Delaware Bay, #1, 18″ x 18″, Rives

For the first time, I’m posting this blog from my studio on Wilkins Ave!  I have my little all-in-one computer here and I’ll be giving my zoom classes on it beginning next Wednesday afternoon.  I was concerned about the connection, but it seems to be OK. So I’m relieved.

This week I started doing the first paintings from the initial studies on Rives printmaking paper.  It’s a surface I’ve used before and like a lot.  I bought 10 sheets for $4 each at Plaza!  SO it’s a bargain compared to mounted UART boards!!!

I used Golden fine pumice gel and burnt orange liquid acrylic to produce a lovely mid-toned off red surface.  And it lay nice and flat with no buckling.

I did a charcoal drawing to begin with and laid in the pattern of darks in the land areas. I loved putting pieces of color in the distant land and developing the bushes and grasses.  The sky was more challenging because of the surface.  And I had problems with colors.  The sky ended up very blue with not blue below.  I added turquoises to both the sky and grass areas and then added some oranges into the clouds, trying to tie the colors together.

Compositionally, I cut the piece too much in half, despite my initial measuring.  But it’s not too bad.

What I loved about doing the painting was working intuitively to create the composition of value shapes and the color interactions. l It didn’t work until I added the bright yellow greens into the foreground.  This makes it come alive, I think.

I really loved getting back to this surface and a freer way of painting again.  I plan to stick with it for awhile and I have a show lined up in March of next year where I can show them.  So things seem to be working out

Now, I’ll add the second one!

Delaware Bay #1 (study) 12 x 12, Lux Archival

Delaware Bay #2 (study)

Delaware Bay #3 (study)

Watercolor toning and charcoal for #2

Drawings

Hello Friends!  It’s been a long time since March when I last posted and so much has happened.  We moved.  That was pretty traumatic and exhausing.  But then, my former husband died and we had to clean out his apartment. Then I got sciatica and couldn’t walk or even stand.  Had to cancel our May trip to Slovenia and Croatia. On top of that, the gallery I was in in Frederick decided to let me go as I hadn’t sold anything this year.  So, I’ve been pretty depressed! However, I finally got to see an orthopedist this past week, took prednisone, and the pain went away (for now at least).

When I was unable to walk and didn’t have any of my art supplies here, I decided to draw using what I could find–a small lined notebook and a mechanical pencil.    I did sketches from a Sept. 2020 trip to Lewes, DE where we visited the Delaware Bay on a stormy day.  Really dramatic skies and flowing grass lands with small shrubs.  I decided this would be a good subject to play with.  At this point I feel like I’ve got nothing to lose and it’s time to experiment.  I’ve always wanted to do more abstraction with the landscape–but not total. I have little appetite for non-representation.

My initial thinking was that I would work on Rives with a gel applied.  On Wednesday, when I was feeling SO HAPPY to be pain free, I went to the studio and didn’t find any Rives. But what I found was a lot of  sheets of Lux Archival paper that I had purchased in the past couple of years.  I decided to work in 12 x 12 squares and I used watercolor to tone the paper–not really an underpainting.  The paper takes the water beautifully with no buckling at all.  And I didn’t have a firm idea of my composition when I started, so toning was the perfect start.  My intention would then be to take the best of them and work larger (20 x 20 maybe) on the prepared Rives paper.

Looking at the three studies, I like the second best.  Not so much fussy detail and more shapes of color.  I wanted to make the sky work with the land and used green in the clouds.  That was quite interesting, which proved interesting.  I had a photo up to look at but paid little attention to it.  I tried to work intuitively on the composition, values, and color, feeling where I needed to make changes, rather than worrying about what was there.

These are far from “perfect” and I’m not sure that word could ever be applied to this sort of thing.  But I’ve decided to “play” this summer, sticking with this format for now, but maybe adding a building in a few.  And I will prepare a discussion on abstracting the landscape for my summer classes which begin June 6th.  I will be teaching two in the studio and one on zoom (Wed. afternoons).  The studio classes are full, but there’s always room on zoom!  I plan to paint on Mondays afternoons.  I’m praying that my phyiscal condition will continue to improve (I’ve had an MRI and will see the doctor this coming Tues. I expect PT to be in my future!).

I hope you have been able to enjoy the beautiful spring weather, which has disappeared here for the weekend–high 90s predicted! I hope to do more work and will post future experiments.  Stay well!

Narcissus in Norway, 14″ x 11″, UART dark mounted board

Initial stages before flowers

I’ve decided to take a break and post my latest painting, done some weeks ago.  We are moving!!!  Many of you will already know this, but not all.  We are moving on April 5th to a lovely senior living residence in Bethesda, Fox Hill.  It has a great art room and the food is supposed to be wonderful. But I’m keeping my studio on Wilkins and have moved most of my things, including my large David Sorg easel there.  We’ve lived in our house for 28 years and I’ve loved it since the first day I peered in the window and saw a studio!!!  But now it’s time to move on and fortunately, we have sold the house to our neigbors, who also love art and music AND do tango dancing!!!  They plan to have parties!

So, some weeks ago, I went to the studio with Mary Ellen Simon and did one more flower painting on  11 x 14 UART dark.  This one was a challenge as the wall was completely gray in the photo.  But I loved the way the flowers curled down over the stone.  The photo was taken in Stavanger, on the Atlantic Coast south of Bergen in 2019.

The color of the rocks was the main issue.  I didn’t like the pure gray and began with grayed red violet, then remembered that I would be using oranges and switched to blues.  I laid in the rocks and grassy covering first before doing anything with the flowers or vines.  I really liked the small area of sky at top right with flowers and leaves against it, and the area of steps on the lower right.  However, it’s not the greatest composition ever (or painting!).

Putting in the flowers and leaves with really soft pastels was fun, particularly the variety of yellow to yellow orange and reds in the blossoms.  When I brought it home, I decided to try to tone down the blues by adding some of the Blue Earth warm neutrals over them.  I can’t say that it helped a whole lot!

So from now on, I’ll either be painting in my Wilkins studio or at Fox Hill.  I want to paint there so as to meet other artists and get better aquainted.  And I’ll make plans to display work in a cabinet that they have for a featured artist.  But I doubt that this will happen anytime soon.  We are packing, packing, packing–and then—unpacking!!!  See you on the other side!

Jean

Two Adobes, 29 Palms, 16 x 20, UART dark board

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

I’ve been cleaning out my studio and going through a lot of old stuff.  One of the things is a box of old color photos that I’ve saved from a far larger number that I took prior to the days of digital and the cell phone.  One of the pictures was taken in 29 Palms, California in 2003. We stayed at a place that had a wonderful array of colorful adobes.  The photo had two in shades of majenta/pink and green/turquoise, along with tall cacti of some sort.  So I decided to try doing it on one of my 16 x 20 UART dark boards.

(A note:  while I like the Dakota boards, I have found that the dark 400 UART on these boards warp terribly. I’ve tried putting gesso on the back and it makes no difference. I lately worked on the same size of UART 320 original color and no problem. Nice and flat.  So I’m not sure what’s going on.  Have any of you experienced this?  My newer 11 x 14s don’t seem to have the same problem.)

I began with a simple line drawing using a pastel pencil.  Then began with the majentas and pinks, starting with Girault, but quickly moving to Ludwig (much better).  I liked the shape of blue sky behind the building and simplified what was in the photo (roof line, etc.).  This part was really fun!

In Stage 2, I’ve added a layer of light pink and light green in as the sand and done a first coat of the far left wall of the green building.  I began the building using a Ludwig turquoise, but wanted it to be warmer. Found a soft, grayed warm green (light) and added that over the turquoise, letting little pieces show through. I really liked the effect.

I had a hard time with the shadowed side of the green building.  I first put in a teal Great American but it wasn’t dark enough.  So I added two colors on top!  A dark turquoise Blue Earth and a gray from the same box.  The color was much better but I was adding dark over lighter color in a fairly large area and not happy about it!  However, I like the final effect.

In Stage 4, I’ve decided that compositionally, I think I need more on the bottom extending to the left. There’s a strong diagonal that I felt needed to be broken.  I tried adding more of what was there, then decided to add another type of cactus (prickly pear) that wasn’t in the photo. I used a reference photo from the computer and the color was all wrong.  So I brushed it out and relaid in the color of the sand and I’m much happier with it.  The diagonal can stay!  Also, I decided that the sand looked too pink, so I pulled out the warm neutral box of Blue Earths and these worked really nicely.

For the large cacti, I began with several values of the quinacrione red Blue Earth, then used similar values from the “lemon” box on top, allowing some of the pinks to show through.  I wanted to bring the red forward and not have it isolated in the back.  I added some more pieces on top of the green.  For the smaller cacti in front, I used the tuquoise Blue Earth, along with the Quinacridone red, then very light pieces on the edges.  This worked beautifully because they were in front of the tall cacti that were dark at the bottom.

In the photo, the tall cacti went right to the bottom and there was only a hint of the others. So I had to extend this area, which wasn’t real easy!  I’m not much of an expert in cacti, having lived my entire life in New England and the Mid-Atlantic!

However, this was a really fun painitng to do and something out of the ordinary. I guess I’m into a sunny cactus mood–given that we are in cold, windy February!

Hydrangeas, 14 x 11, UART dark

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

This is my third painting. It was begun in my studio on Wilkins and worked on over two consecutive Mondays, then finished in my home studio this morning.  I took the photo in Dupont Circle in 2019 and only after much cropping did I realize what I had.  There were buildings and such behind all of this.

I began this painting quite differently from the last as there was a lot of dark behind the flowers. So I drew outlines with hard pastels instead of doing a lay-in with the side of the pastel.  I don’t really like drawing the outline of leaves as you then tend to fill them in, and that’s not a good way to paint!  But I needed to get something in there.

I used a mix of hard and very soft pastels in this painting, with some of the hard pastels being used for the leaves but definitely not the flowers.  Doing this picture was shear joy!  I used purple and pink and orange Schminckes and Great Americans and I had SUCH a good time!!!  I worked really slowly on each flower, building from darker to lighter and cooler to warmer, using small pieces of color.

But, there were definite challenges–primarily the leaves.  The photo has them all laid out nicely with hard edges and lots of detail.  Not so good for a painting.  I started with them like this, as you can see in Stages 2 and 3, but this morning I worked on bluring the edges by either darkening the leaves or using my finger to smear them.  I think it’s much better now.

For the background, I used Ludwig eggplant and a very dark blue violet over that in places,  It gives it more dimension.  You can see in the earlier stages what the board looks like with some of the “eggplant” on it.  The board is dark but not black, so it’s very easy to cover it with darker color.

I think it’s pretty clear what the center of  interest is.   I loved the little tendril that comes up on the right, which helps bring the eye back up to the main flower.

So will I continue doing this?  Probably.  I like the idea that I can paint different types of subject matter, but all with pastel.  Once you know the basics and how to use your medium.  it all comes down to value and temperature!

Profusion of Pink, 11 x 14, UART dark

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

I’ve been working on a series of 11 x 14 florals on dark UART for a March show in Frederick, to go with Cactus Garden in Rain Country.  This really is the perfect time of year to be doing these with the cold and gray weather we’ve had.

This is the first one that I started. I loved the photograph for its softness and profusion of color.  I could just barely see a composition!  This is NOT my comfort zone!

So I began with hard pastels, laying in the shape of the sky and the dirt area at right, then used greens, pinks, oranges, and dark blue green to very roughly establish the shapes of the flowers and bushes.  This first stage looks like nothing!  But it was enough.

In the photo, the asters in the foreground are kind of a coral color, with a mix of orange and pink that I really liked. So I used an orange as the basis of the color for them. In stage 2 I’ve added several soft Ludwigs (blue and turquoise) for the sky and I’ve painted the orange balls at left.  I thought about leaving those out, but as soon as I did them, I loved them!  In the photo the far right has tall spiky pink flowers.  I put them in to begin with, then didn’t like them and decided to put more of the orange balls (dead hydrangeas, I assume) over there as well.

I loved painting the sandy right side of the painting. I used Blue Earth grayed “earth green” and grayed “turquoise” and these were a lovely combination.  I waited till the end to add the little leaves and branches on top, but I really liked the negative space this created. I also used these two sets for most of the greens in teh picture, going back and forth between warm and cool.

Painting the asters was the biggest challenge.  I just haven’t done a lot of this type of thing.  I used a mix of pinks and oranges in different values, all soft.  Once those were done, I did more work on the greens.  In Stage 4 you’ll see a large dark area in the upper right. That was way too much, so I added more of the dull green on top and minimized the dark.

I was pleased with this painting, even though my husband says it’s very busy.  I like the busyness of it, so long as there are the areas of calm to rest the eye.  It’s about nature going all out in September when it knows that winter is just around the corner!

Snow-Covered Road (West Harris), 20″ x 16″, UART 320 board

Initial drawing, 10 x 8

Drawing on UART 320 board

Hard pastel underpainting, stage 1

My first “published” (on Facebook) painting of the year is this one of snow.  It was a joy to paint snow again!  They hadn’t predicted any for us this winter so I was really surprised when it occured, not once but twice last week!  Having fallen after the first snowfall, my husband took me for a ride on my favorite un-paved road–West Harris Road near Sugar Loaf Mountain.  I wanted to go there as I figured there would be more snow on the road and less travel and I was right. I took photos from the car.  I knew when I took this one it would be the one I painted, given the angles of the road and snow banks and the light coming from the right.

This was also a joy because I didn’t have to change much (compared to my sunflower painting)–primarily the color (and that’s easy!). There was a large thick post and fence in the area where the orange grasses are that I immediately deleted.  But other than that, I pretty much followed the photo.  I love the way the snow banks and angles of the shadows on the road create dynamic tension.  But doing the shadows was hard and I redid them many times. At first, I had a band of shadows all completely equidistant and really boring!  Shadows are hard for me.  My other mistake was to use a Ludwig tinted orange white to cover up the entire field, which was just too much. Then, I added some Blue earth on top and it was way too YELLOW!!!  SO, I brushed it off, put on a layer of white-blue, then added my Art Spectrum tinted white “lemon” pastel on top.  That was MUCH better.

I loved doing the snow on the trees, using some grayed blue green and blue violets and a lovely hint of light with the lemon yellow.

For the darker areas in the road, I used the grayed Blue Earth “turquoises” which are quite brown and were really perfect for this.  The Blue Earth grays have wonderful colors that just fit the bill in so many cases.

I used a combination of warm greens and violets in the background trees, with some dark red violet and dark blue at the base.  For the sky, I used one or two soft turquoises with a hint of clouds lightly brushed on top.  It seemed just right.

Now I’m focusing on demos for my classes. I’ve done one (of snow) and have two more to go.  But it’s been lovely painting for myself!

Jean

Mount Pleasant Market, 20″ x 16″, UART Dark 400 mounted board

Initial “completion”

Today I finished what started out to be  first painting of 2022.  And it turned out to be one of the most challenging paintings I’ve done!  It’s a market scene from the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of NW DC, near Columbia Rd and Adams Morgan.  A visitor to my studio some years ago suggested I go there. Many of the houses are painted with interesting colors!  But what I loved was the market and the sunflowers.  I really wanted it to be about the flowers, but once you add figures (particularly in the middle) it’s very hard not to make it about them!

I decided to work on the dark UART to give the flowers a chance to “pop” and they really did!  But, there was very little drawing and I had to wing it with the flowers.  I made a lot of changes to the composition from the reference photo, which I’ve included. The large green awning is the smaller brown awning that is further back in the photo.  There was a woman at the far right who I decided to leave out.  Everything was more complex and filled with “stuff”!  I added the light colored awnings from a different photo to fill space and lightly indicated vegetables on tables underneath.

The flowers were the fun part!  I loved the way they stand out.  The large flower in upper left is an odd red color in the photo faces left. I decided to make it orange and face right so as to keep the eye in the picture plane.  I loved putting the color on the white bins that hold the flowers.  I started with blues and greens, then added violet over.  It became a lovely cool area of “calm” that sets off the flowers.

The image “initial completion” is where I started this morning.  I had disucssed it with a friend and we both agreed that the background needed to be tamped down somehow. And that the figure on the right (with long hair) looked a little “cartoonish.”  I began by darkening the head band on woman on left so that it didn’t stand out as much.  Then I changed the figure on the left, taking out her headband, adding a scarf and eliminating  most of the long hair.  I think it’s much better now.  I also reworked the background buildings, giving a sense of light and shadow. And I added light clouds to the sky to soften the line between the buildings and the sky.   I also added shadows to the green awning, which was flat.  And added more vegetables to the table.

That’s about it.  I DO think that the flowers really stand out now, more than they did originally. And it’s clear what the painting is supposed to be about.  This was a challenge of working with a lot of detail and having to make serious changes and simplifications to the photo.  My winter zoom classes are going to focus on working from photos, as well as working in pastel, so this was a great exercise for me!  Still room if anyone is interested.  Contact me at: jeanhirons48@gmail.com  Classes start the week of Jan. 31.

Cheers and Happy New Year!

Jean

Cactus Garden in Rain Country, 20 x 16, UART dark 320 board

Hello Friends!  I realized today that I never posted my most recent painting.  It’s quite different, so I wanted to share the experience with you.  Meanwhile, I hope that you are keeping safe and enjoying whatever holidays you are celebrating.

The reference photo was taken in Portland, Oregon during our October trip.  The grounds around the hotel were beautiful and I was really struck by this garden of cacti and other succulents.  I liked the dark shadows behind the sunlit cactus, creating a clear center of interest. And I liked the fact that the other one was in shadow and thus, quite different. There’s a good composition here and that’s critical.

But, I haven’t worked much on dark surfaces.  I began with my Caran d’ache hard pastels, laying in some basic shapes for the two big cacti, and the various colors around them.  I did that in my public studio in late November, then quit for the month of December.  However, I kept thinking about how much I loved doing just that initial stage.  So I got it out and worked for an afternoon and this is the result!

My main concern was the fill-ins of various colors around the large shapes.  But, after I got started, I realized that I could take a lot of freedom using colors to keep the eye flowing, and differing shapes to keep the picture interesting.  I loved doing the cactus blossoms with their pink caps and little sunlit spikes.

For the real darks, I used Ludwig eggplant and some of my Ludwig intense darks, but very ligthly.  Starting a picture like this on the dark surface was really great.  I used Blue Earth turquoises for the dark and light blue green cacti and they worked beautifully.

This was a lot of fun and I plan to do more of these.  I showed it to a gallery owner and he gave me a thumbs up.  SO, as much as I love using underpaintings and landscape, I think I’ll play with this for awhile.

Meanwhile, I’ve been busy developing my classes for this winter. I will be giving two zoom classes on Monday mornings and Wednesday afternoons, beginning the end of January. I now have people from all over and that’s really great. I’m planning to put a lot of emphasis on how to work from photos–including making changes, simplifying, and using the photo as a reference.  And, I will also focus on the use of pastel–materials, techniques, strokes.  We’ll do three paintings using mid-toned surface, dark surface, and underpainting and I’ll be doing three demos, exhibiting each surface and technique.  So lots to do, but I LOVE teaching this way.  It’s so much fun to prepare and use the Powerpoints and using Padlet is giving us new options in seeing the work and critiquing.  If you are interested, let me know.  There is still plenty of room in both classes.

A very happy New Year’s to you all. Let’s hope that Omicron comes and goes very quickly.

Jean

Glory, 20″ x 16″, UART 320 board

Underpainting with yellow ink and hard pastel

Underpainting after alcohol applied

My classes this fall have focused on light and shadow.  I did two demos to begin with but wasn’t particularly excited by either so I wanted to do something really good that had both light and shadow in it.  We took an afternoon walk in early November  and the first thing I spotted was light coming through a tree that cast shadows on the grass and walkway.  Perfect!  But I also knew that trying to do a 16 x 20 live video of the entire painting would be way too much.  So my first thought was to do the upper half first and video the painting of the shadows.  But when I started working, I started taking a lot of photos and decided that I could do a two-part demo.  The first in Powerpoint with images and discussion; the second as a video.

Looking at the underpainting and the final work, you will see that I initially had included a tree on the left.  It was in the photo (of course) and I didn’t think to take it out.  But, as soon as I saw what the underpainting looked like, I knew it had to go!  So, I used some wet paper towel to try to sponge it out of the sky, then used yellow green hard pastel and alcohol to complete a better underpainting.  (It didn’t do great things for the surface however! So I don’t recommend doing this.)

The use of ink and hard pastel was OK.  I was able to have a background set into the paper over which I could place the tree.  And if a little yellow showed through it would be OK.  But I wished I hadn’t used it in the path.  The path needed to be warm and it would have been better to start it with a cool color.  But, of course, pastel will cover anything.

The tree top was quite easy.  I used various greens for the underpainting, which I always do with fall colors.  Then I used four or more Giraults in yellow orange, red orange, and reddish brown.  Then added softer pastels on over that.  I used three Ludwig turquoises for the sky.

For the sun, I used a Schmincke light yellow that had a fair amount of yellow in it–not the whitest yellow. I used a yellow green Girault around the central part.  Then, I added a mid-toned magenta Girault to the leaves right around the sun.  This worked like magic!  It gave the look of hazy sunlight and helped the sun to really glow.

My favorite part of the painting was the background.  After I had eliminated that terrible tree, I kep it very simple with some bushes in front, painted with loose strokes of several Giraults; and blues and greens in the background.  The results now make it look like one is walking in a much more open environment than the woodsy area that we were in.  I learned important things from this!

The shadows were another story!!!  They were done as part of the live demo. I used three or four of the intense dark Ludwigs, then added lighter colors on over.  I had to keep trying to lighten.  And doing the shadows on the path was tricky also as the surface was lighter and the shadows had to be a little different in color and value — but not completely different.  And I kept having a hard time with the shape and size and where they should be. I think there are too many of them, particularly since I left out a branch on the left.   It’s more about the sun than the shadows, but I didn’t want them to be a distraction.  Again, this image is a little too dark.

So now I have just one class left and plan to take a two month break from teaching.  I’ll begin again in February with zoom and in-person or maybe just zoom.  I hope to paint with friends in January and at home in December.  But it’s also time to see other friends and do holiday things.  I hope that you too will be able to enjoy this holiday season.  Let’s not worry about the new variant!  Just get your booster and wear your masks and live life!  We will be going to the Kennedy Center this weekend and having dinner in Georgetown–both of which we haven’t done in years!

Happy holidays to you all.