple of detail close ups;

Click on image to enlarge

Click on image to enlarge

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Resurrecting Paintings

I have a box full of rejected paintings.  Many of them are plein air paintings that just didn't work out, which is most of them since my success rate with plein air is very low.  The majority are studio paintings that I gave up on.  Then there are those paintings that I haven't given up on that just kind of hang around the easel.  Every now and then I put the painting back on the easel, fiddle with it a bit and take it back off out of frustration. I see potential there so it doesn't go right into the reject bin but I'm not sure how to save it, so it languishes near the easel waiting for another shot.  I have one painting that's resting near the easel that's been on and off the easel for over a year, but at least I haven't given up.  Every once in a long while I decide to look through the paintings in the reject bin and see if there's any potential there that I missed.  Today's blog post is about two paintings from these categories that have been saved, one a "hanger on" and one a "reject".

This painting has been on and off my easel for over a month.  I'd work on this painting when I wanted a break from charcoal drawing.  The painting just didn't seem to be coming together.  I thought the composition was solid but the execution was lacking.  Finally I decided it was "do or die" and got the palette knives out and went to town on it and threw lots of thick paint at it and pushed it all around, this is the result;

 

"Edge of Autumn"

Acrylic on panel, 12" X 9"

I acknowledge that it's a bit weird to be painting an autumn scene in the middle of spring but I just can't resist the warm colors of fall.  I was pretty happy with how this one turned out so I decided to go though the reject bin and see if there was anything in there I thought I could salvage with some judicious palette knife work.  I pulled out a few paintings, one an 8 x 10 failed plein air piece made it to the easel first.  Unfortunately I did not strike gold that time.  Either I need more practice with palette knives or not all subjects are good candidates for that technique.  Needless to say I won't be sharing that one here. 

However the rummaging through the reject bin did net me one little gem.  I'm not sure why I rejected this one, I just spent a few minutes with it and decided it wasn't half bad.

"Lone Pine"

Acylic on panel 8" X 6"

This was originally a plein air piece painted in Big Cottonwood Canyon about two years ago I think.  It was an experiment in taking different elements  from my surroundings and creating a scene on the spot that doesn't actually exist.  In this case the rock was in one area and the tree came from another and I combined them.  I think I moved the other vegetation around a bit as well.  In the studio I just adjusted some values and added a bit more color.

It's a good idea to save your failed paintings, besides giving you something to measure your progress as an artist against, as your skills develop you might find you can resurrect those failures and turn them into something worthwhile.

Back to the Classroom

It's become kind of a thing for me now, attending a weekly class during winter.  Since I work full time it's hard to work attend one of those week long workshops put on by professional artists, usually in another state, which means traveling time and expenses to boot.  So, instead I find a local artist I like who holds classes on a weeknight.  Last winter I attended classes with Candace Rideout  Getting input from a more advanced artist can be very helpful and keep you from falling into a rut.  After a while it's easy to miss fundamental issues that could be resolved to make your art that much better. 
Something as simple as repetitious patterns can seem invisible until someone else points them out.  Another advantage to attending classes is the opportunity to meet other student artists and feed off of each other's energy, everybody has something unique and valuable to contribute.  This winter I started attending classes with Susan Jarvis.  I've attended classes with Susan in the past but it's been over two years, I decided it would be worthwhile to go back.  This painting is the result;

"Kings of Autumn"

Acrylic, 24" X 12" on 3/4" deep cradled panel

Original - $265

While the reference photo was mine, taken in the Uinta Mountain Wilderness near Mill Hollow and the composition was mine Susan helped me tweak the painting to help me make it the best I can make it.  All those little things can add up to make a much stronger overall impact.



Roots and Rocks

I recently finished this small painting of a scene along a hiking trail in Big Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains of northern Utah.  This canyon is only about a fifteen minute drive from my home so I visit often, the downside to that convenience is it's easy for all the rest of the residents of the Salt Lake Valley to go there too so it can get quite crowded.  This is why I usually go early in the morning and only stay until noon or so.  It was spring and the sun has just risen enough to illuminate this interesting arrangement of rocks and evergreen tree roots.  I did a sketch on site and only recently got around to painting a small study, maybe I'll tackle a larger version some day.

"Roots and Rocks"

Acrylic, 10" X 8"

Original - $100

Painting Spring in the Mountains

Okay, the calendar says officially that it's the first day of summer, but in the mountains it definitely still feels and looks like spring.  I spent the morning painting near the bottom of Cardiff Fork in Big Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains and it was simply glorious.  I usually paint 9" x 12" and smaller for outdoors but I plan on participating in a plein air event next week that requires 11" X 14" be the minimum painting size so I have to step up my plein air game size wise and so took some larger panels out.

 

"Perfect Day for a Hike"

Acrylic, 14" X 11"

Original - $160

"Cardiff Spring"

Acrylic, 16" X 12"

Original - $200

Many artists are afraid of green, especially the "acidic" greens of spring.  Not me, I love spring greens!



Thinking of Spring

We are almost at the end of February and while the winter has been largely mild this year it's still winter.  Not that I wish for snow, (except in the mountains) but snow is the only thing that makes winter interesting to me from an artistic perspective, it covers up the ugly browns of the dead grass and makes for brilliant blue cast shadows. We haven't had snow cover in the Salt Lake Valley since early January.  What that means is the landscape has been mostly just grays and browns for nearly two months.  I needed a shot of color so I decided to paint a spring painting;

"Spring Evergreen"

14" x 11", Acrylic on panel

Original - $160

This scene is up in Big Cottonwood Canyon in the Utah Wasatch Mountains in an area called the Willow Heights Conservation area.  This is one of the most beautiful spots in our local canyons that I have visited and since it's not well known it isn't crowded.  I painted this before, smaller in pastel, I decided to scale it up a bit in acrylic.





Painting in Tooele Valley

I'm just getting around to posting about my last plein air outing which was the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  I wasn't sure I wanted to go out, it was a gloomy, windy day.  After running a couple errands I decided I might as well go out, at least it wasn't real cold and if painting proved to be too problematic I could at least get some reference photos.  My initial plan was to go up in the canyon, I figured I might get some fresh snow photos and maybe a painting, however as I headed towards the freeway I noticed there was plenty of blue sky northwest of the valley so I turned right instead of left. After spending some time exploring near the Great Salt Lake Marina and the East end of the Tooele Valley, the next valley over from the Salt Lake Valley I headed west over to the town of Grantsville.  I took a road going North off Main street and ended up at this field that appeared to be public land of some sort, I drove down a short road, turned round and saw the view I decided to paint.  I had quite a battle with the wind but it was worth it.

 

"Windy Autumn"

8" X 10", Acrylic on panel

Original - SOLD

Hiker's Delight

I just finished another small studio painting, this one based on a photo I took while hiking in the Wasatch Mountains in Northern Utah, Big Cottonwood Canyon to be more exact.  I love the trails we have that fall the run off creeks somewhat closely because I really enjoy encountering scenes like this one, hence the title.

"Hiker's Delight"

8" X 10", Acrylic on panel

Original - $100

My Palette and........My Palette

In the art world the word "palette" has two different but related meanings.  One meaning is the physical surface that an artist mixes his paints on.  The other meaning is the tube colors the artist chooses to put out to start.  I'm going to talk about both of my "palettes" here briefly.

Acrylics require special consideration due to their rapid drying time.  Different "wet" palettes both commercial and home made have been invented to keep mixes usable and preserve unused paint.  One of those is the Masterson Sta-wet palette.  This is basically a plastic box with a sealed lid about 12" X 16" and about an inch deep.  The design is intended to be used with a sponge and paper to mix your paper on.  The theory is that the sponge will hold enough moisture for the paints to absorb and keep them fresh.  In practice it isn't so simple, the amount of moisture is hard to regulate and I often had too much which results in my paint piles turning into intermixed paint puddles. I also didn't really care for the mushy feeling of mixing paint on top of a sponge, also mold was frequently an issue.  I ended up tossing the sponge and paper and replaced them with a piece of 12" X 16" glass which fits perfectly inside the box.  I roughed up one side of the glass with sandpaper and sprayed it with gray automotive primer which comes very close to being a perfect mid-tone gray.  The glass is placed with the primer side down.  I take a piece of Viva paper towel, (I only use Viva, all other paper towels are too wimpy.) fold it and wet it, just damp using a spray bottle and place this at one end of the palette and I place my paint piles on this.

Now a note about the other meaning of "palette", the colors. 





These are the six colors I put out every single time I paint from left to right, (all Liquitex Artist's grade acrylics.) titanium white, cadmium yellow light, yellow oxide, burnt sienna, cadmium red medium and ultramarine blue (green shade). This is basically the three primaries plus two earth colors and white. Since I mostly paint landscapes always having the two earth colors, (yellow oxide and burnt sienna) on my palette is well worth it.  Some of you may remember about a year ago I had a post about converting Richard Schmid's oil palette to Liquitex acrylics and making color charts based on it.  Well, I deleted that post because I never finished the charts and stopped using that palette, it was just too many colors to manage for my taste. However, there is not such thing as a perfect primary color in pigment so there are occasions where I add to my basic palette.  For example, if I need strong violets I put out alizarin crimson, (hue, permanent) and if I need the color really strong I also put out cobalt blue.  This is because cadmium red medium as a little bit of yellow in it therefore a pure violet can't be made with it since yellow is violet's complimentary.  There's a similar issue with the green in the ultramarine blue.   I recently discovered pthalo blue, I loved it for the shadows in "Winter Ditch" so now I occasionally put that out on the palette.  I sometimes get out the cerulean blue for skies as well.  Occasionally I get out yellow hansa it makes a particular kind of red orange I like for replicating the color of some of the fall foliage, why it works I really don't know.  If the painting is going to have a lot of strong orange in it I'll put cadmium orange out.

When I'm at the end of a painting session or if I just need a clean palette I spritz the palette with some water and get the paint scraper out and in moments I have a clean palette. I also spritz the paint piles and then seal the box with the lid and those paint piles will keep for weeks if need be.