Garden Neglect and Painting Progression Three - Grackle by Water

Already well into April, and here on Long Island, we've finally gotten what feels like a spring day. To properly soak it up, I'm writing this post on the cottage deck-- in view of this year's first jar of sun tea, one of many feral cats who enjoy napping on my deck chairs, and my previously neglected garden.

I kind of let Mother Nature take over when things got a little extreme last summer.  Mother Nature (or quite possibly that creepy, old, not really a relative, Uncle Global-Warming) began asserting matters with extreme heat, drought, and hoard after hoard of carpenter ants.  I wanted this year to be different, but my current budget will likely have me starting from seed and with whatever resilient herbs and veggies that are poking their heads up now.  From the looks of it so far, that'll be a few fennel bulbs, parsley (a busy, single lady's best friend), some sage, dill and, yes, even a little spearmint.

While I wouldn't mind devoting a few future posts to the art and science of gardening in itself, this herbal update is really a clumsy segue to breakdown my latest watercolor to date.  This one was inspired by a photo taken at one of my favorite places on earth, the Brooklyn Botanical Garden-- a garden that's probably never experienced any form of neglect.  If you haven't been there, go. It's open year-round with festivities scheduled throughout.  The big one coming up is the Sakura Matsuri to celebrate the year's cherry blossoms with a colorful and delightful dose of Japanese culture.

I've gone several times, though sadly not in recent years.  It's usually, and understandably, a pretty packed event.  If you really want to take in the sights and scents, take a sick day and go during the week when they're are much fewer crowds. I have plenty of amazing shots taken by friends over the years, but rather than continue this BBG informercial by including a photo tour, here's just the one that served as a recent painting's reference.

Part of the reason I've been digging through old photos is due to a bit of a productivity slump.  Since "artist's block" is a luxury that only employed people can afford, I had to pick something to work on and power through.  I chose this image because there's enough form and definition with the rocks, the fallen foliage and the friendly grackle to serve as a starting point.  Apart from that, there's the freedom of that fabulous stuff: water.  The image as it is needs a little help if there's any hope for me breaking out the color concentrates. And by little help, I mean color saturated to hell and back.

That should do it. The blue iridescence of the grackle, the warm siennas
and yellows of the foliage, and everything happening in the water, wakes up
a more interesting pallet.  I've also cropped quite a bit to keep the focus on the
grackle, but mostly because I hate painting convincing ground foliage.  While
it can create a "Wow, that must've taken you forever." effect, it usually takes forever.

Since I wasn't terribly concerned with keeping much loyalty to the original reference on this one, I neglected to take many shots showing technique. I wasn't sure what was going to happen, so most of the photos simply show a start-to-finish progression.

There's not much to the map. The only elements I really want to
maintain are the grackle and where the rocks begin and end.
As far as the foliage and the water, I decide to wing it.
Pun intended. Think of me what you will! 

I started with the left rock. The texture is created with a layer of Chinese
white and slate blue, then a stencil brush is used to lightly work in traces of
 watery black.  A detailed brush is used to fill in the dark crevices on the right.
I've also left spaces open for a few weeds and the foliage. You can see where
Chinese white was used to control some bleeding on the lower left.

The foliage is created by filling in leaves with their lightest colors,
followed by darker details and blotches of black to establish shadow and
separation.  I started to fill in a few of the weed stems as well.

The grackle starts with the lightest blue highlights, followed by
deeper tones.  Mid-tones are added to bring out the feathers and get
his form down. Spaces are left for foreground leaves, which will be filled in once
his body is totally dry. Don't want to risk his blue bleeding to wet leaves.

His beak is filled with the rest of him, except he needs an eye.

Little bit of lemon yellow for the iris and a dot of ivory black for the pupil,
and now he can see.

Moving on to the rightmost rocks, the same stencil brush technique is used,
laying down a light layer, with textures of dark blotches over that. You can
see where the rock is first outlined and then filled in.

The same technique is used on the upper right rock, with a bit more color
variation.  I'm not fond of algae when it comes to my pond, but I love it
in paintings.

Since he's totally dry, a basic outline of the foreground leaves are added over
the grackle's body. I let them dry just a bit before I fill in the remaining space
 with color.

The partial drying let's the new layer blend, while still retaining the defining lines.

There's just a bit more flora to add before things get crazy and watery.

The final rock is filled in using the same stencil brush technique.
Little bits of foliage and their shadows are added using the same partial
dry and fill-in method.

The three weeds over the leftmost rock start with a light edging of
straw yellow and Venetian red.

Crimson is then filled in, leaving some space for undertones.

Some dark umber is filled in, leaving a few white highlights.

Moving on to the water, there is a defined ripple, which starts with
light outlines of kelly green. 

They're then thickened with touches of jungle green and spread with water.
The grackle's reflection is implied with touches of blue, while white space is left
to later be filled in with black.

There was some attempt to keep with the reflection portrayed in the reference
photo, but I probably looked at the clock and threw caution to the wind.

Black and olive green is added to define the ripple near the grackle
and shadow the rocks.

Just going for it at this point.

The water's white space is filled and varied by allowing the lighter
colors to bleed into one another. The brush is then dried slightly
and used to horizontally push and pull the flow of the water's surface.

Chinese white is added on top of the more saturated colors to lift up some
highlights and blend anything that's dried too dark or defined.

Finally, those two dried out weed stems are filled in with some sienna and
straw yellow.  I then decide to signature and call it a late night.

There's the scan!

Thanks to everybody who made it this far down the page!  Hope you enjoyed following along.  More to come soon.

My Long Love of Strings and Painting Progression Two - Violin

I've owned a violin for something like eight months now. Am I eight months better at playing a violin? No. I'm not even three days better at playing the violin. I don't feel too terrible about not devoting more time to it since it was so cheap. I had a full time job up until a month ago, plenty of other in-progress projects, and I have yet to locate a teacher that is not a book for dummies or online video.  However, I'm still somewhat disappointed I haven't put more into it.  I've wanted to play the violin since lessons were offered in grade school, but when one of three brothers needs braces at the time of violin lesson registration, it usually means that braces win over violin rental. It seemed like an unfair and senseless outcome then and it still seems like one now!

Whenever I was unable to try something as a child, I always saw it as a missed opportunity to prove that I was a waiting prodigy at whatever that thing was.  There was no question of whether or not I'd be any good at the violin or despise the tedium and discouragement that comes with developing most rewarding skills.  No, I'd simply been denied an opportunity to let my genius shine forth because one of my excess of brothers had freak teeth!

When I finally got around to purchasing one, I suppose that romantic notion was still alive in my brain.  The strings produce some of my most favorite sounds. Those songs that make my hair stand on end, noticeably shift my heartbeat, or tend to be playing in the background when the keyboard suddenly catches fire after being stuck on that chapter for months is months, are usually rich with dense, dramatic and deft strings. If I identified with and loved such sounds that much, shouldn't it mean I'd naturally know how to duplicate them? It's perfectly logical...

Buying a violin would also be a great way to work my way up to the sexy, sexy cello in just a few months! Well, it didn't quite work out that way. However, all was not lost.  For forty bucks, it turned out to be a pretty decent violin that produced pretty decent violin sound.  I also learned more about the structure, form and function of an instrument that looks beautiful regardless of how beautiful one can make it sound.

With my new influx of non-office time, I took another crack at playing it but soon moved on to painting it instead. I think my cat was thankful for that decision.  So here's a breakdown of my latest watercolor: Violin.

This is the reference shot. I thought the burgundy wall color would
wake up the red of the violin's body, while the hardwood floor would
bring out the bridge and the bow's horsehair.

The least fun part of this painting was the starting part. The image is mapped on medium weight, cold-pressed watercolor paper using watercolor pencil.

I know it's not the clearest shot, but if you look closely, you can see a few of the
shadow lines have been drawn as well.  It helps to keep track of these
in addition to subject.

Watercolor pencils are a help for more than mapping a painting. They're great for creating an underlying dry layer which can save a lot of time and paint especially for darker colors.

The blacks, deeper reds and a few of the accents are filled in with a layer
of watercolor pencil.  This is a big help for outlining the thin, light strings
across the dark fingerboard.

It's then time to dive in and get wet.  I usually start with the largest and simplest area. In this case, it's the painted wall.

That light layer of dry watercolor pencil enhances the thick burgundy just by adding
a bit of red, fuchsia and touches of black, which are blended as needed.

The wall space around the violin is filled in using brushes in various sizes and shape to create thin edges or cover large areas.

I used a soft stencil brush to blend in shadow and create the light texture of a wall
with matte paint.

The right side of the violin is more or less established, it's time to move on to the left by adding the violin's shadow against the door and frame molding.

The violin's shadow against the white door and molding is fairly sharp and defined.
A very watery black is used over the light watercolor pencil layer. 

Moving down to the floor, the wood grain under the door, the door shadow, and the boards of the hardwood floor are filled in.

The grain of the floorboards is created by making blotchy zigzags with some
straw yellow and watery umber. 

Chinese white is used to add in subtitle highlights, which are great for
establishing a sheen on a hardwood floor.

Moving on to the bow, this is where much of detail work begins.

The wrapping, thumb leather, and outline of the frog are added,
along with all applicable highlights and shadows.

The eye, screw, ferrule, and rest of the frog have
been filled in.

With the horsehair, tip, stick, and their
shadows added, the bow is complete.

Apart from the violin, most of the color elements have been completed. It's easy to put all the focus into these elements, but sometimes the subtleties are where the depth is really established.

There are slight shadows and textures in the white door, which are created by
thin lines of watery black and coatings of Chinese white.

And finally, moving on to the violin itself, the body is filled in, as are f-holes, tailpeice, chinrest and saddle, along with their highlights.

A dry flat brush is used to create the texture of the body's finish,
Some areas are left blank for the sharper white highlights.

Creating the fingerboard to outline the strings requires a very thin detail brush.
It was by far the most nerve-wrecking part of the painting.

On the homestretch now. The bridge, nut, pegs, pegbox and scroll are filled in.

There's the completed painting. Time to carefully pull the edge tape
and scan it.

There you have it!

Painting Progression One - The Tea Thief Toad

Rather than using my first post to write about the fact this is the first post and explain what I intend to do with this blog, I feel like I should post something with a bit more substance.  You know, make it really official!  I've also chosen this route because I haven't quite decided what I intend to do with this blog.  So for now, I'll talk a little bit about a frustration I experienced as a much younger artist and look at the progression of a recent watercolor painting I've completed as a relatively older artist.

If you've ever looked at finished painting and tired to figure out how it was done, as I often did as kid and still do as *shudder* an adult, it can be really hard to figure out just where and how the artist started.  If you've ever made a trip to a gallery or museum, or even something that hung in your grandmother's dinning  room and thought, I want to do that too! but couldn't quite figure out how to start, I've been right there with ya and it's a frustrating place to be.

I've found this to be especially true for really detailed or defined paintings.  Abstracts and more impressionist stuff seems to be easier to breakdown as far as technique, where as paintings that directly portray their subjects... to a younger me, those paintings seemed like they were always completed. Where did the artist start? Where do I start?

Years and years (in my rather learning-disabled case, though for others it may be more like months and months) of learning what colors, brushstrokes, brush types, paint types, paint consistencies, blending techniques, and all those other subtle aspects of painting that made me say "Screw this!" at one millionth time or another, eventually uncovered the secret of a completed painting.  I learned more or less how to make lamps glow, drapes wrinkle and water flow through the very inefficient practice of trial and error, and error, and error.

If you're artist, or you want to be one-- and you absolutely can be, I don't think there's a way around it. But, I hope that by sharing my starting point and revealing a couple steps of what led to a finished painting, the idea of getting there won't be quite so intimidating.

In other words, this will be like a seriously less comprehensive photo version of an episode of Bob Ross' Joy of Painting. (I hope to review a couple of those in the future.)

So here's the story of a watercolor, let's call it the: "Tea Thief Toad".

First, I need a reference. Sometimes that reference is my imagination, which is a decent reference for things like the idea of putting a thirsty, audacious and unapologetic toad in a tea cup, but it's not so great for stuff like light and a shadow.  Cameras are much better remembering that sort of stuff.  Unfortunately, my camera is more of a cell phone but it usually cuts mustard.

So on a sunny, light and shadow conducive day, I set up my reference photo using a few books and a tea set.

Once I get a decent enough shot that I can imagine fitting a toad in that teacup, I then decide to make life a little easier based on my current watercolor skill set.  This is done by simplifying the image in a photo editing program. What some art teachers will refer to as cheating, but I'm not trying to reproduce this photo as a painting, you can do that with a couple clicks in Photoshop (which I consider a little closer to cheating).  Remember, I'm just trying to create a reference that will make this image easier to attack (paint). I don't do much to it-- up the contrast here, reduce the sharpness there, perhaps a little nudge of the saturation to establish the light and shadow, and give me a better idea of where my lines are, where certain colors start and other colors begin.

Sometimes it's just nice to make the grass a little greener and get rid of those details that don't add so much to a painting as add years to your face...

We have tea, we have books, now we just need a toad.  I don't come by toads as often in my day to day life, so I reach for what's probably the most used book on my shelf.

And there's our starring player.

I then map the image using watercolor pencil, drawn with very basic guidelines.  It's less a self-made paint-by-number than it is layout that helps me keep lines fairly strait and gives me an idea of where certain colors begin and end.

Now, the following progression shots are few.  I didn't have this blog post in mind when I took them, so they probably aren't a particularly helpful stage-by-stage breakdown. At the very least, I hope you can get an idea of how I attack this painting in portions and eventually get to my finished piece.

The deepest shadows are filled in and the background is being taken care of, with the exception of the foreground book I must have wanted to get out of the way.

The tree bark, the texture of the teapot and most of the book detail have been established.  The background object shadows and some of the foreground greenery are in the works. Tea Thief Toad is still just a simple outline, as is the hijacked teacup.  

Just look at em. He's totally remorseless.