I actually think that might be the title of this.

I like it so much I’m really going to think about doing a bigger version.

Maybe add a coffee mug and call it “Better Lat-te”.

I’m beginning to wonder about my integrity based on my headlines that last week, but the fact of the matter is that I can only make paint dry so fast, and I need to go to to bed.

Today was an art-filled day. I went to Art in the Pearl with a friend. It’s an extremely high-quality local art festival that I go to most years. They do a good job of keeping it fresh by cycling through familiar, local faces like Marla Baggetta (I want to take a class from her) and Kimberly Morris (I want one of her rugs) with out-of-town and newer artists like Scott Olson and my new favorite, William Kwamena-Poh.

Scott Olson’s booth

After this adventure, I went to Blick’s to load up on a few artist necessities: yellow paint, a larger Gelli plate, and matte medium. I also signed out a canvas for the 6×6 Wild Art Project.

On my way home I stopped by the library to pick up a couple of landscape painting books for my plein air endeavors for the rest of the month.

Then I met with my co-chair for the 2016 Oregon City Watercolor Society of Convention.

And at 8:00 I finally sat down to paint.

Because I didn’t have a lot of extra time, I decided to work on my 6×6 canvas. I also decided to use one of my marbling papers for a base.

My next step will be to add black pen to this, but with the paint wet, it’s just not possible tonight.

I used up the extra red and yellow paint making this.

This could make a stunning sunset painting…

So, today I kept my promise to try water again.

This is a branch above a little rapids along Mill Creek.

I sort of think it looks better cropped.

And I didn’t do a good job of saving whites in the darker areas.

I’ll say it again. Water is hard.

I said in my last post that I would do water today, but the clouds were so great I decided to paint them.

There are a lot of trees around my work, so I decided to do them going over a building.

I discovered clouds move.

I also discovered they are harder than they look.

And that’s it’s hard to paint straight lines.

I started a second painting, but it’s not done. I’m going to save it for an emergency painting later in the month.

September 1

This is the traffic bridge along Summer St., looking west.

A couple interesting notes. I grabbed the first sheet of paper I found, and from the way it’s reacting, I think it might have been hot press.

Second, this really came together at the “calligraphy” stage (learned from the Joseph Zubkvic.) And I had the most trouble with the area I couldn’t see and instead had to “imagine” because of where I set up.

September 2

This is a little ripple looking east.
Today I made a real attempt to select an area where I could see everything I wanted to paint. I also tried hard to paint shapes instead of items.

There are parts of this (specifically the upper left corner) that I’m really pleased with. I goofed by setting up so the little ripple was just out of view, and that’s the weakest part.

Water is hard. Tomorrow I’m going to work on water. Specifically.

A year ago I decided to sign up for Leslie Saeta‘s 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge. I got to day 27 and then life hit the skids

This artistic challenge was good for me and I learned a lot. So when I saw that the challenge was happening again, I really thought about how to do it again.

Option 1: Pick a subject and do a painting a day on that subject. An example would be pears or another subject that could be done in lots of variations.

Option 2: Do a new subject each day (like I did last year.)

Option 3: During the week, use my lunch hour to paint and try to do bigger paintings on the weekends.

Additionally, there are some challenges to overcome in the next month. I have two full work weeks where I will be going around the state for trainings. My mom will be having surgery, and that will take some time. And it’s a month of a lot of fun things to do (OFFF!)

Last year I did option 2 and it was hard. I ended up cutting myself short on sleep to make it work, which makes the whole thing harder. I also spent more time prepping and looking for what to paint that actually painting.

I pondered a subject I felt passionate enough to do 30 times. Of course, horses came to mind.

But in the end, I decided to do option 3 in the following manner: During my lunches I’ll take my easel out and paint at work (I work right next to Mill Creek in Salem and when I go around the state, there should be lots of things to paint); on weekends I will try to work on larger things.

So today I took my easel to work and painted on my lunch.

And forgot to bring the painting home to show you.

As I mentioned in my last post, I am a bit side-lined right now with an injured shoulder (for those that inquired, it is not a dramatic story, just a flare up of a wear-and-tear injury I’ve had for years.) With almost everything involving my arms off the table (knitting, spinning, weeding, going out to SEO, doing any lengthy food prep stuff, golf) my options for the day were walking and watching TV.

I decided to cheat a little (sorry doctor (hopefully I won’t be sorry too)) and did a bunch of email / computer stuff and some painting, with a quick hike thrown in for some variety.

Smokey

As I’m sure, well, everyone has heard there are a lot of fires burning the Pacific NW.

While it was cool enough that I opened the house and let the breeze blow in, the air quality was awful.

In spite of that, I still went for a hike down at Canemah.

Dry

Canemah is a little scary. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been down, and it looks like one of those old sepia-toned paintings.

The wetland areas, which obviously are usually dry this time of year, are completely and utterly dry.

The birds are quiet, but I did see an osprey and vulture as well as hear some blue jays and chickadees. But my most interesting find of the day was this guy.

A study of this site gives me a preliminary ID of a California Slender Salamander, but I’d take suggestions. My camera was not behaving, so I know it’s blurry. I also got these two (bad) shots.

Chance of Painting

Other than taking Finn for a trip to the dog wash (he says to please call the SPCA), today was not a wildly productive day. The good news is that I made some starts on my impressive painting to-do pile.

I’ll be frank. I think this is one version of this painting. I’ve been playing with some sketches and scanned this sketch into the computer.

I wanted to take this sketch into something more abstract. Liz Walker had a big week last week and put up a bunch of stuff on Facebook, which usually gets me into trouble too. I decide to take the sketch from above and put it on one of the marbled papers from her class (back in March).

I have a lot of work to do, but I’m liking it so far.

Next I worked on a “deadline” project. I signed up to bring in two paintings for the November “200 for under $200” show at the Oregon Society of Artists. I have had these sketched out for a while, and I’ve been trying to decide where to go with color schemes. On Wednesday I decided to go for it… I applied instant coffee as the background. I love the velvety result.

Today I added the grays of the tools and the flesh colors. I’ll take off the masking next (some masking is off the left-hand one) and move on from there.

Next I finished a steatlh project (more to come once it’s delivered).

Then I started another stealth project that I’ve been procrastinating. Not sure why because it seems like fun, but I have been. Today I finally started!

I’ll try to get more done tomorrow. I’ll be just as useless for anything else, so painting seems a good way to go!

Before I launch into my artistic musings, I have exciting news to report: “Shoes and Shadows” got into the American Academy of Equine Art Fall Open Juried Exhibition & Sale! This means that I’ll be shipping it back to Lexington in a few weeks and it will be in the exhibition for about a month… including during the Breeder’s Cup which will be taking place just down the road at Keeneland!

This is very exciting for me. This is the same organization I went to take a workshop with last fall. I’ll be exhibiting with some of the artists I admire most! So exciting!

Of course, this means that this painting can’t go into the fall WSO show, but I’ll try putting it into the spring show instead.

Okay… that’s out of my system. I’ll attempt to get back on point.

Technique vs. immitation

On Sunday I attended a poppy workshop put on by one of my favorite teachers, Patricia Schmidt. Patricia puts on a very details, well-paced workshop with a concentration on technique.

As I saw it, this workshop was focusing on masking techniques and layering techniques to create light effects. I was less interested in recreating Patty’s painting than on incorporating these ideas into my own paintings.

This was a “straight” watercolor painting I did using close to the same colors Patty recommended.

I didn’t have exactly the same colors on my palette, but with a little experimentation I got some nice tries.

I also used some liquid watercolors that I picked up at a garage sale. They are very bright, but staining.

It was a good day. While the paintings aren’t great in and of themselves, they allowed me to try some new things, which is the point of these kind of classes.

I was amused to note, however, that most people in the class were more interesting in recreating Patty’s painting in every detail.

It got me thinking about the different stages of art. I think there are a lot of people who just enjoy painting. The recent surge of coloring books for adults is an indicating a lot of people just want to apply color to paper. I love this and feel like this a lot.

So what makes an artist different? I think coloring or copying other people’s works is good, but I am not sure it’s art. But artists borrow ideas all the time. Where’s the line?

If you have any thoughts, let me know. I’d love to start getting some comments on this blog (I get some on Facebook, but not so many right here.)

A few months ago I went to an estate sale of a Watercolor Society of Oregon member named Carol Winchester. At the sale I picked up 50 sheets of watercolor paper (such a steal of a deal) and a used palette.

Palettes are a tool I love and have (too) many of. I don’t have one in this exact configuration, though, so I figured that even if I washed out all the paint, for $1.00 it was a good deal.

Last week I decided to put it to use to start a paint of the Brooks Falls bears I have been watching on a webcam. I was caught by a small series of images of a bear in the morning and thought the contract of its warm fur against the dark background might be just the thing.

My palette doesn’t have just the color blue I wanted to use, and while I could have made do, I decided to use my “new” palette and experiment a little.

Many established watercolor artists establish a range of colors in particular brands and just keep adding those colors to the palette. They permanently mark the colors on the outside of the well to keep themselves organized.

I moistened the colors and began.

I’m loving the Windsor blue, and having the cobalt turquoise right there is proving to be fun. I’m very envious of Carol’s palette and I want to experiment with some of the other colors before I finish. I’m even thinking that maybe it’s time to expand my own palette a little.