First Plein Air Painting of the Year

The weather here has been quite variable this June.  We had high temps drop all the way down into the 50's for a couple days accompanied by crazy wind and thunderstorms so dark it felt like late evening.  Then it got warm for a few days., then if got real cool again. This week has been on the cool side but not uncomfortably so and most importantly it's been at least partly sunny.

I took advantage of the finer weather to get out and paint outdoors (plein air) for the first time this season.  I've sketched outdoors a few times but this is the first time I took the whole painting set up out. I decided to take out the pastels because acrylics can be difficult in our dry climate but I might give the acrylics a try later this week.

I set up at a trailhead on the Jordan River Parkway near where I live in Taylorsville, Utah.  The parkway runs through the whole valley and is full of scenes ripe for the "canvas".  I took a couple short live videos on my Facebook page.

Dragging My Feet

...but at least I've done some sketching.  Yes, it's been about a month and a half since I've posted anything.  Truth is I haven't been making much art lately and what I had done has been mostly experimental, or I've abandoned it before finishing.  I have done some life sketching though.

I did this pen sketch from inside my car out in the southwest quadrant of the valley a couple weeks ago.  Yes, even in the middle of the suburbs you can find the occasional rural subject. I had Franklin Booth's style in mind while sketching this, it's a poor imitation but was an interesting exercise.

It's been a long time since I've been to Wheeler Farm, there have been some changes, however this vintage Minneapolis Moline tractor is still sitting in the exact same place. I've sketched this tractor before, but from an angle in pen and watercolor.  This time I kept it simple and just used a .9 mechanical pencil.

It looks like the winter weather is finally moving in starting tomorrow, I wish I could say I'll get back into the life sketching habit and go out every week but that's going to depend on the weather.

Sketch and Wash

I've been really lax about sketching practice this year, especially life sketching.  It's just been real difficult finding motivation for quite some time.  I decided to try to turn that around today and spend some time this morning sketching out in nature.

Click on image to enlarge

Prints Available

I went to Sugarhouse Park and sketched along Parley's Creek.  Parley's Creek is named after an early LDS church leader, or rather the canyon that the creek flows down was named after him, it became the canyon most of the pioneers used to get down to the Salt Lake Valley, currently Interstate 80 uses it.

You get a lot of densely packed nature along a creek, plants do love water, it can be difficult to organize all those values, shapes and textures.  I decided to try a different tool for capturing all that value and texture quickly, General's "Sketch and Wash" water soluble graphite pencil. In combination with a water brush the Sketch and Wash pencil allowed me to draw, fill in tones and spread it all around very quickly.  Even a seemingly simple little nature sketch as above can have a lot going on in it.  The Sketch and Wash pencil allowed me to put in some relatively flat and smooth areas of tone along with smooth gradations, but since it's a pencil it can be used to put down line and texture very easily as well, just draw normally and don't add water, on do a dry brush only slightly modifying the pencil lines.  The possibilities for tone and texture are nearly endless.  I would compare the hardness of the Sketch and Wash to a 2B normal graphite pencil. 

Is there a downside to the Sketch and Wash?  Yes there is, you have to treat it more or less like watercolor, it can't really be erased once set with water.  Even before setting it with water the Sketch and Wash pencil does not erase as well as normal graphite.  However, like watercolor, if an area is too dark just wet it and then use a paper towel to dap it and remove the excess graphite, or sometimes just wiping your brush and then applying again to the area is enough, however it's impossible to get all the way back to the white of the paper, so preserve those highlights!

Click on image to enlarge

Prints Available

This sketch was done just a little ways upstream of the previous. Again the Sketch and Wash pencil allowed me to quickly capture all the shapes and tones of those abstract shapes created by the tree roots.  One other thing about the Sketch and Wash pencil is you can't get truly black darks with it, not even as dark as normal graphite, I knew this going in and took a Generals Carbon Sketch pencil with me which makes about the blackest blacks marks I've ever seen to supplement the Sketch and Wash however I forgot to use it!  Oh well, maybe next time, and there will definitely be a next time, I think this has become one of my all time favorite sketching tools.

The other "tool" I used today is the sketchbook which is a Stillman and Birnes Beta Series.  The Beta Series have semi-heavy paper with moderate texture for use as a mixed media sketchbook.  The paper took the water used in making these sketches great, not warping or wrinkling at all, however if you did heavy overall wet washes I'm sure the paper would warp some from that so I'd suggest keeping water application on the conservative side.  Also, the texture is a little too heavy for a straight up graphite pencil sketch in my opinion, the texture just overwhelms the pencil marks however it works great with the Sketch and Wash since you can use water to cause the graphite to fill in the grain of the paper with tone

It was really good to get out in nature today, though since it was at a public park it was more noisy that I would have liked but well worth it...until the heat got turned up then it was time to head home.  It's kind of funny, it's late August and our temps are still in the 90's yet I am seeing some trees starting to turn to their fall colors, soon we'll be saying good bye to summer...sigh, I better make the most of it and get out more often with my sketchbook.

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To Cold Outside, How About Car Sketching?

It's important as representational artists that we make sure to spend some time working from life.  I'll admit I've been rather slack about that this year so I decided to remedy that a bit today.  While today was sunny it was also very, very cold, 23*F when I went out today.  I'll admit, I'm quite the wimp when it comes to the cold so my solution today was to sketch from inside the car.  Even with the engine off it was bearable, (no doubt thanks to the sun beaming through the windows) though the windows fogged up after a while.  Not breathing was not an option so I had to work quickly, besides it was late afternoon and the light was changing fast and would be gone altogether soon.

A steering wheel makes a passable easel, though movement is somewhat limited inside a car and that does effect the sketch because it's pretty much impossible to make marks from your shoulder, at best marks were made from the elbow but even that wasn't easy.  Having to sketch from inside the car also limits the subjects available but this wasn't about making a polished piece of art, it was about practice from life, any subject would do as long as it had interesting and challenging shapes.  Obviously I'm more used to sketching classic cars.

Here's the finished sketch, if you can call any sketch finished.  I used charcoal then added some touches of color using pastel.   I'd rather not sketch from inside a car, but in a pinch it will do.

A Sketch, From Plein Air to Studio

Sometimes making art on location (plein air) just doesn't work out.  There are all kinds of challenges.  There's a time limit, you don't have long before the light changes so much that the scene you started to sketch just isn't there anymore.   Then there are environmental factors, wind, sun, rain, noise, bugs, animals, people, etc, all kinds of things that interfere or distract.  There's also the challenge of having a limited "studio" with you.  You just can't pack all the supplies and materials your studio holds and it seems like almost without fail you forget to pack something.  For these reasons and more my attempts at making a finished work of art on location more often fail that not.  This is a story about one of those failures that was later resuscitated in the studio.

On Memorial Day I decided to spend half the day up in a local canyon to attempt the charcoal sketching techniques I'd been developing in the studio, on location.  I had some success in the studio so I was confident, well nature humbled me pretty quick.  I parked along the highway where I could see this copse of trees growing on the mountainside.  I applied some watercolor washes mostly in green.  My intent was to keep the color subtle, it came out even more subtle than I expected.   People complain about color shift with acrylics as they dry, my experience is watercolor is far worse.   It's darned near impossible to draw with charcoal on a damp surface so waiting for the paper to dry is a bit aggravating. 
Remember those environmental factors I mentioned before?  Well, it was a nice enough day, a bit breezy but not enough to be annoying but made things a little cool for comfort.  The big problem I had was noise.  I was sitting just a few feet off the highway and being a holiday, thousands of people were traveling to the mountains, the traffic noise was irritating to say the least and by the end of the morning I had a headache.  The main thing the noise did was make it hard for me to get into the "zone", that state where the world disappears and you are alone with your drawing or painting.  It also didn't help that my subject was on the other side of the highway so I was seeing all those noise makers rushing by.
Finally the paper was dry enough to get serious about applying the charcoal.  The session seemed to be going well enough but I just couldn't seem to really get into it and was dissatisfied the whole way.  This makes it sound like I was having a bad time, I really wasn't.  To steal from the fisherman's mantra; "A bad day of plein air is better than a good day at work".  At the time I just chalked it up to experience and learning and pretty much forgot the artwork I'd produced that day once I unpacked it at home.
Fast forward to nearly a month later.  I was looking for some watercolor paper to use for the next project and instead accidently dug up that first sketch from Memorial Day.  With the passage of time I could see it with fresh eyes and realized there was some potential there.  Instead of starting that other project I started reworking that plein air sketch and this is the result;

"Nature Study No 3"

Charcoal on paper with watercolor wash 9.8" X 6.9"

The end result has a classical feel that I really like, it was definitely worth the time to refine this plein air sketch in the studio.  Occasionally I find that I can save previously failed artwork attempts...sometimes, some still die on the easel despite all attempts to save them.

Spring Painting Outdoors

The weather was a bit iffy.  The air was quite breezy, however it was also quite warm for the season, well into the 80's.  Pockets of storm clouds were threatening, but alternating with pockets of intense sunshine.  All in all far from ideal conditions for painting outside with acrylics, I packed up my gear and headed out anyway.
I knew exactly where I wanted to go, it was a spot I saw while on a "sketch and walk" over a month ago.  The trees were still bare then and much of the landscape was still a bit brown but now the foliage is nearly full and everything is very green, we've been having a lot of rain lately, a lot.  So, even though the weather was far from ideal I saw an opening in the rainy weather and dove in.

 "Spring Walk"

14" X 11", Acrylic on panel

This little scene is by the banks of the Jordan River in Murray, Utah and is part of the Jordan River Parkway.  The Parkway is an endless source of artistic inspiration and my favorite section, the Murray-Taylorsville section is a very short drive from my home, even walkable without a backpack full of gear.  I really liked how the seldom used pathway meanders through the grasses and wildflowers and ends at the large tree, it made for a near perfect composition, I embellished very little.  I spent a few minutes in the studio making some minor adjustments, but the painting is at least 95% painted on location.

I took my larger plein air set up that uses a tripod easel but figured out a way to pack it all into a backpack rather than the huge tactical duffel I usually use.  This meant using a handheld palette but the tradeoff was worth it and it actually worked quite well.

I did get rained on just a bit and the wind was a bit of a handful to deal with at first but later settled down, overall it was a pleasant plein air painting session. The forecast is for continued unsettled weather, no telling when I'll be able to get out with the paints again but that's normal for this time of year.



Painting during the "Golden Hour"

I happened to be in the town of Sunset, Utah for an event.  After that event I had some time so I headed West where I know the area get's more and more rural the closer you got to the Great Salt Lake.  With less than two hours before the sun set I found a great little rural scene to paint.

"West Point Hay Shed"

Acrylic on panel, 8" X 10"

Original - $100

I don't think I've ever painted during the hour or so before the sun set before.  It was a challenge to paint when the light was changing so fast, and to resist the temptation to chase it.  I noticed the closer it got to sunset the warmer the light got, the effect was quite pronounced.  This was the one temptation about chasing the light I caved into,  I glazed yellow ochre over the whole area around the hay shed to try and capture that warm light effect, I'm not sure I succeeded but I like it.  There was a tractor and a truck in the scene as well but the painting is just too small to try to add those things in, maybe I will if I paint a larger version in the studio.

I also had the opportunity to meet a local farmer, her name is Dixie.  It turned out I set up next to the irrigation gate and she stopped by a couple times to open or change the gate. In case you read this, thanks for taking an interest Dixie!





Torn Between Two Loves

Today and yesterday have been kind of weird days.  I said in the last post I need to get back to a couple unfinished acrylic paintings, well I haven't, at least not yet.  Instead I've been feeling very conflicted about working in pastel vs working in acrylic.  I even went so far as to start an experiment last night.  I started two paintings of the same subject in the same size, one in acrylic and one in pastel.  I'd spend some time working in pastel, take a break then spend some time working in acrylic.  I did this a couple times last night and then again today.  Acrylic was winning, for some reason the pastel painting was fighting me.  It wasn't until today in the afternoon when is occurred to me it might be because I switched surfaces.  I painted "Red International" on Uart 400 which is a sanded paper I had mounted to acid free foam board.  For this experimental painting I switched to Ampersand Pastelbord.  I was so sure that I would like Pastelbord it didn't even occur to me that I might not, turns out I don't and am very surprised.  For some reason the pastel just was not coming off as easily with the Pastelbord, it felt scratchy rather than smooth.  The tooth was easier to fill in to get a smooth look, but the application wasn't smooth, it's hard to describe, I just didn't enjoy using it.  I'm sure it's the perfect surface for some people but not for me.  So now I'll have to restart the pastel side of my experiment using Uart paper this time. 

In the mean time I decided I need to take the pastels outside so I went to Olympus Hills Park in the city of Holladay, Utah.

"Silver Trees by the Path"

5" X 7", Pastel on paper mounted to foam board

Original - $50

"Young Tree"

10" X 8", Pastel on paper mounted to foam board

Original - $100

If you've been watching the blog for a while you can clearly see that the pastel medium results in far more colorful paintings for me.  I'm not sure if that's a good thing but it is interesting.

As for the experiment I'm sure there will be no clearly defined winner, there are good and not-so-good things about each medium.  I'm guessing I'll be going back and forth with them for a while, this is kind of hard to swallow for a guy that prefers simplicity.  I was real good at sticking with acrylics for nearly a year, but man how I've fallen off the wagon!

Shanna Kunz Workshop Day One

Today was the first day of a two day workshop I am attending with renown landscape artist Shanna Kunz. This is a "Plein Air to Studio" workshop.  We spent today painting "en plein air" in beautiful Ogden Valley, or more specifically in the Jefferson Hunt Campground area.

First Shanna painted a small demo for us.  Here is Shanna near the beginning of the demo and all the students diligently taking notes.

Here is the scene Shanna was painting;

Shanna did an excellent job of course but you'll just have to take my word on that.

Here are my two 8x10 studies for the day;

"Spring Foliage"

10" X 8", Acrylic on panel

Original - $100

"Ogden Valley Meadow"

8" X 10", Acrylic on panel

Original - $100

Tomorrow we work in the studio to develop one of our studies into a larger studio piece.  I think I'll be working on the second one, I can already see some things I'd like to improve.





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!



Painting Wild and Wet

No, I don't mean the paint, but rather the subject.  I spent the morning painting up in Big Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah.  Easy access to Big Cottonwood Canyon from the Salt Lake Valley is both a blessing and a curse.  I love that I can be up in this beautiful wilderness in just fifteen minutes, I hate they everybody else can too.  I decided to go painting by the Mill B trailhead, there are some spots on Big Cottonwood Creek there that I wanted to paint.  Even though I got there just after 8:00 AM the main trailhead parking lot was already full with a long line of cars parked on the shoulder.  Luckily the upper, overflow parking lot still had spaces.  I guess I'm going to have to get out there even earlier in the future.

The spring runoff is fast and deep right now.

"Spring Runoff"

 8" X 6", Acrylic on panel

Original - $60

"Raging Water"

10" X 8", Acrylic on panel

Original - $100

Pencil Sketching Pastime

I passed a pleasant Saturday afternoon last week sketching at Wheeler Farm, one of my favorite sketching haunts.  I kept it simple and stuck with graphite, (pencil) but I picked a pretty complex subject.  The old farm house at Wheeler Farm is a beautiful example of the western United States version of Victorian architecture.  It's not a simple box like most modern dwellings.  This old farm house had many angles and shapes to play with in my sketchbook, it was fun but far from simple and quick!

"Wheeler Farm House"

Autumn Trip

Yesterday I took the whole day and drove a long, semi-planned loop to go see what the fall colors where looking like at the higher elevations plus I managed to work in a plein air painting.  I started by going up Parley's canyon up to Wasatch County then a couple back roads to Summit County and the small town of Peoa.  After spending some time exploring Peoa I headed East to Oakley and did some exploring there.  Even at the 6500 ft elevation of Oakley the colors are far from peak so I headed up the Mirror Lake highway into the High Uintas and ate my lunch by the Upper Provo River.  Then I drove over the Soapstone Pass into the Soapstone basin where I did this 10" x 8" acrylic painting;

"Fresh Autumn Air"

8" X 10", Acrylic on panel

Original - $100

I was set up at cross roads of sorts, (The Soapstone Pass is a dirt road.) so I had a lot of traffic from the hunters driving their ATVs around and other people like me out enjoying the fresh mountain air and fall colors.  While the noise and dust were annoying at times I did enjoy meeting a few people that were interested enough in what I was doing to stop and take a look, in particular I met fellow artist Sue and her husband Rex from Tabiona, I now have a standing invitation to go paint with her on her property by the Duschene river. If anything at this elevation the colors where a bit past peak so I headed on over the other side of the pass to highway 35 also known as Wolf Creek Pass and dropped down to the town of Francis.  After some exploring in Francis I dropped further down to the town of Midway in the heart of the Heber Valley. I decided I didn't want to take the freeway back home so I drove up a little known road to Guardsman's Pass at the top of Big Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains.  I said little known but there were enough people that knew about it that the traffic was kinda nutty for a remote mountain pass, (very slow, curvy and steep, 15-20 mph), I guess everybody else had the same idea.  There was a section of the road lined with photographers!  Once in Big Cottonwood Canyon I went up to Brighton and went for a walk around Silver Lake, again everybody else had the same idea!  The pathway was quite crowded but it was worth it, the color was great even if a bit past peak.  From there it was just a drive down the canyon and short bit on the freeway to home.  It was a long, tiring day but a lot of fun.  Here are a couple photos from my travels.

The road in Soapstone Basin

The river bluffs viewed from Fancis

"Autumn on Silver Lake"

First Day of Summer

I celebrated the first day of summer by getting out and painting outdoors.  I didn't get out until the afternoon and it was a bit windy and quite warm but I decided I had to take the paint outside, it's been too long.  I visited one of my favorite areas on the Jordan River Parkway and painted the river.

"A Bend in the River"

Acrylic, 11" X 14"



With all the sketching and painting on the Jordan River Parkway I've done this is the first time I've painted the river itself.  I spent over three hours on this painting which is the most I've ever spent on a plein air painting.  That's one advantage to painting at the height of the day, the shadows don't change as when the sun is nearly directly above.  Still, I couldn't have painted much longer, by the time I finished up the afternoon was turning into evening and the sun was getting lower and into the west.

Red Rocks and Scrub Oak

I spent last night up on the East Bench of the Salt Lake Valley at the base of Mount Olympus.  I've been itching to get up in this area for some time since I know there had to be some good compositions here involving reddish rocks and scrub oak which together make for a great color contrast. I hiked a little way up the very steep Mount Olympus trail but once I got to the big rock I turned North on a flat but narrow trail.  It wasn't long before I found my first painting;

"Evening on the Bench"

8" X 10", Pastel on mounted paper

Original - $100

Since I was hiking I didn't take my easel.  I just took a regular size backpack with a folding stool, my pastel box, boards and other incidentals. For this painting I sat on a rock and set the pastel box on the stool while I held the board in the pastel box lid, simple and it works.

I hiked back up the level trail to the big rock and just sat on the ground in the shade of the big rock and painted this;

"Red Rock and Scrub Oak"

5" X 7", Pastel on mounted paper

Original - $50





Who needs expensive, fancy equipment to make a nice, small painting outdoors?



A Gray Day on the Parkway

Apparently I've been the victim of a Blogspot glitch.  I posted a long post yesterday about plein air painting at the Jordan River Parkway on Saturday but it's disappeared, so now you get a shortened version, I  just don't feel like typing that whole post again.

"One Fine Spring Day Study"

8" x 10", Pastel on mounted paper

Original - $100

It was raining off and on the whole morning and into the afternoon but then I noticed an apparent window in the weather open mid afternoon and decided to chance it and quickly packed everything up and headed out to the Parkway.  I was feeling the urge to get dusty so I took my pastels.  The light was kind of odd since there was enough light from the right to give form to the trees and cast shadows but the sky was very light and gray in the background.  Just as I was packing up the wind picked up and the sky behind me got very dark, I timed my little excursion just perfect.  Here's a shot of the setup I used that day;

If you have any questions about my setup leave a comment and ask there.





A Perfect Sunday Afternoon for Painting

It's been two weeks since my last post, shame on me.  That has partly been because I've been contemplating and experimenting about a change in medium and slight change in direction, so things might get a bit weird in her for a while, well not really weird just a bit different.

Today the weather was near perfect, a little windy at times but nothing I couldn't handle.  I decided to head out to my favorite convenient painting area, the Jordan River Parkway, there's a twist this time though, I took oil paints.  It's been nearly two years since I last painted outdoors with oils.  I decided it's time to give oils another go.  I want to paint outdoors more often and oils have many advantages to acrylics for painting outdoors so it was time to finally return to them.

Bare trees are a challenging subject even with a medium you are familiar with, this isn't my greatest work but it's not a disaster either.  Right now this is the kind of subject that the parkway is full of and since spring will be here soon covering everything up with leaves and bushes now is the time to take advantage to do these little studies of tree "anatomy".

I used the same homemade paint box that I used for painting with acrylics, the only difference being the plastic shopping bag used for disposing used up paper towels, oils are messy!  I forgot my medium cup which is usually clipped to that little piece of metal on the right side, so I had to just drip some onto the right side of the palette.  I used a lot of medium on this one!  I tried to use the palette knife more than I'm used to but with mixed results.  The palette of colors is the same I use in acrylic, titanium white, yellow ochre pale, cadmium yellow pale, burnt sienna, cadmium red and ultramarine blue, all Winsor Newton colors.  The medium I use is M. Graham walnut alkyd and the solvent is Gamsol.

While Gamsol is less noxious than other solvents it's still strong enough I don't like using it indoors, especially during the winter since I can't open a window.  One of the things I've been experimenting with is water soluble oils.

"Autumn Road"

Oil, 5" x 7"

I painted this little landscape painting in the studio using Weber /F.Martin Woils.  They were a bit stiff but other than that and being able to clean up using water they worked just like regular oils. The smell of the oil paint itself is distinctive and something I'll have to get accustomed to.

A Warm Winter

I really feel for you folks in the eastern U.S..  Back in December Northern Utah was in the deep freeze with low temps that are rarely seen here, I was afraid we were in for a long, frigid winter.  While the winter has continued to be extreme in the East, Utah started warming up in January and for the most part we've been warmer than normal, I can't complain. However, I just feel bad for those of you who just aren't getting any breaks from the heavy snow storms and sub zero temperatures. Hang in there guys, spring is on it's way......eventually.

Today was typical gray, gloomy overcast winter day here in the Salt Lake Valley....except that it was warm, in the high 50's even.  Normally it's very difficult for me to feel motivated to paint outdoors without some sun but I felt I better take advantage of the warmth and get out there.  I drove just a short distance to the Jordan River Parkway to paint this little study.

"A Warm Winter"

Acrylic 10" x 8" on panel

I had the presence of mind to take a couple photos of my plein air painting set up for small paintings.

In this photo you can see everything I take with me out to paint for 8" x 10" and smaller paintings. Everything but the chair fits in the backpack that's sitting under the brush holder.  The plastic box is just something I picked up at the local grocery store and is just the right size to hold a few tubes of paint, a view finder, a couple pencils, a palette knife, medium cup and small spray bottle, (which I forgot to pack today, good thing it wasn't too warm!).

Here's a close up of my home made painting box.  I started with a cigar box I bought at a yard sale for a quarter.  The original box hinges were removed and replaced with resistance hinges. The screws that hold the hinges to the lid also hold a piece of aluminum angle that provides a shelf for the painting to sit on. I use a little spring clamp to hold the painting to the lid.  There's a piece of bent sheet aluminum attached to the right side for medium cup to be clipped to.  A hook is also screwed into the right side to hang the solvent can on.  I cut a piece of glass to fit the bottom of the box, painted the back side gray and glued it in for my palette. I installed a 1/4-20 nut insert into a piece of 3/8" plywood and glued that to the bottom of the box to allow the box to be mounted to a tripod.  There you have a it, a home made plein air painting setup that's about as thrifty as it gets.