Gate

Here’s an 8×10 I’m working on.  From one of my west Texas reference photos…

3 weeks to White Linen Night, Houston Texas

We’re trying to put together a few new pieces of work, and doing some minor tweaking of the booth, in preparation for White Linen Night in the historic Heights area of Houston, Texas.

It’s only three weeks away (Saturday, August 1st, 6-10pm)  Here’s a link to some information about the event.  We’re going to be at our usual location with the First Saturday Arts Market next to Wind Water Gallery.

http://www.artshound.com/event/detail/26461

Winding Creek

Near where we live, there is a new subdivision being built.  Between the main road and the construction area, there is a creek that winds around in a wooded area.  I’ve been watching the alteration of this area for well over a year, and went down the other day to see how much damage had been done.  The construction has changed the landscape in many of the areas along the creek, but I managed to find a couple of spots that were still relatively undisturbed.  This is one of them.

Gouache ~ 11×14

More small paintings

I’ve been wanting to see what happens when one paints over a solid color underpainting.  Because of the lifting characteristic of gouache, I wondered how much of the undercoat would be picked up and mixed with the new strokes.  So, here are five experiments, using different colors as a base coat.  In some cases, I did a light pencil sketch first, then painted the entire surface with a single color.  In other cases, I painted directly over the undercoat, with no preliminary drawing.  And in a couple of cases, I did simple gouache sketches, then painted over them with the undercoat.

In fact, I managed to remember to scan a couple of the sketches, so here they are first:

And here are five new little pieces done over a color underpainting.  All are 5×7.  The first was done on Multimedia Artboard; the rest were on Crescent cold press illustration board.  My personal preference for this is the illustration board.  The paint seems to sit on the surface of the Multimedia board, and doesn’t dry quite as fast.  On the Crescent board, the paint dries immediately, and is absorbed into the board, thus giving me a better paint surface to work on top of.  I also found that I needed to use more opaque strokes, rather than very wet.  I’m happy with the results, and will probably introduce the underpainting into a lot more of my work.

Houston… again

We continue paying our dues with the Parker Roadshow.  This life is not for everyone.  Setting up in 90 degree heat in Houston, Texas… on an asphalt parking lot, can be daunting.  And we did it after a five hour drive.  This was an evening show, from 6pm to 10pm, so we started setting up a little after 3pm.  Fortunately, we learned a few things last time, so we took a fan and got it going while we were setting up.  Even with the fan, we found ourselves stopping often, just to sit down in the shade for a couple of minutes.  Hot, hot, hot.  We fought our way through it, and were ready to go by show time.  Soaking wet, but ready.

There was a bigger crowd than last month, and we got lots of visitors to the booth.  The interesting thing about this show is that the age demographic seems to cover the whole spectrum.  And it’s always interesting to watch which pieces get close looks from different ages.  For us, it was a good show.  Not fantastic, but good.  At least we sold enough to pay for the trip this time.  We have been invited back for the show in August, which apparently is a big deal in the historic Heights area of Houston.  It’s billed as “White Linen Night”.  Here’s a little blurb about it from a blog called “Shop Girl”:

“The Heights White Linen Night, from 6 to 10 p.m., encourages attendees to don their coolest white linen and, yes, shop.  Participating businesses, identified by white linen banners hanging outside, will offer live entertainment and beverages.

A New Orleans tradition, White Linen Night is ideal for the quaint and quirky spots in the Heights. The event will wind through the streets of the Heights, including White Oak, Heights, Studewood, Yale, 11th, 19th, Ashland and Waugh. There also will be free air-conditioned trolleys.”

Although we’re not looking forward to setting up in the middle of the afternoon in August, we are looking forward to the show.  And… just to show that the heat only dampened our clothes, but not our spirits, here’s a picture of Nell, right after we finished setup, and just before show time.  (Yes, I did get permission to post the photo.)

The fan behind our chairs was put up by the folks behind us, and even though it was aimed at them, we think it was helpful to us as well.  Our fan is on the ground right in front of our chairs, behind the table.  We left the back of the booth open, both for our own comfort, and that of our customers.  Did I mention the heat?  It didn’t seem to be a distraction for anyone.  Nell’s been doing some wonderful little mini florals that we put on the table right at the front of the booth.  They’re great traffic stoppers.  They not only help draw people into the booth, but we’ve sold a number of them.  People love them.  I discovered a couple of months ago that Nell has always secretly wanted to draw and paint, but she has suppressed it in deference to my art for the whole 19 years we’ve been married.  Once I learned this, I’ve been encouraging her to get started.  The minis are a beginning.  Now she’s about to dig out my Prismacolor pencils and have a go at that.  I think it’s pretty cool.

The lights worked great, by the way.  We used the flourescent spiral bulbs, and got no heat from the lights at all.  And even though they are the Cool White bulbs, they put off a warm light on the artwork, so the color didn’t wash out at all.  We’ll continue to tweak the booth.  One thing is to do a better job of aligning the artwork on the walls.  The long range goal is to standardize the frames, but we’ll have to do that slowly over time.  Below is a shot of the passageway in front of our booth, just before show time.  It was narrow, but didn’t seem to bother the crowd at all.

Featured Artist ~ First Saturday Arts Market June Show

Mitch Cohen, of the First Saturday Arts Market in Houston, Texas, just sent me this press release that now appears in the Houston Chronicle.  I’ll be the Featured Artist at the June 6th Show in the historic Houston Heights area.  How cool is that?

http://blogs.chron.com/centralhouston/2009/05/first_saturday_is_june_6.html

And here’s the Arts Market blog:

http://www.yalestreetmarket.com/Yalest/Artists

Demo ~ Tyler Art League

I had a very enjoyable evening recently, doing a demonstration for the Tyler Art League in Tyler, Texas.  It was my first demo, and the folks there made me feel very welcome, and put me at ease very quickly.  Gouache is a medium that most artists aren’t very familiar with, so there was quite a bit of explanation necessary, from types of materials and setup to the unique characteristics of the paint itself.  Unfortunately, because of that, the demo painting didn’t get very far.  I felt bad about that, so, for the nice folks at the Tyler Art League, I’m posting a step-by-step, along with some progress photos and close-ups.

Below is the painting as it is now.  I may tweak a few things before calling it entirely done, but it won’t be anything major.  This is 16×20, gouache on Multimedia Artboard.

Below is the work we got done that night:

I started with a block-in of the major shapes, establishing my dark areas, getting some basic color into the sky, and the strong undercoat for the grass that is my usual starting point.  For the darks, I used ultramarine and burnt umber, for the sky, I laid in some random shapes with ultramarine, burnt umber and titanium white.  The grass areas are pure yellow ochre straight from the tube.  These areas were painted in very quickly, with very opaque paint at first, then wetter, and more transparent as I worked in lighter areas.  I then went back into the major tree shape with yellow ochre, starting at the top lightest area, and working down into the shape.  Although we didn’t get any further than this with the painting, I think the point was made regarding my embrace and extensive use of the lifting characteristic of gouache.  As I carried the brush strokes down, the dry layer of ultramarine and burnt umber was reactivated, and mixed with the yellow ochre.  A previously dark blue-gray mass began to take on varying shades of green.

Next are a couple of progress shots as I worked on the painting back in the studio:

The telephone poles were a major decision for me, because I rarely include them in my paintings.  Here, however, I felt it might give the scene a slightly more contemporary feeling, and I needed them to help balance the composition as well.  The poles were laid in with a palette knife, something I’ve only tried a couple of times, and am not very handy with.  But it did help keep the poles fairly straight, much easier than using a brush.  Using ultramarine, medium yellow and yellow ochre, I started laying in some greens in the grass areas and to identify the background trees.  I’ve said before that I tend to use a  lot of yellow ochre, but it provides an underlayer in some areas that contributes to a somewhat luminous glow, and I believe it helps tie the entire painting together.  I worked with pretty thin paint at this stage, almost washing it in for the background trees, and letting it lift the foreground paint to get some more directional brush strokes, just trying to establish the lay of the land.  I laid in some strokes in the road as well, adjusting the width as it receded.  These were primarily directional strokes with thin paint, using yellow ochre, burnt umber and titanium white.

The next image shows the development of the greens.

At this stage, I began to use combinations of ultramarine, medium yellow, lemon yellow, burnt umber, yellow ochre and titanium white.  Keep in mind that, as new strokes were laid on top, the first stroke was generally very opaque, but subsequent strokes moistened the underlying paint, pulling it into the color mix.  I generally begin these strokes with a light color, at the lightest point of a particular mass, as in the big tree and the clump of bushes in front of it, and work my way down into the shape, allowing the new strokes to mix the paint as I go, taking me from light to dark, with new color variations.

The following closeup shows the development of the clump of bushes in front of the tree.

Next is the painting as it stands now:

Indication of trees in the far background on the left, serves as a stop at the edge of the painting, and adds a sense of distance  i.e. what lies over the hill?  I brought in a few more strokes in the road, and decided not to overwork it with a lot of detail.  I spent a little time in the sky, bringing in some touches of yellow ochre and white at the horizon, most strongly where the road tops the hill, darkened the shadow crossing the road, generally trying to strengthen the focal area of the painting.  Then, more work in the sky, with mixtures of white, ultramarine and just a touch of burnt umber.  I cleaned up the poles a little, but left them simple with no detail, trying to make sure they recede into the distance.

The rest of the time was spent in further development of the greens in both the trees and the grass.  This was done with touches of varying mixtures of ultramarine, lemon yellow, yellow ochre, a touch of red, burnt umber, and titanium white.  Some strokes were fairly opaque while others were just light washes with a very light touch.

I’m not totally convinced of a couple of areas, but I’m going to live with it awhile before doing any more to it.

I’ve included some close-ups here, because I think the close-ups really give a better picture of the color variations that develop when bringing wet strokes over dry paint, and the textural quality that happens by using those worn, bristle craft brushes that I tend to use more than anything else.  I’ve sharpened the close-ups a little, just to emphasize the brushwork.  From a couple of feet away, there is a real sense of softness that’s created by the blending of the paint and the bristles of the brush.

Those who got a closer look at this at the demo may recognize that the darkest edges of the tree are untouched from the very first initial strokes.  By using a light touch with those worn bristles, this was just enough, and I found no reason to go back into this area.

This view gives an idea how working down from the lightest spots picks up existing dark color, changing not only the color, but the value as I move down.  You can also see how spots that were not touched, or that were touched only lightly, allow the color below to come through.  Had the yellow ochre under there had a touch more yellow mixed into it, this area would have really glowed.

An even better example of working strokes of very thin, almost transparent paint as well as more opaque strokes, over the existing dry paint, picking up and mixing with the underlayers, but also allowing those colors below to shine through in spots.  The intent on my part is to indicate grass without painting grass.  The hardest thing for me to keep in mind is that the painting is intended to be viewed from several feet away, not nose-to-surface.

The sky is another example of using all the characteristics of gouache:  quick drying paint, wet transparent washes, very opaque touches, lifting, all of those things come into play especially in the sky.

Hopefully, this is somewhat educational.  I can’t stress enough that there are as many ways to paint with gouache as there are artists using it.  It’s really a very versatile medium once one begins to experiment and learn what happens to it when you touch it onto a surface.

And, to the folks at the Tyler Art League, I hope this adds to the little bit of painting you actually got to see at the demo.  Thanks again for the warm welcome!

Little House by the Garden

Due to a paint peeling issue, I’ve recently had to remove some 25 paintings from my inventory.  It was kind of disappointing to go to the show in Houston without some of those pieces.  Since some of them were personal favorites, and, I believe, some of my better work, I’ve been repainting some of them.  Sadly, you can never recapture the same feel that occured in the moment, but they’re close, and I’m going to be happy with them.  In between those, just to keep things fresh, I did this little imagination piece.  I tried to keep it loose and fun, just exploring the colors and brushwork.  This is 8×10, gouache on Multimedia Artboard.

Country Road

This is another piece that’s larger than my norm, but I do enjoy the size.  Although this is an imaginary scene, it’s one that just feels very familiar.  Since we’ve started taking the work to the public, we’re hearing a lot of references to that sense of familiarity.  People look at the general body of work, and really do use words like ”peaceful” and ”serene”, and then they point at specific paintings and say “That reminds me of…”.  I get tremendous pleasure and a real sense of validation from those comments, especially when they come from complete strangers who could easily have just walked on past the booth.

Although the composition is “invented”, an Eric Tiemens term which I like, I used several photographs taken in Ohio as references for this one, just to keep me focused on shapes and especially the interior volume of the the trees.  One of the challenges I really enjoy is trying to capture that volume and sense of depth, but still keep it fairly impressionistic.  Hopefully I was reasonably successful with this one.

This is 16×20, gouache on Multimedia Artboard

First Saturday Arts Market, Houston, TX

After a real dud of a show at the Granbury, Texas convention center in April, this show in Houston was a real joy.

This was a fun show.  When we signed up to participate in this, we didn’t realize that it’s just one part of a larger event, with venues in various places around Houston’s historic Heights area.  The organizer for the Arts Market is Mitch Cohen, and he does a good job with this monthly show.  It’s small, around 35 or so exhibitors, but there are several things we like about it.  It’s in a parking lot, between two buildings, and because of the U-shaped layout, every visitor who came into the venue went past our booth.  Traffic wasn’t huge on May 2nd, but when you combine the economy, concerns about swine flu, and the fact that it was the first Saturday in a while that folks in Houston didn’t get rain (an opportunity to get their yard work done), we felt it was not bad.  We also got the impression that a lot of the visitors check the show out every month.  Mitch appears to be working hard to keep a good mix, while trying to keep the quality up.

Lots of friendly foks came through, spent some time with us, and we even sold a few small paintings.  The other vendors were friendly as well, some offering us tips.  Other artists had some nice things to say about the work, and visited with us at various times during the day.  During teardown, our neighbor behind us stopped long enough to help me get the tent closed up while Nell went to move the car.

The only real negative for us was that it was hot and humid, but that’s Houston.  I was soaking wet by the time we got done with setup, and stayed that way all day.  The solution: get a small fan or two to get air to circulate in the booth.  We learned our lesson about leaving the back wall open at the Tyler show, so this time, with no rain in the forecast, we left the back wall off to let air flow through, and visited with the neighbor behind us during slow moments.

We added a few smaller, lower priced pieces for this show, and it was a smart move.  Nell has started doing some simple, tiny floral minis, which we put in ornate tiny frames.  We had them on a table near the front of the booth, and they served as excellent people stoppers.  I had some little 4×6’s on the table as well.  We took mostly small pieces: only two 11×14’s, a dozen or so 8×10’s, and the rest 5×7’s.  My prices are low, and the mix works well for us.  I’m in the process of doing more 5×7’s, and have a larger 16×20 on the easel now.  That one will go on the back wall of the booth, hopefully to pull more people into the booth.

If it sounds like we’ve gone “commercial”, well, I guess we have.  But hey, I’m 65, and a long, successful career as a gallery artist is probably not realistic.  Besides, in another year or so, we hope to hit the road in a travel trailer, and we intend to do a lot of small, low-end shows, as well as the occasional larger one.  The goal is to travel, paint, sell paintings, see the country, and live a stress-free life as much as possible.  This little show in Houston will most likely be on our regular show list.  We truly enjoy getting feedback from visitors, and selling the art directly to the public.  For us, it’s all part of life’s adventures.

I’ve just let Mitch know that we want to do the next one, on Saturday, June 6th.  The next few shows there will be evening shows, so we’ve got to get some lights.  We’re having fun.  Hot, sweaty fun.  Setup and teardown both go a little better each time.  And we’re getting better at organizing the load in the back of the Trailblazer.  Once everything’s broken down, we can load in about twenty minutes.  And we’ve got unloading when we get home down to a 15 minute science.  Still operating in the red, but we expected that in the beginning.  We’re very optimistic.