fbpx

Category: watercolor sketchbook

Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: the tree outside your window

There is always something to see, even when we’re stuck at home.

The tree outside my front door is a maple, and it’s bereft of leaves right now.

Sue Colgan-Borror has been encouraging her fellow Knox County Art Society painters to take up a new art challenge each week. Last week’s subject was, “Where would you rather be,” to which Mary Ann Heinzen-Hackett responded, “Right here!” and went out and painted in the bitter cold.  I’m with Mary Ann. Although I enjoy jetting off to exotic places to paint, I love my own home the best.

One of the issues we face in lockdown is that many of us are being deprived of meaningful contact with nature. This is not a mere luxury. Research has shown that people who regularly spend time in green spaces are physically and mentally healthier than their peers. This finding cuts across lines of race, economics and gender.

A few weeks ago, I had my weekly painting classpaint the view from their windows. This was a limited exercise, in that each of them was working from their studio space. That meant they had one, or possibly two, windows to work from. But what about the views from all the other windows, the ones we barely notice?

The tree on the dooryard is an Eastern White Pine.

There are windows in my house that I seldom look out. I simply pass by them. I’m not alone in that. “When I encouraged people on social media to take a photo of a tree outside their window, one man replied that he’d thought it sad that he had no tree to photograph, before peering out into the street and realising that there was one right outside,” wrote Isabel Hardman.

Some of these tiny views that I ignore are arresting vignettes. Take the view from my front door. This door is never used; everyone uses the kitchen door, which opens off an area still called the dooryard in Maine. That neglected front door has a lace curtain over it, allowing only filtered light to come through. Outside is a beautiful old maple, the last survivor of a long line that once ran along Route 1. But since I never look at it, it’s seldom in my consciousness.

Tiny watercolor thumbnails done outside my window in Waldoboro, ME in the dead of winter.

There’s looking, and then there’s looking. There’s a difference between glancing at a tree and spending time drawing or painting it. The latter will give you most of the health benefits of a trek through Acadia National Park, and you won’t have to break quarantine to do it.

The tree outside your window is just one example of the beauty to be found in the everyday. There is always something to see, even as our viewpoint narrows with circumstances. Édouard Manet died tragically young of syphilis; he suffered from pain and paralysis during the last three years of his life. Yet during this time he completed many small still lives of flowers, fruit and vegetables that are today among the most admired and beloved of his work. I’ll bet they brought him joy, too.

Most of these thumbnails were done from my window in Rochester, NY.

A big part of learning to paint is learning to see.  Your assignment this week is to travel around your house and make small thumbnail sketches from various windows. If you’re lucky enough to get outside, sketch what you see out there as well. All the examples I’ve included in this blog were done in my daily travels around town or from my own home. They’re in watercolor, but you can work in pencil or marker. 

A marker sketch of my current house. Your window sketches don’t need to be any more complicated than this.

The goal here is two-fold:

  • To see beauty in the everyday;
  • To learn how to draw or paint better thumbnail sketches.

Posted on

Judging watercolor sketchbooks and paintings

Grey is a beautiful color, but it doesn’t stand out in a crowd. Neither does weak design.
Jonathan Submarining is one of my all-time favorite paintings, but it didn’t impress jurors overmuch.

I’ve promised several readers I’d get back to them about my sketchbook choice for my Age of Sailworkshop. I’m supplying the materials, so they must be good. I wanted to talk to Mary Byrom before I reported back. She teaches a sketchbook class in York, ME. Our technique is not the same; she works mainly in pen-and-wash; I prefer straight-up watercolor. But there’s overlap, especially when the problem is keeping supplies contained for travel.

                                           
We agreed that the top sketchbook we’d tried was Strathmore’s Series 400 watercolor journals. While I prefer ring bindings, this notebook’s soft backing made it possible to hold back pages with clips. I’m a very wet watercolor painter, so if I can use it, nobody will have a problem.
And the winner is, the Strathmore 400 series watercolor journal and a clip.
That was the last fifteen minutes of a two-hour phone call. Most of it was spent on that eternal question: how to choose the best paintings to submit for jurying. My strategy has always been to put my top work from the prior year into a folder and look at it and whine.
I’m drawn to the paintings in which I perceive a struggle. An example is Jonathan Submarining,which I painted at Castine Plein Air. This is one of my personal favorites. Poppy Balser and I had our feet in Penobscot Bay. The kids in their sailing class were rampaging about in a stiff wind. It was hard work to be accurate while capturing their excitement. Apparently, jurors did not share my enthusiasm. I didn’t get into many shows for which I used it.
Lobster Pound at Tenants Harbor is well-drafted and strong, but I don’t think its grey tones will work for jurying. (Courtesy the Kelpie Gallery)
All of us have emotional connection with our work. It distorts how we see things. To overcome this, I traded the final-pick task with Bobbi Heath. She reviews my submissions; I review hers.
Mary Byrom and I came up with another strategy. Next year, I’ll create a folder containing my own best picks alongside paintings by artists with whom I will be competing to get in. (If you don’t know who these people are, you haven’t done your homework.) I did a snap search after our conversation. It was sobering.
Fish Beach, by Carol L. Douglas.
It’s all about design and composition, which is why value sketches are such a necessary step in plein air. Aline Ordman said that a painting must compel at 300 feet, 30 feet and 3 feet. The 300-feet test is the same as the thumbnail-on-the-screen test. Depending on the popularity of the show to which you’re applying, the jurors may be looking at thousands of the little buggers. If your painting doesn’t stand out as a thumbnail, it’s not going to compel at any size.
Color matters, too. Grey just slumps back into my monitor. There are some paintings in my folder that are strong, but I won’t be using them for future submissions. Nor will I design a composition around neutrals for an auction-based event, for the same reason. Lovely grey tones sell just fine; they just don’t stand out in the maelstrom.
It’s about time for you to consider your summer workshop plans. Join me on the American Eagle, at Acadia National Park, at Rye Art Center, or at Genesee Valley this summer.
Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: How to paint from a moving vehicle

If you have room for a cup of coffee, you have room to paint.

I finished this sketch as the sun finally set.

I painted across Canada (the first time) in a corner of an overloaded Suzuki Grand Vitara containing four people and all my daughter’s earthly belongings. Compared to that, the passenger seat of my Prius is downright spacious.

You will need a plastic cup, water, a small watercolor kit and a watercolor sketchbook. That will all fit in a roomy pocket or a purse.
You should be carrying water when you drive. The plastic cup is just a refinement.
“But the scene is constantly changing!” you say, and you’re right. You’re going to generalize rather than draw a specific moment on the road. This teaches us about composition and reducing our paintings to their essentials.
You can’t paint while driving, any more than you can text. (I would think this goes without saying, but apparently there is no idea so bad that someone won’t try it.) This is why I ended up doing this painting on I-495 instead of on scenic Route 1. It was my turn to drive during the interesting parts.
This was the road I chose to demonstrate this technique. Not a Scenic Byway.
I-495 is a contender for America’s most boring road, except when traffic stops and it becomes one of our most irritating roads. Yesterday, its monotony was compounded by a gloomy sky, the tail end of last week’s Nor’easter. There’s a lesson in that: you can find beauty anywhere, if you look for it.
I start car paintings by studying the passing scene. What is the line or motif that is most commonly repeated?  In some cases, it’s the pitch and roll of the hills. In others, it’s the way farm buildings sprawl down hillsides. 
A generalization of the passing scene.
Usually, I look out the side window, at about the point where old cars used to have vent windows with little cranks. That gives you a view of something other than the road, while still being comfortable.
However, in eastern Massachusetts the trees grow right up to the verge. You must look forward, straight down the road. The dominant motif is the stands of trees, and the question is how they interrupt the skyline. There are occasional hills in the distance, and there are other cars.
This was the point when I realized I left my pencil on my dining room table. It’s easily replaced, but not on a freeway on a Sunday evening. Miraculously, we stopped at a rest stop and parked next to a pencil stuck in the mud. Cleaned up, it was perfectly serviceable.
Some light washes in place. I would normally use a different brush, but I want to demonstrate that this can all be done with a kit that fits in a pocket.
I needed that pencil, because I always start with a line drawing incorporating those iconic features of the landscape. A light wash established the drear of the sky and the hill in the distance. I used the tiny brush from my field kit to make the point that you don’t need a lot of tools for this. This brush is great for fine lines, but it doesn’t make good washes. I laid it on its side and scumbled the grey sky in instead. If I were using a juicier brush, I’d have run the sky below the tree line.

My pocket paint kit. You can make one out of an Altoids tin but unless you already have the paint, buying the pre-made one is actually cheaper.
Every watercolor painting needs a test sheet, because watercolor is all about density control. Luckily, you can test on the reverse of a prior page. It won’t hurt the painting on the other side. Or, if you want to conserve paper, stick a loose sheet in there and move it around as you need it.
You always need a test sheet, even when you’re messing around.
When it comes to observing details, the repetitiveness of the freeway helps. When I need a stand of spruces, there is always one more just up the road. There are dormant, deciduous trees everywhere, and Massachusetts has no shortage of rocks.
Of course, you’re not going to paint fine lines unless you’re stopped in a traffic jam. The roads in the northeast are too jarring for that. Thus, my taillights are just a suggestion, dripped onto the paper at the last minute. I finished just as the last light faded from the sky.
St. Elias Mountain Range, Yukon Territory, painted from a car in 2015.
This is a technique you can use to amuse yourself anywhere you have at least 40 minutes to kill—in a car, a train, on a plane. It’s the basis of our sketchbook technique for our Age of Sail workshop, except we’ll be concentrating on water instead of pavement. Of course, Penobscot Bay is also much prettier than a Massachusetts turnpike.
I’m on the road to Alabama and points west this week. Tonight’s destination is the lovely Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Stay tuned to this spot to follow my travels. (Or subscribe above; it’s probably easier.)