Day 2: Painting at Night

I worked at the store today. Usually by the time I get home, make dinner, clean up, and finally sit a bit after being on my feet all day, I don't want to move. It is even hard to get up and get ready for bed.

Today I also had to paint. At first, I didn't want to and my mind raced to find an excuse I could live with. I honestly couldn't find one I could live with. So, I got up and climbed the stairs to my studio. My mind kept saying, "I don't want to do this" or,  "you are too tired so you will probably have to wipe it off anyway." My body kept setting up to paint. It only takes a minute as I am using my plein air easel in the studio to make it easy to just move aside.

I started to paint. An interesting thing happened. My exhaustion receded, not entirely, but significantly. My mind snapped into creative problem solving mode, and my very tired feet forgot they were tired for a bit. Ahhh, much better. I ended up painting for just a little over an hour. An hour was all I was really hoping for.

I did discover that I really don't like painting at night. I much prefer the daytime.

So here is a work in progress. There is a story behind this still life which I will tell as the painting progresses. It isn't a fancy painting but will actually work as a study for a larger painting that I have in mind.

This a tiny part of the painting, which, as I mentioned above, is a work in progress. I am starting with a color block in for this one.

Day 2: WIP (work in progress for those folks who are not familiar) 1 hour 20 minutes..

Here is the first part of the story behind the still life:
The beach along the Oregon coast is a magical place. It is always changing, never the same from day to day. There is a particular beach on the Northern Oregon Coast that is, in my opinion, more magical than most. I go there a lot to paint, draw, and sometimes just hang out. There are a few creeks and small rivers that find their way to the mother sea and they carve channels into the sand on their way to rejoin the salty ocean. At one end, there is a waterfall that cascades onto the rocks, or into the waves, depending on the tides.
The sand shifts and can quickly cover a rock formation or build up into banks. It can all be washed away the next day and expose new rocks and sometimes remnants of human artifacts.
One day, near the spot where the ashes of my dog Twill are buried, the ocean left me a gift...

Both still life and story to be continued!

I work at the store again tomorrow. We shall see if it gets easier to do my stint of painting.
Please forgive any errors in the above post. I am cramming this in before hauling myself to bed.

-Renee

Twisting a 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 1

Prepping panels for painting

I am once again participating in Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge. Leslie is great at encouraging everyone to make it fun and change it to fit ones needs. I decided to do just that. First, let me back up a tiny bit before describing my challenge.

It has been a very busy summer with music, work, and painting en plein air every chance I get. The summer has been unusually sunny with very little rain for the Northern Oregon Coast. The visitors have flocked here and it has left many shopkeepers, and us employees, grateful for the customers but a bit frazzled.

Labor Day, which is today as I write this post, officially ends our summer season. The kids will be heading back to school and summer vacations are ending. Things will be slowly quieting down around here. I must admit, I am breathing a huge sigh of relief. It has been a bit too crowded and hectic for my introverted tastes.

Last September I did not participate in this challenge as I was recovering from surgery. My attempt at January's challenge did not fly as I suddenly went back to work a few days a week, to pay off the surgery bills! So here I am again.
I decided to do a few things differently this time around as I am in a different place in my drawing and painting now. Here is what I propose for myself for this challenge:

I work two days a week in a women's clothing store in our tiny little town. There are two such stores dedicated to clothing, in addition to a couple more stores that have a bit of clothing for sale, and they are both a destination for many out-of-town shoppers.
Did you catch that introvert reference? I like people, honestly, but they exhaust me and I need a lot of down time and solitude to recover after each work day. I have felt too tired to do much of anything when I get home from working at the store all day. I want to try to change that. I will not be completing and entire painting on my store work days, but I want to get into the habit of painting everyday.

So the first part of this challenge is to do just that, paint everyday even if it is for an hour. I have been building a daily drawing habit for a while and I want to continue to do that and solidify it.
The second part of this challenge is to focus on a particular skill building area. I have decided to focus on composition. I have been so busy building up skills piece by piece, that I have neglected the whole. It is time to put it all together.

A found item I won't be painting at this time, Velella,velella. A sea creature of the jellyfish persuasion.

Leslie suggests having a theme. I decided my theme is "Found". I will be using the many intriguing items that I find on the beach in various still life paintings. I am also including "found" beach scenes as I will continue to paint en plein air.

Given all of this, I probably won't have 30 completed paintings. I am not sure how many I will have. I will put any painting that I think worthy up for sale. Most of them will be small and will be $100 for the challenge month. 

I promise I won't be writing such a long post each time either! I am also asking Please, no critiques of the paintings, constructive or otherwise, at this time. They will be critiqued privately. I need the space to experiment, grow, and make a mess. I am willing to share the process but process is not perfect or perfectly finished paintings all the time. It is going to get messy!

Here is Day 1:

"Summer Green", 6"x6", oil on panel. Plein air still life, pyramid composition. Bottle, including sand, and floats found on beach. NFS

Stay tuned!
-Renee

And the winner is...

I am still here and still painting! My schedule has been a bit overstuffed so I am woefully behind. I will also blame my lack of posts a bit on my introverted nature too. I just needed to be out of touch for a while. I even cut back on posting on Facebook a bit.

This is going to be a quick post! I am just going to post the pictures of today's studies and one or two others for your viewing pleasure. I will be getting back to the storytelling over the next few posts.

First of all, the weather on the Northern Oregon coast has been stunning. I think I have forgotten what rain is like! It has been very warm but thankfully not as hot as many areas.
Here are the studies from today:

"Neahkahnie Morning", 8"x10", plein air wave study #75, oil on canvas.

It has been a while since I have painted a wave study as I have been painting other scenes. This is Wave Study #75!

"Shorty South", 8"x10", plein air study, oil on canvas

I decided to focus on Short Sands beach this summer. Short Sands is a five minute drive up the road from where I live. It is part of Oswald West State Park. It is also a well known surfing spot so there is usually surfers and dogs on the beach and in the water. It was crowded today as there are a lot of summer visitors in the area.

"Waterfall at the North End", 8"x10", plein air study, oil on linen panel

This isn't a great photo but this was painted at the end of June.

I will get busy and round up any other paintings I have done. I had a long break at the beginning of July due to work and family obligations. I was getting quite cranky from the lack of painting! It feels good to be back at work.

Finally, several months ago I announced that the wonderful people who purchased a painting before my painting workshop in May would be eligible for a drawing to win a free painting in July. Here it is the 31st of July! I went to random.org and entered in the names and randomly generated a list. The winner of a painting is my lovely and wonderful cross-the-street neighbor, Karen!

Congratulations to Karen and many thanks to all who purchased a painting.
I haven't put up any paintings for sale recently as I am working on studies and to create a body of work. I will be returning to selling paintings in the Fall and Winter!

More painting adventures to come,

-Renee

Sketching the Bones

The weather and my work schedule finally fell into harmonious synch and I got three days in a row to paint and sketch. I spent a day at Short Sands beach tackling the waterfall cliffs again. This time I went ahead and went through the new process with only slight progress. It was only that night that I realized I forgot to do one of the most important techniques, SQUINT! I know better too. My only excuse is that my head is filled with trying to remember the new process that I sort of let some of my old basics slide. Next time I will set my timer to remind me to squint every 10 minutes or so until the habit returns.
Here is the painting I did at Short Sands a couple of days ago.

© 2014 R.L. Delight, Short Sands Study- WIP, 8"x10", oil on canvas

This is essentially a block in with very little detail. It took me 2 1/2 hours. Slow going. I noticed a few issues with my subject matter. First, there is a lot of complex detail not only in the rock but the shadows, which move constantly. I did pretty good at not moving the shadow shapes around once I got them in but then I saw others I liked better. I didn't move them around but I sure wanted to make another painting. It was a bit too late to do that so I made note of the time and hope to hit it right next time.
The other issue that I need to get the hang of is coordinating the light and the tides. It isn't as easy as it sounds. This day I got there at low tide and the tide was coming in, which I wanted. One other issue I need to solve with this area is getting the underlying architecture of the cliffs. It can be challenging to see what is going on with the dramatic lighting obscuring the rock.
With that in mind I decided to go back the next day, yesterday, with my sketching pack. I keep two art packs ready to go, one is my plein air painting gear, the other contains sketching materials. I spent a couple of hours yesterday trying to get shapes and proportions down. The following sketch can be a bit tricky to read as I focused pretty much only on the cliff, not the trees and greenery above or the water and sand below.

© 2014 R.L. Delight, Short Sands Sketch, graphite on paper.

I know, it is hard to make sense of when the drawing subject is out of context but when I put it next to my Short Sands studies I have done, I can start to see the reason for the shadows and shapes.
I am obsessed with painting this area some reason. I really want to get a good painting that captures what I see and feel at this spot, and believe me, the feeling is strong. I will keep going back and painting studies until I have it down and have enough to paint a formal studio painting along with any decent plein air paintings I can get out of it. There is a lot to paint there in addition to this one area.
Today was a bit of a rest day and catching up on a few chores. However, this afternoon I went back to Devil's Cauldron to do a bit of sketching there too. We had a bit of a time constraint so I decided to sketch rather than paint. The afternoon was beautiful and I pulled out what is quickly becoming my favorite sketching materials, my water soluble graphite pencils, ArtGraf water soluble graphite in a tin, and Niji water brush. The water soluble graphite allows me to create something between a drawing and painting. I am having a lot of fun with it although I can see I need to refine the technique a bit. Here is the drawing I made at Devil's Cauldron today:

© 2014 R.L. Delight, Devil's Cauldron Sketch, water soluble graphite on paper

The values in the ocean and distant cliff behind the tree stump are way off so it is hard to tell what is going on there. I need a bit more practice with the stuff. This is the first time I used the ArtGraf tin.
I did remember to squint today!
I am also starting to consider what I want to take away from the workshop I recently took and what I want to leave behind. I am getting a good idea and I think I will know after another few sessions. More on that to come.

So now, a couple days of working at the store and then off to paint again

Summer is nearly officially upon us!
-Renee

Kathleen Dunphy Workshop

Well, I can sum up the entire workshop in one word, Fantastic! I arrived back home last night and went out painting today, but let me back up a bit.
I traveled to Murphys California over two days by car with an overnight stop at Ashland, OR.
I arrived the day before the workshop started and met several of my new classmates for dinner in Murphys to get a chance to get acquainted. We arrive at our classroom in Douglas Flats, just down the road from Murphys, which was literally an old school house. A charming old school house complete with bell.

Douglas Flat School

The first morning was spent eagerly soaking up instruction from Kathleen. She had good handouts for all of us and, after lunch, she turned us loose to paint. It was very hot the first day and not just for this Pacific Northwest coastal painter.
Kathleen's approach to starting a painting, brush size, limited palette, brush work, and paint application are different than mine. From the very first, I decided to leave behind what little I know for now and embrace what she teaches. I plan to keep working in this way until I become competent with the method and can then decide what to keep and what to let go.
Well, some of you know that means I make a huge mess and take about ten giant steps back in proficiency. I decided to start from the beginning and work on just starting.
Here is my day one painting and start.

Day 1 study, 6"x8", oil on canvas panel

As you can see, I didn't get very far. I gained a tiny toe hold with this one though.
On to day two!
We met an hour earlier, 8:00 am, to beat the heat a bit. The day wasn't quite as hot as the previous one but no one seemed to mind getting an early start. This one started with a Q and A and additional talk to fill in all the odds and ends of information. We headed out to the road to watch Kathleen paint a demo for us demonstrating all that she was talking about. She painted what is known as the "Italian Store."
Here is a picture of this interesting building:

The Italian Store, Douglas Flats, CA

It is always good to see a demonstration of the principles given in a lecture. After the demo, I had a quick bite to eat and joined my classmates out in the surrounding area to paint. I found a spot I liked around the back to paint. Here is the first Day 2 study:

Day 2 study: Back wall of The Italian Store, 8"x10", oil on linen panel

Here is something I don't have to worry about here at the beach!

We didn't encounter any but did sign a waiver stating that we had been warned and were responsible for not provoking any rattlers we found!
Late afternoon we had a choice of continuing to paint on our study for the day or to go paint at a local winery down the road. Most of us chose to go to the winery. Twisted Oak winery to be exact. The winding road up to the wine tasting room was peppered with humorous signs that made me burst out laughing each time I encountered one. I don't want to add to the length of this post too much but here was the final sign, which seemed appropriate:

Twisted Oaks Winery

Twisted Oaks welcoming committee

The picture above is of the welcoming committee at the entrance and a view of the area.
We only had about two hours to paint before we had to leave as the winery closed at 5:30. I decided to visit the gift shop, do a quick wine tasting, and then paint at the entrance in front of the gate. Now, I must say here, when I say quick wine tasting I mean it. No swirling of the glass, loud sniffing of the fumes, witty comments, etc. I literally took a tiny sip and dumped the excess and moved on. I am sure the young woman behind the counter serving the tasting wine looked a bit bemused. I didn't want to have the wine interfere with my painting. Drinking and painting is not a pretty sight to behold! I quickly made my wine selection, bought a few gifts, and went to my chosen spot. A couple of classmates and I spent a few hours painting and reluctantly put down the brushes about 7 p.m.  Day two was a long day, working from 8am to 7pm. I went back to my hotel room tired, hungry, and very happy to be at at the workshop. Here is the second study I painted on day two.

Day 2: Twisted Oaks Winery Study 6"x8", oil on canvas panel

Our final day arrived alarmingly fast. We all met up at Ironstone Vineyards at 9:00 am. Well, some of us were there a bit earlier. I forgot we were meeting at 9 instead of 8 am, but that was just fine. It was a beautiful morning and I enjoyed exploring the area. It turned out that I wasn't the only one!
Kathleen painted another demo for us to explain painting reflections in water. We all fell to work as time was short.

Painting at the pond at Ironstone Vineyards

The day was cooler still but nicely warm for me. It felt wonderful. Here is my final workshop study:

Day 3: The pond at Ironstone Vineyards, 8"x10", oil on linen panel

There wasn't much time, only about an hour and a half but my starts were getting quicker and I was able to get in a bit more detail, if you could call it that.
We all gathered and caravaned up to Kathleen's studio to have a final critique and wrap up talk. Murphys is a beautiful place and Kathleen's studio is a pleasure to visit. We had our critique surrounded by many of her beautiful paintings.

The workshop went so fast and left me wanting more. I felt like I was just getting warmed up!
Now I have to add a little note here. My sharing of my work process is hopefully neither narcissistic or masochistic. I share the good, the bad, and the ugly in an attempt to show what goes into building art skills, and to possibly encourage others who may be struggling too.

Kathleen gave us many wonderful quotes throughout the workshop. One of my favorites was from Barbara Kingsolver, who is a favorite author of mine too. Barbara would tell and encourage her children with the following: "You can do hard things".  Painting isn't easy and it helps to tell oneself "I can do hard things" when faced with the frustration, which Kathleen assures us is the constant companion of most artists. If anyone is considering taking a workshop with Kathleen Dunphy, I highly recommend it. Her teaching style fit my learning style perfectly. She is warm, smart, funny, and encouraging. I will probably take one more workshop from her, the "No whiners" 5-day workshop. I will have about a year to continue to build my skills and get out to paint before that one.

As I mentioned at the top of this post, I went out painting today and went through the same process. It was sunny but windy. It was too windy to put an easel umbrella up so I painted in the sunshine. My painting is too dark and too intense but I did go through the process and am able to get a tiny bit more. In spite of my two layers of fleece and a marine coat, I was shivering by the end and the wind gusts kept blowing my hand around as I would try to paint. I got a good two hours plus in. Here is the study. I painted at Hug Point as there was a minus tide today. I can see plenty to tweak as well as finish. That square of sky for one!

Hug Point Plein Air Study, 8"x10", oil on linen panel

Alas, I work the next few days. However, I had plenty of time to think and plan on my drive home. I know what I want to achieve and what it will take. I have a lot of work cut out for me but I wouldn't want to do anything else.
This will be a fun post to revisit in a year!

-Renee

Warm weather and Workshop!

I am a bit behind in posting this. We had a few days of beautiful warm weather on the coast and I took advantage of every moment as seen in my previous post. I went out one more day but the marine inversion layer had returned with a serious mizzle. I did get a painting in nonetheless. I went up to Arcadia State Park, with is the next cove over from Hug Point.
I am still working on a new painting process so here is a picture of my start and my finish.

© 2014 R.L. Delight, Color Block-In, Arcadia State Park

The first picture is the color block in. Just getting the shapes and approximate colors on the canvas. This step goes fairly fast but I still strive for accuracy. The picture below is when I broke the painting session off due to excess moisture! It was fairly close to finish. I would have added a bit more to the sky and sandy beach to give variety and a few touches here and there. This was a two hour study.

© 2014 R.L. Delight, Arcadia State Park, WIP

Since this was a fairly simple composition, I painted a lot more detail than I usually do. Alas I realized too late that there was a bare mast of a tree at the top of the large hill. I stuck it in anyway even though it went off the canvas to remind me. Next time I would work it in better.
Here is a lovely picture of the area that I took before I got to work and the mist closed in.

© 2014 R.L. Delight, Arcadia State Park, OR

A quick note here, I do have an easel umbrella but I rarely use it. It does not hold up at all well in our coastal winds which can shift and come up rather suddenly and blow everything away. Rain here rarely falls straight down. It is usually going sideways into one's face. Mist and mizzle swirls around getting everywhere. Umbrellas don't work well under those conditions. I have found it most useful on sunny warm calm days, which are quite rare here as sunshine usually brings strong wind.

Finally, I am off in a couple days to go to a workshop taught by Kathleen Dunphy! I have mentioned it before and the time is almost here. I am excited! I will be driving down to California, breaking it into two days travel each way. I will only have my phone to post with but I will try to get a quick post or two in with a nice recap when I get back home.
I will be painting around the town of Murphys CA which has a dramatically different climate than what I am accustomed to. I have done all I can to prepare with sunscreen, clothing, and hydration plans. Stay tuned for journey posts!

-Renee

Making Paintings While the Sun Shines

We are having a heat wave here on the Northern Oregon Coast. I went out all day yesterday and today and painted. It feels so good to be out painting and to be out painting in warm sunshine is amazing! The temps have been in the low 80's, which for us is quite warm. The timing is perfect for me to try out my warm weather paint clothes and sunscreen before heading to California in 2 weeks for my workshop with Kathleen Dunphy.
So, to get right to it, yesterday I drove five minutes up the road to Devil's Caldron. The same spot I spent my birthday watching huge waves crash against the cliffs. The waves were a lot calmer yesterday. Here is the study I did in the morning:

© 2014 R.L. Delight, Devil's Cauldron morning study, 6"x8", oil on canvas

And here is the study I painted in the afternoon,

© 2014 R.L. Delight, Devil's Cauldron afternoon study, 8"x10",  oil on canvas.

When I first arrived, the wind was blowing fairly strong from the east and was quite warm. Finding a spot was challenging but I did find one somewhat sheltered from the wind and got to work. I decided to stay put and paint the second study on a larger canvas. This was the first time I tried an 8"x10" study. As you can see from the two studies, the shadows change dramatically as the sun moves through the sky. Often the sea rocks look completely different throughout the day.
I have been doing a lot of studying of art books and am trying out several of the ideas I have learned in these and today's studies. As it always is when trying something new, there is a slight step back in quality. Overall, I am quite pleased as I learned a lot while painting these even if areas of the painting are not as satisfying as I would like.
Here is a shot of my set-up spot as I was cleaning my palette after the first painting:

Painting at Devil's Cauldron

A note here, I don't wear sunglasses when I am painting but I do put them on the instant I am finished or when taking a break. I grew up in the sunshine on the west coast. My eyes will most likely will pay for that in the future. I hope to cut down on any future damage.
On to today's paintings! I went up to Ecola State Park where the tide was out but coming in. Due to the number of people on the beach and the tide, I didn't have as many possible views to paint as I would have liked. In other words, I only had 1000, instead of the usual 5000 views! I ended up finding a good rock to toss my things on and painted this rock, which I have painted before. I guess I like its shape and the wave action.

© 2014, R.L. Delight, Ecola State Park study, 6"x8", oil on canvas

 Again, I am concentrating on specific techniques here. In all of these studies I have been starting with a full color mass-in start. I get the canvas covered completely with a thin layer of color that looks sort of like the finished painting and then I go over it with thicker paint. Getting my paint a bit thicker is another one of those techniques I am working on. While I go through a period of frustration and even anxiety as I am trying the new techniques out, I am enjoying myself tremendously. I am making a lot of discoveries that I like.
That said, this afternoon did not go so well. I went back to Short Sands Beach as the tide was coming in almost to its highest point and painted a familiar area:

© 2014 R.L. Delight, Short Sands Study, 8"x10", oil on canvas

First of all, there is a lot of detail I am trying to capture here. Probably too much detail but I just love this spot for many reasons. I will keep painting and sketching it until I can get it down as I want it! In addition to trying all the new techniques, the light and shadows were changing very fast and very dramatically. I was pretty tired at this point and my mind did not want to hold the memory of what I was painting very well. My visual memory is getting better all the time but I realized I had reached a point where I was getting confused and starting to chase the light a bit. That told me it was time to stop. The ocean in the foreground was crudely blocked in while I was trying to get the waterfall and surrounding cliff.
I am not sure if I will continue to work on this study or toss it and try a new one. The bright sunlight is challenging when one is not used to it! I have managed to not get sunburned while standing out in the sun for so many hours. The sunscreen works as does the sunblock clothing.
I am quite tired from painting and will wrap this up.
The weather may be changing tomorrow but I think I will be able to get another good day of painting in. Saturday I am playing in a concert with my band, The Sedona Fire Band, with a sound-check call for 3:30. An awkward time of day, so I plan to take my new sketchbook for a spin.
More posts to follow!
-Renee