Gulls rising over Neskowin

C1572

"Gulls Rising over Neskowin"

(Oregon Coast)

Oil Sketch on Centurion Oil Primed Linen Panel

With additional coat of Williamsburg Lead Primer

8" x 6"

Click here to make this your Own

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

(Take further note that the photos of the past few paintings have been taken with my tablet and thus may not be up to the standard seen when the originals are scanned ... can't wait to get my laptop back!)

The evening after I sold the Oil Sketch off the easel, as it were, I continued up the coast to the clearing in the forest where I had spent last Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, but someone had cut 11 trees down and left them clogging up the clearing making it impossible to get my SUV in there.  There were several logs cut to equal lengths, so I am hoping that the tree cutter had a permit to cut for firewood, and that the clearing will be cleared  by the time I am next passing.  I spent the night about a hundred yards back down the forest road, in not as pleasant a spot; 100 yards can make a difference.

Overcast and grey, the next day, with drizzle now and again, as I passed through the long narrow town of Lincoln City, which used to be five separate municipalities.  Usually just north of there, I turn inland and through the Coast Range to McMinnville, but this time I continued up the coast to Neskowin.  This little stretch of Oregon Coast, I think I may have been on once before, but I am not entirely sure about that, as this stretch of about 5 miles is easily bypassed by those coming from  McMinnville and heading for the coast to Lincoln City and points South, or to Pacific City and points North; and bypass it we did on previous trips to the coast.  I had seen a photo of the beach and Proposal Rock at Neskowin, a couple of years ago, and had determined to stop down there at some future date, and failing in that endeavor last November, this time I managed it.  

It is a wide beach here with an island (Proposal Rock, named for the turn of the 19th to 20th century marriage proposal of Charles Gage to Della Page) at high tide where the creek enters the sea.  Strolling on out to the island, between drizzles, I took a few photos and a pencil sketch in my pocket sketchbook.  The seas were still running high, as it had been yesterday, with nice big swells crashing onto the shore in the distance, and flocks of gulls occasionally rising from the water's edge.  I filed this away in my mind and the next day in one of my favorite forest clearings (seen here), I painted the above sketch from my pencil drawing.  This is one of those works that could be deemed a complete work in itself, thus meriting my usual signature instead of my monogram, but where it comes down to intent; as I have said before, sometimes there is a fine degree between those works deemed to be a sketch and those as a painting, and it usually is defined by the intent; just as when Charles proposed to Della, I expect.

On the technical side, I painted eveything except most of the gulls at once, but ended up leaving most of them until the surface was touch dry, to avoid smearing the background as I touched in the smallest of them; the three in the foreground were easily placed later on as well.  Imprimatura: Venetian Red, with the block-in with Ultramarine.  The rest of the pigments were Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre & Italian Burnt Sienna (from Rublev), Ultramarine, Cobalt & Cerulean Blues, Venetian Red and Cremnitz White (all by W&N).

Wave Action at Neptune State Park

C1571

"Wave Action"

(Neptune State Park, below Cape Perpetua, Oregon Coast)

Oil Sketch on Centurion Oil Primed Linen Panel

With additional coat of Williamsburg Lead Primer

4" x 6"

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

"So, where's the painting?" I here you cry.  Well ... read on.  The next day after painting Heceta Head Light, I moved a few miles up the coast to Neptune State Park, immediately below Cape Perpetua.  I had spent an afternoon here in November 2007 with Cyndi, taking many photographs of the incoming waves crashing onto the slabs of rock that make up the shore here.  Back in the studio I painted what might just be my most perfect wave painting in Watercolour.  I thought about that as I stopped at the overlook on the highway above, and decided to go down and work up an Oil Sketch.  The swells coming in were of a good size, and produced some good wave explosions as they hit the rocks ... nothing absolutely spectacular, but good journeyman crashes.  I spent a couple enjoyable hours, working up the small sketch, with reasonable results.  It's a popular place to stop and photograph the sea, and there were many doing just that, and others just viewing the incoming waves.  As I was proceeding back up to my truck with my small sketch in hand, I was accosted by a lady who asked if she could take a look.  "Why, of course!" I replied, showing her and her husband my afternoon's effort.  Well, we talked about the painting and what I was doing, and eventually, I continued on to my vehicle.  As they passed I showed them a couple more sketches that were drying on the dashboard, where all sketches live for a couple of days after they are painted.  "Do you sell your work, or are they just for yourself?"  she asked.  "Well, yes I do."  I replied, and proceeded to sell the one I had just completed, and the first one she had seen.  I wondered whether they had seen me painting down there, but no they only noticed the sketch in my hand as I was heading for my car.  And I completely forgot to take a photograph of it!!!  So would the couple from Texas, please take a photo of their recent on-site acquisition and email me a copy.  Many thanks.  

And for the Texas couple the following information is included about their painting: Imprimatura (a translucent layer of thin pigment over the white ground to give a mid-tone to the panel upon which the sketch is then painted): Venetian Red, with the block-in (the compositional drawing) with Ultramarine.  The rest of the pigments were Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre & Italian Burnt Sienna (from Rublev), Ultramarine, Cobalt & Cerulean Blues, Venetian Red and Cremnitz White (all by Winsor & Newton).

Mist Rising over Heceta Head Light

C1570

"Mist Rising over Heceta Head Light"

(Oregon Coast)

Oil Sketch on Centurion Oil Primed Linen Panel

With additional coat of Williamsburg Lead Primer

5" x 7"

Click here to make this your Own

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

(Take further note that the photos of the past few paintings have been taken with my tablet and thus may not be up to the standard seen when the originals are scanned ... can't wait to get my laptop back!)

After leaving Bandon I traveled up the coast to Heceta Head lighthouse, and that same afternoon, I painted this sketch.  I spent the night in one of my favorite forest clearings, in a stand of old growth forest, not far from here.  This is the classic Oregon lighthouse, and I have painted it several times now, both in Watercolour and in Oil, but this is the first time I've painted it in such weather ... and lit; I rather like the moodiness of the scene.  Apologies for the brevity of this entry, but I still have much to do.

Imprimatura: Venetian Red, with the block-in with Ultramarine.  The rest of the pigments were Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre & Italian Burnt Sienna (from Rublev), Ultramarine, Cobalt & Cerulean Blues, Venetian Red and Cremnitz White (all by W&N).

The Sound of Silence ... Mine

You will no doubt have been greatly relieved to have heard the sound of my silence these past three weeks; rearming, refitting (my painting supplies) and general maintenance of equipment, as well as constructing a shelf in the back of my truck to safely transport my suitcase solar array, has taken more time than anticipated, and I have a bit more yet to do before I can get back on the trail.  That being said, I am posting an Oil Sketch which was painted on my way back up the Oregon Coast, a couple days after I left Brookings and the Redwoods country.  (I just discovered that this did not get published on the 26th October as planned, so here it is now on Halloween ... spookie!!!)

C1569

"Morning & Rising Tide"

(Face Rock from Cathedal Rock, Bandon, Oregon Coast)

Oil Sketch on Centurion Oil Primed Linen Panel

With additional coat of Williamsburg Lead Primer

5" x 7"

Click here to make this your Own

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

(Take further note that the photos of the past few paintings have been taken with my tablet and thus may not be up to the standard seen when the originals are scanned ... can't wait to get my laptop back!)

To find this view of Face Rock, at Bandon, you must enter the caves beneath Cathedral Rock, and clamber through to the far side.  This is not always possible as pools periodically form and block the way; this time I was fortunate.  Even once successfully through, the rising tide has to be watched so as not to become trapped.  The tide was on the turn when I began to paint, and it became an an exercise in concentration to complete the sketch in time to beat the tide ... it was close.  The face looks up and to the right towards the waning gibbous Moon.  And thus this entry is short and to the point, much as when doing the sketch.

Imprimatura: Venetian Red, with the block-in with Ultramarine.  The rest of the pigments were Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre & Italian Burnt Sienna (from Rublev), Ultramarine, Cobalt & Cerulean Blues, Venetian Red and Cremnitz White (all by W&N).

Once more into The Redwoods Country, Dear Friends

C1568

"Bones of the Fallen"

(On the Nickerson Ranch Trail Jedidiah Smith Redwood State Park, near Crescent City, CA)

Oil Sketch on Centurion Oil Primed Linen Panel

With additional coat of Williamsburg Lead Primer

5" x 7"

Click here to make this your Own

C1567

"Morning among the Giants"

(In the Stout Grove, Jedidiah SmithRedwood State Park, near Crescent City, CA)

Oil Sketch on Centurion Oil Primed Linen Panel

With additional coat of Williamsburg Lead Primer

5" x 7"

Click here to make this your Own

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email. As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest posting, to open up the actual blog itself, and enjoy the paintings at their best.)

You will have noticed the inclusion of the image from the previous posting, since the Redwoods will be the topic of the present essay in this journal. Having spent the night at the Oregon Redwoods trailhead, and breakfasted, I got underway and arrived at the information bureau of the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, after successfully negotiating "customs" at the California State Border; it never ceases to amuse me of this quaint Californian tradition! For those who have never crossed the CA State Line, one must stop at an inspection booth, where you are asked whether you are carrying any ... fresh fruit or vegetables, not grass, hash or cocaine ... but fresh fruit or vegetables! Okay I suppose they have their reasons, but I'm always waiting for the Monty Python's Team to pop out of the bushes ... they never do. This time I discovered that the fresh "fruit or vegetables" involved are those from farmer's markets or pick your own establishments, and not usually those from super markets ... except when certain of these categories are on the "watch list;" cherries this time. I had nothing fresh with me, other than myself, being partially ripe, it having been three days since my weekly shower, and I successfully passed through. I must add for the peace of mind of those of you out there of a delicate disposition, that although I visit a State Park Campground once a week and pay my $2 to have a hot shower, I do wash me essentials daily with 80/20 mixture of Witch Hazel and Isopropyl Alcohol, thus slaughtering untold millions of oder producing microbes ... I learned that trick on line from some hard-core outdoor site ... isn't technology wonderful? I have greatly digressed.

After a little time at the info bureau, I proceeded to enter the Park proper. The road was gravel, and everything was dust coated within a few yards of the roadway, but nevertheless the trees took your breath away as the road wound around and through groupings of the massive trunks. After a couple hundred yards, or so, the truck was parked and an unofficial footpath was followed into the trees and past the dustline. Not a few minutes were spent there getting a feel for the Forest, and thinking about how to tackle this subject with paint. This continued to be mulled over while continuing the meander along the road, pulling over occasionally to contemplate the awesomeness of this Wood! Awsome is what it was, and I use it in this case in spite of the term having been devalued by over use in the common language over the past 25 years or so. But take the word and think about its true meaning as you read it here ... Awesome ... causing feelings of fear and wonder (and reverence) ... full of awe ... or put it another way, as though you were back in England, "Oi ... Oi wuz gob-smacked, Guv'nor!" That being translated would be, "I ... I was greatly impressed, Boss!"

The Stout Grove of Redwoods was reached and finding a parking space on the 2nd time around the small parking area, lunch was eaten, and then a stroll begun through the grove. Five years ago I first visited the Redwoods of northern California,to the Ladybird Johnson Grove & to the Tall Trees Grove, the latter only approached by receiving a limited permit and the combination to a locked gate (the number changed daily), which gets you onto a 9 mile desperate dirt road, and the trailhead at its end, and then ahalf a mile walk and dropping 400' in altitude, finally arriving at the Tall Trees themselves. They were impressive, but there is something about the Jed Smith Redwoods that seemed to touch me more; something more intimate maybe, even though the trees seem to be as massive as those I remember from the Tall Trees. It might be that there is more of a feeling of being within a whole forest of these giants, since the road does wind 6 or more miles through them, and the Stout Grove in particular seems to have closer groupings, and thus a greater intimacy. There seemed to be the ability to capture the feel of these giants on camera (if that's at all possible)here, unlike the Ladybird Johnson Grove where there were so many native Rhodadendrons, that made up the understory, that it was next to impossible to find a shot that did those trees justice. One thing I do remember about the Tall Trees Grove was the widowmaker stuck in the ground here and there, these being limbs from on high that had broken off at some time and in falling had driven themselves into the earth like Olympian spears; one hoped to hear the cracking of a branch first in warning were this to occur during one's stroll!

I found a space off the main footpaths where I could contemplate, and where some of these thoughts began to solidify. Here I collected my thoughts, and perhaps it would be here that I might try my first Oil Sketch of these venerable Grandfathers; but not until the next day; I realized I needed this day to just absorb their impact upon me. In their own way they are as impressive as the Grand Canyon, which first I saw in October last. And so on this day I walked, and looked, and saw these awesome trees, contemplating how I might attempt to do them justice, and drove slowly through the remainder of the Forest, stopping to just look, and walking on further trails, and taking it all in. 

Forests are places of wonder, but unless you encountered them and came to terms with them at a young age it is probable that you will never understand this ineffable truth. And they come in different flavors ... my favorite flavor of forest is the northern boreal forest surrounding the upper Great Lakes, especially that found in northeastern Minnesota and extending across ancient rocks of the Canadian Shield to the Hudson's Bay area. There is to be found that unique combination of deep, dark woods and the light and openess of water in the form of numerous lakes, ponds and rivers. These were my first forests and will always hold the number one place in my being, even though their trees do not approach the size of most of those in the Pacific Nortwest west of the Cascades Range; but there is ample wonder there ... and here is ample wonder too, amongst these giant Redwoods; most would say more-so, and I wouldn't disagree save that they were not my first forest. And here I am now within this forest of magnificence ... contemplating ... wondering.

Thus the next day, on the Tuesday, I returned from my latest forest road campsite, and painted the above two Oil Sketches. During my musings of the previous day, I had decided on several possible places to paint, the first of which was that place off the main pathways in the Stout Grove, mentioned earlier (this would be image "C1567" the painting in the last post published before this one, and the second image above). The size of these massive trees would have to be suggested from just the lowest sections of their trunks, which would take up large portions of the composition, and this should begin to hint that these were not your everyday Douglas Firs or Western Hemlocks being depicted, but something else again entirely. The clumps of ferns at their bases would serve to suggest their scale as well. Seen through the foreground trunks in the distance, there appear smaller ordinary species, and these also provide a foil to the true giants close to. Hopefully this has all helped to indicate the scale of these wonders.

In the afternoon I moved on to one of the other trails I had walked the day before as these stumps had caught my eye, as another way to deal with the sheer size of the Redwood, along with those methods in the first sketch. The two stumps on the fight are about 8' in diameter and the one on the left shows only about half of its 15' width. The trunk just left of center, extending upwards out of the picture, is an offspring of the far stump and perhaps got its start before the main tree fell. Most of these giants are clones of those immediately surrounding them, and come from the same growth. Only one out of a million Redwoods actually grow from the seeds found in their tiny olive sized cones, as I overheard a ranger say to a group walking in the Stout Grove. 

As I said in the last posting, the red earth pigment Terra Rosa was used as the imprimatura, on both these sketches, and the block-ins were done with Ultramarine. The other pigments used were Yellow Ochre, Naples Yellow Genuine (by Vasari), Venetian Red, Cerulean, Cobalt & Ultramarine Blues (to mix the greens), and Cremnitz White (all colours by W&N, except where otherwise stated). A bit of Cadmium Yellow was also used in C1568 (the stumps).

Into the Redwoods Country

C1567

"Morning among the Giants"

(In the Stout Grove, Jedidiah SmithRedwood State Park, near Crescent City, CA)

Oil Sketch on Centurion Oil Primed Linen Panel

With additional coat of Williamsburg Lead Primer

5" x 7"

Click here to make this your Own

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email. As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest posting, to open up the actual blog itself, and enjoy the paintings at their best.)

Down on the coast the wind had dropped after five days, but I had a blog post to get out, a lot of emails to clear, since I had not been into the library for a week, and resupply to take care of, and so that was the Friday taken care of. In the evening I watched the moon & stars and worked a bit on another blog post, intending to fire it off early in the morning at the library before getting out to paint. It was still and quiet in the forest, save for the occasional hooting of a Great Horned Owl somewhere off amongst the trees, and I kept my ears attuned for any sound that might alert me to any furry visitor that might wander by, and kept my bear spray at hand, while I worked, and watched the night sky. 

The next morning the new blog post was checked and tidied up before leaving camp, and off I went to post it at the Brookings library. That one did not get posted, but the one entitled "Monitors" did. My screen had been black when i opened it at the library, and three hours had been wasted trying to work out what might be wrong and seeing if I might be able to fix it myself, should that have been possible; but I had detected a ghost image of my desktop on the screen. I reasoned that it would be brighter in the dark of the forest night, and so I went out to the coast and ended up drawing in my sketchbook and taking photos at Lone Ranch Beach ... and worrying about the computer. And that night in camp I opened up the laptop, turned it on with bated breath, and ... nothing! I turned on my Petzl headlamp, and noticed that when the light was held close to the screen that the ghost image appeared. With great difficulty (the screen being so dim I kept losing the cursor), I managed to transfer recent photographs and scans to my exterior hard drive. That ability also told me that it was a screen problem and not anything to do with the hard drive itself; it could have been worse. 

Bright and early the next morning (Sunday by now), a final check of my campsite was done as I prepared to head out for a day of painting, when I noticed my very important notebook, containing all the information for each new painting begun, was not in it's usual place. Five hours were spent rifling through the truck, visiting the various places where I might have dropped it after last being seen at the library the day before (but closed on Sundays), and inquiring at the state park offices on the chance it might have been turned in, with no success. I have gone on at length with the foregoing to illustrate that it is not all straightforward painting and drawing, and enjoying the Great Outdoors, but that the best laid plans often go astray, just as in normal life. But there is an important difference, between camp life and normal life, and that is that in camp life the Sun, or lack thereof plays a more important role, and thus I can no longer work late into the night painting as I used to do. Therefore days such as the previous two are very disruptive to the work. Incidently, the notebook was found two days later, where I had placed it for safekeeping; a case of self inflicted wounds! 

To make use of the rest of the day I went down to the Winchuck River, just north of the California border, and stopped in to the National Forest Information Bureau, to enquire about the lonely grove of Redwood trees on the Oregon side of the border, thinking that the recent time lost over the past two days would negate my former plans to go on down below the border to see the Redwoods in northern California. They informed me that although the Oregon grove was a beautiful walk in itself, there was no comparison to those groves 45 minutes away at the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park outside Crescent City, California. It being mid-afternoon by this time, I opted for the Oregon Redwoods 6 miles away up the Winchuck River. It was a beautiful forest stroll of about a mile and a half, stopping occasionally to drink in the forest, attempt photos, and the odd drawing. The night was spent at the Trailhead, as I had decided to take in the Redwoods at Jedediah Smith on the morrow, and here was a convenient place to start from in the morning; this is one of the advantages of mobile camp life ... opportunities of the moment acted upon.

In the next posting I hope to wax lyrical about astonishing trees, but since I have included the first of my Redwood paintings above, I give the following information for the tech-heads and the interested amongst you. Although an Earth Red imprimatura is used quite often in my work, here is the perfect case for the use of such Earth Red (Terra Rosa in this case) underpaint layers; the quiet red helps the overlying and complementary greens to sing, and any spots where the following layers might be missed in the more rapid application of paint in a sketch, the red that shows through the above layers unifies rather than jars, as would a bright white priming with no overlying imprimatura. The block-in was done with Ultramarine, and other pigments used were Yellow Ochre, Naples Yellow Genuine (by Vasari), Venetian Red, Cerulean, Cobalt & Ultramarine Blues (to mix the greens), and Cremnitz White (all colours by W&N, except where otherwise stated).

Painting from Pencil Drawings Continues

C1566

"The Lighted Arch"

(at the Arched Rocks, Port Orford, Oregon Coast)

Oil Sketch on Centurion Oil Primed Linen Panel

With additional coat of Williamsburg Lead Primer

5" x 7"

Click here to make this your Own

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email. As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest posting, to open up the actual blog itself, and enjoy the paintings at their best.)

As I said in the previous posting the wind was continuing on the beaches, and so on this fourth day in my campsite on the forest roads above Brookings I continued painting from a pencil drawing in my small pocket sketchbook. I have mentioned my last morning in Port Orford was spent drawing on the beach, before heading here to Brookings. The work above was done from the last of those pencil drawings. Having my laptop in for repairs is a real bummer, because I would like to have scanned the pencil drawing to show you a bit more of my working process; maybe in a future posting I'll dwell on drawings and those paintings done from them. 

Several things intrigued me about this scene that I wanted to capture in paint from the original and recent pencil drawing. The first was looking through the rocks themselves, one in the light and the other in shadow, to scene beyond. We are not looking through an arch here a these are two separate stacks, and both of them have arches within them. Perhaps they were one rock at some point and this was an arch that has fallen through, but if so ... no more. Emplacing these two stacks within the composition was not fortuitous, but with thought. I began by drawing the horizon line a bit below halfway of the sides of the rectangle of the panel ... about 7/16 of the heighth from the bottom, in this case. Then by taking the lefthand heighth of the rectangle of the panel and swinging it in an arc so that it dissects the bottom length of the panel, and then draw a perpendicular up to the he top length, you now have a square within the rectangle of the panel, as well as a tall rectangle to the right of it. This process is called the armature of the rectangle, if I remember correctly. Where the perpendicular has rossed the horizon line is where the edge of the righthand stack crosses the horizon. If you do the same for the other side, is where the edge of the lefthand stack crosses the horizon; incidently you now have two notional overlapping squares thus forming three rectangles within the panel. This would normally be too symetrical and thus probably too static a composition, but because the edge of the lefthand stack leans towards the left and the righthand stack leans to the left as well, forming a bit of an overhang, we have, instead of two equal rectangles (the stacks) on either side of a central space, a smaller stack on the left and the larger stack on the right; the armature of the rectangle was used to merely guide the placement of the edges of both stacks where each encountered the horizon line. 

I did not do this with stright edges and compasses, but by using my thumb placed along the brush handle as my measuring tool, and so will be approximate, but the intent is there enough to be seen. Now this longwinded account was served to you to show you that painting is not merely copying what is before you, but is also invention, and the art is incorporated into the work by the mind of the Artist, not found somehow accidentally in Nature by him (or her). There were further decisions to be made as the design progressed. 

Another thing that had caught my eye when drawing in my sketchbook, was the early morning sun lighting up the interior of the small arch in the lefthand stack. I noticed later the similar shaped shadow of that stack falling on the base of the stack to the right, and later still while in the block-in phase of the painting itself, how both of these shapes were echoed in the first rock out in the surf, and that the three formed a triangle within the design. This triangle, or pyramid, gives a stability to the composition as well as a tension to it due to the apex being off-set to the left, and this left leaning slant combined with the left leaning edges of the two stacks, could be too much, but the roughly rhomboidal and right-leaning shape of the furthest rock serves to balance the composition, thus saving us all from falling down to the left ... CRASH!

The imprimatura is back to Venetian Red, with the block-in with Ultramarine, and the other pigments used were Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre & Italian Burnt Sienna, both from Rublev, Venetian Red, Cerulean & Cobalt Blues, and Cremnitz White, all these latter pigments from Winsor & Newton (W&N). The Venetian Red imprimatura, again serves to give an underlying warmth to the cool of the blues and greens of the sky and sea, as well as helping to give a quiet purplish hue to the distant off-shore fog bank on the horizon, which had been rolling south from beyond Cape Blanco to the north of Port Orford the whole time I spent in that area.

That should be enough for you to be digesting while you think upon the design and intent of an Artist, as opposed to simply attempting the copying of Nature.

Evening in Secret Cove

C1565

"Evening Light over Secret Cove"

(Samuel H. Boardman State Park, Brookings, Oregon Coast)

Oil Sketch on Centurion Oil Primed Linen Panel

With additional coat of Williamsburg Lead Primer

5" x 7"

I am posting this even though it has been ... 

SOLD

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email. As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest posting, to open up the actual blog itself, and to enlarge and enjoy the paintings at their best.)

According to the weather report the wind down on the coast was to continue for three or four days, so I stayed up in my camp on the forest roads of the Siskiyou National Forest. I decided to next work on a painting done from a Sepia wash drawing in one of my sketchbooks that I had drawn back in 2009. I remember the evening well; I had discovered aptly named Secret Cove that morning after seeing a photo of it in a brochure or guide book, and spent the day drawing there in my sketchbooks. I squeezed this one in at day's end, drawing until the light failed. 

My desire was to capture the feel of that late afternoon light, and this turned out to be one of those minor milestone works that one becomes aware of during the course of a career; perhaps it may even turn out to be a major milestone from what I learned in painting it. Although two of the the recently posted sketches of the Bandon Coast were painted from pencil drawings done only a couple of days before the Oil sketches, the challenge for this Oil of Secret Cove was that it was to be done from a drawing from five years ago. To put this into perspective, one must be aware that my highly detailed Watercolour work has always been done in the studio using a number of photographs as reference, sometimes augmented with drawings. I only rarely worked from just drawings. But because these Oils are looser, and nowhere near the detail of the Watercolours, I have been pleasantly surprised at the results when working only from drawings. So the challenges were to paint from a five year old drawing, and to capture the feeling of that evening of years ago. Obviously the light was the essential thing and the usual imprimatura of Venetian Red would not suffice. I have been aware of Yellow Ochre as an imprimatura since I first dabbled in Oil as a wee lad, but had never had occasion to make use of it. Of course in Watercolour I underpaint in Yellow Ochre or Cadmium Yellow quite often, but Oil is a different medium. You inveterate painters in Oil and Plein Air people this will all be old hat, but for me this was new territory, and an example of what this Journey of discovery I'm on is partly about. 

Thus I laid down the Yellow Ochre imprimatura, and blocked in the composition with Burnt Sienna, mixed with M. Graham's Walnut Alkyd Medium, in order to establish the underlying warmth necessary to capture the evening light. The rest of the pigments used were Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, which is brighter than the Winsor & Newton, Italian Burnt Sienna, both by Rublev, Venetian Red, Cerulean, & Cobalt Blues, and Cremnitz White. I was not at all sure how well I could lay down the blue of the sky over the wet Yellow Ochre imprimatura without muddying the paint, but with a light touch and the bristle brush held at a very low angle to the surface it proved not to be a difficulty. The sea came next gradually changing from the light blue at the horizon to the greens in the foreground. Next came the distant headland and islands seen on the left, using Mixtures of Venetian Red and white, and Cobalt Blue and white; in the center of the horizon is seen House Rock and Barnacle Rock is a single dot just before it, as seen in the enlargement below.  Even here it is hard to see ... perservere.  

Now we come to the make or break decisions of this workb how to handle the colour of the three islands on the right. In my Sepia drawing simple washes quite effectively captured the atmospheric effect of the islands against the light, lost in the haze of evening. If my laptop was available I would scan the Sepia drawing to show you ... perhaps in a future post of this Journal. So how best to proceed? I mixed a quiet purple from Venetian Red and Cobalt Blue with some white, and judiciously applied it to the farthest of the three islands, as I had done with the sky. The effect was all I had hoped for, with the two complementaries (the Yellow Ochre and the quiet purple) heightening the glow of the evening light. By adjusting the thickness of the overlying purple mixture, I was also able to impart the glow of the intervening atmosphere between the viewer and the two farthest of these right hand islands. The righthandmost stack, being closer, glows with a warmer light, and the Burnt Sienna block-in is used to great effect here, and more so on the slightly closer stack in the center foreground. Small sables were used for some of the detail work, such as the distant headland and stacks on the left and the trees on the closer islands, but for the mostpart a #4 bristle bright (a short haired flat brush) was used. I learned much with this painting, and happily achieved what I was after; more knowledge gained, and another milestone passed! 

My Morning View

C1564

"Above the Chetco early morning Mist"

(Siskiyou National Forest, near Brookings, Oregon Coast)

Oil Sketch on Centurion Oil Primed Linen Panel

With additional coat of Williamsburg Lead Primer

5" x 7"

Click here to make this your Own

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email. As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest posting, to open up the actual blog itself, and enjoy the paintings at their best.)

I have taken my laptop into Frys, and it must be sent off to repair the screen; it appears the "backscreen" has failed, and I will be 6 to 8 weeks without it. It took a few days to travel back north up the coast, painting here and there, and so there is a time gap between doing the actual paintings and when they are posted in this journal, especially so relying only on my newish tablet to get the job done. Patience is a virtue, so they say, so in the meantime let us all be highly virtuous. Ahhh ... I love the smell of virtue in the morning; it smells like ... Victory!*

The first several mornings in my campsite a few miles up in the mountains above Brookings, I have awoken to mist in the valleys below, sometimes even surrounding my camp, to later burn off in the mrning sun. The above painting gives an idea of what I arise to each day, with the dawn light gilding the tree tops, and yet to touch the mist in the Chetco River valley below. It was a Monday when I stayed in camp and painted this scene. I had thought about it since the first morning ai camped here, but it took the first windy day experienced in Brookings for me to decide to retreat to the hills instead of braving the wind (yet again) of the coast; the wind lasted for four days. The forest is usually not this open in these coastal mountains, but here there had been a partial cut at some point in the past. 

The evenings were generally wonderfully clear, and I was able to enjoy a bit of star gazing; I witnessed two of the finest bolides I have ever seen, both with long trains, and one of them travelled about a third of visible sky before being lost behind the trees. Incidently , a bolide is an exceptionately bright and long lasting meteor.

An imprimatura of Venetian Red was again used, upon which the compositional block-in was drawn with a brush in Ultramarine mixed with M. Graham's Walnut Alkyd Medium. The pigments used were Yellow Ochre (W&N), and Rublev's Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, which is brighter than the Winsor & Newton, Rublev's Italian Burnt Sienna, Venetian Red, Cerulean, Cobalt and Ultramarine Blues, and Cremnitz White. 

Things are getting interesting on the "poo" front. Less than half a mile from my campsite, on the road out, there was a large berry filled pile in the road, that was not there the day before; definitely bear scat this time, confirmed by a wandering bow-hunter who passed through my campsite. Although I was certain of its identity before we spoke, it was nice to have another opinion.

*(to loosely paraphrase Robert Duvall in Apocolypse Now).

Why a Sketch is not a Painting.

C1563

"North towards Cape Ferrelo,

(Harris Beach, Brookings, Oregon Coast)

Oil Sketch on Centurion Oil Primed Linen Panel

Click here to make this your Own

(I managed to make a post using my tablet.  It was not easy, since I am not used to the workings of a tablet; it may allow me to continue posting while my laptop is being repaired, albeit less frequent.  Thanks for bearing with me.)

This work is a good example of an Oil Sketch and not a small Painting. Sometimes, as I have stated in an earlier post, there is a fine line between what may be deemed a sketch or a painting. Sometimes it may boil down to mere intent, as there seemingly may not be much of a difference between the two. A sketch is often done to gather information for a possible, or actual, larger work, and at other times it is done for the sheer joy of it, and with nothing further in mind for its use at any later date, although who's to say that it might not ultimately be used as such a reference? A sketch is also generally looser and just plain, well … sketchy, although not always. Confused yet? 

The intentions for these "Not Quite a Painting a Day," works are as sketches, but some do turn out to be actual small paintings, complete in themselves; but not this one. Let me describe the day and how it went, and perhaps this will show that the conditions under which a work was done may decide what it becomes. There was a lot of blue sky with a bit of cloud on the northern horizon as I drove through Brookings on my way Harris Beach, but by the time I loaded up my painting outfit and trucked on down to the shore, that northern cloud had come racing in. It wasn't a complete overcast, but mostly high cirrus and mackerel clouds with a lot of sun poking through. Then by the time my painting site was chosen and gear set up, banks of fog began to roll through, coming and going. 

The block-in using Ultramarine proceeded over the Venetian Red imprimatura, and then came the first problem … what to do about the sky. I had liked he sky as it was when I first arrived at the carpark, mostly blue with cirrus, but now the intermittent fog banks were regularly obscuring the higher mackerel sky. Then here was a longish break, and I began to dash in the higher cloud as the banks of fog were now out beyond Cape Ferrelo in the distance, partially obscuring the two sea-stacks beyond. While I was working on this the fog rolled in, and I continued working on the sky from memory. Later after I went on to the sea and the stacks & islands close to, the sky got really nice, but there was no time to go back; the decision and the work had been done as far as the sky was concerned. I pretty much described these closer rocks and shore as they were, including the white block of rock on the extreme right. The pattern of light and shade, on these, deviates from the original block-in. Time had passed and the shadow patterns had become more interesting than the few shadows evident at the beginning. The strip of blue creek crossing the sand in the foreground was dashed in with two or three brush strokes … nice and sketchy.

So, back to the original premise of this being deemed a sketch and not a small painting, and an informational sketch at that? The sky is not thought out as well as it might have been, but is a transcription of a few moments within a series of "few moments," any of which might have been jotted down, and some others would have worked better; but it does remain as a reference that might be used in some future work, and for that it remains valuable in and of itself. The white rock on the right sticks out like a sore thumb, as it does in reality, and might be a case of either eliminating it altogether from the work, or composing the scene in such a way as to better incorporate it within the composition of a future painting. It was there and those who know the area would be able to identify which beach the painting was done on, so decisions would have to be made if this were to be more than an informational sketch. The shadows on the rocks became more interesting than those of the original block-in, and I many times begin these afternoon sketches, knowing that this will be the case, so this is not a real problem. It is more of a problem in the morning, as the mid-day light dissolves away the interesting shadow patterns seen at the beginning of a mornings work; then it behooves the painter to block in the shadows and stick to it throughout the work session. With these things under consideration then, this work is best considered an informational sketch, rather than a well thought out painting, but as such it contains much value for future work, as well as for the experience gained in the actual painting of it. The more of these sketches one does gives one the experience to make the essential decisions rapidly and thus allowing some of them to become actual complete paintings, in spite of the original intentions.

I have mentioned the imprimatura and the block-in, so the other pigments used were Cerulean, Cobalt & Ultramarine Blues, Yellow Ochre, Venetian Red and Cremnitz White, with a bit of Titanium White for the brightest whites of the waves. 

Monitors!!!

It appears as though my laptop monitor has gone down.  I can actually detect my desktop, but so dim that I cannot see my cursor, nor actually read anything.  I have a warranty still in effect, but I need to get to Fry, s over 350 miles away, so I, ve decided to get in the last few days of painting I had planned, before returning to my base of operations, and have it repaired.  What this means for the blog is a bit of a holiday, unless it magically begins to work again; I had written up the next post while still in camp this morning, and came to Brookings library to post it and there was a black screen!  How very annoying!!

I am writing this on my 8" Samsung tablet, and I could probably work from this, except that I would have no ability to scan the paintings, and I don't have access to my PhotoShop program.  Thus it may be best to get some painting done and begin posting when I get the monitor repaired.  I may experiment with the tablet as a stopgap, but not today ... I'm going to paint!!!

On to Brookings … Southernmost Town on the Oregon Coast

C1562

“The Meeting Engagement”

(at the Arch Rock, Harris Beach, Brookings, Oregon Coast)

Oil Sketch on Centurion Oil Primed Linen Panel

With additional coat of Rublev Lead Primer

5” x 7”

Click here to make this your Own

It was now Monday and I had intended to get away early, but I decided to take a stroll down the Beach at Port Orford, and do some sketching in my pocket sketchbook.  It was early and the day was beautiful, and the wind had not picked up any real force yet; but of course it would later.  I took photographs as the view of the rocks and sea stacks changed their compositional relationships with one another, as I strolled along.  I engaged a local lady walking her dog in conversation about the grey whales, the summer winds, and if there was a name for these inshore stacks and rocks.  Evidently the whales had been there for several days, the wind is ubiquitous at this time of year, and no one I’ve asked has come forth with a name for the inshore cluster of sea stacks. 

After completing a couple of quick drawings, and my walk, I decided to poke my nose into the local galleries; the first two were closed, the third was open, but was more of a junk shop with a few pictures scattered about; the fourth was also open and was dedicated to the work of the owner, who just happened to be Welsh, and had had his Art training in Camborne in Cornwall, during my early days in Boscastle.  So of course there was another hour or so of reminiscing about the old country before I finally took my leave.

By the time I got to Brookings, I really had only time to refresh my memory about where the various shops for the resupply of my necessaries were to be found, before I headed into the mountains to find a campsite.  The next day was spent in refitting and resupply, as I needed to have my tires rotated at the local Les Schwab outlet, and also my front brake pads replaced; food items were the resupply. 

A day later I found the above view.  It was the fog bank obscuring the distant headland that caught my attention, not as the main subject, but as a backdrop for the composition of the sea-stacks; incidentally that headland is California.  The interesting wave action in the foreground was an un-expected bonus and became the real subject of the sketch.  To the right and off the panel there is a narrow arch in the island, which is not conducive for painting on-site since once would have to stand where the surf is breaking to really do it justice, or work from photos.  The elliptical wave coming in from the right, however, has squeezed through that arch and has now spread out, as we here observe it, as it surges into a meeting engagement with the smaller wave which has come around the island and through the rocks and stacks, thus losing power and becoming smaller by the time the two make contact.  In military terms a meeting engagement takes place when two opposing forces make contact with one another, usually inadvertently, when both forces have been on the march during a fluid situation on the battlefield, and when front lines have yet to be established; the above waves seem to be having their own perpetual version of such.

Back to an imprimatura of Venetian Red, upon which the compositional block-in was drawn with a brush in Ultramarine mixed with M. Graham’s Walnut Alkyd Medium so that it would set up tacky early, hopefully by the time I worked in the sky and sea.  It seems to have done so.  The block-in is necessary especially in this case when after a couple of hours both the light and tide changed quite radically; fog banks also came and went later on, but the light and shadow areas had been established in the block-in, and so the sketch was easily completed. 

The pigments used were Yellow Ochre, Venetian Red, Cerulean and Ultramarine Blues a minor amount of Viridian in the sea, and a minor amount of Naples Yellow Genuine from Vasari ( I had some on the palette already), which was used in the Ultramarine and Yellow Ochre mixed green in the light parts of the foliage on the left-hand sea-stack.  Cremnitz White was the main white, but for the foam of the foreground waves I used a mixture of Maimeri Cararra Marble putty mixed with Titanium White.  This Maimeri marble dust mixture adds texture to the colours it is mixed with and also lightens the colours without giving them that chalky look that can happen when a pigment is mixed only with white, especially with Titanium White; mixed with the Titanium White as here, its usage was specifically for the texture effects.

WARNING (about the following paragraph)!  Delicate souls look away now!

As an aside, I was visited during the night by some varmint who left a calling card in the form of a berry filled turd outside my truck … I expect it was reminding me I’m visiting his territory.  It didn’t seem large enough for a bear; more coyote sized, but do coyotes also eat berries?  Unfortunately my book on animal scats is not with me.  Evidentiary photos have been taken for later possible identification of the likely suspect. Meanwhile I’m keeping my bear spray close to hand, should the perpetrator attempt a confrontation … or a meeting engagement.

There is Wind at Port Orford too!

C1561

“Early Morning Shadows at Orford Rocks”

(Port Orford, Oregon Coast)

Oil Sketch on Centurion Oil Primed Linen Panel

With additional coat of Rublev Lead Primer

5” x 7”

Click here to make this your Own

[Note that after posting this I inserted three seagulls squabbling over something or other … sometimes this happens; you look at a painting and decide it needs something else, as happened here. The image has thus been updated on September 5^th 2014, and will be available for 3 days only from Daily Paint Works.]

The day after painting the view from Paradise Point to Cape Blanco I went up to Orford Heads expecting to find a view or two from which to paint; there were but the wind was strong and there were few places to set up without actually blocking the footpath.  I settled for a day of photo-recon, with some sketchbook drawing.  There were also Grey Whales working close inshore near the Orford Rocks; were they feeding or scraping their barnacles off, as was suggested to me by a local lady I spoke to on the beach?  There were at least two of them, perhaps more. 

The day following I was on Orford Beach early and found a spot near the Orford Rocks, with a couple of the distant Redfish Rocks in view, with some of the Orford Rocks close to, and with early morning shadows from the forested cliffs behind me slanting across the foreground.  I thought I was protected from the wind, and so I was from the full force of it, but gusts managed to whip over me with regularity, and even kindly sprinkled a little dusting of fine sand on the painting, like black sugar sprinkles on Christmas cookies!  So again I’ll have to wait a couple of days before I can brush them off of the sky, when the painting is touch dry.  There were not as many as those on the one at Bandon Beach, and those successfully were removed. 

When I began the painting the sea was blue-green and green, but not quite as strong as the painting of Cape Blanco of two days previous, and so I decided to proceed directly onto the white lead ground of the linen panel.  I blocked in the composition with Ultramarine, locking in the shadow patterns to retain the early morning feel of the view.  Starting with the sky I worked my way from the distance to the foreground, but leaving the closer Orford Rocks until I had covered the foreground beach with its shadows.  Then I went back into the Sea and worked on the waves and reflections in the wet sand.  I reworked the shadowed foreground to better its transition into the sea. 

Surprisingly, even though the wind got up strong not long after I began working, the whitecaps didn’t appear until later, and then far out near the distant Redfish Rocks; I did not attempt to put any in since they were not there when I began.  I saw the Grey Whales spouting as I began to paint, but they must have been moving on after having been around for several days, for they were not seen again later.  All day I watched the fog-bank on the horizon streaming down from Cape Blanco, much as it has done all the while I’ve been here.  In fact the previous day while on the Orford Heads, the fog bank was coming over and obscuring the tip of Cape Blanco and the lighthouse, unlike the day I painted the view towards it from Paradise Point; then the fog bank was just out to sea beyond the Cape.  There is definitely a change in character of the Oregon Coast when you pass Cape Blanco.

The palette I used was Yellow Ochre, Venetian Red, Cerulean, Cobalt and Ultramarine Blues, a minimum of Viridian, and Cremnitz White, with a touch or two of Titanium White for the brightest foam of the waves.

Pressing on to Port Orford

C1560

“Cape Blanco from Paradise Point”

(Port Orford, Oregon Coast)

Oil Sketch on Centurion Oil Primed Linen Panel

With additional coat of Rublev Lead Primer

4” x 6”

Click here to make this your Own

Moving south from Bandon thirty miles brought me to Port Orford, and a wayside park called Paradise Point at the end of a road just a bit north of the town.  Here there is a view several miles up to Cape Blanco, the western most point on the Oregon Coast, with its lighthouse just sticking up a bit from this angle.  The wind was up (what’s new), but it being a warm day (low 70s F), it was not bad for a stroll down along the beach.  In the stretch of the dune grass on the way back up to the carpark on the bluff, I stopped to do to drawings in my pocket sketchbook; one of Orford Reef, and the other of Cape Blanco in the distance with the dune grass in the foreground, and an almost tropical green sea riddled with whitecaps in between.  North of Cape Blanco it seems the sea is much more of blue grey, or greenish grey, but I’ve not seen it this jade green as here seen; not even this morning as I drove along the scenic views route as I left Bandon.

I chose a 4” x 6” linen panel, again as it is marginally longer in shape than the 5” x 7” panels I’ve been using.  I began with a number 6 bristle brush (½-inch wide), and started in on the white lead primed linen panel, painting the sky with Cerulean and Cobalt Blues; no imprimatura.  The other pigments used were the usual suspects of Yellow Ochre, Venetian Red and Cremnitz White with one additional colour … Viridian since I needed its purity for the wondrous green of the sea.  I also mixed Velasquez Medium from Rublev with the Cobalt Blue, Viridian and the touch of Yellow Ochre used only for the Sea, with no white pigment.  Velasquez Medium is an oil and calcite mixture which lightens the pigments it s mixed with without losing the brightness of the pigment, as would happen when mixed with a white pigment.  I’ve not used this medium much before and I was quite surprised when I didn’t need to use any white; I had thought that I might have to use a little, but no; I did not.  This calls for further experimentation.  I used Titanium White for the whitecaps only, as well as for the miniscule stroke for the lighthouse.  The same bristle brush was used throughout the painting, except for the detail on the Cape itself, the whitecaps and the lighthouse; for these the same tiny round sable that I sign my paintings was used. 

I’m up on a mountain top with a view of the sea; the stars have come out and only a few lights 25 miles or so down the coast near Gold Beach are visible.  I plan to return the 6 miles down to Port Orford again tomorrow, as I spotted a couple more places to paint, and at least one of them should be out of the worst of the wind.

The Wind Continues

C1559

“Lost in the Mist”

(South from Face Rock,

Bandon Beach, Oregon Coast)

Oil Sketch on Centurion Oil Primed Linen Panel

With additional coat of Rublev Lead Primer

4” x 6”

Click here to make this your Own

The next day the wind was not as bad, but was still off putting, so I had in mind to return to the wayside, and work up another oil sketch from one of the drawings done yesterday.  This is done looking north towards where Face Rock might be seen on a clearer day, to the left and beyond the farther sea-stacks just visible in the enshrouding mist.  When I was working on the sketchbook drawings, there was not a hint that Face Rock might be lurking in the fog. 

I chose a 4” x 6” panel because its heighth to width ratio is slightly longer than the other small panels, and I could use that extra length; it is the same ratio as many of my standard sized Watercolours.  I worked on the white ground with no imprimatura, so as to work in a bit of a higher key; I also wanted to see how the mist and fog would work out in this higher key.  I rarely if ever do a pencil drawing on the panel before beginning to paint, since oil paint grows more translucent as it ages, over time the graphite will show through, unlike charcoal or black chalk.  But this was too small a panel for charcoal or chalk, and I wanted the shapes to be perfect, so I lightly drew them in with pencil, and then dabbed the lines with a plastic eraser, until they were just visible enough.  Normally I draw in the composition with a brush in oil paint.

I used the same palette of Yellow Ochre, Venetian Red, Cobalt Blue and Cremnitz White,  as on the last painting, so that I might compare between similar misty scenes the affects of one having an imprimatura and one not. I applied the pigments thinly and with a bit of W&N Liquin added; later additions to this layer caught a bit better as the Liquin became tacky.  Without the warm imprimatura the work results in brighter paint layers, but one has to work a bit so that the finished piece does not end up too cold.  Both methods are inherently harmonious due to the limited palette, but the warmth imparted by using an earth red imprimatura is very seductive, and seems to reach a satisfactory state, with less work; perhaps this is not really so, but I will keep this question in mind while painting.