Trying Again

I signed up to take a beginning oil painting class with Timothy Tien on Wednesday nights. It turns out I am the only student. For all that I wish there were other students, and the focus were not entirely on me and my painting, I think this is pretty amazing opportunity to learn to paint. I'll let you monitor my progress. I painted this in the first class.

Oldest Grapevine

On Saturday, I painted two paintings. This is the second one. This scene is directly across Mission Street from the previously posted painting. It isn't really a grapevine, which you can tell if you know grapevines. The oldest grapevine in San Gabriel (which is I don't know - probably well over a hundred) was locked away on Saturday, so I painted the gate. Undoubtedly it is one of the oldest gates in San Gabriel.

Possibly the most wonderful thing about painting is the way it forces you to observe things - to really see them, see what color they are and how they are put together, see the relationships between shapes and values. After you've looked at something and painted it, I think you've internalized it, and probably don't even need a picture, but a picture is a nice thing to have. I've looked at this gate uncounted times over many years, and I never noticed it's unusual angles.

There is an art supply store close to here - right beyond the restaurant I posted yesterday. Mission Art Supply. I went there and got a little plastic dish for water after the first painting, so this painting was easier. Which doesn't make it better, or worse. I sat on the ground outside a convent to paint this one. It wasn't terribly comfortable.

Restaurant on the Corner

I was pretty sleepy this morning, and I thought that was why I forgot my water container. So I had do do a watercolor without water. Not really without water, but I didn't have a container, so I poured a lot of water into the well in the palette, and I wiped my brush often to keep it a little clean. I actually kind of like this painting, although I'm pretty sure it's the nice composition and not my paint application that carries the image. I think the restaurant is called La Luna, but I'm not sure. It used to be an art gallery, but now it has pretty good Mexican food. It turned out I didn't forget my water container; I've lost it. I guess I have to eat another container's worth of Trader Joe's licorice scotty dogs.

My Lucky Stripes

I live in a place that is noteworthy for its lack of remarkable weather, but these past couple of weeks we've had some. When I went out in back this morning, I was sprinkled on. Then there was a rainbow in the west. Rainbows are always opposite the sun, but, it my experience, usually in the afternoon. Here's a little slice of my rainbow.

And as if that weren't cool enough, I was inspecting my plants for signs of bug life, and I saw something I've never seen in my yard, but earnestly hoped for: a monarch butterfly's child. I rubbed my eyes, and it was still there. I snapped a picture.

A little later this morning, I went to the South Pasadena Woodland and Wildlife Park to paint. It took other painters a while to show up, and I didn't really want to paint alone. There's wildlife and then there's wildlife. After I set up and sketched, I realized I forgot my palette. I did have my tubes of paint though. I scavenged around my car and from the other painters and came up with something to stand in for my palette. I decided, since I had to squeeze out all new paint, I'd use colors I never use. I don't really recall how I even got them - they might have been giveaways. I chose the view of the backs of houses on the other side of the Arroyo. I really like my resulting painting; I especially like the freshness of the color.

And that was my very rewarding morning.

Great Golden Digger Wasp

I am pleased to have completed another bug painting. The great golden digger wasp was a new visitor to my yard this year. It is quite big and beautiful, and fully deserves its two adjectives. The eye, which I believe is more or less accurate, has a kind of disney-character look about it.

Eddie Park

In South Pasadena, where the paint-out continues, there is a very small park with a big house in the corner of it. In 1934, the house was bequeathed to the city by Ellen Mary Eddie. It's a pretty impressive house, with its two story columns and wide oak door, but it is modestly used by AA and Mommy & Me groups. The park, which you might drive past and not recognize as such, has places to cook, sit and climb. It's too small for athletic fields, and like its neighborhood, it's very quiet. Thank you Ellen Mary, for this lovely gift.

I painted at Eddie Park yesterday. I would say I took a lesson from the portrait exercise, and worked harder to perceive color. I included a squirrel, which you might not have noticed.

Am I blue? Orange? Violet?

This didn't go as I'd planned. The mouth is very wrong, mostly I think because I couldn't decide how to hold my mouth and I kept moving it. I'll shut up about how I don't like my face, because I think in fact I'm nicer looking than the painting. There's a hint of me in this, just as there's a hint of a painting that's not so bad. I give myself credit for being courageously loose here. I obviously could use a lot more practice on my portrait painting. But I'm also looking forward to retreating into my comfort zone. Calypso Moon Artist Movement Challenge, take two.

Colorful Me

I don't really like the way I look, and I don't mean in this picture, which isn't the same. I feel some guilt about not liking my face because I have a perfectly decent face with useful parts - eyes to see, a nose to smell and support my glasses, a mouth to eat and speak and kiss. I guess I just always kind of wanted to be beautiful, and except for fleeting moments and deceptive photographs, I'm really not. So I haven't done many self-portraits. I haven't painted many portraits period, because a little practice didn't get me anywhere near portraits that I liked. They lacked the mysterious spark of life that I appreciate in a good portrait. I should paint portraits though; we should all paint portraits. What could possibly hold more interest for us than ourselves and other humans?

This was done for the Calypso Moon Artist Movement Challenge, which again pushed me outside the normal boundaries of my painting. I set up a wall mirror in the breakfast nook, and made a large pencil sketch on drawing paper. My plan had been to transfer it to watercolor paper and paint it there. But I captured some good value information in the sketch, and decided to work right on the drawing paper. I also decided spur of the moment to use pastels. I never use pastels, but I have an old box that belonged to somebody else, and lately I've spoken with a number of very passionate pastel artists. So why not? I think in some ways, working with pastels was good for me for this challenge. Since I couldn't mix the colors, there was no temptation to tone them down or neutralize them. I used bright red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. I added a little black (eyes, glasses and shirt only), and a little reddish brown just in the hair. I love the colors, and I think vivid colors may be part of the secret to alive-looking portraits. I think the top half of the portrait is a pretty good likeness. The nose isn't long enough and the jawline isn't square enough. I like the worried forehead creases.

One problem, however, that I overlooked, is that I need to paint the challenge piece. So, back to the drawing board.

Moreton Bay Fig Tree

Right next to the library, there's this wonderful tree. It casts deep shade, and has laid its generous roots above the ground. Little children make circles around the tree, jumping from root to root. Older people, but not too old, may find a comfortable seat on the roots to read a newly borrowed book, or to drink coffee from the shop across Diamond.

This tree is also the meeting place for the annual California Art Club/South Pasadena Chamber of Commerce paint out. This was my third South Pasadena paint out, but the first time I painted the moreton bay fig. Like a room in my house, this painting is a little cluttered. There are spots I like very much, and spots the irritate the heck out of me. Most of my paintings are like that. This is a 12x18 watercolor.

One Percent

You may or may not have noticed how extremely circumscribed this blog is. It explores my drawing and painting, past and present, and my photography, pretty much limited to my yard. That's it. My family and friends hover around in anonymity, and I do not express views on politics or religion. It's not that I'm a slave to rules, not even my own. But I do well with boundaries.

I'm busting out tonight. I don't have any paintings to post, and I have over 700 photographic images from my recent trip. I needed to upload them anyhow, and sort, and further cull. Here's a few of the pictures I especially like.