August 2015

We recently spent 8 days camping with our horses at Jack Brook Horse Camp near La Honda. We have been going there every year for something like 8 years with two other couples and their horses. We skipped last year because they scared us off with warnings about water restrictions, but we found out later that the restrictions were not so bad. This time I didn't bring any painting stuff because I figured that I would rather just relax when I wasn't riding or doing camp chores. I could paint from photos when I got back home. One day we drove to Half Moon Bay to buy a bale of hay and then stopped in Pescadero on the way back. I noticed this nice little house set back from the street and took a picture of it with my phone. A few days later when we were back home and I was looking at my photos for something to paint, I thought that it would be a good one to try. I think it turned out pretty good.

Actually, the first photo that I chose to paint from the camping trip was one of the redwood forest just a short walk from our campsite. I sketched it out and then was reluctant to start painting because I had a lot of doubts about being able to paint what I wanted it to look like. So I painted the little house first and after that I felt ready to try this one. I am quite pleased with the results. I find redwood forests incredibly beautiful, but capturing that beauty in a photo or a painting is not so easy. There is usually a great deal of contrast between the very dark shadows and the sunlit highlights, and the scene is filled with thousands of messy details. I've found that to paint it you need to do a lot of simplifying. For some reason, after doing most of my paintings in landscape format for the past few years, I chose to do two in a row in portrait format. I'm not sure why except that both of these scenes needed to be done that way.

more July 2015

In looking back through my photos for painting ideas, I found lots of nice shots from our trip to Utah and Colorado last summer, but one especially caught my eye. We had been exploring Dinosaur National Monument and had taken a side road where one of the features was a cliff face with some petroglyphs. I hiked up a short distance from the dirt road to see them, and noticed that the view across the little valley was quite pretty. The scene didn't all fit into a single photo, but one of the advantages of painting over photography is that is easy to rearrange a scene to fit the paper.

When I entered one of my paintings in the current show at the Hayward Foothill Gallery, it came as a surprise when they asked me to volunteer to sit in the gallery for a couple of shifts, but I agreed to do it anyway. I signed up for a couple of Thursday mornings, figuring that I could use the time to do some more painting. So I sat there painting at a small table and had practically no interruptions. I realized that showing my art at local galleries is not getting it seen by a lot of people. That's OK, I'm not in it for fame and fortune anyway. I chose another scene from the same day at Dinosaur. We hiked into Hog Canyon, a beautiful little box canyon which started out with meadows and flowers, and soon became a narrow slot in the cliffs.

For my second Thursday at the gallery, I chose another shot from last summer's trip. This one was on our way from the tiny town of Maybell, Colorado to the Sand Wash area to look for wild horses. The dark clouds became a downpour while we were exploring remote dirt roads, and we were lucky to get out of the area without getting stuck in the mud. I knew that the dark clouds were going to be challenging, which is one reason I chose to try. Much of the painting ended up overworked and muddy, but I like it pretty well anyway. It may be worthwhile trying it again some day.

July 2015

After painting the view from the Rocky Point Restaurant, I thought I would try another scene from the same time and place. After we were seated on the deck and served our margaritas, I had taken another photo with my phone of Maureen and the view. I usually avoid trying to paint people, but this time I figured that all I've got to lose is a piece of paper. On the left side of the photo there was a big umbrella that blocked much of the view, so I remade that part of the scene. I think it turned out pretty good. Of course, it doesn't really look much like Maureen, but then I didn't expect it to. She said it makes her look prettier than she is, and I replied "that's nothing to complain about".

I looked through recent photos for something to paint, and came across one of some rocks and trees at Jessica's place near Placerville. Not much of special interest in the photo, but I like the patterns of light and shadow. With any visual art, sometimes just the lines and shapes are enough to make a scene interesting without any special features. I like the way this one turned out, and when I stopped by the Foothill Gallery in Hayward and was reminded that a few days later they would be taking entries for a new show, I chose this one to enter. Hopefully, it will be shown there July 17 - Sept. 11.

June 2015

For the last painting of my class, we did a scene with a fly fisherman in a river with a fish on the line jumping. I was looking forward to working on it since it seemed that we would finally be doing something that was more in line with my interests. But I started on it without giving much thought to what I was going to do with it, and it quickly became a mess. Later, at home, I tried to patch it up and finish the painting, but with watercolor it is easy to go too far and ruin a painting, and any attempt to fix it just makes it worse. In the past, I have gone ahead and shown paintings like that here on my blog just to show some of the learning process, but now I feel that I don't need to show everything.

I guess I'm starting to take my painting more seriously. I'm starting to exhibit some of my work, and plan to try selling some of it soon. This spring the Sun Gallery here in Hayward showed six of my paintings, and right now I have two paintings showing at the Alameda County Fair. I also get a lot of praise for my work from the people in my class, and that is a big help to my self-confidence. Whenever I begin to feel swell-headed, all I need to do is look at the work of more experienced painters to see that I have a long way yet to go.

A couple of weeks ago, Maureen's riding teacher, Jessica, hosted a 5-day horsemanship clinic with Chris Ellsworth at her home on Jody Moran's ranch near Placerville. We trailered our two horses up there and set up our tent in the yard. It's a beautiful location in the foothills near the Cosumnes River, with lots of oaks and pines and big granite boulders. The weather was very hot, and the horses were a lot of hard work, but we had a great time anyway. Back home, I wanted to paint something from the trip, and I chose a photo from the first day of the clinic when they were still working on the ground. I wanted an overall view to show what the place was like. Not much detail shows on the people or horses, but that was not my intention anyway. While we were at the clinic, we gave Chris my painting of him at last year's cow-working clinic (see my post "more May 2015"), and he was very appreciative.

Last weekend, we spent five days at a friend's cabin near Big Sur. Maureen and I spent one day with just the two of us before we were joined by our two sons and their families. It got a bit wild at times with four kids and six adults in a tiny cabin, but we had a great time. That first evening, Maureen and I went out to dinner at the Rocky Point Restaurant to celebrate our anniversary (43 years). The food wasn't very special, but the setting is spectacular. This painting is based on a couple of photos from the restaurant.

more May 2015

The next project for my class was supposed to be a close up of some orchids. It was to be based on one of Ron's photos, and it was a very pretty photo, but for some reason, I didn't find it inspiring. So I looked through my photos for something to paint, and I found one of a wild iris that I liked. I figured that painting another flower wouldn't be straying too far from the rest of the class. Wild iris is not one of the most common wildflowers in California, but I come across them here and there on my hikes and it is always very exciting when I do. This one was in Tilden Park, just over the hill from Berkeley, and it was my son, Christopher that showed me the spot. This was the first time that I have ever used a nearly black background for a painting, but it works for this one.

The next class project was a pelican. Ron supplied two photos, one like this, and one with his wings spread and scratching his bill with a foot. I liked this more dignified pose. I did this quite quickly and finished it up in one class, although we were supposed to spend two classes on it.

Meanwhile, at home I had been keeping busy with some other paintings. A few weeks ago, we spent a morning at Coyote Hills Regional Park with our daughter-in-law and grandkids, and I took a few photos as we walked around through the marshes. One of a pair of mallards was especially interesting because of the waves that they created as they swam through the still water. So I chose to paint it and focus on those waves. I think it came out pretty good.

It seems that lately I have an urge to try a wide variety of subjects in my paintings. In looking through my photos, I chose this one because I am attracted to tiny towns in the middle of nowhere, and because this one has a story behind it. Last summer, we were in far western Colorado, and wanted to see some wild horses. Maybell is the only town for many miles around, and there is not much more to it than this store. The woman who sold us sandwiches told us where to go and her parting comment was "if it doesn't rain". We didn't give that a thought since it was a beautiful sunny day, but as we approached the wild horse range, there were dark clouds approaching. We got out into the range on several miles of dirt roads, when the sky opened up and it poured rain and hail. The roads quickly turned slick as ice and after a thrilling ride sliding all over the road, we were very lucky to make it back out to the pavement in our little rented Toyota Yaris. We didn't see any wild horses, but that was enough excitement for one day.

Looking through photos for something to paint, I thought of painting one of the shots I took of a horsemanship clinic that Maureen did recently. The clinic was about working with cattle, and there were lots of good shots of riders cutting out steers, but one shot without any cattle caught my eye. In the foreground was Chris Ellsworth, the clinic instructor, riding a borrowed horse, and three of the clinic participants. It was a pretty location -- the Brown Ranch on Tassajara Road in the Blackhawk area, and I think it worked out pretty well as a painting.

May 2015

On Wednesday mornings, I've been working on class projects, but in between times, I have been painting some of my own ideas. It seems that my approach to painting on my own is becoming quite different from what Ron is asking the class to do, and I really like what I am doing on my own, so I'm becoming more inclined to do my own thing instead of following the class.

The first class project was to be based on a photo of part of a Japanese bridge and lots of pink and white blossoms. We did something similar last spring and I didn't really care for it all that much, so on starting this one, my attitude was not entirely positive. But I thought that I could go ahead and do my own thing with it. I saw that another student in the class was using her own photo which showed some water under a bridge, so I decided to put in a stream too. We started by applying masking fluid with a sponge to make lots of white blossoms, but I got more blobs than blossoms. Then we added pink blossoms also with the sponge, and so more blobs. I spent a lot more time trying to make something out of it, but it is not one of my favorites.

Meanwhile, at home, I thought I could make something from a couple of photos that I took with my iPhone one day at the beach at Pescadero. One photo was of the surf and the hole in the rock, and another was a close-up of some ice plant. I combined the two and I think it worked out pretty well.

I liked what I had done recently based on old photos of the mountains, and wanted to continue with that. I have many great memories of places that I have been in the Sierra, and hope that I can express some my feelings about them in my paintings. So I've been looking for scenes that do more than just show off the beauty of a particular place, ones that also show how it felt to be there. In the summer of 2001, my friend, Gerald and I hiked the John Muir Trail. On the evening before we started out from Tuolumne Meadows, we sat on a rock by the river for a long time watching the water flow by. And I took the photo that I used for this painting.

Of the hundreds of photos I took on that three-week trip, one seemed to do an especially good job of summing up what it was like to be there. On our 13th day, we arrived at Palisades Lakes after a very hard day of hiking, set up camp, and finally got to relax and enjoy our surroundings. I used a bit of artistic license, and made the ridge a bit more rugged than the photo, but otherwise the scene is quite accurate.

April 2015

 One day recently, we decided to go out for a hike, so we drove out to Morgan Territory Regional Park. The day was sunny, but very cool and windy, especially up in the hills. As we were hiking there were a number of scenes that seemed worthy of a painting, and I took a few photos with my phone. Back home a few days later, I picked out a couple of shots to paint.

 First I did this dead tree. I thought it made an interesting shape and I liked the contrast between it and the green trees in the background. In my photo, the tree was centered, but for the painting I remembered advice from somewhere that centering an object makes for a dull composition, so I offset it a bit. In hindsight, I think I should have followed my instincts instead of following someone else's advice. I remember many years ago reading lots of rules for composition in photography, and at some point, I became aware that there is a lot of artwork that breaks the rules, and I often find it more interesting because of that. So I began learning to trust my own gut feelings about what looked good. Now that I am trying to learn to paint better, I sometimes get distracted by other artist's ideas.

 Then I did this one of a tree and distant cows. I liked the shapes of the meadow and the shadows of the tree. Both of these paintings were done fairly quickly, but I think they came out pretty good.

Another day recently, I was walking with Darby out into Garin Park from the ranch where our horses are boarded. It was a beautiful day with puffy white clouds, and as we came out of the woods on a steep hillside, I thought that the scene would be fun to paint. I got out my phone and called Darby back to me and got a shot as he was trotting back to me. I painted this during the first two days of my class when we are free to work on any of our own ideas. I am quite pleased with the results, and I like that I put Darby into it because he is so much a part of my hiking experience these days.