Colorado Paintings, Part Two

Posted by Maggie

Our second pastel painting session was under entirely different light conditions than the first session of the day (see Part One for the first session's paintings). Many clouds had moved on, although some that remained were as storm-threatening as the earlier ones. I had hoped to paint the river, but it was muddy brown from the previous day's rain, so we chose a spot along the road not far from the river. Both of us selected subjects involving buildings, though we were looking in opposite directions.

I never used to paint buildings. I didn't find them interesting, and when you're painting outdoors, the light changes so fast you can't spend a lot of time drawing. But once I started teaching workshops in Europe, I learned to love painting structures. They can add an interesting element to a painting. I also became comfortable with the understanding that my paintings done outdoors are field studies, and that means I'm looking for accurate color and value, and an understanding of the light and weather conditions and how they affect the way light and shadow describe form. So my drawing doesn't have to be perfect. It also helps that many of the buildings I end up painting in Europe are falling down.

This subject appealed to me because of the shape of the road, and the way the house is mostly hidden by the hillside in front of it. I felt it gave the building a little sense of mystery. And I didn't have to draw the whole thing! Most of what you see is roof and chimney, and the rest is implied. I also liked the shapes of the cloud formations, and blocked them in very quickly. They were soon gone, but I had enough information to complete them. Fall is just coming to this valley; there were touches of yellow and even orange in some trees, and the odd bushes in the right foreground were already yellow, rusty red and orange. I worked on a light gray piece of Pastelmat, almost exactly the local color of the gravel road. It was interesting how that neutral color worked for this late morning light. Left, River Road, 9.5x12, pastel on gray Pastelmat, ©Maggie Price.

Bill chose a subject in the opposite direction, with very different light. The tall trees almost obscured the buildings, giving them a mysterious, moody quality. He worked on a black surface (Colourfix), which really helped set the mood right from the beginning. Bill often works on black. He says his favorite part of the painting is putting in the highlights and on a dark surface he gets to do that right away. There's a bit of the dark surface showing here and there in the darkest areas, and it works really well. I really liked the bit of blue sky he put in the top left corner and how it complemented the rest of the composition. Left, Pump House, 12x 9.5, pastel on black Colourfix, ©Bill Canright.

By the time we finished our second session, the winds had picked up and were threatening to blow over our easels. The afternoon got windier still, so we spent some time taking photographs and picking out a painting spot for the next day, described in  Part Three.

Colorado Paintings, Part One

Posted by Maggie
August was an intense month. We had a long trip to the east coast in July, so Bill spent much of August catching up on all those things that pile up when you're away for weeks. For me, the month was computer-intensive, as I prepared files with convention information and registration for the International Association of Pastel Societies' Ninth Biennial Convention.

So we needed a break. We didn't have a lot of time to go far, so we went to southern Colorado, a lovely location southeast of Pagosa Springs. It's a place we go often and know well, so we can jump right into painting without having to spend a lot of time learning the landscape.

Our first painting day started with clouds—lots of clouds. They were moving fast, but not really threatening rain. We set up along the edge of a lightly-traveled road, looking over the valley, which is ringed by mountains on three sides. Our vista was of a fairly low range of mountains and hills, mostly covered with forest.

I've been experimenting with a relatively new surface, Pastelmat. It comes in a number of colors, but for this piece I worked on white. Normally I start a landscape painting by painting the sky, but for this subject I blocked in a light layer of color over the land mass first. While we were setting up, I'd noticed the occasional light hitting the trees and creating brilliant patches of lighter greens, and I hoped I'd see that happen again. Patience paid off, and when the light illuminated an area, I quickly laid it in. At the same time, I noted the breaks in the clouds with a sky-blue, then massed the clouds in as fast as I could. I particularly liked where the clouds drifted over the tops of the mountains, and put that in place the minute I saw it. The clouds moved and shifted before I could finish them, but I stayed with the composition and just looked at other cloud formations for color and value. In a little less than an hour, the light had changed too much to go any farther, so I stopped. Left, Fast-Moving Clouds, 9.5x12, ©Maggie Price.

Meanwhile, Bill began with a warm gray piece of Colourfix paper, and chose a vertical format. He concentrated on the clouds first, and since he was looking in a different direction, his clouds were a little more stormy and threatening. He mentioned that he's more used to working on the Richeson Premium Pastel Surface, and in fact had thought that's what he picked up, but the Colourfix has a little less tooth than the Richeson. However, it was sufficiently toothy for a quick field study. Once he had developed the cloud formations, he quickly blocked in the land masses and the foreground trees. Left, Storm Chaser, 9.25x10.25, ©Bill Canright.

We packed up our supplies, headed back to the cabin for a quick snack, and then moved down the hill to our next painting destination, described in the next blog, Colorado Paintings, Part Two.

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.