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.

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.