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This summer I've taken my sketchbook with me to restaurants, and while waiting for my lunch to appear, I've sketched the scenes around me. I've described diners and décor. In this painting, I took note of the cook preparing lunch.
The dominant color note is cool. The slicker is the warm contrast that focuses the viewer's eye on the figure. I repeated the color in muted form on the left side of the painting.
I've always been attracted to signs so the lettering was added to identify the Maine theme.
By the end of the summer I will have a virtual diary of my lunchtime adventures. Painting in a series is a good way to focus your attention.
When on location, it's tempting to look around and include everything you see in your painting. With a camera, at least you have a built in cropping device. But sometimes when your eye is drawn to a particular element in the scene, it's a call to paint only that as your subject.
I've loved this turret on top of a building at an outdoor restaurant for years. I've also painted the building just because of the turret. This time I've decided to depict only the turret, zooming in on it to the exclusion of everything else.
Here's the sketch. Tomorrow or the next day, I'll try the painting.
Today was my friend's annual Artists on the Lawn painting event. It was so much fun seeing painters whom I've met in the past, and painting on a beautiful day of temperatures in the mid seventies and a blue sky over head. And best of all, at the very end of the day, I sold my painting to a couple who dropped by to see artists in action!
This summer I've taken my sketchbook with me everywhere. Setting up my easel has proved challenging after my heart surgery, and it's just easier to sketch than paint. Here's the latest lunchtime sketch of a life-sized wooden pirate at the restaurant.
Tomorrow I am participating in a plein air event on my friend's lawn, so maybe I'll have a painting to post soon.
This was actually the first painting I did this summer. When getting used to painting outdoors again, it's helpful to begin with a familiar subject. In this case, no drawing was required. I just needed to get my brushes wet again. It can be scary when you've had to stop painting for a while. Facing that white piece of paper is intimidating, even to the most experienced of painters.
But I did what I always do: I think of the three major values and where to place them. Light, midtone, dark. I decided not to draw first because I know the subject so well. It was just fun to feel the slippery paint glide over the paper again.
Fear is the great enemy of the watercolorist. Warming up with a familiar subject can help overcome that fear.
Every once in a while I like to do an outdoor still life. This one was done from yesterday's sketch. Again, the hard work was done before hand in the planning stage. Plan, plan, plan!
Many watercolor students are afraid of strong darks. They hesitate to use enough paint to achieve the dark value the first time. Or sometimes it's just that they don't know where the darkest tones should be employed. That's where the value sketch comes in.
In this outdoor still life, the life preserver ring and the block and tackle are my focal points. The dark background of the wooden log supporting the ring helps focus the eye's attention on the life preserver. The metal hook and shadows on the tackle highlight the front of the wooden tackle.
At this point the hard work of the painting is done. I know where the lightest values are going to be and the darks that will surround the subjects. Doing the drawing will be important, but the painting process is once again planned. Study is its own reward!
Painting tomorrow!
Contrast of values and contrast of colors will definitely direct the eye to a subject matter. In this painting of a Friendship sloop, the sail is a warm, light value and its color is encased in a darker, cooler background. The neutrals in the background retreat so your attention stays focused on the sloop.
Try not to think in terms of subject, i.e. "I'm going to paint a boat and some water." Rather, think,
I'm going to paint a warm, light shape surrounded by darker, cooler values.
I used to reject the notion of doing value sketches before doing a painting. My rationale was that I could see the values in my head, so why do a sketch? Then one day when I was teaching a workshop, I asked my students to do a value sketch. One student did a light, scribbly line drawing with no clear darks, midtones or lights. I took her sketchbook and turned her non-descript drawing into a sketch with very clear values.
With the values in place, you have a road map to how to proceed. Light values first, midtones next, and darks last. In this sketch, it's also pretty clear that distance will play a role. Far away tones in the background, midtones on the churches' shaded sides, and darker cast shadows in the foreground.
I've also learned to love taking my sketchbook everywhere I go. I can almost always find something to turn into a sketch. Looking out the window at lunch at an old Victorian house across the street and sketching it gave me a way to pass the time until my order arrived.
Proclaim your status as artist! Take out your sketchbook!
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