It's So Nice I Had to Go to the Bayside Cafe

Well, this one too me a little more than an hour to paint.  In fact, it took me two lunch hours.  One to draw and one to paint.  And to tell you the truth, I am ecstatic with the outcome. I know that it is still not technically perfect, but it is a really good interpretation of the bayside, and I am learning a lot.

Check out the half barrels.  How do they look?  They look round.  Check out the tall stump behind the bench.  Round again!  and look at the shading on the umbrellas   They look like they could actually be in the sun.  The windows look like they are set back just a bit in their sills and the building has  a bit of texture to it.

The secret?  I'm learning to do things in multiple layers.  There is very little on this painting that was done with one layer of paint.  most of it has two three or four.  The stump, believe it or not, has six or seven, but i think it looks great.  I will admit that I had a bit of trouble with the grey in the windows.  They really need a go-over, but i couldn't bring myself to do it.  Any way, I really like this painting.

One more thing.  If you haven't seen it yet, there is a new drawing on Dabflyarts Drawings.   Just go to the top of the page, on the right hand side and click through.

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home

Here's home, Morro Bay.  This would be the view walking down the centennial stairway.  Of course every good picture of Morro Bay gas to have the Rock in the background.

Two things i really love about this painting.  The sky and the tree.  This is a new sky technique.  Still trying to get the darkest part of the sky toward the bottom, but building it up in layers.  This one is three layers deep. If you look you can see the three different coats of paint.  I think it made for a  really dramatic sky.  Then the tree.  This is the new tree method, where I don'f focus on painting a tree, but rather on putting colors where light and shadow might be hitting the tree.  It takes the focus off of trying to get individual leaves and twigs, etc.  and allows me to focus on the bigger picture.  In this, it works because it kind of makes the tree look slightly out of focus.   The real focus being on the chess board and the Sun-n-Buns.

I wish i had had some green ready when I painted the rock.  I love the mottled look of it, but it needed a little more.  I tried to get it to stand apart by making the base of it darker.  I think i did an acceptable job, but it needed a bit more.

Well, I had a great time painting this.  I hope you all enjoy viewing it.

More Arboretum Mayhem

Some more paintings from the Cal Poly Arboretum.  This on is a fountain in an english garden.  All the plants are cut with very specific shapes.  I really just wanted to paint the fountain, but have yet to figure out how to do it without quite a bit of greenery around it.  It was really hot today.  Had to be about 90 while I walked up to the arboretum, so I was glad that the place I sat while painting this was in the shade.  I actually think I was a bit too hot to paint as I had sweat rolling down my face while I was painting.  I'll revisit this at some point in the future.

This is a sign leading into..... you guessed it, the California Collection.  I don't know that I really got the wood of the sign the way I wanted to, but there are some things I like about this painting.  Using my trick of red in front and blue in back, it looks like the ground goes from front to back in the painting.  The rock in the front partly because of the red in the ground looks much closer than the sign or the rock behind the sign.  I don't know if you can tell, but the sign is not specifically perpendicular to our viewing angle.  The left side is just a bit smaler than the right.  I love the way the planter and plant came out.  It is just a mass of green coming out of this fantastic red pot.  I actually tried to paint the leaves individually, but quickly decided just a few splashes of a darker green would suffice for the leaves.

Hope you all enjoy these paintings.

steps

Well, I went back to the arboretum today.  It was really nice.  Yesterday there was a group of people at the gazebo and they were making a bunch of noise.  Today there was nobody but me.  I sat in the same chair, but instead of looking down the hill I move the chair into the walkway, and faced it up the hill.  You can see some crazy plants at the top of the stairs, and there was a huge terra cotta pot on the left hand side.

I chose this because I like the rocks so much from yesterdays paintings that I had to do some more.  I don't think I quite got the contrast in the rocks that I wanted, but I think i got a fair representation of the rocks on the path.  I didn't have enough time to do all the shading that I wanted to.  I might go back and put some in later.  I might, also, to make the individual stones and rocks stand out a bit more, outline these in black pen.  I havent really decided yet.

I purposely left a lot of white in this painting.  There was mortar between the stones that make up the stairs, but I thought it might be a little better to leave those spaces white.  I'll bet yo that until you read that last sentence and looked at the picture again, you didn't notice it the white spaces.

I painted this whole painting with one brush.  Usually, I use two or three.  My travel set came with a very small pure sable brush.  I had never tried it before, but it has the benefit of being small and easy to carry (I know, all brushes are small and easy to carry).  Having tried it, I can definitely see why so many people love sable brushes.  Not only could I do thin lines with it, i could so a larger wash and every thing came out pretty good.  I might have to invest in one, or in a set soon.  I'll keep you informed.  In the mean time, hope you enjoy the paintings.

little plants

Well I took another trip to the arboretum today.  I found a nice place in the shade where there was a seat and a table and I sat down and drew and painted this.  This planter was on the side of the pathway and looked like a good subject to start with.  Start to finish was just about 1/2 an hour.    Thats pretty good.  With something like this, I want to work a little quickly.  What i hope is that working fast will make me be less literal in my interpretation of the subject and force me to focus on getting color on the paper.  I have to say, to some extent I think it really worked.

Looking at the top of the planter, it really does look like the plants in front are closer than those in back.  Also, the rocks look like they have some depth to them.  Wonderful!!  The bowl of the panter is a little flat.  I could have fixed that with a little richer color, but I guess that is what I learned from this lesson.  Hope you enjoy.

blue door

Getting back to the doorway theme I was working on a while ago, here is a blue door.  The proportions aren't quite right, the angles aren't quite right, bars over the door aren't quite straight, but for some reason I like this little picture.