Coming up for Air

I have missed a couple of posting days. Summer is here and there is much more going on in a day. I am sure the long hours of daylight are part of the reason! I have been putting in as much time as possible on my "Duet" painting but the progress is very slow, or so it seems to me. I have started in on the color finally. Here are the latest pictures of the painting in progress:

©2012 R.L. Delight, "Duet" oil on linen, 22"x40". Work in progress.

© 2012 R.L. Delight, "Duet" work in progress close up.

I had a bit of a challenge getting a good shot even taking it off the easel. There is a bit of glare on the painting. 

There is a call for art I would like to do a painting for and suddenly I realized I need to get going on it if I am going to make the deadline. The show is at the gallery where I volunteer as a docent. The painting above does not have any deadline and I am feeling I need to step away for a week or two. Not only do I need to refresh my vision for the painting but some of the paint needs to dry a bit before I oil out the painting to get a better idea of what the tones are doing. 

With the new painting in mind I got a few art supplies ordered. 

Art supplies!

 My mate made me another stretcher bar frame and I ordered linen and sizing. I also ordered some different brushes to try and two new colors to add to my plein air and seascape painting palette. I am trying Rembrandt brand greenish umber and green earth. The next painting will have a seascape in it as well as a still life of sorts. Notice I say "ordered"? Living in a relatively isolated area means most of my supplies are ordered online.

This week I will be busy stretching canvas, getting a few paintings framed and ready to submit to a local art show, and working on compositions. Evenings and weekends will be spent playing music with Sedona Fire and practicing my cello. It makes for a lovely full life! 

-Renee

The Cello Scroll Blues

 

@ 2012 R.L. Delight, Duet painting in progress, close-up

I am moving into the color portion of the painting and since I felt I needed to get a handle on painting the cello scroll, I started there. I would normally start with the bigger and darker shapes but decided to approach this painting a bit differently. It is going agonizingly slow. Even though I drew the scroll and painted it in the grisaille, I still had to do a lot of adjustments. There is still more to be done as well but I will be leaving it here for this first pass with color.
I had a lot of struggles with the scroll which led me to post the following on Facebook the other day:

5 things I learned while painting today:
1.Cello scrolls are freakin hard to paint and make my eyes cross.
2. Fear likes to sneak up behind you and put you in a choke hold.
3.Being an Aries/Taurus mix means that I will stubbornly hang in there until the fire within can toss Fear off.
4. Cello scrolls have a subtle intricate beauty that can take your breath away.
5. Cad. Orange is my friend.

Ah, the fear part. I was struggling trying to get it to look right when I stepped back a moment to evaluate why I was struggling. I realized I was nudging it around and getting nowhere because I was afraid I would lose what I already had and would never get it back! I realized that I really needed to wipe out part and rebuild the shapes. I took a deep breath and did just that and things went a lot smoother. I tell you, fear can really trip you up if you aren't careful! The vigilance never ends either.  I will get a bit more time in on the painting this week and then I will need to get another painting started next week so progress will slow down even more.
It should be an interesting week. Hard to believe it is already the middle of July.
Hope all of you out there are staying cool.
-Renee

Blue Skies and Fourth of July

Sea Star at Short Sands Beach

Summer has finally arrived on the Oregon Coast. As it is rare to have several warm calm days in a row, whenever they arrive people from all walks of life drop what they are doing and head outside if at all possible. The tides and weather conditions aligned recently and instead of painting in the studio, I took my easel out to Short Sands Beach which is located in Oswald State Park, a short 10 minute drive up the road for us. I wanted to get an oil sketch of a waterfall that cascades down to the beach for an upcoming painting. Next to my favorite Hug Point, Short Sands is another wonderful place to paint.  Short Sands is where all the surfers and their dogs hang out.
The U.S celebrations for the Fourth of July came and went. We had a busy day of celebration duties and the small town parade.

Band cam

Here is a picture of the parade from the drum section where I was playing and marching. My mate is in the dark blue shirt on the right playing trumpet. The day ended with the usual spectacular fireworks show on the beach after dark, which around here this time of the year happens about 10:00 pm.
I have been working on my cello/trumpet duet painting as well. I have taken the grisaille as far as I can go and will now be starting in on color. I will have a painting in progress report for the next post. Progress may slow down a bit if the weather continues to be fine. I would like to get more plein air painting in to use as reference for future paintings. Now, I have to grab our instruments off the still life table so we can go to our weekly jam session!
-Renee

Painting in the Sunshine

©2012 R.L. Delight, Plein Air

I had a glorious day yesterday. It was so glorious that I didn't have time to make this post! So here I am. Yesterday was one of those clear just-right-warm days from start to finish. Now, don't get me wrong, I love where we live. I really do love the cool gray weather. It makes for breathtaking scenery. It also means when the sun comes out to play, life pretty much stops and we too go out and play, if at all possible. I was up early to drop my mate off for his own all day adventure to a major league baseball game in a distant city. I knew I would want to be heading out to paint so I got a few hours in my studio during the early morning. I had a quick lunch and did some much needed yard work. After an early dinner I packed up my plein air painting kit, my driftwood frame and supports and headed to the north end of our beach at the foot of Neahkahnie mountain.
In last Sunday's post I mentioned that we were celebrating our anniversary that day. One of the things we did on that wonderful day was to hike to the top of Neahkahnie mountain. Just for perspective, here is the view from there looking down at our town and south along the Oregon coast.

©2012 R.L. Delight, Just a little place we call home.

If you knew what to look for you could see the street we live on!
Getting back to yesterday afternoon, I spent the remaining few hours of light on the beach painting an oil study for the next painting I will be starting. Another lovely aspect of living where we do is that it stays light out fairly late during the summer. Of course, on the other side of the solstice, it gets dark pretty early in the winter. I finished up my day feeling productive, happy, and tired. My mate arrived home with the dark and we snuggled in for some well earned rest.
I will have some progress pictures to show for my next post. Today I have docent duty at the Cannon Beach Artists Gallery. Before I head up there, I just have enough time to get a little work on my painting in. 
Take care all.
-Renee

Valuable Grisaille

©2012 R.L. Delight, Duet closed grisaille in progress.

As I promised in my last post, I took the painting off the easel where I was unable, due to the huge loom currently in my studio, to get a picture of the painting straight on. This is not perfectly straight on but pretty close. When I left of painting last, the cornet, which I had left for last, needed a lot more work to get it right. I decided I would start in on the closed grisaille with the cornet. It isn't what I would usually do as I tend to work with the big shapes first before moving down to smaller shapes but the cornet is particularly challenging. Not only is there a really nice bit of foreshortening, but the tubing gradually narrows as it coils and bends from the bell of the cornet to the mouthpiece. My light source is actually coming from below the table and from the right side of the painting. It isn't focused dead center on the bell of the horn but much of the light falls there. The horn is silver metal so it lights up quite nicely. Even so, the value wasn't as light as one would think, nor is it the lightest light (not counting highlights). My light source is also a warm light and the bell of the horn glows warmly in spite of the cool silver metal. The rest of the cornet is somewhat shadowed behind the bell and definitely grows cooler as it recedes. It still needs tweaking but here is a close up of the roughed in cornet:

©2012, R.L. Delight, Duet grisaille in progress, close up.

I have not added any highlights yet. They will be added toward the finish of the painting. I need to refine the shape of the bell and the tubing a bit, work on the mouthpiece, and correct the angle of the valves, which I noticed were off the last time I passed the painting and set up and looked. 

After I finish with the cornet I will move on to the larger shapes again. 

I am experimenting with a bit of a different approach than I usually take. When I was working in fiber (weaving and spinning), I was a workshop assistant for a color and fiber class. We used Color-aid papers to do our exercises, one of which was to make a gray scale or value card. The other day I decided to make a five value scale and a nine value scale as well to use as a tool in determining the values of my set up. Here is a photo of the value scales:

Value scales

 The bottom one was the one I made in the fiber workshop in the late 1990's. As you can see, it is looking a little stained and battered. It has 18 values with the white being 0. The middle chart is the nine and the top is five values. 

For the grisaille, I am using the five value chart. The cornet actually falls in the three middle values. I pre-mixed three warm brown/grays and three cool brown/grays to match those values. Doing all that really helped me to focus on the value relationships, which is what a grisaille is supposed to do. I am going to continue to use the five value scale for the rest of the closed grisaille, comparing the value relationships as I paint.

That is where I am at on the painting. Tomorrow I will be back in the studio working away. 

I have to add that today my mate and I are celebrating our 28th wedding anniversary. We have a lovely day planned. 

Progress to be shown in the next post! 

Until then, 

-Renee

This Grisaille is Now Closing

©2012, R.L. Delight, Open Grisaille, painting in progress

 My head is ringing with the Chicago song, Beginnings. We had band rehearsal tonight and it was a blast working on this one. Our band consists of flute, guitar, drums, keyboard, bass, AND, violin, trumpet, me on the cello, and two kick-ass, powerful vocalists (who also play the flute and guitar). It is a lot of fun but I always have to decompress a bit after rehearsals and performances as the music soars.
I am posting a day late and at the end of the day due to unforeseen circumstances. I did get time in the studio in today. The painting has been sitting all weekend, drying. I can no longer push and pull the paint around so I will have to move into the closed grisaille stage. The cornet is pretty rough still as it is rather complex and I left the details somewhat vague. I need to make several corrections. I think drawing and painting the cornet with the convoluted tubing that tapers and the foreshortening is the most challenging bit. Challenging, but so very fun!
I took a bit of time today to study the range of values. I was asking myself what the darkest dark was and where was the lightest light (not counting the bright highlights that will be on the silver cornet). I am glad I did this as I was surprised. I have a homemade value card that used Color-Aid papers from a color-and-fiber workshop in my past life. I held that up and squinted while looking at various areas around the still life setup. It was very helpful and gave me a sort of third party perspective. I should have done that sooner as the values of the painting are off a bit here and there. Fortunately I will have a chance to correct that in the next phase.
I can only get a picture of the painting on the easel from a strange angle so it is a bit distorted. As I sit here typing I realized that, hmmm....Perhaps I can take it off the easel to take a picture of it? Hello! I don't know why I didn't think of that earlier! The next time I post a picture I will take it off the easel and set it where I can get a better shot.
Well, the music energy is winding down and I need to get to bed. The rest of my week is filled with appointments and errands but I will get some painting in every day, just not as much as I want.
Have a wonderful last week of spring as the summer solstice is nearly upon us.
-Renee

A Slight Deviation from the Same Old Drawing Pencil

©2012, R.L. Delight. Life Drawing, 30 minute sketch. Lyra water soluble graphite, water wash on water color paper.

I tried a new-to-me technique at the local life drawing session last Sunday. I picked up some Lyra graphite aquarelle pencils with the idea that it would be fun to be able to use graphite and yet have the ability to produce a water color like effect. Here is my first attempt. I used a Niji water brush on Strathmore Windpower cold pressed water color paper. I wasn't exactly sure if I would like it as water colors never have really appealed to me but I sure had a lot of fun! I am going to keep using it in future life drawing sessions.
I have also been working away on the grisaille stage of my painting. At this point it is an open grisaille which just uses one tone and the paper for darks and lights. Here is a small section in the rough:

© 2012, R.L. Delight, Grisaille close up.

I had transferred the drawing earlier. It isn't exactly my favorite way of working, making a sketch and then transferring the design, but the instruments are tricky to draw and I could use the practice. At this point I am correcting the transferred drawing as I am painting the grisaille. I took this picture earlier today and it already looks different. I think I will draw several scroll studies when this painting is finished. It is quite a challenging object to draw!
I will share more for the next post. In the meantime, the sun may be coming out and the outdoors calls.
-Renee