Late to the Party Sketches

Scavenger Hunt from Life 33 started on the 25th so I'm late to the party.  I did paint the Hollyhocks in my own defense.  

I sketched out on the porch in the regular paper sketchbook with a Micron 02.  Nothing new there.  These are for Hunt 33, you can click on them to see them a bit larger.

https://creativespark.art/threads/scavenger-hunt-from-live-33-july-25-aug-2.4244

 

 Number 1, open field -toward the path and trees

Number 2, tree - the big tree that looses its leaves last and and gets them last.  The first few years we thought it was dead.

 

 

I sketched the big tree in the coffee table book with a Micron 05 way back in 2016 in the winter. 

 

 

 

I also sketched it in 2021 with Inktense pencils and a bit of water, looks like the fall of 2021.  In this sketch it was a substitute for a cottonwood tree.

Tree Sketch

For the second sketch of Hunt 618

http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1475894

I chose tree. Trees are not the easiest thing to draw.  Each one has a personality.  I spent quite a while studying them back in 2006.  You can review my process here on my blog. 

https://jocastilloartblog.blogspot.com/search?q=tree+study

Over the years it has become easier to draw and paint trees.  Like anything you paint it is all about light, value and negative spaces.  Negative space is the space around the drawing.  The open spaces between the trunks and limbs and leaves.  Tree holes.

In colored paintings where the sky shows through the leaves you paint it just a tad darker than the sky as you are looking through a tunnel of sorts.

Number 2 tree - a Yaupon and cedar that we see through the guest room window.  We don't look out that way much as the room isn't used often.  Drawn with the Pilot Ink Pen that I thought didn't work any more.  It does if you hold it at just the right spot.  I almost threw it away.  Whew.

Yaupon is a type of holly and grows all over the place.  It is very flammable and part of the problem in the big fire of 2011.  It is growing up at the bottom of these trees and should be trimmed again.  Yaupon is pretty and delicate looking.  The female plants have red berries.   This tree is a male I guess, no berries.  We took out the rest when we cleaned the yard.  The cedar trees are not native to the area and soak up all the water.    That is about all the trees left in our yard.  There was an oak and another big Yaupon by the driveway.  The guys that cleaned the brush out took them too.  I wasn't very happy to loose the oak especially.

If you click on 'trees' at the bottom of my blog in Labels.  You will see many paintings and sketches of trees when I remembered to label them.  They might give you some ideas.

Hunting, Music, Light

I sketched this morning here at my computer having my coffee and snack.  As usual, freehand and in the travel sketchbook with a Micron 05.

Number 10, clicks - my favorite ball point pen, a Pilot Pen.  It is not as chubby as I sketched it.
Number 11, handle - the front door handle.  It has a Realtor's lock box on it.  Guess the house is always for sale.

We went to Taos last night to attend a house concert featuring Susan Gibson.  It was great.  She puts on such a good show.  She will be in Taos again tonight at the Taos Inn and then start winding her way back to Texas, too.  The hostess had a potluck dinner first and then music in the patio and yard which was attached to an old adobe house.  Very beautiful evening.  A light sprinkle of rain at first, but calmed down and we had music and cricket noises.  Susan travels with three dogs and a chihuahua and I was surprised none of them sing along. (The dogs were in the van, not in the yard.) She has a great voice and can really play the guitar and banjo.  Check out her schedule and how she shares her talents on her website.  http://susangibson.com
 

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I am always finding light.  It is really hard to capture in photos.  I love the way the light filters through the trees.

Here is a photo I took this morning and how blah it looks.

I adjusted the light, shadows, etc., in my Photoshop Elements.  It is still not how I see it in my mind.  I guess I will have to paint it to show you what I see!  I see rich warm yellowy colors in the light and beautiful purples in the shadows.  Hmmmm.

Workshop Finishes

After returning from the Tom Christopher http://tomchristopherartist.com workshop, I have been busy trying out some of the techniques Tom presented to us.  I really enjoyed working large and have to figure out a way to accomplish more large paintings.

I did not work anymore on the snow painting.  It is from a photo by Tom and will keep it around here for inspiration.  I may get Gene to frame it an put it up in my studio.

Iowa Snow

Pastel on Wallis Sanded Paper

36 24 inches

I accomplished my goals from the workshop.  You can read about how I choose a workshop in Part I of my report.  http://goo.gl/z5tNgk     (I'm using the short URLs so they are easier to copy and use.  Hope you like the idea when the links get sooooo long.)

First the goal and the result:

• To learn new techniques - Tom uses a very light touch and builds up slowly, starting and developing the painting with value and then color.  I often put down my highlights early on and work with a heavy hand.
• To refresh your skills - We worked on some things I already do like do an under painting, do thumbnail sketches, stand to paint, step back often, show depth with cool colors and less detail in the distance and more.
• To travel - We enjoyed Eureka Springs, Arkansas, very much.  We had been nearby in Branson, Missouri, and Poteau, Oklahoma, but never Eureka Springs.  A beautiful area and the Eureka Springs School of the Arts  http://essa-art.org/  was a great location for the workshop.
• To meet and socialize with other artists with similar interests - I especially had fun with Lou.  We have been blogging buddies for several years and this was our first workshop together.  We have painted/sketched in Angel Fire and visited her and Toby in Oklahoma.  It is always good to meet and be around artists with similar interests.  As artists, we work alone much of the time.
• To be inspired - Tom Christopher is a great artist and inspiring to see him work and see how he handles his "business". The whole workshop experience is inspiring

The first painting I started there was from a photo I took in Montana when I went to the Wanda Mumm workshop in 2012.

 The watercolor under painting.

The finish at the workshop.

My finish here in my studio.  

Twighlight Pines

Pastel on Pastelbord, 16 x 20 inches

The second painting from the workshop is from a photo right around the corner here at home in the Loblolly pines.

This was at the workshop.  I wanted to change the palette a bit, so I brushed this off and washed the U-Art paper back to the watercolor under painting before I reworked it.

The watercolor underpainting.

The finish here in my studio.

Daybreak Pines

Pastel on U-Art Sanded Paper

12 x 18 inches

Sendero

Pastel on Pastelbord

11 x 14 inches

This painting from my studio the first part of this year, Sendero, is also near the same area as Daybreak Pines above.  The same but different, I always use more saturated color.  I think there is more distance in the new version and it feels less closed in.  What do you think?

I might be able to copy one of Tom's paintings (if I really tried) but  I was working toward learning and then incorporating some of the new ideas into my own skill folder.  Each artist has their own "handwriting" so to speak.  As a result, my paintings look like my paintings.  I'm starting to enjoy painting again!  Woo hoo!

Sometimes we like an artist and try too hard to change our "handwriting"  Enid Wood http://enidwood.com, friend and artist, sent me this advice, "Often, a painter that we emulate has a brain that works completely differently from ours. Then we beat ourselves up for not being them, when we could have been enjoying being ourselves all along."  Thanks, Enid, for your comments and inspiration.

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Art Link for the Day

A new museum in San Antonio for western American art is opening this weekend.  Looks wonderful:

The Briscoe Western Art Museum

http://www.briscoemuseum.org/

An additional art link for this post is a "new to me" artist that I have seen around the web someplace and may have seen his horse in Santa Fe.  In fact I'm pretty sure I did see it when Regina and I painted there this past summer.  His name is Mark Edward Adams  http://markedwardadams.com  His sculptures are amazing.  He also wrote a very nice blog post about  changing our persona as artists.

I think we should all start out by saying, "I'm an artist!" and go/grow from there.  I still make light of my artwork sometimes by saying I have fun with it or I just like doing it, etc.  I get better results when I say it is my job and how hard I work and how I invest in the best equipment, classes, etc., to improve so that you can enjoy my work, too!  Gene is great, he always introduces me as an artist.  Think about how you present yourself.  I don't think the old "starving unorganized artist" works anymore.  Artists that get ahead are organized, work regularly, and are professional.  Don't you agree?

Plein Air of Sorts

I picked up Enid Wood's paintings along with mine from the Austin Pastel Society's Annual Juried Show in Austin yesterday.  I delivered Enid's to her and we had plans to paint outside this morning for a couple of hours.  It has been near 100 degrees around here lately.  Well, a cold front came in and it was soooo windy this morning.  It has been around 60 degrees all day.  The temperature was not so, so bad for painting but the wind makes it very hard to set up an easel, table for pastels and paint without holding on to everything!

We settled for painting out Enid's dining room window. Therefore, my title for this post.  Was it plein air or not?   This discussion continues in the wetcanvas.com Plein Air Forum all the time.  Do you have to be actually outside to paint plein air or is it just on location looking outside and finish all at once?  What if you are sitting in your car?

It was very cloudy which I was trying to capture.  The painting is not finished, I will work on it more soon and post the finish.

I am the host for Scavenger Hunt 221 and posted the list at the last minute this morning.  I recycled a list I did in February 2007.  (Didn't even really read it.)  When I got home to post this painting, I realized this painting sketch fits the Hunt.  Lucky me!  Sketch number 1, view out any window.

Out Enid's Window, pastel on Colourfix paper, 9 x 9 inches

I like the start on this, hope I get to work on it a while tomorrow or very soon.  Then it will not be a plein air painting anymore, right?

More Info on How to Paint/Draw Trees, New Mexico Photos

Lori Woodward Simons is giving out some information on painting trees. She has some nice examples on her blog.

I started really focusing on trees a couple of years ago in Silver City. It is a never ending journey. I learn something new every time I paint a painting, speaking of which, I better get to work on the painting I started yesterday.

First, here are a few photos from our trip to Magdalena from Angel Fire on Sunday and Monday. There were some huge storms, luckily, we avoided most of them. We did drive in some showers with the big storms all around.

Looking back toward Albuquerque as we got back on I-25 at Isleta.

The Rio Salado run off from the rains in the west. The arroyo is dry most of the year. Of course I had to get the Ladron Mountains in a photo. I took one on the road to Magdalena but in the fog you can't see it at all. I won't post that one. :)



The "M" mountain at Socorro, New Mexico. The M is for the School of Mines, which is now New Mexico Tech.

A mud hole near the rodeo grounds. It made me remember my dad. He could get stuck in the smallest of puddles. We spent a lot of time either digging out or walking to get horses or other vehicles for assistance.

Main Street in Magdalena, New Mexico, my hometown. The only real restaurant, The Magdalena Cafe, on the left and the police department on the right. Not much left in the old town.

The house I lived in as a kid. We had a wire fence with salt cedars in front and a wooden porch across the house. Now part is glassed in. The house is adobe and the walls are a couple of feet thick and I used to like to sit on the window sills and look out the window. There is a big lot and we had corrals in the back for a milk cow or a horse or two and chicken pens. Yuck to the chicken pens.

Pastel Trees

I have been working on painting trees for quite some time, a couple of years right? They are always tricky. I was looking at the pines with some small aspens across the way and got out a small 6 x 12 inch board to give them a try.

This first version was a little dark for my taste and not really defined as to what was there. I do like the pine branches better in this version.

I decided to wipe it off and do the same scene a little lighter so that maybe the aspens would be more noticeable.

I am not any more pleased with this version. Maybe it is the angle from the deck looking down. I don't know. At any rate, I wiped it off and will do something else on the board. Perhaps going down to eye level would be better with such tall trees. It would probably be a better composition.

This is the Pastelbord after wiping and washing. This ghost image just might be the answer. You never know.

I did get in some practice. Anytime you put your brush to canvas or your sticks to paper or board you learn something. Hopefully the next try will be what I am looking for. Check back to find out.

Pastel Trees

Trees are difficult to draw and paint realistically. Photographs pretty much show them to be close in value. You need to push back the background trees, loose the detail and put most of the detail in the closest main trees. Paula Ford is a great artist for doing beautiful trees. She has done a step by step on wetcanvas.com demonstrating her technique.

A couple of years ago, I worked on trees for a few months. Paula's demonstrations were very helpful. Check out this demo and think about joining up on wetcanvas.com. There is a forum for every artistic interest. There are so many choices, it can be confusing, but you can find a spot you fit in. I can be found in the Scavenger Hunts (in Artwork from Life), Plein Air, Southwest and Soft Pastel. I also wander off the track and comment in other forums as well. It is free, but you have to join to comment. See you around!

Here is one of my latest tree paintings:

Welcome to the Hill Country
Pastel, 10 x 8 inches

Oil Painting Flowers and New Pastel Painting Landscape

I painted again at my studio, in between paperwork. I'm getting a bookkeeping system set up and it is a pain. There is more paperwork than you imagine keeping track of paintings and now other folks paintings and jewelry. Oh well, that is studio/gallery life. Pretty nice, actually.

I took a better photo of the flowers I painted in oil. I enjoy painting flowers once in a while.

Studio Blooms
Oil on Gessobord, 11 x 14 inches

I also finished the pastel painting I started the other day, and the sun was out to take the photo. I like to take the photos of pastels in full sunlight. The photos do not require much adjusting on the computer.

Hill Country Spring
Pastel on Pastelbord, 10 x 8 inches

The colors on this are a bit more clear in real life. It was fun to do this painting from a photo I took a few years ago somewhere between Austin and Brady, Texas, probably. I wonder why the gate is open with no cattleguard? It looked like it doesn't have a gate to open and close. They must not have any cattle or horses out there in the country. There are buildings behind the oak on the left. Hmmmm. Maybe the name of the painting should be "Lost Gate", "Where's the Gate?" What do you think?

McKinney Falls Redone, Pastel Painting

Finally I am posting a painting I did last week. Regina Burchett and I went to McKinney Falls a while back and did some painting out at the falls.That first painting was acceptable for a quick one-sitting painting. I decided to wipe it off and have a "do over". I think the new painting has more depth and depicts the scene in a more pleasing way to me. I hope you think so as well.

Fall colors colors can be very garish and I hope I captured the bright colors without detracting from the beauty of the pool at the falls. The actual falls were to the left and behind me. Here is the newly "fixed" painting:

McKinney Falls, Too
Pastel on Richeson Board

The color in this is pretty good. The blue is a little garish, but that is very difficult to correct in pastel photos. I haven't figured out why. I do know, as I have said before, that taking the photos of the paintings in direct sunlight does help. You do not have to correct in photo software like you do if the photo is taken in shade.

You can see the previous painting and some photos here.


McKinney Falls, previous "fix"

As I was reading my previous blog post, I see that this is the second "fix" to this painting. Sigh..... Maybe the next time I go to McKinney Falls I will get a result that I just love!

Annual Juried Members Exhibition, You Are Invited

You are invited to the Austin Pastel Society Annual Juried Members Exhibition in March. Invitation below. I will remind you again as the date gets nearer. The show will be very nice, there are many beautiful pastel paintings in a variety of techniques and by many artists. The reception on March 21, is free with free parking that day. The awards will be given out at the reception. You can click on the invitation to see it larger. The invitations are post cards with the front and back shown here:



My pastel painting, Hill Country Autumn, was accepted into the competition. It is one of my favorite paintings. Many times I do a painting and then it is gone from my mind. I might see it at a later date and not even recognize it as mine. Weird, eh?


Hill Country Autumn
Pastel on Pastelbord, 12 x 12 inches
You can buy it now on my website with Paypal/Credit Card and I will deliver it at the end of the show in May. :)

Tree time, pastel painting.

I put in a little painting time this morning. I put up the easel in the shade of the carport and painted the big tree out front. I spent about an hour or so while checking on the laundry in between spurts of painting. I have a new box of Nupastels so I opened that and used only those. It is always fun to use new pastels.

Our Tree
5 x 7 inches
Pastel on board with Colourfix Medium

I painted outside but this is not a true "from life" painting. There is a street between the tree and the house and the house is brick. I thought a New Mexico painting should have an adobe house. The tree is pretty accurate.

View from our Balcony, acrylic plein air painting.

I finally got a little painting done yesterday. I painted out on our balcony. A perfect spot for plein air. No problem with shade, bugs, taking enough supplies, etc. It was beautiful. After I was done, though, my spruce trees were leaning like they had had a little too much wine. Also, the acrylic dried darker than I thought it would (as usual .. one day I will get used to that). Today I went back on the balcony and refreshed the highlights and am now happier with it.

View from our Balcony
Acrylic on canvas panel, 8 x 10 inches
Plein air (painted outside in the fresh air)

Painting where everything is green can present a few problems. When you look at the view it is beautiful, but trying to portray the scene in paint is not easy. You need a variety of greens to tell the story. As things recede in a landscape there is more atmosphere and things become less distinct and "bluer". This doesn't always show in photographs or to your eyes if you don't look carefully. If you paint the trees all green as they appear at first glance, the painting lacks interest and looks flat.

To give the painting depth I added more blue to the distant hills and try to warm up the ground and grasses and bushes as they get closer. This helps as with depth as well. In a landscape painting, the darkest darks and lightest lights are usually closer to you. One exception might be the sky. Most often the sky is the lightest value. When you are high in the mountains here, the sky is a deeper blue or was yesterday. The shadows past the road looked very dark to me, but if I paint them that way, they come forward. I didn't take a photo of the scene. I will try to get one in the morning so you can compare. I did simplify the buildings as the painting was not about the buildings.

Pastel Miniature Show at Scarbrough Building

The Austin Pastel Society (APS) is having a miniature show in Austin, Texas, from June 21 until July 19, 2009, Scarbrough Building, Congress Avenue and 6th. Street. (101 West 6th. Street) The exhibit will be open during office hours in the building. There will be a great variety of styles and techniques available by the APS artists. Most of the art will be on sale giving you a chance to purchase original art are reasonable prices by some great pastelists.

My entries are the still life of the apples and a landscape painted plein air in our back yard of the loblolly pines.

Serve "Em Texas Style
Pastel on Pastelbord, 5 x 7 inches

Yard Art 3
Pastel on Pastelbord Plein Air, 5 x 7 inches

Here they are in their frames. They are $85.00 each, framed. You can buy now and I will get them to you after the show. Send me an email if you are interested. I can send you a PayPal invoice. Free postage included in the price.

You will not be disappointed in the show. Drop by the Scarbrough Building when you get a chance and look it over.

Plein Air Pastel

The Friday that Sue was here, we went to the 9E Ranch to paint at Joan Bohls invitation. The view was beautiful with hills and all the trees. Sue stood in the gazebo and painted the view and I painted a couple of trees and a bit of the view. It was lovely there, shady and cool on a very warm day. It was a great place to spend the afternoon. I didn't end up with a photo of Sue's painting. A couple of photos and my painting follow:

The corner of the gazebo and the view I painted.

The view that Sue was seeing.

My painting for the day, 9E Ranch View, about 9 x 12 inches, Soft Pastel on Colourfix paper.

It is always so invigorating to paint with someone. Sue and I met about 1995 at a workshop in Montana held by Jack Hines and Jessica Zemsky as I have mentioned many times before. We try to paint together at least once a year and hopefully more. Because Sue lives in Michigan and we live here in Texas and New Mexico, it is hard to do more. Just looking at the world with another artist makes you think and explore ideas. I am so thankful we have this friendship.

Being with other artists may be why workshops are so popular. Is there that much new to learn? I know we need practice, but sometimes that is what it is. I was so tired after the week with Sue and then the 3 day workshop in Georgetown. Whew! At the same time, I couldn't wait to get out the pastels and try something new. I worked on some strawberries and blueberries yesterday, but didn't finish. I bet my studio smells wonderful, don't you?

I hope that you get out and paint with someone. Doesn't have to be plein air. Just get a bunch together and try something new. All paint the same thing and critique each others work or try a new medium. Sometimes being in an organized group/club takes more time and energy than you have at the moment. But painting is very solitary and being with others can inspire and give you energy. Give it a try.

Woodpile in Pastel, Plein Air

Update below, new final image added February 1, 2009:

Today was another of those great days here. Time for a little plein air. Out with the pastels and into the yard. I painted trees the other day and we don't have much around in place of trees so I spotted a woodpile. Fishing Guy mentioned that he enjoyed the work in progress (WIP) photos so I decided to do that. Remember you can click on the photos to see a larger version.

First the reference photo to give you my idea for the painting.

I had a Masonite panel that I had finished with Colourfix pastel primer in burgundy color. I did a light sketch with a Nupastel which is one of the harder pastel sticks. I usually use Nupastels for the sketch and beginning the under painting if I use one. I also use them for blending a little instead of using my fingers or another material. Some pastelists blend with styrofoam popcorn, rubber gloves, tortillons, brushes, etc.

In plein air the light changes very quickly emphasized by the huge number of trees in our yard. In the open you have an hour or so before you notice the changing light, but in the trees it changes in a few minutes as moving sun changes the shadows very quickly. I try to mark the light and then ignore the changes.

Shortly after I started, I dropped the small piece of dark red that I was using. It was hard to see in the Pine needles. It is up and to the right of the big leaf on the left. It was about 2 feet from where I dropped it.

I then forgot to take any photos until I was almost finished. Sorry. It is easy to just paint and forget what you are doing. At least for me.

Here is my setup and maybe you can see some of the light changes, but the other photo I wasn't standing this far back. You can see it was a beautiful day.

The Woodpile Out Back
Soft pastel on board with Colourfix medium, 8 x 10 inches

Check my website for this and other small paintings I call Jo's Notions. You might like to have one of these small inexpensive paintings, have a look.

I looked at this for a while and decided to break up the light on the front. It was a little dark and had no variety. So this is the "final" version.