John Tubbs - Starting Art Late in Life

Recent Landscapes - Oil

Haven't been keeping up with loading images here very well recently.  Here are some recent pieces.  The first 2 are 12 x 12 inch oils done as a request from a local arts organization for artists to donate pictures for a fundraising dinner and auction.  The organization supplied everyone a 12 x 12 canvas.  I completed the first and they asked if I would do another, so finished the second one pretty quickly and am hoping it dries in time for delivering in a few days. 

 

 

The next four are all 9 x 12 plein air pieces done in two to three hours each, at a workshop I took in September on the Oregon coast.  The first one is Cascade Head, from the Salmon River estuary.

 

The next is also painted at the same estuary, but looking upriver (at fairly low tide) instead of toward the ocean in the first one.

 

The next one was painted at Neskowin Beach, looking south. 

 

The final one (which I didn't quite finish in the sky part of the painting) is a Sitka spruce grove.  Sitka spruce are strange trees - very craggy, unelegant limbs popping out every which way. 

 

Plein Air Oil Paintings

Wow - I've been busy with a bunch of stuff and haven't posted anything here since April.  So here are some plein air oil paintings done over the last month or so. 

The first one here is technically not a plein air piece, as it was done from a reference photo and a plein air sketch that I made on a recent raft trip to central Oregon.  It is of the Metolius River near Sisters, Oregon.  9 x 12 inches on canvas board, about two hours in it. 

 

The next one was done at Gold Creek in Snoqualmie Pass, WA, on a weekly plein air outing with the local art assocation.  9 x 12 oils on canvas board.

 

The next one is of a barn in Carnation, WA looking toward the Cascades.  Done with the weekly plein air group.  9 x 12 oils on canvas board.

 

The following one was done during a plein air paintout In Snoqualmie, WA during this year's annual Railroad Days festival.  It is of the Snoqualmie River looking upriver toward Mount Si.  9 x 12 inches on canvas board in oils.

 

The final one of this batch was done yesterday at Three Forks natural area near Snoqualmie, WA.  Again it was with the weekly plein air group outing.  9 x 12 inches on canvas board in oils.

 

Deschutes River Canyon complete, Grand Teton Aspens

The final version of the Deschutes River Canyon piece - 18 x 24 inches in oil - is here, with a few adjustments from the previous post.  I like this area and am pleased with the piece, but also intend to do multiple other versions of this particular location.  The second piece in this post is Grand Teton Aspens, a 12 x 9 inch oil painting done alla prima (painted in one session) with about two hours in it. 

 

 

American Crow and Deschutes Cliffs

Here is an updated WIP onthe Deschutes Cliffs 18 x 24 inch oil piece.  This version is close to being done (it might actually be, I need to let it rest a few days and look at it again).  The other piece is a 9 x 12 graphite on Mi Tientes paper of an American Crow from reference photo I took in our back yard a year or so ago. 

 

 
 

Deschutes River Canyon and Oregon Coast Landscapes with Birds - Oil

Here are two almost-finished (perhaps fully finished -haven't decided yet...!) oil versions of quicker watercolor studies I did and posted here previously.  Both these are 18 x 24 inches on stretched canvas.  The Deschutes River canyon is in central Oregon, and is high desert country.  The painting with the Great Egrets was based on reference photos taken while doing plein air painting at the mouth of the Salmon River on the Oregon Coast. 

 

 

River Rocks and South Fork of the Snoqualmie River

Here are two recent pieces, both done from scenes on the Snoqualmie River near my house.  The first one is a simple study in oil paints on an 8 x 10" canvas board - the subject is a group of rocks and the surrounding water.  This was painted from a photo taken on a stretch of the river downstream from famous Snoqualmie Falls.  The second piece is a 9 x 12" piece done in soft pastels on location (plein air) on the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River, in a two hour session on a glorious sunny and warm morning. 

RIVER ROCKS - STUDY

SOUTH FORK OF THE SNOQUALMIE RIVER - PASTELS

 

Final Master Copy - "The Herring Net" (after Winslow Homer)

This is the 'final' version of the big in-class project I did for the school term just completed.  It is 30x48" and is a copy of Winslow Homer's 1885 oil painting "The Herring Net".  The size of my copy is the exact size of the original, making it a doubly educational process to do.  My respect and admiration for Homer went up considerably during this process.  An early post showed the various in-process steps used to get to this point (value drawing in black & white on paper; a line drawing of the canvas from the value drawing, using the grid system; grisaille underpainting in b&w on the canvas, then finally the application of color layers.  It was an excellent learning experience, and I am definitely going to do at least a couple master copies down the road. 

Deschutes River - Davidson Flats

This quickly-executed painting is oil and 20x30" on canvas.  It was done as one of six homework paintings for the oil painting class I'm taking this quarter.  There is a large in-class project and then in addition we had to do a series of six oil sketches (didn't need to be done plein air) on a single subject or theme, and I picked central Oregon landscapes.  I will either re-paint this scene entirely, or possible put some more work into this painting after it's graded for the class.  There are probably about four hours total in this piece. 

THE HERRING NET (After Winslow Homer) - Master Copy Project for Art Class

I'm been working for the last year toward an Associate degree in Fine Arts (or possible just a Certificate in Fine Arts, haven't decided yet).  This is the major project for the oil painting class (third of three in the degree series) that is wrapping up in the next two weeks.  The assignment was a master copy project - picking an oil painting done by an acknowledged master painter and copying it.  I love Winslow Homer's work and picked an 1885 painting he did called The Herring Net.  The painting was required to be large (minimum 20 x 30") and after some research I managed to get a canvas that is the exact size of Homer's original work - 30 x 48" - definitely the largest oil painting I've tried to date.  The process to be used was first to do a value drawing in pencil or other dry media (value is black and white only, matching the degree of lightness or darkness in the painting, regardless of color), then transfer a basic line drawing to the canvas (both the value drawing and the drawing on canvas were done using the grid system).  Then the canvas is painted with a grisaille (value only) underpainting - I used black and white, but perhaps should have used the more traditional raw umber and white.  Finally after those steps, color is applied over the (now dry) underpainting. 

This is a very ambitious project for me, and it has been a great learning experience.  It is not quite finished yet (although getting close - it's due on June 14th) but close enough that I decided to post a series of work-in-process (WIP) images of the whole thing from start to its current close-to-finished state. 

VALUE DRAWING - PENCIL AND VINE CHARCOAL, 18 X 24"

WIP # 1 - SHOWING THE LINE DRAWING ON THE CANVAS AND THE BEGINNING OF THE GRISAILLE UNDERPAINTING

 

WIP # 2 - GRISAILLE UNDERPAINTING ALMOST COMPLETE (lighting is marginal here for the photo)

 

WIP # 3 - COLOR LAYERS STARTED

WIP # 4 - ADDITIONAL COLOR

WIP # 5 - Most color initially complete, working on details (fish and net)

At this point, I need to finish the fish (there are four more not drawn in, they were misplaced in the original drawing and so I just painted them out and decided to add them directly in paint) and the net strands - the most detailed and slowest part of the painting to do.  Then, depending on how much time I have before the project is due, I may go back in and tweak some of the other areas that are not right relative to Homer's original.  (Of course, it is impossible for a student at my level - or for many professional painters as well - to do a completely perfect replica of a classic painting like this.  The process of getting as close as you can and learning while you are doing that is the whole point.)  Overall I'm pleased with where this is so far (as this post is written on May 29th). 

 
 

 

White Horse Cliffs - Deschutes River, Oregon

This is a 24 x 30" oil on canvas painted from a photo I took along the Deschutes River last year.  The Deschutes is in a deep canyon and so the morning light takes some time to hit the river, and there are many spots along the river that are in shade until late in the morning (like the viewpoint from which I took the reference picture).  This is high desert country that gets only about a dozen inches of rain per year. 

Whiskey Dick Pines - Late Afternoon - Oil

This is a 20 x 30" oil on stretched canvas, based on a photo I took looking northwest from Whiskey Dick Flats in Central Oregon along the Deschutes River while on a float trip.  I liked the pattern of shadow and light with the low angle of the sun in the canyon.  I did this scene in watercolor some time ago, but think this one came out better.  This was done as homework (one of six required outside of class paintings on the same subject/theme) in about 5 hours.  This class has one large in-class project (a master painting copy) and then the six homework paintings - I picked central Oregon landscapes as the theme.  Overall I like how this turned out, but after the quarter is over I'm going to work on this some more - for example, the yellow sky in the upper left needs to be toned down a bit, I think.  There is a little glare in this photo since it was taken at night with a flash and the paint was still wet.

Smith Rocks Oregon

This is a 12x9" oil painting of the world-famous Smith Rocks rock-climbing area in central Oregon, near the tiny town of Terrebonne.  This is a view from one of the park entry points, looking downriver along the Crooked River.  This painting was done in about 2 1/2 hours alla prima (one sitting) from a photo I took on a trip through the area in September of 2009. 

Red-tailed Hawk

This image is 10x8" in oil on canvasboard and was done in one sitting - about two hours.  I'm trying to get looser and more painterly with oils and so this was not done to try to be highly realistic.  The reference photo it was painted from was one I took several years ago of a captive bird at an avian rehabilitation center near Bend, Oregon.  This particular bird has a much more reddish-orange breast than most Red-tailed's coloration. 

Snowy Lane

This is a 8x10" oil on canvasboard that was done in around two hours.  It was painted from a reference photo for the December Landscape Challenge thread on WetCanvas.com.  I did a quick value sketch before the painting, but no preliminary drawing on the canvas itself.  The small spots that appear white in the sky are actually tiny glare reflections from the paint still being wet when this photo was taken. 

Georgia Country Lane

This is an 8x10" oil on canvas board done alla prima (all in one sitting) in about two hours from a photo reference.  Being pretty new to oils, I find the alla prima (also known as direct) painting style to be fun but challenging.  Since oils dry so slowly, completing something in one sitting means you are working wet into wet or painting in away that allows you to apply a new color over a previous one without getting muddy.  It has the advantage of of creating a 'painterly' look where brushstrokes are visible (and part of the style) and the overall effect is a little rough compared to slowly layered studio works where each layer is allowed to dry before application of the next layer.  I want to work on this style a lot over the next year since it is of necessity how outside (plein air) on-location oils are done.  The reference photo is from the December Landscape Challenge thread on WetCanvas.com. 

Still Life - Class Project in Split Complementary Color Scheme

This painting was done over about three class periods in an oil painting class I just finished at a local college.  I do not do still life paintings much at all, so this was a good exercise for practice.  The composition was a generic one set up 'in the round' so that the students could set up in a circle around it and each paint a different view.  Consequently, the composition is a little jumbled and I had no control over it.  However, I am thinking it would have been more artistic to crop in the section I painted a bit to develop a more interesting composition - instead, I opted for the practice to paint all the objects as they were there.  The unusual colors that do not closely reflect the local (actual) color of the objects were used as part of the assignment.  We were to use only three colors in a "split complementary" color scheme.  The three I chose were YELLOW - RED-VIOLET - BLUE-VIOLET.  We could change value (light and dark) as much as we wanted in that range, and neutralize ('dull down') the three colors to a brown neutral, but no other colors were allowed.  That was a great exercise in using a limited palette and learning how to mix neutral colors from only a few colors - the range of hues actually avaiable from only three colors when values and intensities.

 

Red-breasted Sapsucker - Oil

This is a Red-breasted Sapsucker, a fairly common woodpecker in western Washington state.  The name comes from its feeding habits - this species drills 'wells' in a regular circular pattern around trees to cause the tree to secrete sap.  The birds feed on the sap, and also on small insects which become trapped in the sap.  Additionally, hummingbirds are known to visit and feed on sapsucker wells also.  This image is in oil paints, 9x12" on canvas board, painted from a photo I took a couple of years ago.  This is more of a 'study' than a finished painting - it was done quickly (1 1/2 hours) in one session - and has some areas I may clean up at a later date.  Or alternatively, I may paint this over again, taking additional time. 

Old Oregon Homestead - Oils

This image is 24x24" in oils on canvas and was painted as a class project.  I did this for practice with low intensity colors.  I worked from a photo I took several years ago - very shortly after I snapped that picture, it started to rain. 

Barn and Clearing Storm

This image is 24x36" oil on canvas, done as a homework project for an oil painting class.  It was painted from a photo reference I took in eastern Washington several years ago.  It is an attempt to capture the unique lighting situation as a severe thunderstorm has just passed and the late afternoon sun is poking through the clouds illuminating the barn and the underside of the storm clouds.

Cow Skull - Monochrome

This is a project done in an oil painting class, with a cow skull as the subject and the requirement to use only one color (Raw Umber) and Titanium White - a good exercise in utilizing only values (dark and light) to depict a subject.  It is 18x24" on canvas and was completed in about seven hours.  The fantasy background was done on a whim without a lot of thought - it seemed appropriate given the subject...

Canna and Salvia

This is my first ever oil painting - unless you count those paint-by-number kits that everyone had when they were kids.  Mostly I've been doing watercolors and soft pastels, but I have decided to go through a certificate in fine arts program at a community college, and the first painting class is in oil painting.  So, I figured I'd better get a little experience first.  This one was done in our garden in a little over two hours.