Simplicity

Thought Cape Cod might offer a more simple subject than my typical over-the-top grand scene. But, as many have found, simple is hard. Simple is, well . . . . complicated. I'm still battling the foreground. I've been studying Chris Morel's simple foregrounds and I marvel at his ability to condense a complex section to a singular brush stroke. I keep overworking my foregrounds. I just bought a new palette knife. I plan on scraping away my silly stuff in the future . . . . but I just don't know if I can replace my meanderings with something coherent.

Accidental Wall stains

The composition may be a bit forced, but the canyon walls gave me a little hope. Shadow and highlights are getting close to something decent. I just need to let go and let painting become more visceral and less intellectual. I had some great moments with this one making happy accidents. Someday I'll capture some of the emotion of Capitol Reef. I need to practice. I need to paint

Back at the Scene of the Crime

So it's been a year since my guest artist debut. And sadly the oils have sat idle for most of these past 12 months. But being back with the Landscape Painting All-Stars did get the juices flowing. Tried pushing a little paint around. Chasing those elusive blues and greens of sage and desert trees is quite a pursuit. Time to get serious

This is Crazy

My first Art Show was last week. I was a "Guest Painter" at the vaunted Maynard Dixon Country show in Utah. Because I was a lecturer at the event, the Binghams wanted me to exhibit. Needless to say this was a little intimidating to have my stuff hanging with 30 of the best contemporary landscape painters in America. I didn't bring any frames so I was running around the morning of the show hunting up anything I could find. Susan Bingham found me an 11x14 and them Chris Morel interrupted his breakfast to hook me up with another. Ray Roberts took time from hanging his stuff to wire the frames for me. Didn't sell either painting but it will be a life long memory.

At one point I wasn't going to do it. Matt Smith, Ray Roberts and Charles Muench told me I was crazy not to be in the show. Matt even commented on my sage brush painting, giving it a thumbs up.

Later I discovered that "Western Art Collector" magazine listed me in the August, 2009 issue as an "emerging" painter. Imagine . . . my stuff hanging in Maynard Dixon's cabin with the best in America!


Here is the view from Dixon's porch.

Late Afternoon

The pursuit of light is leading me into a different dimension. That Ray Roberts workshop keeps coming back, making me a better painter. Conversations with Ray in the heat of mid afternoon have made me question everything. Ray has indirectly given me a gift. I'm able to include about 5 per cent of what he was saying, but composition, values, shadows and above all, confidence, flows from those hazy days outside Idlewild.

In Search of Sage

The Outdoor Painting continues in a frenzy. For some reason I'm not so insecure this year. In the past I would pick a spot to paint, procrastinate, maybe pull out the Red Oxide and push it around the canvas with a little Turp. Now, I squeeze out a full palette and mush the colors. Who's knows if the work is better, but the process is sweet.

Back to Idyllwild

Returned to the scene of last year's artistic growth spurt in Idyllwild this week. Interesting oil workshop with Ray Roberts. One of those experiences where you learn unexpected lessons. Ray was tough, very tough. He was not your normal, kind workshop teacher building false confidence. He had a crazy "look" on his face of expecting that I would do better. . . . the old "you know better than that" look. A great painter and a true taskmaster. But the class was chock full of chatty ladies asking about which brand of varnish he uses or where he gets his canvas boards. Buzz Kill!!!!

Once again, outdoor painting became a giant hurdle where I had to learn to see. Took three days to get my art eyeballs functioning, but by then the workshop was over. But there were lessons . . . use paint, lots of paint. Don't fret over mixing, just make the damn color . . . find the right value. Use paint. Load the brush! Find the big shapes. Use paint . . .

Although amateurish, the first painting I did was a small victory.

The second day revealed the seminal moment. The mid afternoon doldrums are the enemy of outdoor painting, but perhaps my most important lesson came in 88 degree heat at about 2:05 pm. I was working on my second painting of the day when Ray dropped by my easel and seem mildly intrigued at the emerging composition. As he is wont to do, he picked up my brush and immediately went for the white to add values to my oxide red grisalle. With marked precision he carved out a section on a road I was fiddling with. Then he stopped and posed the big question. It was living proof of a very important Edgar Payne point made in his Composition book.

“David, is this worth painting” Ray queried, the sunlight has flattened all the values.”

He looked up from my chair that he had taken in the heat of the day. It was a genuine epiphany. Somewhere in my mind was the idea that any pleasing scene was worth painting. I was working on a little 9 x 12 with trees lining a forest path with the high mountains in the distance. But at mid day the shadows were hiding in difficult places. It was flat. I finally understood. Shadows Rule! Without good values composition sucks.

I grabbed a paper towel, drenched it with turpenoid and, while Ray say watching I performed my best feat of the workshop at that point. I wiped the canvas board clean.

“I think it was the best decision at this point,” Ray remarked. Come back in the morning. It will be great.

Grisaille Mania

I keep setting the same trap for myself with these oxide grisailles. They help me formulate the composition and values but when I finish the buggers I'm reluctant to slap the colors up there. They're just too damned detailed and I have fun looking at them. It's frustrating and fulfilling. It helps and it hurts. Art is hard.

Taking Sam's Advice

Finally, just a palette knife, straight paint, no brushes and no turpenoid. Sam Hyde Harris wrote that painting with turp wasn't really painting at all. Slap that stuff on the canvas and push it around. Mix on your palette or mix on the canvas - Just use solvents to clean your brushes. It's a funny thing about thinning your pigment; it fosters tentative actions. Once you grab that knife in your hand it demands paint. It makes you decisive.

I'm not sure if this is really markedly different than the oils I've been cranking out lately, but something about it just feels right. It's a new beginning of sorts. But, it's still those damn mountains. However it is the eastern Sierra from the Owens Valley. Tried this scene a dozen times before. Who knows where this goes?

Making Lines

If I can make hundreds of decisions in a given TV telecast, why can't I just make a clear decision where to put a freakin' line? Why is there so much second guessing? I know what I need to do.

Damn, art is hard. I can conceive it, feel it, taste it, but for the most part can't make my hands create it. It's a discipline where practice and proper training is essential

I pulled this one of out the archives. It was both easy and difficult to paint. I need this kind of thing for inspiration. It's a pastel on rough, ragged highly textured handmade paper. What probably made it work was that there was no dabbing. Every stroke had to made by pressing the color into the paper. There's no real second guessing here. Grind that pastel and make a damn line!

It's Been a Year

Procrastination and a busy schedule spells doom for a painter. After a year of doing dozens of paintings in my head it was finally time, today, to squeeze the tubes and push the paint around. The result is, being honest, cute and amateurish. But, it is time for renewal. Time for discovery. The smell of oils and turpenoid acts like a magical elixir. I started this thing at 10:00 am. After an hour lunch break it's 5:30 and time to move on. Time flies, especially when you enter The Zone. I think I've forgotten how to build in shadows although I think I got some good values out of the session. I feel good about the composition. The spring in Vermont was pretty spectacular so I allowed myself some crazy colors.

Chine collé

Monotype? Chine collé? Another medium? So Cathy and I headed up to Idyllwild for Art Summer Camp this week. 12 crazy ladies and me in the class. I brought some Chinese elements to make a print for the Beijing Production office. When I finished this I felt like a Real Guy!
Oy!

It's The Composition, Stupid!

One of the great art arguments Cathy and I ever got into centered on composition. I started into some crazy rant about values and color being of primary importance. She looked at me like I had eight heads.
"Dave, it's all about composition. You'll get to your values and color later. Without a composition, you've got nothing."

Being the pig-headed argumentative fellow I can be, I tried to find a way around her logic. The only problem was, there was no way out. Composition is King!

Ian Roberts' new book on composition will make anyone a believer. This guy has my head spinning. In my barn picture from Capitol Reef I just concentrated on composition. I think I did OK. Buildings have never been my forté. In fact this is really only the second or third time I ever painted one that didn't look like a 5 year old's crayon drawing.

Back of Beyond

Maynard Dixon had words and pictures for everything in the Southwest. He wrote of "The Back of Beyond." For me it's that magical place in your imagination which exists in the dreamlight washing the far mountains beckoning those who are free to explore. Even as a child I would gaze longingly at desert vistas imagining a different world beyond the mesas. It is more than the bear went over the mountain . . . because there is an implied existential destination here. Escalante, Utah is a launching pad, a pathway to such places, not to mention conveniently located near Dixon's Utah hideaway. It was a pilgrimage of sorts with a stop on the hallowed ground near Mt Carmel Junction under the shadow of Sugar Knoll. Many great painters worked here. It's been 35 years since I sought out the Utah wilderness. And it was a time to measure my life against the backdrop of this timeless landscape.

Oh, yeah . . . art. It was also a time to stop screwing around, pull out the oils and paint outside. As I drove through the Nevada desert I had visions of springtime greens, masses of wildflowers and colorful rocks. I got the rocks . . . . and freezing temperatures, wind and even a few flurries of snow. Whoops, spring is late this year. The day before I arrived the largest Cottonwood tree in Escalante was blown down. They say it was there for over 200 years.

Painting "en plein air" is such a concept. all I needed was a parasol! Every time I stopped at a spot to paint, the car door nearly blew off. When the wind stopped in Capitol Reef National Park the thermometer read 34 degrees. Snap, snap, snap went the Nikon. All those pictures where you say, "Hmmm, I'll make a painting of that some day." Well, if I did a painting a week from my pictures this week I'll finish in 7 years.

Dammit, I came to paint! So finally, after 3 frustrating days, I just set up my easel in the kitchen of my cabin in Escalante. I stared at that blank canvas, looked at my empty palette and laughed that I was sitting in a kitchen in the wilderness trying to paint.

Being out of practice didn't help. I hadn't squeezed an oil tube since October. So it was back to basics, and in my case, the safety of Oxide Red. I read recently where Sam Hyde Harris scoffed at such painting as "not painting." Well screw Sam, I thought, I can't get the motor running, I just need to smell the paint. Mix the damn paint, add a little turpenoid and slap it up there. OK, at least make a horizon line. Put something on canvas.

And I need to get my act together on composition because frankly, my composition lately sucks. It's like I forgot everything I ever knew.

Yeah, nice start . . . sort of. I'm yearning for true values, I'm starved for color.

Made a special iPod mix for the trip. For some reason it contained "The Dangling Conversation" by Simon and Garfunkel. So the trip's mantra became "You read your Emily Dickinson, and I my Robert Frost, we mark our place with bookmarkers to measure what we've lost."

Between that song and listening to Hovhaness and Vaughan Williams booming at East LA lowrider volume, it became an increasingly personal journey. When last I passed this way, life had different meanings. It really did seem like a lifetime ago when I visited Back of Beyond.

Artist's Cramp

OK, so what is it? Lack of inspiration is the first and obvious suspect. Fear . . . . hmm, maybe.

It's been an amazing spring and there's inspiration everywhere. But the easel has been empty, the art supplies forlorn and the studio unused. I think I've used every excuse in the book to not paint.

Even after Cathy and I had our desert wildflower adventure I still couldn't do much. I did make a lame attempt at some drawings a week or so ago.

So today was the day. I wasn't allowing myself any excuses. And, strangely enough it was easy to start and the adrenaline started flowing. Lately I've been in love with Sam Hyde Harris. His desert paintings are truly exceptional. One of his favorite subjects is the Smoke Tree. It only grows in desert washes in the Sonoran desert. Since a Sam Smoke Tree hangs above my desk, I figured it was the right subject. I had a reference photo . . and so I began.

It was easy to start. I did my charcoal, hake brush and water routine for an underpainting and worked with a limited palette of 15 pastel sticks. The crazy thing was I worked on a 18x24 board, much larger than usual. But the larger size made me free.

After 3 hours I called it quits although the painting is far from done. The immediate foreground sucks and the distant mountain values are too dark. The tree trunks and branches aren't right. But I did have a victory in that I think I was able to paint a Smoke Tree! And I really worked to make the composition tight.

Plein Air work beckons.

It's Hanging There

Well, actually a big gust of wind whipped through the garage last week and this pastel of Peter Strauss Ranch flew off the wall. I took it as a sign that the big 20x24 paintings of the olden days(2003) ought to be retired from my daily view. Oh, but I miss this one already.

I'll always remember Karl Dempwolf looking at it and just giving me a "harrumph." He wasn't very impressed. "You can do better . . . much better."

"Shapes, Dave, shapes," Karl would say. "Paint it . . . don't record it."

I know Karl is right, but as he would say about one of his masterpieces, "it's a nice little painting." It reminds me of an "aha!" moment when I actually felt like I captured light. Springtime, lupines, soft diffused light. I remember that late afternoon with a breeze moving the paper around.

It's a bit contrived, but I've got to put it somewhere. I guess I'll leave it here. It looked so forlorn in the pastel bone pile.

For Better or Worse

Well, I couldn't help myself! After a few trips through the garage/studio, I decided I had to paint the value study.

Out came the 12 Holbeins. I'm getting too comfortable with my little friends. They're limiting yet liberating. Well, I did it.

Cathy comes by about 30 minutes in and says, "Hey, what happened to the charcoal drawing. You DIDN'T!"

Yup, I did. She gave me a sweet smile. I kept scratching away. It is time to move on.

Destination unknown.

Now What?

In my quest for better values, I've fallen back in love with charcoal. There's something very definitive about vine charcoal black. I lop off a twig and use the side, top and bottom. It usually ends up as dust in my fingers. Then I slop on some water with my hake brush and voila . . gratification.

Of course the old eraser is a fun tool for "un-painting." So I get to this point and think, "hmmmm, this is a pretty good start." I'll tweak the road, fix some of the funky branches and make the colors sing.

Yeah, right! Mostly I get scared that I'm going to "mess it up." Of course the other voices in my head ask, "Mess up what?" It's just a 9x12 pastelbord. It ain't gonna hang in the Irvine Museum. "Just paint, Dave," my little Jimminy Cricket says.

So then, I'm in the studio looking at this thing for 5 minutes, trying to get up the courage to pick up a pastel stick when Cathy comes in. "Stop looking at it," she admonishes. I think she's going to say something profound and artistic. Instead, she says rather wryly, "stop looking at it. It's like you're looking in the mirror at how handsome you are!"

Uh, oh! Busted . . . . Then she goes for the jugular. "Why don't you paint the cat?" I'm thinking Spotty would look silly covered in pastel, but she means to actually paint "a" cat. Now that's a scary thought. Cathy continues to pummel me against the ropes . . . . mountains, roads, trees, bushes . . . alright . . . move on.

So it's still out there in the garage on the tabletop easel. I can wink at it as I walk by. There's a bunch of freshly-wrapped new pastelbords waiting for a kitty to be drawn in charcoal.

Now What?

Jet Lag Painting

As if I didn't have enough artistic pursuits to contend with . . . . . it's now on to watercolor. Figuring that I would arrive in China and be awake for quite a spell, I bought a student-grade travel set. The first one was done right in my sketchbook with charcoal underneath. The Blue Doors came after a morning walk at the incredible 798 Art District in Beijing.

Working with a tiny round, I was a lot looser with the first one. The Blue Doors must have 7 layers of glazing and is a little too exact. When I came home Cathy said it didn't "look" like a watercolor. I don't think she was being too critical, I just think she believes a water color should be more free-form with colors and shapes merging.

It's really hard to work "backwards." I'm so used to working dark to light that watercolor is a whole new challenge. I'm trying too hard not to make "mistakes." I feel like an illustrator without the necessary skill set. But what the hell . . . another medium to get lost in. But this one is really a challenge.

Foreground Good, Background . . hmmm

The first dusting of snow at Virginia Lake in early October was a chance to paint the Sierras in a different light. While foregrounds have been such a struggle, this one is loose and simple with shapes instead of over-worked rendering. This painting really wasn't "finished" when I took this picture of it.

The trees on the right are a bit funky, but the snow and bushes are good. I even like the small trees on the left.

But then there's the colors of the mountains. Sometimes I wonder what the hell I'm doing. I get the light and dark part but the color harmony here is more like a dissonant symphony.


Purple, damn purple. That's the color you see . . . but you don't see. Maybe purple isn't really purple. Guys like Albert Handell and Lorenzo Chavez are purple maestros. Their plein air palettes are filled with every value and hue of purple. My mountains look like they're behind Calico Ghost Town in the desert. I know I didn't see those colors, I just made them up.

"What's wrong with that?" you might ask . . . my subconscious does. I can only answer that it's not harmonious. I'm getting out my Stephanie Birdsall limited palette of 12 Holbeins and I'm gonna take another whack at it.