Virtual Paintout - Norway!

Every month I enjoy participating in The Virtual Paintout hosted by Bill Guffey.  For August Bill chose Norway for artists to look around using Google Street View.  Norway looked very beautiful and prosperous to me.  It was quite a change from the July Virtual Paintout in Cambodia.  I had a long list of possible views I found to paint.  I usually like to try two very different scenes, usually a cityscape and a landscape.  But this time I liked the coastline landscapes around the long fiords so much that I tried two views.  There was some snow to try as well.  I don't get to paint snow very often.  

5" x 7" Watercolor

5" x 7" Watercolor

Virtual Paintout - Utah!

I was surprised to see that Bill Guffey had chosen another US location for the September 2015 Virtual Paintout...Utah!  I've only seen a bit of the bottom part of Utah in person and I remember loving the scenery.  Wonderful landscapes, rock formations and colors.  As always I wish I had time to look around more.  Looking around using Google Street View isn't the easiest thing to do but I always find amazing views.  Of course I narrow good views down to something I'd like to paint and try to be representative of the area.  These two views are from around Park City and I wanted to find some snow.  This month I wanted to try to incorporate some of the things I learned in the Chien Chung Wei workshop.  Those lessons will take time to soak in I'm sure.  I'm wondering if the October location will be in the US as well!

5" x 7" Watercolor

5" x 7" Watercolor

Chien Chung Wei Workshop!

In August I was fortunate to have the opportunity to take a workshop given by Chien Chung Wei, the amazing watercolor artist from Taiwan.  Chien came to the United States after giving a workshop in Italy, then Canada.  Next he was in Portland, Oregon, working his way down to Pasadena.  From following Chien on Facebook I was getting a hint of what an exciting workshop it would be. 

Chien has a school for watercolor study in Taiwan so he wanted to condense the three year course into three days for us!  It's all about the "DNA of Beauty".  He has ten foundation points of his DNA that we should learn and they should become a habit while we paint.  Six points were "Yes" things to keep in mind (like "more detail in the focal point") and four were "No"s (like "no sameness or overdoing").  Chien's emphasis is on good composition, having the elements of size, shape, value, color, detail, balance, all working together.  He also showed us how to fix bad brushstrokes.  He would rewet part of a stroke and put lines through it using the ferrule of a small inexpensive brush.  Chien also used the edges of a palette knife to add texture and abstract interest.  I hadn't seen that kind of work done before on a watercolor piece.  Opaque watercolors are also something Chien uses often.     

After watching Chien paint a snow scene we all tried the same scene.  This was the only piece I painted in the workshop.  At the end of the first day he handed out a postcard of one of his paintings to each of us and we were to paint it as an abstract as homework.  My postcard was an older piece of his, a floral still life.  I tried the abstract but didn't take it far enough since it still looks like a vase of flowers.  I should try it again.  Chien emphasized the abstract quite often.  He likes detail in a painting to be "loose detail", abstract.  Also what isn't important in the piece should be abstract.    

Originally the workshop was to have some plein air painting outside but the weather was too hot.  A very hot weekend.  Chien asked us if we would like to see him paint more demos or if we would like to paint more.  It was unanimous to watch Chien!  He is a very animated, while thoughtful, person.  What a treat, and I'm looking forward to taking another workshop from him sometime. 

8" x 10" My watercolor after the demo 

Chien's snow scene photo

Chien first day

Completed Venice night scene, second day

Third day demo started

5" x 7" Watercolor - my not-abstract-enough piece

A New Year!

It's January 1st.!  It's wintertime but here in Southern California the temps are in the 70's.  Well, yesterday, December 31st., I was painting a snow scene.  Not a plein air snow scene.  This watercolor was for Vinita Pappas's online watercolor class, Create 38, after her demo.  Vinita showed a neat technique for painting the pines using a splayed, dry, mop brush.  I always learn something from her demo videos.  I was feeling pretty chilly while painting this. The tracks in the snow just make it I think.  I can't seen to get my sky colors to show up well online.  

On New Year's Eve every year after our early dinner out, we stop by the local South Pasadena Rose Parade float construction site.  Most all of the parade floats are decorated by commercial float builders.  Our float is "self-built" by South Pasadena volunteers, which only a few local cities do.  I'm including a photo of the finished float ready to head out to Colorado Boulevard in a few hours.

A Happy New Year wish to all of you wonderful blog readers! 

8 x 10" watercolor

      

Mt. Baldy!

It might be fun to try a plein air painting in the snow!  Or at least a painting OF the snow.  Less than an hour's drive from Pasadena is Mt. Baldy, officially Mount San Antonio..  It's over 10,000 feet, the highest peak in the San Gabriel Mountains, and has snow to paint in the winter.

Mt. Baldy was on the tentative paint-out schedule, but we weren't up to the challenge when the day came around.  Coincidentally, another plein air group had scheduled to paint at Lario Park the following week.  I posted about my first watercolor there last year in "Lario Park".  It's actually not so much a park as a parking lot for the San Gabriel River Trail which many cyclists use.  And from there are beautiful vistas of the mountains.  The day we were at Lario, we had nice weather and great views of a snow covered Mt. Baldy.  I brought my gouache set-up that day since I've been enjoying trying the new-to-me medium for landscapes without structures.  I had in mind to limit brushstrokes so I painted two 5x7" pieces and started both with an under-painting which was a first try for me.  I painted some snow after all...from a distance!

5x7" gouache

 

5x7" gouache

The First Day of Winter

December 21, the first day of winter, the winter solstice.  It's cold, even here in Southern California.  Since I posted some autumn watercolors for the first day of fall, I wanted to post a favorite winter piece for the winter solstice.

Last December, on the Paint My Photo website the challenge for the month was a relaxing end of the year "non-challenge".  The assignment was to just choose a photo from the thousands on the website and paint something seasonal that could possibly be used for a holiday card if the artist wanted to.  In Southern California we have our seasons but usually no snow in the Los Angeles area in December so I was inspired to try painting some snow.  I looked at many terrific photos on the website of wintery scenes and finally decided on a beautiful shot of two women in the snow feeding ducks and Canada Geese beside a lake.  I painted this before any of the plein air pieces I've been painting recently so to me it has a different look and mood.  The photo is by Roy Simmons and is gorgeous.