Back from a blogging and painting break

Because sometimes a break from everything is in order.  I've been caught up in non-art creative ventures that have taken my attention away from painting for a while.  It happens during this time of the year, as I transition from eight months of exhilarating outdoor painting to the doldrums of the studio.

Our area is expecting its first snow of the season tomorrow and Saturday.  So, probably no more plein air work for me this year.

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what I want to do this winter, and one thing is returning to oils and working on my drawing skills.  I'm also going to spend more time reading and studying the paintings and drawings of the Old Masters; library books on drawings by Picasso and Michelangelo are sitting on my night stand and I look forward to working my way through them.

In the meantime, here are two paintings done in the past two weeks.  The first is a plein air from the 4CPAP paint-out in Simone Canyon, in New Mexico.   I ended up going with the purple sky here because I forgot to bring my box of sky colors along.

Roadside Cottonwoods - 12x12"
pastel on black cardstock

The second is a studio piece, from a photo taken during our Escalante trip.   The afternoon of the quick-draw event, after I'd dropped my painting off, we drove west of Escalante, to the town of Cannonville, and then headed south along the road that leads to Kodachrome Basin State Park.  This is a view of the Kodachrome area further down the Cottonwood Wash road:

Cloud Over Kodachrome Basin - 12x16
pastel on dark gray Mi Tientes

While at the Escalante Canyons Plein Air event, I was delighted to meet a local area pastelist whose work I've enjoyed since I first discovered it in the past couple of years - Scotty Mitchell .  A few of her paintings are featured in the book Painters of Utah's Canyons and Deserts, which is one of my favorite coffee table art books.  Talking shop with another pastelist is always interesting, because we all use such different techniques and materials, so of course, I had to ask her what surface she uses for her paintings.  Turns out, she works exclusively on the dark gray Mi Tientes.  Between the chat I had with her, and the studio painting I did - Wash Wall Shadows - on Canson, I was inspired to try this paper again.

I like it, especially this dark gray.  So much so that I ordered a 10-pack of 19x25" sheets from ASW.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now.

Fall Colors, and studio skies - pastel landscapes

The Green Shed - 12x12"
 pastel on black cardstock

Saturday afternoon's painting, from one of my favorite locations along the river, which of course, isn't visible in this piece.  Each year at this time, I'm reminded of what a fleeting season fall is, or at least as it pertains to fall color and painting.  

The cottonwoods, both narrow leaf, and Fremont, are rapidly fading and dumping their leaves, and I am sort of bummed I wasn't able to make the most of this season.  But, it was peaking in the high country when we were in Escalante, and here in town when we were in Moab, so I can at least bandy that around as an excuse, right?

I had plans to go up to Baker's Bridge and paint there, which I did last year around this time, but I think the window for that is shut; tomorrow, the 4C group has a paint-out in northern NM, and after that, the temperatures are supposed to drop precipitously as the storm hitting CA moves east to our region.  By the time things warm up again, no color will likely remain anywhere in our area.

Here's a small piece I did during the 4CPAP's recent outing the Wildflower Ranch in La Plata Canyon a couple of weeks ago.  This paint-out fell between the Escalante and Moab trips, and was the only painting I got done that week. The larger morning piece, of aspen, I worked on for about two hours before deciding I didn't like the direction it was going, and became bored with it.  I know from experience that it's best to just quit and move on, rather than keep pounding away at it, hoping I can make it work.  This was done after lunch, about 1/2 mile down the road on this property, and the first "keeper" painting I've done of the La Plata river.

Cottonwood Shadows Across the La Plata
8x6", pastel on black paper

And, finally - two studio pieces, small, both done for this week's DailyPaintworks challenge - "The Sky's the Challenge". 

Both reminded me that painting skies/clouds is always a challenge, and that I find it increasingly difficult to work from photographs, probably because it is so easy to overwork the clouds.  You just don't that as an option when painting them in real time.

Burr Trail Sunset - 9x12"
pastel on Strathmore 400-series paper

Monsoon on the Mesa - 6x12"
pastel on black cardstock

Riverside fall colors and a pair of pears

Along The River Shore
9x12 inches - pastel on Wallis paper
© S.Johnson

Today's painting done along a section of the Animas that I've painted along four times now, although only   one of the other paintings has made it onto the blog...

It's the final hurrah for fall colors here in southern CO.  The storm that passed through the past couple of days did much to accelerate the leaf departure from the trees, both along the river and along our street.  Having been cooped up inside for the past 2 days due to the storm, I was grateful that it was sunny in the mid-50's so that we could get outside and paint!  Today, Pat and I were joined by Rosemary, another pastelist, who paints with the Friday plein air group.

I've done paintings on Wallis that I was quite happy with, but this isn't really one of them.  I have decided that I just find the surface to be too aggressive, and I don't find the ability to add many layers to be desirable.  In fact, it adds significantly to the painting time because of the need for an underpainting and it really chews up the pastels, resulting in lots of smearing when I try to lightly scumble another color on top.  This is good to know, and since Wallis is pretty $, once my existing pieces are used up, I won't buy it again, unless I have some breakthrough moment with it.

Yesterday, I started a studio painting from one of the fall color reference photos I took recently, but it was a grind right out of the blocks, and while I know the scene has merit as a painting, I'll probably revisit it with oils.

There are these delicious red D'Anjou pears in the house now, so I decided to do another mini 10-minute challenge painting before they are all gone, which will be soon:

Pear Pair
6x4 inches - pastel on Artagain

Riverside Rocks and a 10-minute challenge

Riverside Rocks
12x9 inches - pastel on Artagain
© S.Johnson

A studio piece, based on one of the photos taken from Baker's Bridge the other day.  I was really into these rocks with all their fissures and interesting textural things going on, and then of course, there was the amazing green water and reflections with the yellow cottonwoods.

The reflections on this were a bit tricky; the brown central area is actually a section of shallow water, but I don't know if it reads  properly or not.  I think I could finesse it a bit more.  And the photo did odd things to the greens used in the water, esp. the darker reflections in shadow - they are a darker turquoise and not the more saturated green in this photo.

I think the best part about doing this in my studio was that I had access to all of my pastels!  No having to make do with what was in my plein air box.   And, I was finally able to use some of these beautiful dark turquoise greens I bought a while back.

And, here is yesterday's painting, done as a warm-up for the painting above.  It's this week's DailyPaintworks challenge - a revisiting of the Ten Minute Challenge from earlier in the year.  You basically choose an object (and this is an apple, believe it or not) and divide your canvas into small sections and paint the object several times in 10-minute intervals.  Even with a 3x3" size per square, it's not as easy as you might think.  I did a pear last time, and it was a lot easier than this Gala apple.

Apple Octet
6x9 inches

It's really funny having a partner around who isn't an artist and is totally comfortable being honest about  the paintings:  "the first one looks like an onion, and the 4th looks like a smashed pumpkin, and some look like they are rotting..."  Seriously, Wayne's comments make me laugh, and I know what someone will be getting in his Christmas stocking this year...

I tried to select accurate colors for everything prior to starting the painting, but you can see I sort of hosed it with the shadow colors on the first set of four.  By the 8th one, I was starting to get a bit better, and they are starting to look more like apples.   I just set the apple on a piece of Strathmore paper and rotated it under my studio lamp for each mini painting to get the differing shadows.

This is a great exercise, and I would encourage anyone who paints to try it, especially if you are trying to loosen up in your work.  Thanks so much for the challenge, Carol!

Animas River, rocks and reflections SOLD

River Rocks and Fall Reflections
SOLD
12x9 inches - pastel on Artagain
© S.Johnson

Yesterday's painting, done along the east side of the Animas about 1/4 of a mile up river from our location on Friday, and a new location for me.  We went there at Pat's suggestion, and while both of us were initially drawn to this amazing pair of cottonwoods on the opposite side of the river in backlit fall light, I found couldn't make the composition work, so I moved downstream a bit, and when I saw this big boulder its coterie of smaller rocks, and the reflection, my first thought was: "fun!", so I was compelled to paint it.

Care to guess what the most difficult part of this painting was?  Hint:  not the water or reflections, which I find pretty easy to paint.  It was actually the grouping of rocks in front of the boulder.  As I set about to block them in, I was thinking:  "must avoid cloning rocks", but that's exactly what started to happen.  Basically, the left brain came in and tried to over-ride operations for this part of the painting...and sort of succeeded.

The light faded before I had time to address this on location, so I tinkered with them in the studio this morning.  An improvement, but could be better.  Another thing to work on...

We are supposed to have a system move through tomorrow that will bring rain and much colder temps for a couple of days, so my plein air bender is coming to a close.  So, it will be back to the studio for a bit.

Near Baker's Bridge - plein air, pastel

From yesterday's paint out...

By Baker's Bridge
12x12 inches - pastel on Artagain
© S.Johnson

On Facebook, local photographer Kathy Myrick posted a link to some photos she's taken recently of fall colors along the Animas, including some at Baker's Bridge, a historical marker for the Durango area.  I'd only driven down the road that crosses this section of the Animas River, which is about 13 mi. north of town, maybe twice.  

And had totally forgotten about how scenic it is until I saw her photos.  So, yesterday afternoon, that's where Pat and I headed to paint.  The bridge itself crosses a very short gorge in the river, with the water being the most unbelievable shade of green, and I couldn't believe I've never thought to paint here before! It has reflections, rocks, trees and painting potential up the ying-yang, so I'll definitely be back.

I also secured some photos to use for studio paintings later, and here are a couple from the area:

View from the bridge looking up river

Wide-angle view from my painting location looking south and downstream

A willow and its reflection in a small pond near the river

Animas River fall colors - plein air, pastel

Since coming back from Moab:  1) the riverside cottonwoods have come into full color; 2) I've felt even more energized to do plein air painting since the season here will end soon.

I haven't painted every day, but here are two paintings from the three outings this week.  As much as my enthusiasm for painting from photos has diminished, I did take many photos as well that I can use later when the color is gone and it's too cold to go outside.

Riverside Trio
9x12 - pastel on Artagain
© S.Johnson

Behind our local shopping mall is access to the paved multi-use trail, and a small dirt foot path leads directly to the river nearby.  I'd taken photos on Sunday during a long walk Wayne and I took along the trail, and decided to come back and paint these three cottonwoods.  The three tiers of slopes are separated by a road (top) and a singletrack path (lower) on the east side of the river.

River Boulder and Bridge Shadows
12x12 inches - pastel on Pastelmat
© S.Johnson

Today's painting, done a bit further down river at a small park.  Local pastelist Pat Smiley  and I were finally able to plan to paint together, and we had a great time.  Back in July, she had given me this piece of Pastelmat to try, as I'd never used it before.  I used it for a painting not long after that which didn't work.  I brushed the painting off and used rubbing alcohol to stain the rest into the paper to try again.

For some reason, it suddenly worked better for me, perhaps because the surface was darker?  I don't know, but I found the amount of tooth it had to be probably perfect for me.  A sanded paper like Wallis is probably too much, and this surface was nice in that it allowed more layers than my usual sanded Artagain does and worked really well with the light touch I am used to.

It's funny...I'm not sure how well this painting reads to anyone but myself and Pat, since we were both there.  The two large shadows - the upper one from a bridge, and the one across the water from a large cottonwood - were two of the things that attracted me to this scene, along with the boulder and lone yellow sapling.

I'm not super happy with the water reflections in this one - they were very cool, but difficult to render because of all the reflected yellows and browns from the trees.  Plus, this paper handles differently than the Artagain which I'm used to doing water reflections on.

Pat and I have planned to go out for at least the next two days in a row, so more fall colors to come!

Utah cottonwood color - pastel

Kaleidoscope
12 x 12 inches
pastel on Artagain
© S Johnson

A studio piece that took far longer than it should have to finish (and subsequently, feels a bit over-worked).   It didn't quite meet my pre-painting expectations, but I got a lot out of painting it nonetheless.

From a photo taken about 25 miles south of Moab along Hwy 191 last year, at a rest stop situated next to one of those tickey-tacky tourist stops:  Hole N''The Rock.  Not to be confused with the road of the same name in the Escalante-Grand Staircase NM (also in UT), it started out as a house built into the large outcropping of Navajo sandstone by a Mormon pioneer close to a century ago.  That in itself is kind of interesting, but if you click on the link, what immediately assaults your aesthetic sense is the huge white lettering on the side of the rock.

Really?  Why?

At any rate, this beautiful Fremont cottonwood showing off its range of leaf color, was mercifully well out of view of the whole [hole?] view of all that.  Cottonwoods have these wonderful organic shapes to their trunks and branches, never orderly or predictable, and that is what draws me to them as photography and painting subjects time and time again.

Only one more day to get any painting in before I leave for Moab!  Thanks to expedient handling and shipping of an order placed on Monday, my two display easels from Dick Blick arrived yesterday, allowing me to leave on Monday instead of Tuesday.  Weather is supposed to be sunny and warm and dry during the event, which after the very winter-like storm that has been hitting our area for the better part of the week, is a relief.

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Photos taken yesterday along a drive up Hwy 550 to go check out the snow and fall color situation:

Aspen stand in full color in a fleeting moment of sunlight

Engineer Mountain as seen from the highway near Andrews Lake (~9,900')

Hermosa Cliffs closer to town (~8,000')

Southern Utah in fall, pastel, 9x12

Fall Light in Canyonlands
9x12 inches - pastel on Artagain
© 2011, S.Johnson

Today's paint out with the Four Corners group was canceled due to rain, so it was a studio day instead.   Based on a photo taken last October during our trip to Canyonlands, it depicts a scene I absolutely love:  backlit fall color trees against shadowed canyon walls, in this case - cottonwoods.  Next to aspen, they are my favorite tree, and I really enjoy painting them.

Unfortunately, this didn't photograph very well; in real life, the slopes and cliffs of the canyon walls aren't as contrasty.  After looking at the photo, I went back down to make adjustments and realized that it was the photo...you'll just have to take my word that it does look much better in person.

I leave for Moab in a week.  Our planned trip to go tomorrow is canceled because of - bad weather.  I'm disappointed, as I'd intended for this week's trip to be a scouting trip to secure locations to paint ahead of time.  Ah well...it's not the first time lousy weather has caused plans to change, so I'll just have to go with the flow.

Test sheet of pastels on scrap of Artagain

Revised plein air set - 175 pieces of pastel goodness
NuPastel, Sennelier, Mt Vision, Unison, Richeson Handmade and Ludwig 

Fall in La Plata - plein air, pastel

Fall Along La Plata Canyon Rd
12x16 inches - pastel on black Artagain
© 2011, S.Johnson

During fall color season, the PAP4C group meets weekly for paint-outs.  Today was a return to La Plata Canyon, which is about 10 miles west of town.  The first paint-out I did with the group was in the same area, although on a private ranch, back in mid-June.  Those paintings can be seen here.


Today was another of those "easy to find a location" paint-outs, right along the side of the road.  I've taken photos in this location before, in different seasons, and even before I lived here.   The huge Fremont cottonwood made an easy center of interest, and the slope directly behind was covered with scrub oak in their range of rusts and crimson reds.   Patches of aspen on the base of the mountains show some color.

I didn't get photos of the rest of the group's paintings today, but I had a funny thing happen while I was painting:  A car with two older couples visiting from Germany stopped, and they all came over to see my painting and ask me questions, like where I lived, and where was my work for sale, etc.  And, for whatever reason, they wanted to take photos of me standing next to my easel.  And, they took several photos of the painting itself, which was about 85% finished at that time.  Yes, my painting and I became an international tourist photo prop.  The straw cowboy hat I wear when painting probably added to the "wild west" image of everything - ha!

I don't know what it is, but for some reason, people feel compelled to actually *touch* the pastels.  They never ask; they just touch one of them, and lo and behold - they get "chalk dust" on their fingertip.  Thankfully, that's only happened one other time, but it's sort of amusing.  

At any rate, they were friendly and polite and I offered to take their photos with essentially the same view I was painting in the background, and they were delighted.  The woman who spoke the most English wished me the best of luck for all my paintings, and then at my suggestion, they headed up the highway to Durango.

Fall in the San Juans - plein air, pastel

I'd hoped to get this posted yesterday, but didn't have time.  Yesterday, the PAP4C (Plein Air Painters of the Four Corners) had a paint-out at Andrews Lake, which you may remember from previous blog posts.

(NOTE:  this post is very image intensive...it was a full day)  

Hillside Aspens 
12x16 inches
pastel on black Artagain

The weather was absolutely perfect - mild and sunny, with no wind or chance of rain, and no insects.  Aspen are coming into fall color rapidly along Hwy 550 in the higher elevations.  It is what early fall in the San Juans is all about.  At the lake itself, there are no aspen, and I originally thought about painting the lake because it is so attractive.  However, when fellow pastelist Jan and Mary Ellen arrived, they wanted to paint fall colors, which sounded more appealing, so I decided to follow them back down the highway.

I ended up pulling off before they did, at a huge slope of yellow and green aspen right at a large pullout, and while I was originally planning on painting that stand (in photo below), as I climbed up a small hill and looked to the east, I knew immediately I had my painting.  Aside from the brilliant yellow stand of distal aspen, the pale gray Leadville limestone pushing up through the dried grasses was the perfect lead-in and clinched the deal.

And, in an unusual moment of foresight, I actually thought to take a few photos of the painting in-progress.  I always enjoy it when artists post their painting in its stages, so I thought I'd do the same.  They aren't that amazing, but painting on black is different than using a lighter surface as far as approach goes, and maybe some will find it interesting.

Initial block-in:  I used a NuPastel in bottle green to sketch in the horizon contour and basic shapes of the main elements.  A light gray NuPastel was used to suggest the initial rocks, with a few strokes of earth colors to define some planes and edges, and then I jumped right in with the color.  

The surface looks gray because it is in full sun and there is the shadow from the top of the easel (stood for this painting, using my French easel).

Sky was put in to help anchor the painting and values.  From that point, I work sort of randomly across the paper, going back and forth with different colors, working on different elements, usually just a few strokes before picking up another color.  I find this keeps things from getting too mechanical and maintains the degree of disorder and contained chaos that nature presents.

The finished painting at the end of the plein air session, with final detail added.  This is the largest size (12x16") that I've used on location so far, and it took me about 2 1/2 hrs. to complete.  After the critique session suggestions, I made some minor adjustments back in the studio that you can see by comparing this to the top painting.  

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There were a total of seven of us at the paint-out, and at 1:00 PM, the critique session was held at the small dock at Andrews Lake.  Here is the group photo of everyone's work, a few of which weren't finished:

Media, from top L to bottom R:
oil, w/c, pastel, pastel, oil, w/c, oil (almost out of the picture)

After the paint-out critique wrapped up, Wayne (who had come along to hike the Crater Lake trail while I painted) suggested we drive to Silverton, which is about 8 miles away, to get something to eat and check out the fall colors.  It turned out to be better than we hoped, with aspen firing off in full color throughout the Silverton area.  Here are a few photos, and it's probably easy to see why artists and photographers are just wild about aspen in the fall:

The aspen stand I almost painted, south of Andrews Lake

Quaking color 

Aspen quartet outside of Silverton

A stand of orange aspen frame part of Anvil Mtn. west of Silverton along Hwy 550

Beautiful brilliant yellow aspen stand just south of Silverton, flanked by spruce

Looking skyward - aspen along Hwy 550 south of Coal Bank Pass

Trunks and shadows and complimentary colors

Leaf still life on boulder

Early fall in Durango - plein air, pastel

I've been slacking on location painting lately, partly because of recent bad weather and partly because we have been taking advantage of the current amazing fall weather to get up in the mountains and hike before the season ends.  

These paintings are part of an agenda I have, which I'll discuss in a later post.  Suffice it to say that my plan is to paint on location as often as possible for the next few weeks.

Dry Fork Cottonwoods
pastel on Strathmore Artagain - 12x9 inches
© 2011, S Johnson

 Today's plein air painting, done from the trailhead near Dry Fork, which is west of town a few miles.  We hiked there yesterday afternoon, and these small leaf cottonwoods were in nearly full color, and despite taking some reference photos yesterday, I decided this would be the ideal place to paint today...after missing the rendezvous with the Friday plein air group this morning.

Remember the Barnroof Point painting from a few days ago?  The eastern edge of its cliffs can be seen in this painting.  The orange/rust slope is the scrub oak that form amazing patchworks of color on the steep slopes around town.

Riverside Colors
pastel on Strathmore Artagain - 9x12 inches
© 2011, S Johnson

Painting from Wed late afternoon, along the banks of the Animas.  The cottonwoods aren't turning along the river yet, but these bushes were.  Plus, it was another excuse to practice painting water and reflections.

Travels Abroad - landscapes in oils, 6x6 - SOLD

original landscape painting, oils, roads, 6x6

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Travels Abroad #1

6x6 

oil on wood panel

SOLD

Travels Abroad #2

6x6

oil on wood panel

SOLD

Before embarking on larger paintings based on the Butler Wash/Cedar Mesa trip, I decided I had to do the Daily Paintworks German Landscape challenge for this week.  Host Carol Marine offered two photos, both taken during her trip to Germany.  And, even though I don't usually paint from reference photos that aren't my own, I couldn't resist these.  

Why?  Two reasons:  1) they have roads, which I have an irresistible urge to paint; 2) the snapshots themselves had inherently good design - simple, abstract shapes and good range of values.  As the basis for a painting, they were ideal.  

My personal challenge with these was to more or less abandon the local color (summer green...not my favorite color, and besides, everyone else is doing them in green) and go with some different palettes for each. And, to simplify-simplify-simplify.  

The palette I used was somewhat random:  alizarin crimson, cadmium orange, Indian yellow, burnt sienna, brown madder, cobalt blue hue.  Actually, the brown madder was the random addition to the palette.

They were fun little paintings, both done last night, save for some tweaking on #2 this morning.  Originally, I had long shadows going across the road in #2, even though they aren't in the reference photo.  I wasn't sure about them, so I showed Wayne, because despite the fact he says he isn't qualified to offer opinions on art, he's nothing but brutally honest:  "I don't like the shadows - it looks like sewage is running across the road."   After I stopped laughing, I went down and changed it.  Despite what he might think, I'm actually really grateful for his opinions.  Hopefully, it looks better now.

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Some random photos from our Utah trip from the first day after our hikes:

Casa Del Eco Mesa, with the San Juan river cutting across the valley.  

San Juan river

Two rafts await a private river trip in the morning

Monument Valley to the southwest, as seen from Hwy 163 

Two buttes in Valley of the Gods catch late afternoon sun

Sunset in the town of Bluff, UT

Small landscape studies - ACEO original art

Tags:  pastel painting - abstract landscape - fall colors - cloud painting - sunset

More experimentation...

ACEO trio #1

each  2.5 x 3.5 inches

pastel on Strathmore black paper

New ideas come about in any number of ways, I've found.  In this case, I had recently purchased a new pad of the black Strathmore Artagain paper I enjoy working on.  The local art store only had a 12x12" pad rather than the 9x12 I usually get.  Wanting to keep the size consistent for the Ancient Architecture series I've been doing on this paper, I trimmed up a few pieces to have available.

Normally, I save these left-over pieces for trying out color combinations for the paintings.  However, as I got to thinking, it occurred to me that I could instead use them as small color thumbnails for larger paintings, or even do them as miniature paintings in their own right.  For those not familiar with ACEO, it is the acronym for "Art Cards, Editions and Originals".   ACEO's are a spin-off of the original Art Trading Cards that have been popular for years:  artists creating small works of art and trading them with other artists.  The only criteria for both ATC's and ACEO's is that they must be 2.5 x 3.5 inches.  Otherwise, anything goes!

I've seen an increasing number of artists working in this size, in everything from mixed media collage to highly-detailed paintings in oil, and I've always been intrigued by the whole ACEO/ATC movement.  They are also popular on Etsy and eBay.

I did the first three yesterday, and here's what they look like in a wood mini-frame ($1.50 at Walmart):

Cloudscape #1, framed

Honestly, how cool is that?  The display and presentation options are endless.  

Today, I worked on another set, all from memory/imagination, and meant to be abstract fields of flowers:

ACEO trio - #2

It was so fun working on these little nuggets of soft pastel goodness, having fun with color and ideas - I think I'm hooked!   After working on these, I had another idea to do a series of Colorado wildflowers on these cards.  Two are done, and I'll be posting those tomorrow along with others I finish.  They will dovetail nicely with the surreal florals I'm doing in oils.  Working in soft pastel in such a small size limits the detail I can get, especially since I don't have any pastel pencils.  But, I love the simplicity.  

Because of the small size, these don't look as good when they are enlarged to more than 100%, so I used GIMP to create these montages.