Venice Revisited

Posted by Bill

Normally I avoid back-lit subjects because too much of the scene is nothing but silhouettes. However, Maggie took a photo in Venice a few years ago which caught my eye because of the wonderful sparkling water and the easily-interpreted action of the gondolas. Our guy in the foreground was clearly waiting for the others to get out of the way.

The reference photo was taken just following a rain so everything was clean and the air was clear. The photo had a few modern boats in the distance, but I liked the timeless quality achieved by leaving them out. The photo tried, as usual, to lead me astray—in this case, with a blue sky and turquoise water. I tried painting it that way, but it didn't work, as the sky and water seemed unrelated. So I put a little turquoise in the sky.

The photograph also had a solid, featureless shadow going from the gondola to the bottom of the frame. I thought this made sense as the vertical planes of the gondolas were solid silhouettes, but when I made the shadow solid, no matter how much I fiddled with it, it just didn't work. It finally dawned on me that the water was horizontal and that if had I been standing on the dock looking at it, I would have seen ripples even in the darker water. Changing that really worked.

The final painting, above left: The Patient Gondolier, 24x18, © Bill Canright.

In the photograph, there was also a weird thing poking out of the back of the boat that looked like a detached leg pointing at the sky. This definitely fit the rule: "If you don't know what it is, don't paint it." On the other hand, If I'd left it in I would have had a name for the painting. I could have called it A Leg Up.

If I'm ever in Venice again I am going to try to figure out what it was. Perhaps someone reading this can enlighten me.

The Hat Dilemma

Posted by Maggie

I almost bought a new hat a couple of days ago. There was a really nice one on the clearance rack—white, with a nice large brim, and a fabric that would handle being stuffed in a suitcase to take on a painting trip. It was tempting.

I already have a few hats. I just don't like any of them.

Bill says you have to approach the subject of hats with the idea that all hats are stupid-looking. Then you just pick the least dorky one, plop it on your head and go. I'm not totally happy with knowing that I look dorky. Especially when we're painting in Europe, where I stand out far too much anyway, because of my un-dyed hair, my jeans, and my comfortable shoes.

So I thought about buying that new hat, but then I decided to come home and take a good look at the ones I already have. I pulled them out of their various hiding places.

When I don't take a hat on a trip, I end up buying one. That's how I got the white one from the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, the blue one from Barbados, the straw hat with the colored bands from Mexico, and even the purple baseball-cap from Scotland. All the rest of them have been purchased in an attempt to find the perfect, comfortable, sun-blocking painting hat.

My current painting hat is the sage-green one on the right. It's lightweight, washable, can be packed without too much wrinkling, has a big brim to shade my eyes and a great long flap on the back that keeps the back of my neck from getting sunburned. But it's really, really dorky-looking.

So maybe I'll go buy a new one after all.

Bad photos

Posted by Maggie

I've said for a long time that painting from bad photos can be a good thing. When you have a bad photo, you know you have to make changes. It frees you from the temptation to copy your photo, and the resulting painting can move far beyond the photographic reference.

But there are bad photos, and then there are really bad photos.

Bill and I try to walk every morning. We know it's good for us. But some days, the only thing that gets me out the door is the scenery. We're lucky to have a wonderful walking trail that begins just across the street. We have a spectacular view of the Sandia Mountains from our front window, but it's even better on the trail.

As we approach fall (okay, it's already fall, but I'm in denial), the sun rises later each day. Consequently some days it's just coming up over the north end of the mountains as we start out. I never remember to take my camera, but I always have my phone in my pocket. (No one calls me at that hour, thank goodness, but I just can't go out the door without my phone.)

So I took these photos of the sunrise, and the resolution on my phone camera is, admittedly, bad. (I haven't upgraded to the iPhone 4 which supposedly has a better camera.) I printed them to paint from, and all the detail was gone. The color wasn't too bad, but then again, it wasn't too good. I wanted to combine elements from the two photos, and in the end, I also had to rely on memory.

I struggle to keep from putting in too much detail. With these photo references, it wasn't as hard as usual when I'm working from photos. I couldn't see any details.

I'm really happy with the mood, atmosphere and lack of detail in the finished painting. The combination of the two photos worked well, and I feel I managed to understate rather than overstate, for a change.

Maybe I won't upgrade my phone, and maybe I'll paint from phone photos more often!

Above left, Morning Walk, 7x9, pastel on Pastelmat, ©Maggie Price.

New work in acrylics

(Posted by Bill)
Recently I began working in acrylics. My gallery suggested that in the summer when there's a lot of tourist traffic, people might buy small pieces that weren't under glass, as they could pack them in their suitcases or carry-on bags rather than having them shipped.

I started my art career as a self-taught oil painter when I was 14. So, first, I thought small paintings in oils would be a good idea. But I really didn't like how long it takes them to dry. Having worked for the last 7 or 8 years in pastel, I'm spoiled. I like to lay a color down and be able to immediately lay down another color over it. So I thought maybe acrylics would be better, since they do dry quickly.

Here are the first three that I liked well enough to frame.

Down by the River, 9x12
This acrylic painting took me about three times as long to complete as it would have in pastel. It was my fault, not the medium's. Working in pastel for the past six years I had fallen into the habit of making corrections whenever I noticed the drawing or color problem. I liked using dozens of pastels and hopping around more or less randomly with no worries about used up or dried up paint. With acrylics you can't come back later, without re-mixing the color you need and that was where I lost a lot of time.

Still Standing, 8x10
This scene caught my eye as walked in the foothills of the Marlborough area in New Zealand's South Island. I did a pastel on the spot which didn't turn out very well. It was one of those situations where the wind forced you to hold the easel with one hand and paint with the other. And flies love it when you have both hands busy, especially those flies in New Zealand and Australia, which are more determined to crawl on you than American flies. Fortunately I had taken a good photo before I started painting on site, and that's what I used as reference for this acrylic. The best and worst things about acrylics are that they dry fast. With this piece, I had to do a lot of layering and the fast drying made it easy.

Standing Tall #3, 8x10
Several years ago I did this same scene twice in pastel, once plein air and again as a workshop demo from a photo. So I was very familiar with the subject, and thought that might help in working with a new medium. The cliffs are almost monochrome and were perfectly suited to a dry brush technique which I remembered from the distant past when I worked in oils. What I had forgotten was the time spent and the wastefulness of mixing all your colors.

I'll admit that pastels have spoiled me. I like grabbing the color I want and having it ready to use again today, tomorrow or next year.

Three Versions of a Subject

(Posted by Bill)
Some months ago, I was interested in a creek formed by the falls in Yosemite. The dense foliage created interesting light effects and the overall darkness suggested it would be good subject for my first use of a black surface, the Richeson Premium Pastel Surface on Gatorboard. I spent about 45 minutes on it, proving to myself that a dark scene like this would would let me concentrate mainly on the highlights with a few middle values, letting the black surface remain untouched. I was amazed by how fast it became a believable representation of the scene. (Left, Below the Falls I, 9x12 pastel, © Bill Canright.)


Quite a while later I used a photo of the same spot to do a little study on white Wallis paper. Of course, simplification was automatic on such a small panel. I was able to guess at a portion of the stream that didn't make much sense. But I still spent close to two hours on this version. (Left, Below the Falls II, 9x6 pastel, © Bill Canright.)

A few days later I tackled a much larger version on a white surface (Richeson Premium Pastel Surface, Hardboard) with a split underpainting, using a light turquoise for the top half and a green/brown for the bottom half. Underpaintings can be created in a number of ways, from a complex drawing and color layer to a single tone of color on the surface. I like to do simple shapes, or as in this case, use just a couple of colors.

In this larger version, I had to resolve the weird shape near the middle of the stream, which I had handled with simplification in the small versions. The shape might be of a log, a chunk of concrete, a very smooth rock or a moose carcass for all you could see in the photo.

It proved the rule, "never try to paint something if you don't know what it is." You'll either make up something based on a subject you know well, or paint something stupid looking. Eventually, toward the end of the second full day I eliminated the whole problem with a placid pool of water. By providing the eye with a quiet place to rest it actually improved the overly busy scene. (Left, Below the Falls III, 20x16 pastel, © Bill Canright.)

Looking at the three together, it's interesting to see the similarities and the differences.

Step by step

(Posted by Maggie)
I haven't been painting small paintings for a few weeks, as I've been working on several large paintings in a row. I thought it would be interesting to try to post a step-by-step sequence of this recent one. It's a complex subject (maybe sharing a studio with Bill got me interested in painting complexity!) but the way it developed is interesting, I think.

I worked on an 18x24 Richeson Premium Pastel surface, black, on Gatorfoam. It's one of my favorite surfaces. I love the richness of the color applied on the black, though there's a danger of getting the whole painting too dark. In one of the later steps, you'll see the background mountains lighten a little; that's when I realized they were too dark to recede properly.

What intrigued me about the subject was the contrast of those rocky cliff-like mountain sides against the aspen and scrub oak. The reference photo was taken high in the Sandia Mountains when we were hiking the La Luz Trail. These mountains have towering cliffs and rock formations of a unique rock (known as "Sandia Granite") which, though it may appear gray from a distance, has a wonderful variety of pinks, oranges, rust, brown and many other colors. I'm still not sure but what this painting isn't too busy, but the subject itself is very busy!


Above, High Country Fall, 18x24, pastel on black Richeson Pastel surface, © Maggie Price.

Painting the Deep Forest

(Posted by Bill)
I am often intrigued by heavily forested areas like this one. What fascinates me, among other things, is the sparkles of sunlight that filter through the trees here and there. The difficult part is the complexity of the trees, limbs, rocks, shrubs, dirt, etc. The photo I worked from, posted here below the painting image, shows you just how complex it was.

I always try to simplify, and usually find it difficult. But working on a small format, such as this 4x6 inch surface, forced me to simplify the subject. Now that I've done this, I think I'll try painting it again on a larger surface, and see if I can retain the simplicity without losing the sparkle of the light.

Above, Deep Forest, 4x6, pastel on Art Spectrum "supertooth" paper, © Bill Canright