Tag Archives: Quebec City

Oil Painting Of An Autumn Leaf

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Maple trees are so wonderful.  They provide syrup in the spring, shade all summer, and then they produce a spectacular color display in the fall.  There is the matter of covering my lawn with a bunch of back-breaking debris but it’s a small price to pay.

I got the bright idea to paint one leaf.  “Keep it simple,” I said, “because, Larry, you do oil painting really slow.”  What I didn’t count on was how fast maple leaves begin to curl, or maybe the one I picked up was just ready to curl.  Anyways, it was a race to see whether I could paint the darn thing before the leaf rolled itself into a ball (grin).  Here are the results and I was happy with it.

 

Another Oily Baby Step

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I’m continuing to slip and slide down the oil painting rabbit hole, trying to figure out how to make gesso’d panels, whether using a fabric base is a good idea, and a bunch of other stuff.  I’m spending way too much time on YouTube trying to learn how to thin oil paint, mix oil paint, etc., etc., etc.

But I’ve also been applying paint, mostly to little avail.  Switching from contour drawing to form creation with a heavy, opaque paint requires a shift in mindset that is a struggle, at least for me.

This experiment was to see if I could paint a somewhat complex object, like a squash by defining its shapes without line.  I added the knife and cup without expecting to truly paint them and so once I got the squash painted I left this one unfinished.  Right now I’m learning more from the beginnings of paintings than from spending hours trying to get details “just right” as I did with my peach painting.  So far this is lots of fun and that’s my real goal.

 

What’s Up With Larry?

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My last few posts haven’t generated a lot of comments on the blog itself but there’s been a flurry of msgs via email.  All but one have been from kind and gentle artists and most from people I’ve known, though never met, via the internet.

Most were of the nature of “if you’re having fun, that’s great” type, but others asked questions.  A couple wanted to know how oil painting could fit into urban sketching while others asked why I was leaving urban sketching.  Maybe those are all the same question (grin).

Anyways, I thought I’d clarify things a bit.  I am NOT leaving urban sketching and still expect to sketch on the streets to the extent that I can (more later).  All I’m doing right now is trying to learn some aspects of art that can’t be learned while concentrating on contours of objects.  Yes, you can do this with watercolors, but I felt I needed to get away from my pens AND watercolors because the two are currently tied together in my mind.  And no, I’m not selling my pens and won’t be ditching my watercolors anytime soon.  I love both too much.

As for whether oil painting can be done as an urban sketch, my interest in oils comes from an urban sketcher, Alvin Mark, who does watercolors, draws people with a fude pen, and does oil paintings, often during the same session.  He’s in the Singapore and I’ve followed him for years.

I’ve been playing with the idea of doing small, quick paintings too, either with gouache or oils, experimenting with the idea of replicating what I would normally do with watercolors but doing the paintings direct with paint.  Here’s one, based upon a watercolor done by Whee Teck Ong.   I did this one by drawing, with paint, a single line along the back of the two sheep to position them and then I jumped in with oils to complete the sketch in less than 10 minutes.  Not a milestone but this, and others, has convinced me that with red, yellow, blue, burnt sienna and white I can sketch on small panels once I gain better control over the medium.

I hope this clears things up a bit.  Oh…as for me continuing to be an “urban sketcher,” I’ve never completely understood what that meant as the definition has slipped and slided along, evolving to include pretty much anything done outdoors.  I remember watching as Marc Taro Holmes produced a two-panel 11×14 masterpiece while standing on the terrace in old Quebec.  As we walked I asked him what the difference was between plein air painting and urban sketching.  His response?  “I guess it’s Plein Air if you have a stop to pee.”  He nailed it.  These distinctions are mostly meaningless and questions about them even more so.

But on a more serious note, my operation was wildly successful but I am 73 years old.  I used to walk at least 45 minutes, each way, to do my urban sketching.  I’m getting to a stage in my life where that just isn’t going to happen every day as it once did.  So, I suppose I WILL be doing less urban sketching.  Maybe I’ll paint roses and onions more.  In any case, I’ll be putting pointy and fuzzy sticks to paper as often as I can.

One last thing.  I mentioned there was an exception to the nice bunch of emails I got.  Can you imagine someone feeling the need to call another person nasty names for “abandoning” urban sketching and for me suggesting that you can’t learn everything while drawing in pen?  Neither could I.. until I received that email.  Our society has gone mad.  I wonder if it will ever regain its sanity.

Ah…The Meditation That Is Pencil Drawing

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I’ve pulled these books from my library and they now rest on the table next to my reading/TV chair.  The Guptill and Harding books are still the best in my opinion but I like all of these books.  Harding has a great book on drawing trees too but I don’t have that one.

So here I am, pencil in hand, drawing stuff.  While it feels like a new road for me, I have done some pencil drawing in museums during winter, because many museums don’t like the idea of watercolors being sloshed about near the exhibits.  This is when I work with watercolor pencils too, using a water brush. That was back in 2013-2014 though, and mostly I was still trying to figure out how to deal with basic proportions.  Light and shade was mostly foreign to me.

I was walking the other day and found some mushrooms on their last legs I did some tiny sketches of them.  It was hard because they were old and falling apart.  Somehow I related to them (grin).  Anyways, the highlight was that I found some milkweed pods and I brought some home with me.  This was done in my S&B Epsilon 9×12 sketchbook.

Drawing this was… well… peaceful.  I’ve mentioned that I draw slowly regardless of medium.  That’s how this kind of drawing is done.  Pencil books don’t spend time telling you to draw quickly (grin).  The time flew by, however, and I felt refreshed at the end.  On to the next page.  I hope you find my stumbling around with new media at least casually interesting and that you’ll laugh along with me.

Baby Steps Down A New Road

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In my last post, I mentioned that I was laying down my pens (almost) and picking up a pencil.   I’ve taken a baby step or two down this different road by breaking open a hardbound, 8.5×11 size Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook, wrote name and address in it and began.

I did this on the day that Chantal was chopping down our flock of Cup plants.  These are very tall, sunflower-like plants but with many smaller flowers than your typical sunflower.  They get their name by the fact that each branching of the plant creates a “cup” that collects water and the plant absorbs it through soft tissue.  Pretty cool they are and we enjoy them every year.  Anyway, I took the top of one of them and drew it on the first page of my new sketchbook.  A pencil drawer am me.