John Tubbs - Starting Art Late in Life

Great Egrets, White-faced Ibis and Black-crowned Night Herons

I've continued to do a lot of sketching and quick study pieces so haven't added much here for some time.  Here are three watercolor pieces done recently as quick studies for larger pieces in several media.  The first one is of three White-faced Ibis, birds that are very unusual to rare in my home state, so it was great to see these on a trip to Yosemite a few years ago.  The reference photo I used was taken in the Klamath Lake area in great early morning light, which infused the whole scene with wonderful warm colors.  I will definitely be doing this piece in a larger size, and probably in oil as well.  The photo here has a pinkish cast that is not in the actual painting.  This one is 10 x 14 inches.

 

The next one here is of Great Egrets at the mouth of the Salmon River on the Oregon Coast north of Lincoln City.  This was again in early morning with very calm conditions.  A flock of about a dozen Great Egrets flew in and fed very close to where I was photographing, so I grabbed a number of shots and used one for this reference.  Again, I'll be re-doing this one, as there are some issues with it.  This is a 9 x 12 inch painting.

 

This is another species rarely seen in my neck of the woods, and was also painted from a photograph taken at Klamath Lake, as for the earlier image.

 

 

Hairy Woodpecker in Nest Hole

I've been doing so much sketching lately that I haven't made time to do any finished pieces, so I decided to do one.  This is done from a photo reference I took a couple years ago when I found this nest hole on a trail near my house.  Fortunately I found it when I did because I only shot pictures for two days before the two young in the nest fledged and the nest was then abandoned.  This piece is watercolor and gouache, 14 x 20 inches. 

 

Daily Portrait Sketches

In the WetCanvas.com Art Journals forum, we have a monthly challenge for November - basically the challenge is to do one page per day in your journal and share it with the group.  Some of the participants are sketching miscellaneous items - some have picked a theme.  Since portraits are not my usual subject, and not a strong point of my art, I decided to do portraits for the additional practice.  I'm using photos primarily (completely up to this point in the month) since I don't have live models available.  The sketches are done in graphite, some on regular white sketching paper and some on brown toned recycled paper, on which I used white charcoal or white conte for highlights.  Here are a couple of the 10 portrait sketches that have been done this month so far.

 
 
 

More Recent Bird Sketches

 
In the Art Journal sub-forum on WetCanvas.com, there is an 'October Sketchbook Challenge' that involves choosing a sketchbook and committing to fill it during the month of October - a very good way of adding motivation to get more sketching done.  So I decided to do a 50-page (100 sides using front and back of the page) Pentalic Nature Sketchbook with the theme Backyard Birds and Nature, though I qualified 'backyard' to include interesting areas near our house as well as physically in the yard.  Here are some of the sketches included in that book.

The first three images here are graphite sketches of American Goldfinches in various poses, feeding in our yard.  They were drawn from a videotape I shot of them, which I stepped through and stopped when I found an interesting pose.  I gave myself 5 minutes or less to do each sketch. 

 

 

 

The previous page is the good old American Crow, which has a unique bill/beak structure which I was having trouble with.  So I shot a crow video and sketched three pages of just the bird's head and bill - this is one of the pages.   

The following page is a Wilson's Snipe (yes, a few species of snipe do really exist).  They are not waterbirds per se in that they can't float on the water - in this image from a reference photo it looks like the bird is floating, but it is actually wading in the water up to its belly.  So, it's more of a shorebird than a waterbird.

 

The next two pages are of the Bushtit, which has to be in the running for the cutest little bird out there (in North American at least).  They are quite small and look like little gray cotton puffs with beady eyes and a long tail.  They feed in chittering/chattering flocks. 

 

 

The next bird is a Brown Creeper, whose name comes from its feeding habit of creeping nervously up a tree trunk or branch eating small bugs.  They are very well camouflaged.

 

The next page is an Acorn Woodpecker.  This species is very rare in our part of the world, but one showed up in a city park a couple weeks ago and stayed for a few days.  They are unique in that they collectively gather food (acorns primarily, of course) and then store it in a granary tree which is shown here.  They drill appropriately-sized holds for the acorns and then wedge them in so tightly that even squirrels can't extract them.  The stored acorns then provide food for the birds, who live communally in an extended family group.  And yes, they do look rather clown-like in real life...!

 

The following duck in flight is a Northern Pintail, a very elegantly handsome species so named because of its longish, sharp tail.  This is a drake (male). 

 

The next bird is a Purple Finch female.  The male is colorful with wine-colored head and upper breast whereas the female is a drab light brown.  There are structural differences you get to know between this bird and the House Finch female, which is very similar.  The most obvious difference is that the female Purple Finch shown here has a light-colored 'supercilium' (eyebrow) which the female House Finch lacks.

 

And finally for this group, a Pied-billed Grebe, an interesting waterbird species that is commonly found on freshwater ponds and sloughs.  This species has the unique ability to partially submerge if needed to make itself less conspicuous and of course it is an accomplished underwater diver and swimmer since it obtains its food under the surface of the water.

 

Recent Bird and Wildlife Sketches

Here are a few recent sketches.  I have been doing mostly quick pieces in a nature journal over the last month, working on material to be used for finished pieces down the road. 

The first page is a number of quick sketches of Golden-crowned Sparrows, using video I shot in our yard as a reference.

 

The next group of sketches is Band-tailed Pigeons from another yard video.

 

This sketch is from a friend's photo, of a coyote 'mousing' in a park.  The coyotes jump into the air and down onto an area where they believe there is a mouse.  This scares the mouse, which moves, and the coyote gets a tasty meal.

 

The next sketch is also from a yard video, and shows a couple views of a Red-breasted Nuthatch, and one of a Chestnut-backed Chickadee.

 

The next bird is a winter resident in our area - a Fox Sparrow.  This was done from a photo that I took a couple years ago.

 

 

The next sketch is of an orb weaver spider that was right outside our back door.  I took a closeup picture of it and drew this with Pitt artist brush pens. 

 

This is a Merlin ('Pacific' or 'Black' subspecies, much darker than other subspecies).  It visited a raptor snag near our house and I sketched it, then refined it using a photo reference.

 

This fawn was from a photo I took from our back yard. 

 

This is a ground squirrel that decided to (I think) warm up in the morning sun after a cold night.  He did this by hanging from a barbed wire and standing on another strand - rather comical. 

 

This California Quail was drawn from a photo I took at work a couple years ago.

 

This cougar has lived for 17 years at a nearby zoo - he was born in captivity.  I took a video of him at the zoo and sketched him in several poses from the video. 

 

Ruby-crowned Kinglet - graphite sketches

This species is a very small and very active species - Ruby-crowned Kinglet.  I had two photos of these birds and decided to do some quick graphite (woodless graphite - 2B,4B and 6B) sketches of them.

Golden-crowned Kinglet

This little guy is a Golden-crowned Kinglet, one of two kinglets (the other being Ruby-crowned) that are winter residents in our area.  They are smaller than chickadees and at least as active.  This is done in colored pencil from a photo I took at work. 

Golden-crowned Sparrow and Yellow-rumped Warbler

These are both done in Polychromos colored pencils in an A5 size Moleskine sketchbook.  Both used photos I took of the species over the past few years. 

Anna's Hummingbird

This is a male Anna's Hummingbird guarding its territory at the very top of a conspicuous perch.  Hummers are very feisty and aggressive, belying their 'oh, isn't he cute' appearance.  This is done in Polychromos colored pencils from a photo I took a couple years ago.  It took about an hour while watching TV in the background...

Bonaparte's Gull - watercolor

This is a quick sketch in a Moleskine notebook, about 5.5 x 8.5 inches, done in watercolor with an initial light pencil sketch.  The species is a Bonaparte's Gull, a small and delicate (by gull standards) species.  There is about half an hour in the sketch in total.  These birds are common in certain parts of Puget Sound, but not in the areas where I typically bird.  The reference was a photo I took several years ago.

Bird Sketches - Redhead, Ruddy Duck, California Gull, Cooper's Hawk, Green Heron

I've been doing a lot of bird sketching (both in the field and from photos) lately, and so am posting a few of the most recent ones here.  These are all in a small Moleskine sketchbook (5 x 8.5") and done in colored pencils from photographs.

This one is of a Redhead, a type of duck found mostly in the eastern half of my home state, although a very few stray west of the Cascades during migration or in winter.

This fellow, a male (drake) Ruddy Duck is shown in breeding plumage, which in this species has the male sporting an almost ridiculously bright blue bill.  This species has declined in my area over the last couple of decades, so takes some searching to locate.

Next up is a California Gull, which is a summer resident in my home area, but which migrates south in the winter.  Unfortunately I hurried this drawing and missed a major field mark (which is already on the original) - that being a bright red spot on the lower mandible just a bit back from the tip of the bill. 

The next is a juvenile Cooper's Hawk, a relatively small hawk that preys on smaller birds.  This bird stayed around feeders I had put up at work all winter in his first year, and it was comical watching him try to become a proficient hunter.  I actually thought he wouldn't make it through the winter because he was so inept at catching other birds initially, but he made it through.

And finally, one of my favorite wading bird species - a Green Heron.  In this case, the bird in the image (from a photo I took) is a juvenile bird - you can tell due to the coloration and the markings on the breast and belly. 

 
 
 

Common Merganser

This bird was the most frequently seen waterfowl on my recent float trip in central Oregon.  It is a (female) Common Merganser, which is a diving duck that feeds on fish.  The long, serrated bill is adapted for grabbing and holding slippery fish.  These birds often perch on rocks and logs in the water in groups of a couple to as many as 15 or even more.  This one is painted in watercolor, using a reference photo from a field guide book.  The image here has a pink cast that isn't there in reality - I should have taken the photo in natural light during the day.  Photoshop color-balancing didn't completely fix the problem. 

Central Oregon Landscapes - Plein Air Pastels

In the first week of August this year, I went on my 25th annual float trip down the Deschutes River in Central Oregon with two buddies from a company we all worked at together.  Before the actual float trip started, I took a day and did two plein air pastels.  Both are 9x12" approximately and were done in about two hours each.  The first one is of a typical scene from the Metolius River, a gorgeous spring-sourced river west of Sisters, Oregon.  The river has a number of half-submerged logs, and because it is spring-fed, the river level is quite stable and doesn't tend to disturb these features.  Consequently many of them have grasses and other plants growing on them, as in this painting.

 

The next painting is looking south toward two of the three 'Sisters' after which the town of Sisters is named.  The mountains are North, Middle and South Sisters and North and Middle are the two shown in this painting.  This was done from a meadow preserve near Sisters.

 

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

 

Fir Island Slough and Olympic Mountains - pastels

This piece is 9x12" on Wallis paper, done plein air during a 9-day workshop through LaConner Art Workshops in Mount Vernon, WA. 

Beaver Lake Lily Pads - Plein Air

This is a 9 x 12" painting in soft pastels on Wallis paper.  It was done in a couple of hours in the morning, which was cool, with low clouds and mist so the image has an overall dark value structure.  I was fortunate to just finish a 9-day pastel plein air workshop with Richard McKinely, who is an outstaning painter and instructor.

Chestnut-backed Chickadee - Colored Pencil

Everybody loves chickadees, but many people don't realize that there are multiple species in North America.  One of the four species we have in my home state is the Chestnut-backed Chickadee, due to the chestnut color on their back and flanks.  These birds tend to hang around coniferous forest in preference to deciduous trees.

Belted Kingfisher - Gouache Sketch

This is another gouache quickie done in the Moleskine watercolor sketchbook, about 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches.  Done from a photo I took on Puget Sound a couple years ago.  This interesting species is smaller than a crow but larger than a robin (closer to the crow in size) and as the name implies, preys on fish.  One could probably guess that by looking at the bill as well.  They hunt fish by sight and are able to go into the water a short distance after an aerial dive to grab the prey.  They then typically take it to a tree branch, perch and whack the fish against the trunk or something hard to make sure it isn't going to wiggle around on the way down on in the stomach...!  They have a characteristic raspy rattling call that they make while working over their hunting territory.  This bird is a female, discernable because of the rust-color markings on the breast and belly.  Males are all white on the underparts, lacking the rusty red color.

Bird Sketches - Gouache

Here are some recent bird sketches done with gouache, in a Moleskine watercolor sketchbook, about 5.5 x 8.5 inches. 

This first one is a SPOTTED TOWHEE, a western species that is actually in the sparrow family that is a woods-dweller that is fairly shy.  Its contact note sounds like a cat's meow.

The next painting is a STELLER'S JAY - the western USA's 'blue jay' (the official Blue Jay is an eastern bird, and both are in the Corvid family).  These are aggressive, vocal and active birds, and also very handsome especially in direct sunlight illuminating their metallic blue top feathers.

The next bird is a goofy-looking shorebird called a BLACK OYSTERCATCHER.  They are almost all black in the body, with a seemingly ridiculous long and strong chisel-shaped red-orange bill.  This bill is used for prying open their prey - bivalves such as limpits, mussells, clams and oysters.  They live entirely on rocky areas on the ocean shores where there are tidal swings.  They do not dive underwater for food, so feed at low tide by scrabbling around on the rocks and finding bivalves to pry off and open.

The next image is an EASTERN KINGBIRD,  a type of flycatcher bigger than the Willow Flycatcher and similar species. 

And the final bird for this post - a TREE SWALLOW.  The swallow species are all friendly and beneficial birds that consume a lot of bugs.  I really like the metallic, almost irridescent blue on the upperparts of the Tree Swallow.

  
 
 

Bird Sketches - Colored Pencil

I've started keeping two bird sketch journals.  This one is a Moleskine 'large' (about 5.5 x 8.5 inches) sketchbook designed more for dry media than wet media.  The pieces I've been doing in there are usually 15 minute types of sketches, although in a few cases I'm spending more time.  Most (as with the ones that follow) are done in colored pencil, and specifically Faber Castell Polychromos pencils.  I like them better than the more common Prismacolors because the Polychromos are oil-based rather than wax-based and therefore do not have the wax 'blooming' issue that Prismas can have.  Also, if the 'lead' inside the Prismas breaks, you try to sharpen it and it continues to break off until you come to the internal break - which can mean you waste most of a pencil.

In any event, here are a few of the more recent bird sketches in the dry media bird sketchbook.

This is an AMERICAN COOT, a goofy species which has some unique and comical behaviors.  They have an ivory white bill and weird orangeish-green legs.  And, they 'moon' each other when defending their territories - rather comical.  Interestingly, though, they are one of a relatively few number of bird species that can tell if an egg in its nest has been laid by another bird (called 'brood parasitizing') and can also tell if a hatchling is not one of theirs.  Eggs and hatchlings that are not from the nesting pair are destroyed by the bird, something that usually does not happen in other species with brood parasitizing.  Coots lay so many eggs that it is rare for all of even the 'real' ones to survive and so that is the theory for why they are so oriented on destroying a competitive pair's eggs.

This cute little bird is a NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL - a bird that is smaller than a robin, but still a fearsome predator for the correct size prey, as are all owls. 

The next one is a headshot drawing of a HOUSE FINCH male, a fairly common bird in many areas.

And the last one for this post is a WILLOW FLYCATCHER - which, as you would guess from its name, subsists solely on insects.  This bird belongs to the Empidonax genus, which is a notoriously difficult group to visually ID - birders rely on vocalizations in many cases for a positive ID.  This bird gives a wheezy/raspy 'sneeze' that sounds like FITZ-beewwww.

 

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. 

Female Red-winged Blackbird - Colored Pencil

This image was done in about 2 1/2 hours while watching TV in the background.  The reference was a photo I took near our house a couple years ago.  This bird is the female Red-winged Blackbird, which obviously looks very different from the male, which gives the species its name.  The females confuse people often since they look so different than the males.  I used Polychromos colored pencils for this and it was done in a Moleskine sketchbook, utilizing both pages - so it is about 8 1/2 x 11" total.  I was pleased with how this one came out.

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). 

 
 

 

Bird Sketches - Black-throated Blue Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Ovenbird, Northern Waterthrush, Carolina Chickadee, Merlin

These are more bird sketches done on a quick east coast trip.  All were done in colored pencil in a Moleskine sketchbook - 5 1/2 x 8 1/2", taking between 20 and 40 minutes per sketch.  Several are east-coast species that we don't get to see out in the Pacific Northwest that I was able to see at Heinz National Wildlife Refuge (Tinicum Marsh) very close to the Philadelphia International Airport. 

These are done either using photos that I took as a reference, or referencing a field guide or magazine photo.

BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER

MAGNOLIA WARBLER

OVENBIRD

NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH

CAROLINA CHICKADEE

MERLIN

 
 
 

Bird Sketches - Lincoln's Sparrow, Varied Thrush, Band-tailed Pigeon, American Goldfinch, Song Sparrow

These were all done as quick sketches, using colored pencil, during a quick five-day trip to the east coast and back.  These are all done in a Moleskine sketchbook, about 5 1/2 x 8 1/2" and each one was between 20 and 40 minutes.  Several were done in the airport or on the plane.  All used photo references, either photos I took of the birds or a field guide. 

LINCOLN'S SPARROW

VARIED THRUSH

BAND-TAILED PIGEON

AMERICAN GOLDFINCH

SONG SPARROW

 
 
 

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.

Northwest Woods - Stumps and Rocks

This is a watercolor, 7 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches on Arches watercolor sketchbook paper.  It was done on-site (plein air) in about 1 1/2 hours.  The salmonberry flowers are out now and hummingbirds are back in the area. 

Gary D - pastels

This is another, larger portrait of Gary my fellow band member.  This was done in a couple of hours and is about 18x18" on Strathmore charcoal paper with soft pastels. 

Gary

This is a 12x9" quick (1 to 1 1/2 hour) sketch of my fellow band member Gary, done from a photo in Conte pencil on sketchbook paper.  Portraits are definitely not my primary area of interest, but I am taking figure drawing classes to help my ability to see (and draw what I see) even if it's not something I do beyond classes.  Friends thought this was a good likeness of Gary (a previously nonexistent occurrence with my attempts at portraits) so I viewed this one as a success.  I'll be trying it in a bigger format and using more color for class homework this quarter.

Western Wood-Pewee

This is a 12 x 9" transparent watercolor done from a photo I took a couple years ago.  This species is a type of flycatcher, aptly named because its food source is insects which are caught in midair as the bird flies out from a perch to grab the bug.  It is common in WA state in the summer and its descending call of PEEEerr can be easily and frequently heard. 

Black-headed Grosbeak - Perched

This painting is a 14x10" watercolor done from a photo I took a few years ago.  This is a male bird - immature males and the females are the same basic pattern but less intense/bright colors. 

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. 

Deschutes River Ponderosas - Late Afternoon

This is a 10x14" watercolor done from a photo taken along the Deschutes River in central Oregon.  The river is in a basalt canyon and so gets sun late in the morning and long shadows well before sunset.  This is an area where two friends and I camp on an annual float trip. 

Smith Rocks - Crooked River, Oregon

I have been doing a lot of art related to classes, but not much on my own and haven't posted for some time.  Here is a 10x14" watercolor I just finished.  It is from a reference photo I took on a trip through central Oregon last year.  This location is Smith Rocks, in the Crooked River canyon near Terrebonne, Oregon.  It is a world-famous rock climbing destination.  The rock faces which are so valued by the rock climbers are also very picturesque, especially in early or late light. 

River Landscape - Feb 2010 WetCanvas Landscape Challenge

This image is about 9x12" in watercolor.  It is from a reference photo for the monthly landscape challenge thread from WetCanvas.com for February of 2101.  This was painted quickly - less than two hours - but came out reasonably well. 

Autumn Pond - pastels

This painting is 8x10" done on a tan Pastelbord surface, using Unison pastels.  It was done pretty quickly - a little over two hours.  The reference image is from WetCanvas.com's February landscape monthly challenge thread. 

American Kestrel - watercolor

This painting is about 9x12" in watercolor with touches of gouache.  The American Kestrel is the smallest member of the falcon family in the US, and is one of my favorite species of raptors.  The painting was done from a photo that I took several years ago.  This bird is a female based on the coloration of its plumage. 

Canadian Snow Scene - pastels

This is a 12x16" snow scene done with soft pastels on white Pastelmat paper.  I haven't done much work with snow, so handling the colors of the snow was a challenge here.  I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out, although it was a learning experience for the next one - as every painting is...!

Joshua Tree Sunrise - pastels

This painting is the first piece I've done in pastels for several months.  It is 12x16" on sienna colored Pastelmat.  The reference was a photo I took several years ago on a photography trip to Joshua Tree Nation Park.  I was out before sunrise on that trip every day looking for scenes like this where I could silhouette a joshua tree against the rising sun.  This resulted in some nice photos.  The foreground colors in this work (orange and blue in particular) show up in the photo as more intense than they actually are - probably because the photo was taken with flash.  Overall, I'm fairly pleased with how this came out.

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. 

Whimbrel Sketch - Watercolor

This is a quick watercolor sketch of a Whimbrel, a shorebird that I photographed several years ago at Tokeland, WA. 

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.

 

Marbled Godwit

The Marbled Godwit is a shorebird species that winters on the Washington coast - specifically, they are traditionally found at the Tokeland, WA marina.  When weather and tides are right, several hundred of these birds can be seen within feet of the boardwalk at the marina.  This is a small watercolor study, about 5x7" on Arches watercolor journal paper.  It was painted direct, with no preliminary drawing, although I did do a pen sketch in a sketchbook several nights before this was painted. 

Grand Canyon - Side Canyon Tributary

This image is a 9x12" watercolor on Arches 140# cold press paper, using Daniel Smith Prima-Tek watercolor paints with some touches of gouache.  The Prima-Tek paints are great for landscapes, especially those with rocks or cliffs in them because the paints are mineral based and have a natural texture and granulating characteristics to them that lends itself well to rocks.  This was painted from a reference photo my neighbor took this August on his 15-day float trip through the canyon.  Although the canyon is fairly large, it has the feel of a slot canyon, becauuse most of it is in shaded light due to the towering canyon walls.  The one spot of direct sunlight where the stream disappears around the bend attracted me to the image - that spot gives a natural focal point and is a nice contrast with the colors and shaded lighting on the rest of the canyon.  The water really is a chalky blue there, due to dissolved minerals in the water. 

Grand Canyon - Canyon View on a Float Trip

This painting is a 9x12" watercolor study done for my neighbor, who was fortunate enough to take a 15-day float trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in the summer of 2009.  He has asked me to paint several scenes from his photographs of the trip.  The colors in the photograph of this image are not quite like the original (it's very tough to get good photographs of paintings) but give a feel for it.  I probably will re-do this one with a few changes (hopefully improvements) but it was a good study to get a feeling for the scene. 

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.