Suburban Spring…Summer in the City

West St., Annandale, NJ watercolor sketch

Reeves Reed Arboretum, watercolor sketch

Garden Urn, Cross Estate, watercolor sketch

A perfect way to spend a spring day is sketching in watercolor. All of these were done in my 5×8.5 inch Moleskine watercolor sketchbook. I did them with the paints in a Cotman watercolor field kit. The whole set up fits neatly into my backpack and I can work discreetly in parks, on the street or in my car if the weather is bad. The spring colors are especially vibrant this year, and including a building or other architectural form is a great way to create balance with the surrounding natural environment. Best of all, the work is neatly organized and protected in the sketchbook–no need to frame it, sell it or store it.

I’m focusing a lot on sketching these days. My teaching schedule is very hectic and I don’t have the time to work on large studio pieces at the moment. I actually prefer working smaller and on location anyway, so I am looking at this as an opportunity to explore watercolor as a medium and get some studies done of the city as the weather gets warmer and classes end. Stay tuned–I’ll be having a working in NYC in the middle of June, dates to come soon!

Katzen in Aquarell

A friend’s cat, Diva, watercolor 8×8 in.

Painting the cats in watercolor is just what I feel like doing lately, so I am. I will likely end up with a whole collection of them but that’s ok because I love cats.

I like to paint them with a lot of carefree strokes, I don’t draw them out before hand I just draw with the brush as I go along. I block in their faces with a few quick ellipses, position the eyes and nose and just go from there matching values and mixing fur colors. I try to keep the watercolor moving as one connected shape, particularly the dark and middle values, which is where I start, the opposite of what most watercolor artists do. Having them look as if they just dropped off the brush onto the paper is what is most important to me, along with pure clean colors and that sense of glowing light that watercolor creates so beautifully.

I want to make the cats whimsical but elegant as opposed to cute. Sure, they are cute, but they are also beautiful animals with lots of grace and intelligence who sometimes do some really silly things. I hope to get that across with these watercolors, a casual sense of what cats are all about.

Jake, watercolor, 8×8 in.

Watercolor: Pure & Simple

Plein air watercolor sketch, about 5 x 8.5 in Moleskine watercolor sketchbook

I have been an oil painter for many years, never really did much in the way of watercolor. However, lately I have become fascinated with it! I think sometimes one medium is just better suited for a certain point in an artistic career. I really only exhibit and sell my oils on canvas, but they are a small part of all the work I do as a painter. In the past, a lot of the studies I did on site were in pastel or acrylic, either on boards, panels or canvas pads. Recently, I began working in watercolor in sketchbooks instead–I love it! The studies are automatically organized and stored with field notes in the margin. There is no pressure to “do something” with them (translation = sell them to people for less than I would get for an oil and hear them balk about it just being a piece of paper even though they are getting a great deal on an original as I don’t sell prints). I have a good handle on the inventory I have at each of the 4 dealers that represent me, I’ll know when it’s time to start producing more large works on canvas, but until then, I’m very happy I have found my new most favorite medium–watercolor!!!

Sketch done in my Moleskine watercolor sketchbook in Clinton, NJ from my car.

Watch Your Values!

Plein Air Watercolor & Ink Study, Spring Street, Somerville, NJ

Since becoming involved in watercolor, I became aware of something I do whenever I am exploring a new medium. I tend to rely on the skills that are my strongest–drawing and color. Watercolor is a very unpredictable medium, it is sometimes referred to as the hardest of all media to master. I believe you can master any medium if you have the solid basis of a good drawing and a limited palette of harmonious colors.

When I begin working with a new media, I always start out working monochromatically. I have a whole sketchbook dedicated to watercolor sketches, done on location, in various blue pigments–Prussian, cerulean, cobalt, ultramarine–some in combination with one another, others with just one pigment. In doing this, I am relying on my drawing skills and knowledge of values and working with the unknowns of the medium in a “safe” environment–in other words, I’m not throwing everything at myself all at once and expecting to be able to master it in minutes!

Once I feel confident working monochromatically, I then move on to working with just two colors, typically 2 that are complementary to one another. For example, blue and orange, or violet and yellow ochre, alizarin and sap green, etc. This allows me to learn a bit more about how the new medium works in terms of color mixing without throwing too many variables into the mix. I find that watercolor is BETTER when fewer colors are used, even fewer than I might use in oil or acrylic.

To me, a good painting regardless of medium, starts out with a good drawing. That drawing must have a range of values that creates a 3-dimensional structure to support the color. Although my work is often described as colorful and vibrant, the basis of every painting I create is an accurate tonal structure. Without the value structure and careful selection of a limited, harmonious palette, a painting can easily get off track and become flat. Don’t let that happen, pay attention to your values and don’t get carried away by color!

 

I Love Perspective

Asuncion, Paraguay – pastel study for a large commissioned painting

I am currently working on a fabulous project–a painting of the city of Asuncion, Paraguay, commissioned by a client who is looking for a large, semi-abstract urban scene. I rarely accept commissions, but this one is perfect–the client supplied me with a reference photo as a departure point, the photo is exactly the type of shot I would take for one of my urban landscapes of New York.

I’m drawn to scenes like this because I love anything that involves strong, complex perspective. I like simplifying complex scenes such as this through gesture, and I love the geometric shapes and how they carve up the composition into dynamic angles. The strong one-point perspective combined with the great color and atmosphere of this South American city offer so much to work with in terms of creating movement and unity in the composition. I think most people (both artists and viewers) are mesmerized by paintings that have a strong sense of depth and complexity. AS a painter, I enjoy constructing the drawing that supports all the bright color, in fact it is really the best part of the process. Perspective is really not that difficult to grasp if you don’t fear it or become a slave to rulers and t-squares. I prefer to let my lines have a natural, gestural flow toward the vanishing point(s). I want it to be correct, yet look like a human being drew it, not a machine.

I am offering a course this Spring at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey called “One, Two, Three…Perspective!” As it’s name implies, I will cover all forms of perspective, but I will do it in a way that is designed for painters–not engineers! As a painter, you need to be able to understand the concept of perspective and be able to apply it within the context of painting–whether it be in your studio or on location. A plein air painter does not have time to fiddle with rulers and t-squares, you must grab the scene and quickly as possibly through loose gestural strokes. This is where understanding the perspective system in a given situation is invaluable because it allows you to quickly and accurately block in buildings, cars and other objects often present in the landscape. This is particularly true if you like to paint cities as I do. For more information on this course and the others I offer at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, click here (be sure to scroll down the page and visit the second page as well, courses are not listed in weekday order). Hope to see you this spring!

What do you see?

Metal Cans & Onions, pastel, 11×17 in.

What do you see when you look at this pastel drawing? A pile of metal cans with some onions thrown in? Why would anyone want to draw or paint that! Or have to look at it on their wall as art. Obviously, I must have found something compelling about this otherwise I would not have bothered to draw it. When I look at the subject, I see a host of opportunity to create a shimmering, vibrant study of surface texture. The onion skins echo the colors inside the cans, a brilliant coppery orange that bounces off the cool grey blues of the outer metal. The repeating shapes of the ellipses and spheres create a visual rhythm that keeps your eye moving throughout the composition. The detail is there, but it is all suggested or implied with quick, bold strokes–there is no fussiness in the application of the pastel, it’s pure fun. I think one of the things that can turn the ordinary into art is the ability to look beyond the subject and its context in real life. Doing so opens up a world of opportunity in terms of potential subject matter, it’s amazing how you can find something interesting just about anywhere if you have an open mind and a keen eye. So, next time you are looking for inspiration, just look around you–there is probably something right in front of you that could become your next painting!

Time to Register for Spring Courses & Workshops

East Main Street, High Bridge, NJ – plein air pastel

Spring is almost here and it’s time to sign up for a new semester of courses at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. I’ve posted a listing of my classes here. In addition to my regular offering, I want to call attention to two newer classes–Plein Air Basics and One, Two, Three…Perspective! 

Both focus on the landscape and they are designed to complement one another in many ways. I offered the perspective course for the first time this past winter, my painting students who took it have seen a significant increase in their confidence and skills!  Some are even repeating the course in addition to taking the plein air class.

Registration is open on the Visual Arts Center web site, or you can call the center at 908-273-9121 to sign up. I hope to see you in class this Spring!