Plein Air Watercolor of a Neighbor’s Trees in the Fall

Plein Air Autumn Landscape

My intention this evening was to paint well into the night, enjoying the dropping temperatures, and the ambiance of my Man Cave studio.  Instead I was blessed with a couple of visits from artist friends that I never get to see enough of.  I could not have planned a better evening.  Great conversation ensued, and I’m now inspired more than I was a few hours ago.  I’m confident that this will carry over into tomorrow after school, so I’ll just let this night go.

But before I retire, here is a sketch I chose to finish up after my company left.  I started this plein air sketch of my neighbor’s trees just as the leaves were turning several weeks back.  This view I enjoyed from my garage.  I never got around to finishing it after removing the masquing a long time ago.  So, tonight, I laid in some more washes to take away from the starkness of the previously masqued areas, and then drew in some more trunks and branches.

Tomorrow offers more opportunity as I close out the semester and return to the studio.

Thanks for reading.

Railroad Freight Cars in the Morning Autumn Light

Railroad Freight Cars in the Autumn Light

This weekend I will be getting out the guitar again and making music with several bands.  Aside from that, I will be buried in business paper work.  I am behind, as usual.  Therefore, I see no watercolor activity on the 48-hour horizon.

I am re-posting this small watercolor I put together last fall during a festival in Mineola, Texas.  I had taken the sketch to Austin for a weekend of watercolor demonstrations, and left it behind in the Prismacolor booth, where I had done some work.  Thankfully, a representative from Prismacolor mailed it back to me recently, along with other pieces I had left behind.  It is good to look at it once again, and think about some new railroad compositions.

This setting is in Grand Saline, Texas, near an abandoned cotton gin.  I had traveled out there two summers ago to paint the gin and railroad siding.  But last fall, while en route to an art festival in Mineola, I was spellbound at the sight of these brightly-colored rail cars parked in the morning sun, surrounded by fall foliage. I got out and took a number of photos, and later made a decision on this particular angle.

I have so many paintings in my head, that I have trouble prioritizing where to go next.  As stated before, I have a strong inclination to work on a large composition of the Ridglea Theater, but I also have been contemplating a large railroad composition.  I just haven’t yet settled on the particular scene I wish to depict.  Unfortunately, these paintings will have to wait a few days, while I sort out other business details.

Thanks for reading.

Grand Saline Railroad Painting (2nd day of Mineola Festival)

Grand Saline Union Pacific

The second day of the Mineola Holiday Bazaar was much busier than day one.  Therefore, painting time was at a premium.  As you can see, by show’s end, this is as far as I could get on a new watercolor.  I photographed this in Grand Saline on my way to Mineola for this Holiday Bazaar.  The Union Pacific and GATX colors against the fall foliage were so striking, that I had to pull the Jeep over and take photographs.  I thought seriously about painting this one yesterday, but opted for the New Mexico composition instead.  Alas, I had very little quality time to spend on this one, and now I have school beginning early tomorrow morning (after I load out this show and pack everything home, 2 hours away).  So . . . I’m not sure when I’ll get to finish this one.  Perhaps tomorrow after school (ack!  it’s that dreadful 4-class day!), perhaps later.  But I will finish it.

Thanks for reading.

Looking Forward to Fall Colors and Plein Air Watercoloring

Looking Forward to Fall Colors and Plein Air Watercoloring

The cool, autumnal temperatures that lightly kissed the four-day Grapefest have left me yearning for the changing colors that announce the plein air season for passionate watercolorists.  Though the art festival season will be extremely heavy from September through October, I am of a mind to commit my weekday afternoons to plein air watercolor sketching.

This is an open meadow across Business Highway 287 on the north side of Waxahachie, Texas.  I had stopped by Zula’s Coffee House late one autumn afternoon in 2010, and enjoyed my coffee outdoors at a picnic table while watching the sunlight sweep across the field across the highway.  I took out my watercolors and made quick work of this vista.  Now I’m ready to chase autumn colors with the brush again.  They cannot come soon enough.

Thanks always for reading.

 

Kerouac’s Dream, December 18, 2010

Kerouac's Dream

I have already painted this vintage car several times, but thought it was time to put some fall foliage around it.  It is a 1950 Chevy Sedan Special Delivery, parked in a field north of Hillsboro, Texas, along Highway 77.  The owner has graciously permitted me to come onto his property and do watercolor sketches en plein air of his collection of vintage cars.  Hillsboro is a one-hour drive from where I live, across beautiful sprawling Texas country.  I have Jack Kerouac’s On the Road that I listen to on CD as I drive and let my mind drift across the American landscape.  With my company’s name, Recollections 54, I still look for ways to translate the memories of the American fifties into watercolor compositions and vignettes.  Even if I never reach the standard of quality that I target, I can already say that this journey has been a profoundly rewarding one.  Soon I will journey to my hometown St. Louis for Christmas, and look forward to finding new vistas to record.

Thanks for reading.

Equestrian in Fall Foliage, December 17, 2010

Equestrian in Fall Foliage

Here is a large 18 x 24″ watercolor I began over a week ago.  It’s been difficult finding quality time to paint, trying to close out the fall semester at school.  My wife Sandi is riding her horse Andante just as the leaves are beginning to turn in south Fort Worth, Texas.  Most of the foliage at the top is poured from bowls onto the wet paper that was previously masqued, then treated with salt and a spray bottle, along with plenty of tissue-blotting.  For the first time, I’m introducing the color aubergine into the shadows of the bay horse–I’ve never before known for sure how to shadow this guy.  I think this is going to work.  I did a plein air sketch of the pair of trees behind the fence, several weeks ago while we were on location.  I also took several digital shots of Sandi and Andante.  Now I’m hoping to combine two photos to create this landscape.  Hopefully I can finish this one by Christmas.

Thanks for reading.

Autumn Afternoon at Zula’s Coffee Shop Waxahachie, Dec. 17, 2010

Waxahachie Autumn Afternoon

Finally out of school for Christmas vacation!  I am pretty backed up–I have completed a number of watercolors and have many more in-progress, but haven’t found quality time to blog any of them.  Too many school responsibilities as the semester comes to a close.

One afternoon, at the height of the fall season, I traveled south to Waxahachie, Texas.  There was some art business to wrap up at the Ellis County Art Association.  I always love to stop at Zula’s Coffee House, now located on the north side of town on Business Route 287.  As the afternoon light began to fade, I saw this fabulous meadow across the highway from the coffee shop and decided to sit at a picnic table outside and try to capture it before the light was gone.  The wind made things pretty difficult, and the darkness came quickly.  Fortunately I had taken a decent digital photo of the site.  I returned to the site one more time to tweak the plein air colors in the foliage.  Then I took this painting out to my garage to paint in the pure light of the afternoons, looking at an 8 x 10 print I made of the photo.  I’m happy with how it finally came out.  Texas has had a lengthy and comparatively colorful autumn this year.  I find these rare, and am very grateful that I got out a number of times this season to capture the colors and light.

Thanks for reading.

More Fall Colors from the Afternoon Garage Studio, December 1, 2010

Afternoon Fall Colors from my Garage Studio

My brain was sucked dry by early afternoon.  Today was Philosophy with Emerson and A. P. Art History with Byzantium.  What a privilege to find bright sun, 50-degree termperatures, and the fall foliage still hanging around for the likes of me to chase it in watercolor.  My French easel was still set up in the garage (the Jeep hasn’t been too happy with me, parked out in the cold on recent nights), and for once I’m glad I was a slob in not putting away all my watercolor supplies–they were all laid out, ready for me to pick them up.

This is the second of the two paintings I started on the morning before Thanksgiving.  After masking and pouring the purples, I left it alone, till this afternoon.  The time spent on it was rewarding for me–all cares simply elide when I’m stooped over a watercolor, and the thoughts improve in every area of life.  I think the process is more restorative to me spiritually than the finished work is to others visually, even when I receive kind words for my work.  I wonder if I should even call this “work”–it seems like play, and very wholesome play at that.  I’m filled with gratitude for afternoons like today.

Thanks for reading.  I did pour the first two layers of gold foliage on my newest equestrian painting.  There isn’t enough to post yet, but I shall get it out there before you, quite soon, I believe.

Thanksgiving Fall Foliage from my Garage Studio, November 26, 2010

During the Thanksgiving Holidays, as the temperatures dropped and the sunlight grew stronger against the fall foliage, I got this crazy notion to set up my French easel in my garage and do some quick watercolor sketches of the neighbors’ trees across the street.  Keeping warm with a thermos of coffee, I had the time of my life that afternoon as I worked on two quick sketches that involved plenty of masking and pouring of the watercolor pigments.  I’m still messing with the two pieces but decided to post one of them tonight to show anyone interested how the experiment is coming along.  I had a fabulous time, working like a mad scientist in his laboratory that day.  I hope to do it again soon.

Thanks for reading.  Hopefully I will be able to post before long a new painting of my wife on her horse, along a fence line, beneath fall foliage.  This is going to be another large poured piece.

Fall Colors in the Horse Country, November 27, 2010

Fall Colors in Horse Country

Saturday morning found me waking to temperatures in the upper 30′s.  Sandi had a riding lesson scheduled in south Fort Worth.  Since it was the first time to take her horse trailer out, I decided to come along to offer an extra set of hands for some of the details of loading a trailer and helping get the horse in and out.  Once we arrived, I found the world to be extremely bright and clear with sunlight.  Sandi got her horse prepped for the lesson, and I photographed her and Andante riding about the pen, stretching and loosening up.  By the time her lesson appointment arrived, I looked around for something to do.

These trees were “calling out” to me from the time we arrived on the property.  The incredibly bright yellow and orange leaves against a dark forest just would not let go of my imagination.  The sight of leaves falling between that dark space of tree cluster and bare ground also raised my ecstasy.  I walked around, looking at this site from three different directions, all the time trying to talk myself out of the commitment to a plein air watercolor.  I felt rusty, out-of-practice, uptight, not ready.  All of this added up to the “dance of avoidance” Ian Roberts writes about in his Creative Authenticity. I knew that, like Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth before me, there would be rewards waiting if I would just respond to the call.  But I was overwhelmed as I continually gazed at the complications–the masses of fall foliage, the dark forest behind, the bald, dirt ground beneath, the shadows spinning out from the trees and their gnarled trunks.  I felt there were just too many details to chase, and I felt tired.

I pulled out four unfinished watercolors, along with the 8 x 10 photographs I had taken of the subjects.  Nothing moved me.  I took out my digital camera and photographed the scene before me repeatedly, trying to convince myself that I could do a better job working from the photographs and inserting a grazing horse beneath the trees.  I knew that I would not do that, however.  Trees from photographs just don’t “do it” for me.

I even contemplated reading; I had a whole bag full of books.  I even thought of writing in my journal.  But I knew I would live with regret if I passed on this opportunity, and Sandi’s riding lesson was going to take up an hour.  So I sat, and looked, and thought–and finally drew out my watercolor block and sketched in the tree trunks and fencing.

Next I pulled the Super Nib Masquepen and began to dot in the hundreds of leaf clusters and falling leaves, along with the pipe fencing.  Once everything dried, I laid in a quick Cerulean Blue sky.  Fortunately the steady cold winds were drying out the surface of the watercolor block quickly.  Quinachronine Yellow, Cadmium Yellow, Alizarin Crimson and Sap Green were the predominant pigments to help see me through the fall foliage.

I was pleased at my overall draughtmanship on the gnarled tree trunks.  I mixed plenty of Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Red, Winsor Green and Ultramarine Blue to come up with my blacks and grays.  An HB pencil also aided me in drawing in the tree bark, along with some help from an 8B Derwent watersoluble pencil.  The tree trunks came together quite quickly.

I felt pretty lost on the shadows across the dirt, so I used more of my black and gray mixings from the colors listed above, and swirled them about on the dry paper with my “ugly brush”–a real staple for me.  My “ugly” is a flat sable that I cut diagonally and then used an X-acto knife to pull out some of the bristles, leaving a jagged chisel-looking brush for my foliage, weeds and tree bark.

I’m really delighted that I responded to this opportunity, instead of passing it by.  I was really taken by what Annie Dillard referred to as the “tree filled with lights.”  I could not get over the beauty and splendor of the bright, bright sun reflections coming out of those brassy-colored leaves.  And to think that I almost passed on this to read instead.  I recall Nietzsche talking about how “positively wicked” it was for a writer or scholar to spend the prime time of the day reading–lost in other men’s thoughts–instead of producing one’s own.  I’m grateful that this day was a day that I decided to create.

Thank you for reading.