Monday Practice

A little Monday watercolor practice.  Fist is this nice little lighthouse.  I see this as just sitting on the edge of a quaint ocean inlet.  In this picture the lighthouse is on a concret jetty of some sort.  On the other side of the bay are lush green trees.

The second painting as you can see is painted on the same sheet of paper, but lower down.  This one looks to be kind of a high desert scene.  There is a tree that has fallen to the left and some scrubby little pine trees behind.  

I tried to work in a few more wet in wet steps with these paintings and I think it paid off though it may not be obvious at first glance.  The sky and the trees on the lighthouse painting were done all at once.  and the sky actually extends down into the trees.  If you look, there is just a tiny bit of green that bled into the blue (but just a bit).  Each time I went back for a different brush full of green paint, I altered the color of green.  I think the end result is fantastic.

In the desert painting the sky and distant trees were done at once.  (perhaps the mountains should have been just a bit bluer) If I could do this one over I think i would make the foreground value much stronger to really pull it forward.  I think it shows pretty good on the paper, but in this picture the foreground and midground are the same strength and I'd like to change that.  

Hope you enjoyed these.  Don't forget to check out my Youtube Channel - Watercolors With Michael and If you didn't know, I now have a gofundme campaign.

Foot Bridge over a River in Zion National Park

Here is my representation of a bridge over a river in Zion National Park.  I've been to Zion many times, and it is truly one of natures most stunning places.  At least if you like that desert, canyon kind of thing.  The red rocks of the cliff faces tower over the valley floors.  I don't think there is one place you can go in the park that doesn't have stunning views.
I believe this bridge is at the beginning of the path to Angels Landing.  You cross this bridge, then into refrigerator canyon, up Walter's Wiggles, and out across a some very thin rock faces, to the precipice. The last half mile of the trip is not for the faint of heart.  There will be thousand foot drop offs, and path's with seemingly no handholds and almost no footholds.  But if you make it out to the end, the views are terrific.   The last time I went, it was in the mid 70's on the canyon floor, and by the time I got about 1/2 way out to the end, it started snowing, and got quite windy.  I didn't know if I should hurry to fight the cold, slow down to combat the wind, or  just turn back.  In the end, I just soldiered on and made it to the end.  Some German hikers were nice enough to let me warm my finger by the camp stove they had carried with them.

As for this paintings, I think I got a few things right.  the distant mountain really distant, the close mountain is close.  The trees are definitely closer than the mountain and they have a little depth to them.  True there could be a little more, but there is some.  Even the water looks like it gets closer as it reaches the bottom of the page.

I might try this one again.  Or at least I'll do some other paintings from Zion.  As with many of my recent paintings, i did a video to go with this.  If you are interested in seeing how I did it, you can see the video below.  Thanks for taking the time to view and read.

Lakeside Sunset

Its been a long time since I posted a video like this.  A quick to the point paintings.  It is what it is.  A sunset behind a lake with some trees in the foreground.  It looks spectacular, and its spectacularly easy to do.



I've made a video you can watch if you want to see how I did it.

Zion National Park

I've painted this picture before.  It was when I was just starting out in watercolors.  I spent hours drawing, and painting and fussing over it.  I tried hard to make something that would look nice, but in the end,  I think, I ended with a giant mess. 

So, over the weekend, I was going through some old works of mine and found this picture in the bottom of a drawer.  I thought I could paint it again to see how I could do.  This time, however, I handicapped myself.   

I went to my studio, only to find that my daughter and her friend had ransacked the place.  It took far too long to put back together.  So when all was said and done, I only had a very short amount of time to paint.  No Drawing for me.  Gonna have to paint wet into wet.  

Starting at the top, with a light orange wash, and changing to darker oranges and greens and grays as I made my way to the bottom.  The second wash saw me start in the very back with the same light wash.  Then onto the middle cliff,  a little more intensity.  The front was, of course the most intense.  Cliff walls done, it was on to the trees.  A little patter of green here and there.  A little grey for some water.  then wait just a sec and zip in some lines for tree trunks.  

I know its not high art, but given the time that I had to do it, I don't think its half bad.  And given that the first go round I did of this painting took many many hours, and doesn't look any better, I think its great.

Full Circle?

About a year ago, I painted about a half a dozen old cars.  When I was done, I thought I would never paint another.  Well, since I did that green motorcycle, I've kind of rekindled the fire for these old cars.  To that end, here is the most recent.  This one happens to be a Model T roadster.

It seems as though I've forgotten how to paint foliage.  Actually, as I painted this, it seemed like I forgot how to paint everything.  I know thats not quite right, it just seemed like it.  Well, anyway, enjoy!

GMC Truck

This painting for sale.  6x9  $20

Well, here is the latest old truck.  I keep thinking that the last one I've done is gonna be the las tone I'm gonna do, but.....  As a result, here is the latest one.  As you can see this one is sitting on the edge of a field with a lot of grass and weeds growing around it.

I really like the distant hill.  You can see that it is pretty blue and really looks like its way back there.  I think I got that right on this painting (not always the case on my paintings).  

I did one thing drastically different on this one than on others.   I traced a picture using blue carbon paper.  I don't know how much of the blue you can see, but it was really different painting with blue lines as opposed to grey lines.   I don't know why it should make much of any difference, but it really did.

Also, i thought this truck had been taken slightly better care of than some of the cars and trucks I have painted in the past, so you can see much more of the paint job.  I don't now why this one had to be yellow, but i just called to me to be yellow.  Well, hope you all enjoy.

Old Dodge

This painting for sale. 6x9  $15

This isn't a picture I planned on posting this week.  I had been working on this at home and had been taking my time doing it.  For some reason, I brought it into work with me, and then felt compelled to finish it here.

I've do this with just about every painting I do, and I thought I might share with you all.  My friend, Bob Ross, always says to make up a story about what it is that you are  painting.  When you do this, you will create a better connection to the picture.

This car is obviously sitting on a plain somewhere,  I imagine it is South Dakota.  The summer is gone, fall is in there air.  There hasn't been much rain for the past several months and the grasses are going dormant just before winter sets in.  Here the car sits, just rusting away out in a field.  Probably there are animal trails all around it.

Well, for what it is, here it is.  Hope you all enjoy it.

Some Sketching From My Back Yard

I was reorganizing my office this morning (It was badly overdue).   For those of you who don't know, my office has many many paintings taped to the walls.  The picture below is just one portion of one wall.













Well, while I was moving the pictures, I noticed that I had painted on the backs of many of them.  A way to save paper as I am learning to paint, no doubt.  One painting in particular, an old rusted truck (go figure) which is the one that got me started painting old rusted cars and trucks in the first place, had a few quick sketches on the back of it.  I remember doing them.  I did them in two settings.

   
The first setting, which, if I remember correctly, was done in about a half hour in my back yard. They came out ok, but not steller.  They were done when I started outlining the subject matter of the paintings.

The last one, if memory serves me right, was done the next day.  Living in Morro Bay, it's hard not to paint the Rock.  It is hard, however, to get a good painting of it.  It is kind of just a big hump out at the end of the beach with nothing else around it.  Well, this one was done with me sitting on my front porch.  Before you ask, yes, that is my view, and yes there are two different types of trees that frame the rock.  Well, without further ado, here it is.  Hope you enjoy.

I really feel like I learn a lot when I go back and look at these old paintings.  I can almost remember everything I was thinking while I was painting them.  I can also see how far I have come from these meager beginnings.  If I were to redo these, and I may, they would look radically different now (and with any luck, radically better). 

Next week, I am hoping to have at least 3 new painting.  No quick sketches like these.

Going Back On My Word

This painting for sale 9x12  $30

 Well it didn't take long for me go revert to my old ways.  A short few posts ago I swore off cars for kittens. It looks like I was abel to keep that word for all of a week.

With that, what we have here is a Studebaker.  I can just imagine this cars sitting, baking in the sun somewhere in Texas, or Oklahoma, Arizona or someplace like that. The blazing sun has cracked the pavement and provided no relief to the dry, brown dirt on the other side of the parking lot.

I didn't take pictures for the whole process this time.  This is the first one I took.  You can see the sky is already done, but there is plenty to do on the rest of the painting.  I tried hard to put in some coud details on this painting instead of just a plain sky.  It's a bit hard since we don't have many real clouds here to look at in real life.

I've jumped ahead quite a bit here.  You can see the shelter in the background is done as well as the sidewalk, the windows, and the chrome on the car.  If you look at the shadows, they are different than the final product.  I thought I had them right when I put them in,  then I stepped back to look.  Wow! was I ever wrong.  I had to go back in and fix them.  They look a lot better now.

Finally, a few finishing touches and the painting was done.  I strengthened a few of the colors and put in the trees and weeds.  They seem simple but they really do add a lot to the painting.

Hope you all enjoy.

Last One of This Series

Well, at long last I have come to the end of painting old rusty trucks.  I'll do some more of them at some point in time, but right now, it's time to move on.  I've really enjoyed painting them, and have learned a ton.  Also, I've learned there is a ton more to learn.  Oy Vey!  Well, it's a good thing I'm still having fun with it and want to keep going.  I really do think this is the best one I have done.  I'm posting several pictures again this time too.  I got some good feedback about it last time and am going to try to incorporate pictures of the steps more often.

 Here is the start.  A simple drawing.  Only the truck and a little bit of the fence.  I've moved the center of interest off the center of the paper.  Hopefully, it make the painting just a bit more interesting.

The underpinning of the truck body.  You can see the green and red as well as the rust color.  More layers to come.

I'm not sure this is the perfect place to start, but I get so hyped to see the truck come to life that I start with it.  I may have made a small mistake by painting the bumper at this point, but I can fix it later if I need to.

Background, and foreground go in.  Nothing with any detail, just some basic colors.  Note there is just a hint of blue for a sky.   Trees will cover the rest.  I'm not sure why I did the inside of the cab and the grill.  Mostly I think it was because I was being interrupted while I was painting and that is just how it turned out.  Also, you can tell I added another layer to the truck body.

A few trees and some shadows.  I am thinking of leaving the trees like this, but they look a little to airy.  I think I will eventually have to paint a layer over them.  Some shadowing under the front clip of the truck and it really comes to life.  It's amazing what a little color can do some times.

Well, I painted over the leaves of the trees in the background.  I've got to do all my detail work on the truck now before I put the foreground on.  I have to do this so that if I paint over the truck with the foreground, it will really push it back into the painting.    At this point, I'm worried about the grill.  The picture I'm painting from shows the grill as black, or at least really dark.  I don't want it to be a big black hole in the center of the painting.

This painting for sale.  9x12  $30

Here it is, the finished painting.  The wheel is done, the grill is done, and the weeds help to push the truck back into the painting.  I think it turned out great. I couldn't be happier with it.  I hope you all like it too.

Old Blue Truck

SOLD!

Ok, so I tried to do something that may not have worked out quite the way I wanted it to.  Then again, some parts of this painting are brilliant 

So, I started with a picture of this truck.  Someone had photoshpped it so that the only thing in color was the truck.  It absolutely burst off the page because it was a beautiful blue color.  (Well, actually it was blue, yellow, red and rust, but for the ease of this commentary, I'll just call it blue.)  The truck was sitting in the wood with tree trunks and branches all around.  I didn't think the background was all that exiting, but it made the truck jump out so much that I had to try it.  Well, as you may have guessed, I didn't use their background, I used my own.  Yes, thats right, just made it up on the fly.  I wanted to make my background a little darker around the truck and a little lighter everywhere else, but it didn't quite work out that way.  Oh, well, there is always next time.  One think I did  do, and you will have to look closely to see it is make the grey in the background more blue-grey, and make the foreground more red-grey.  If you look closely you can see it.  I did it because the blue makes things look more distant, and the red, more close.

As for the truck itself, I think its pretty good.  I did a lot of layers to give the truck the kind of mottled look.  The first was just water to get everything wet.  Then came yellows and reds.  Finally, blues on top. I tried to allow for highlights along where there were bends in the metal, but I didn't work out well this time and I quickly abandoned that plan.  As you look at the truck, take not of the lining.  Instead of making lines at the end with a pen, i actually used paint and brush and painted it.  Some of them look a little better than others, but in general, I think all the lined came out pretty good.   I like this painting and already have it hanging in my office.  Next week, I start a new painting.  Enjoy

Camping, VW Style

SOLD!

Yes, Yes, Yes, I know I have painted this picture before.  I originally saw the photo that this was taken from and thought of my neighbors Jim and Karen.  They have a VW very similar to this, and go camping once a month or so.  The first rendition of this was OK, but that was the problem with it.  It was just OK.  There was nothing special about it at all.  This one is far and away better. Im working hard to allow the paint to mix on the paper instead of in the palette and I think I accomplished that.

I started this painting by putting down a light wash of yellow and green.  It covered everything except the person sitting at the picnic table and the posts.  After looking at it I panicked.  I needed to have the roof of the camper white.  I put a second layer on everything except the van and the person and the posts.  Still the roofline looked yellow.  I painted the van.  Still the roof looked yellow.  Everything looked yellow.  I painted the trees. Suddenly, not everything looked yellow.  The van actually stood out away from the background.  and there was a clear break between the hills in the distance and the camping space.  The trees worked great to break up the picture and give it the depth it needed.

After painting the posts, the picnic table and the person, I looked again.  Not too bad.  I might actually be getting the hang of this.  I put the shadows on, and the grass around the posts and that's a wrap.  I like the way it look.  The mostly brownish grass is exactly what we have out here.  It really looks like this could be a campsite on the central coast.

I'm hoping to see Jim and Karen this weekend so I can give this to them.  Hope they like it.  Hope you all enjoy it.  I had fun painting it.

Camping, VW Style

From the moment I saw this picture I thought of my neighbors.  They are quite old, and only live in California half of the year, but while they are here they do a fair bit of camping.  They have a brown VW Vanagon in their garage, and about every other weekend they get away for a little camping.   I don't really know if theirs is a pop up or not.

I painted this picture to give to them when they make it back to the Golden State.  But now that I am looking at it, I'll never be able to give it to them in this state.  I seem to ha ve forgotten to put shadows on this painting.  Shadows are always the last thing that you add, and oops....  Well, it wont take to too long.  It really is amazing how much interest a few shadow lines will put into a painting.

Well, I hope you all enjoy it, I'm off to add sahadows.

Fishing Hole

Ok, so I heard of a possible fishing hole on campus.  A little pond that was up above the equine unit. I'm always on the lookout for a place to take the kids fishing, and had to check this out.  I decided to take my travel watercolor kit with me (yes,  I keep it at work).  I knew from looking on Google Earth that there might be some great views of San Luis from up there and I might be able to make a nice painting.  Well, I got up there and, yes, there is a nice little pond.  I found some fish in it, and yes, I plan on taking the kids.  Also, I found some horses not too far away and decided to give a try at painting them.  Now, I've never painted horses (or drawn them for that matter) before.  So I know this painting isn't all that great.  But what I really enjoyed was sitting on the side of the pont on a rock at the shore.  I dipped my watercup into the pond and used that for my water.  I was tickled to just be sitting there out side, with seemingly nothing around but a few horses, and painting whatever I thought I could.  It was truly wonderful.  And whats more, I could walk there, paint this picture and be back to my office within an hour.  Im going back tomorrow, perhaps I'll take my camera so you can all see what I am talking about.

The Second Harvest

Ok, we are on to iteration number two.  I didn't look at the first one when I painted this one, so i think I suffered from some of the same problems, but to  a lesser extent.  This one, to me, makes it look more like the grapes are growing on individual plants, whereas the first one looks like a giant mass of vines.  I don't know that I am really blown away by the way it turned out, but I definitely like it.

Grape Harvest

The painting challenge for august is harvest.  This is my first attempt at painting a harvest.  I thought since the central coast is known for its wines, that I would paint a grape harvest.  I think I got a bit too heavy with the mottled colors on the leaves, especially in the foreground.  Im gonna try it at least one more time.  I love the picture and would really like to produce a nice painting of it.

PAC Center

This is a quick little painting I did of the PAC.  The Performing Arts Center.  People seem to call it the PAC Center for some reason.  Really they ought to call it the PA Center.  There are some dorms that really should be behind the trees on the left hand sid, but I took a little license.  And there should be some mountains behind the trees as well, but......  I think i did  a great job with everything I did put in.  Looking back a t the picture, the only thing i forgot to put on are some shadows across the sidewalk.  enjoy it.

Vineyard

I was asked by a friend to paint a vineyard, barn, or boat.  I've done a few of each with varying degrees of success.  I decided to take up the challenge of a vineyard for her.   This is one attempt.  Actually this is a picture of a vineyard in the Paso Robles area, about 40 minutes from where I sit typing this.  It won't be my last attempt at painting a vineyard.  Like with all of my paintings, I think that I am getting better at painting them.  I might end up just doing a bit of pen outlining on this one to give some definition to the grape leaves in the foreground.  If I make any changes, I'll repost.  Hope you enjoy.

Anyone Recognize This House?

Yes it is the pride of west Michigan.  It is, of course, The Buckeye House.

Gus's Grocery

Ok, I will admit, Gus's isn't in Morro Bay, it's in San Luis, but its an institution and everyone knows it.  I had to give it a try.  Incidentally, if you want a great sub, Gus's is the place to go.

Some good and some bad on this one, just like the rest.  Seeing the scanned image, i can tell my perspective is still off a bit, but I don't think it really takes away from the picture all that much.  Some good coloring on the trees, and a bit ont he brick on the front of the store.  The stucco, I feel like I am having trouble with.  Soooooooooooooo many of the building here are all stucco, and if you know me, you know that i think stucco is like the laziest way to finish a building.  It rarely ever looks good.  Maybe I feel I am having a little trouble painting it because of the way I feel about it.    After painting the Bayside, I was told that if I made the windows totally dark, or black, that they would be much more dramatic.  I have to say, That was some good advice.  Well, I hope you all enjoy the painting.