Daily Painter Week Two

Well, I just finished week two of daily drawing and painting.  I am finding the daily exercise to be exciting and invigorating.  

A quick sketch with added watercolor at the Quechee covered bridge.

Since there isn't a lot of time to devote to each one I skip studies and the work becomes more spontaneous.  On the sap bucket drawings, I just found an interesting place to begin, worked out to the edge of the little paper--maybe 5" x 7"--and if the composition didn't work I just lopped off the uninteresting part--a kind of "flying by the seat of your pants" approach. 

"Sap Buckets" done in marker

"Sap Buckets #2"

5 1/2" x 7 1/2" - soft pencil on gessoed paper

"Sap Bucket #1"
6" x 8" - soft pencil on gessoed paper

"Shadow Ribbons I"

9" x 12" - watercolor

I am very happy with the last three pieces and consider them frame worthy.  And I haven't spent so much time in my studio in ages....

Daily Painter Week One

On April 13th I began what is to be a year long adventure.  I committed to creating and posting on flickr's Daily Painters, a private ArtisTree sponsored site, one piece of artwork each day for the next year.  It can be a drawing, a painting, a collage, a photograph or whatever I feel inspired to do.  In my first week of work I decided to used gessoed paper and soft Ticonderoga black pencil.  The first three drawings are studies of little still life objects...

Pear

Apple

Morning Coffee

The next drawings focus on sap buckets, trying to capture the endless variety of values the winter and mud season landscape requires....

Sap Buckets I

Sap Buckets II

"Sap Buckets #1"

5 1/2" x 7 1/2" - soft pencil on gessoed paper

"Sap Buckets #3"
5 1/2" x 7 1/2" - soft pencil on gessoed paper

It has been an interesting challenge, working quickly and intuitively, sometimes starting with a focal point and building outward from there, cropping paper when it looked to be necessary, sometimes being a bit more planned in approach.  I'm enjoying the process so far.  And I'm trying not to think too much about the fifty-one weeks to go.

An Experiment

Yesterday I started an experimental drawing with soft carbon sketch pencils on gessoed watercolor paper.  The quote I did at Artistree last month used basically the same materials, but doing a rather realistic drawing was a larger challenge  It quickly became clear that I needed to work from left to right since the pencil smudges so easily.  Smudging is fun when and where you want it but not so much when  and where you don't!

"Sap Bucket Drawing"

carbon pencil on gessoed paper - 9" x 12"

A kneaded eraser and blender came in handy.  I just finished it and sprayed it with fixative so it won't smudge anymore.  Hopefully....

"Oil and Water"

Yesterday, Sandy Waldo and I hung our exhibit of plein aire paintings in the Mezzanine Gallery at the Norman Williams Library in Woodstock, VT.  Sandy and I have been painting outdoors together for six years.  She paints in watercolor and I in oil--hence the title of the show, "Oil and Water".  Fortunately, we get along really well although the title implies some sort of difficulty!

Come to the library to see the exhibit during library hours and please plan to come to the Artist Reception April 25th from 4 to 6 pm.  The idea behind the show is that since we paint in the same place at the same time, we could show two different versions of the same scene--one in watercolor and the other in oil and here's an example.

The first is Sandy's watercolor of the view from Church Hill Road looking south into the South Woodstock hills...

“Early Spring”

watercolor - 9” x 12” 

And this is my oil painting of the same view...

“Early Spring, South Woodstock”

oil - 11” x 14”

Not all of our painting match so neatly--some are of different views from the same spot and some are completely different paintings since one came out well and the other didn't!

Here are two more that we painted side by side at Silver Lake in Barnard....

“Silver Lake Reflection”

watercolor - 12” x 15”

"Sailboat on Silver Lake"

oil - 9" x 12"

We hope that our delight in the lovely, verdant landscape of Vermont will be enjoyed by all who visit the show.