Mt. Shuksan

I went to Artist's Point at the end of the Mount Baker highway last week to paint with my pals from PAWA (Plein Air Washington  www.pleinairwashington.com).

The weather on Thursday was crazy good - 68 degrees, no wind, blue sky!  I painted this 9 x 12 pastel over watercolor (on UART 400) in a couple of hours.  I knew the mid ground was too detailed, too dark and not blue enough because I couldn't make the foreground 'pop'.  I had captured enough information though that I knew I could do a good studio painting with this small work plus the photos I had taken.

A week later I laid in the watercolor under painting for my 18" x 24" studio piece.  

I was painting on 140# cold pressed Arches paper.  Unlike watercolor on UART sanded paper, the watercolor paint on paper can be quite strong and vibrant.

About 20% of the pastel has been laid in here;  I was determined to get the mid ground soft and blue so the foreground would jump forward.  After a while I took out the small plein air study and noticed that I had originally seen the rocks of the mountains as grey, not blue as the reference photos showed them; so I reworked that distant area to simplify and neutralize it.

Here is the final painting.  I like it and feel it captures the spectacular view on that beautiful day.

Take a virtual tour of the 2016 ARTfusion show, then come on by this weekend (September 2-4 11 am to 5 pm) to meet the artists and see the show in person!

2016 ARTfusion on Youtube

King Eider ducks

Simple drawing, no resist. 

Washing in the warm, soft shapes underneath

Adding Mid values

Adding feet, building deeper values in shadows

Lots of detail using smaller brushes and watercolor pencils

Finished with a suggestion of the background and the log under the pair.

Floras Lake at Sunset

This is the first in a series of paintings from our Solstice Celebration road trip where we slowly made our way down the Washington and Oregon coasts enjoying winter storms and a few bright clear days.  

Floras Lake is a long lake that is separated from the ocean by a sand dune - which is what you see in the distance.  The whole time we were watching the sun set we heard the surf in the distance.

I transferred my design onto a 12" x 18" piece of Uart 240 grit paper.

Using these Nupastels I blocked in the darkest values that I saw in each shape.

  

Next I washed the hard pastels into the support with alcohol.

Using soft pastels in lighter values I began to stroke pastel over the under painting allowing the darker paints to show through and resisting the temptation to paint detail. 

I began to add the lightest values and the details to make the sunlight appear to be really intense.

Finally I added detail in the foreground and confused the edges of the clouds in the reflection in the foreground.  

I appreciate your comments, so please let me know what you think!

Sunrise on the ponds along Three Crabs Road

On the left is the small thumbnail value sketch I used for designing the painting.  I am working on Kitty Wallis museum grade sanded paper 9" x 12"

I used hard pastels to block in the main shapes.  I then washed the painting down (one color at a time) with alcohol to create an underpainting.

I blocked in the large shapes with the darkest value I see in each shape.

I layered on mid and finally light values.

The finished piece is actually a little darker and more nuanced than this image, it's tough to photograph pastel accurately.

Down the Colorado III

This is the third in a series of paintings from our trip down the Colorado river in May.

Here are some of the paints I mixed for the washes.

After a fairly careful drawing, I began by painting wet in wet passages that were not too large; I needed to be able to stroke in some middle values into the light colored washes.

After all the lightest juicy passages were complete I began darkening and defining the background.

Then the middle ground.

And finally the foreground.

As always, I am a little too exuberant with vibrant colors so after I laid in the secondary washes in the river, I waited a few days to see the painting with fresh eyes.

Down the Colorado III

The River water needed a third layer of paint to add more of the warm reflected colors and to darken the deep water on the right.










As I suspected, the rock formations in the near ground were WAY too bright and the contrast of detail was distracting from the painting's focal point.  When my friend Pat Starr came by, we discussed how to unify, calm, and darken the rock formations on the right.  I washed over them with a greyed lavender wash and while it was wet I dropped in some drab greens too; much better!  Finally I added some sparkling ripples in the water with a touch of colored pencil.  I hope you enjoy
Down the Colorado III

Clair Quist master boatman

I am about to send this painting to my new friend Clair Quist.  He was the wise, funny, capable, patient, helpful, sweet natured man who, along with his swamper Simone and their friend Cody, safely (yet thrillingly) navigated our 35' raft 222 miles down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.  What a thrill and a joy it was for Tom and I to make this trip with these lovely people.

This is the finished 12" x 16" watercolor painting and here's how I did it:

I made a fairly detailed drawing on 140# Arches and then used resist to hold a few of the white areas in the brim of the hat and around the mustache.

I laid in the background wet in wet in light values.

Next I laid in the initial washes in the figure.

Here I have begun to add some of the mid and dark values and suggested his eyes behind the tinted glasses.  I rubbed off the resist and softened some of the lines it had left.

Finally I added a little more interest in the background and added the all important hat strings...no hat strings, no hat!  If you click on the picture to see the detail you will see that I had to enlarge the glasses and then I put some warm colors in his skin tones with colored pencil.  I wasn't able to add more washes to his face with watercolor because the earlier washes were lifting off the paper.  

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