Starting New Colored Pencil Drawings

I am starting several new colored pencil drawings.

Working on very toothy papers, I do not tend to draw free hand directly on my support. I will select materials, either an idea or a photograph (I only work from my own photos, so this is my work completely). Once I know what subject I want, I will play with it on sketching paper, doing thumbnails with simple designs. ea. I will block in basic shapes, shading etc.

Note on working with thumbnails. work within the general shape and size aspect of the work you are thinking of doing. Otherwise, the piece might not be as pleasing as you anticipate.

Once a general idea is done, I will do the more realistic sketch on tracing paper. it is easier to draw and erase on. This is especially true if you decide to draw a complicated image, such as the close up of a flower.

I will grid this work. Sometimes, as in the white rose I have started, I will print out on standard copy paper the photograph I want to use as the subject. This is reference. I will actually grid this, and use it to draw the design onto the tracing paper.

I usually work on tinted, high grit paper, such as sanded pastel paper, mat board or colourfix papers. These do not erase well. So I will transfer the design from the tracing paper to the board with light artists transfer paper. I find that these lines erase much easier and more completely than putting grids on my good paper with either white pencil or graphite. Sometimes I have trouble removing graphite from sanded and colourfix. Graphite also has a tendency to put dents into the mat board, and that you just cannot get rid of.

Another advantage of drawing on the tracing paper, and then transferring it to the good support is that you always have your starting drawing for reference if you get lost. And with a very complicated, detailed drawing this happens more than you might think. I

I do number my grid, ea. lower left corner is 0,0 and I mark each row and column along the way.

If I have a color copy, I also mark this with the exact same grid!

So now I have several drawing layed out and ready to go.

Field of Daisys II

Field of Daisys II
S. Tschantz

So often I see other artists in frustration over what gallery goers ohh and ahh over.

 

“It’s so ordinary!” “All they want is ultra-realism”"Another floral! ugh!" “They don’t understand art”

 

Well, no, not in the sense you know art. Why would they? Let’s face it. In all areas, those on the inside have a totally different view of that subject/world than those on the outside looking in.

 

Programmers, carpenters, architects,  they all have an insider’s view.

 

Why would visual art be any different.

 

That is not to say that the average gallery goers do not understand art. They do. But what they want from art differs from us.

 

We look at art all day long. Our eye may tire of the misty landscape. We want the different. Art that pushed the envelop.

 

Badland Canyon
S. Tschantz

But why would you want or expect that of others?

 

They want that which enriches their lives. Art they can live with. While the edgy might invigorate us, they might not want art that is, well, uncomfortable.

 

They want art that is familiar and comfortable. And why not? Life today is upsetting enough. Most find getting up and going to work each day challenging enough. When they come home, they want comfort and joy.

 

 

 

Buying Produce

Went shopping today. Bought bread, cheese and produce.

Produce seduces me. I hear its siren call. The shapes and colors screams – ME - ME - ME, BUY ME!!!!!
I find peppers a joy. They entice me with their colors and shapes. Large, small round and crooked. Purples so dark as to be almost black, yellows to rival the sun add in tomatoes and you have the making sof a great salsa or a wicked still life.

You see—I am an artist. Everything I see suggests a painting or some other work of art.

This week I succumbed to squash. Heavy bodied winter squash. Butternut, acorn, spaghetti and turban. The hard shelled winter squash come in such a range of shapes. Have you really looked at a Hubbard? I just love the warts! And don’t get me started on gourds. I look for the perfect size for my small family, but also for its looks. Even though they lack the bright colors of summer fruit, their shapes do make up for it. Add a pumpkin and you have it made!

At home, they get stacked on the counter. I can’t simply let them be. Before they are eaten they must be painted.

Still LIfe with Bear

What about you? Every been reluctant to use something up before you could get it down on paper?

Artistic Struggle Part 2

I talk a big talk about every painting being important, and in its own way a success.
I do believe this. Even paintings that fail miserably, teach us something. Sometimes we learn more from the failure than from the successes. Without the failures, there would be no successes.

Well, one of my goals this year was to try different mediums. I have done so with definitely mixed results!

I have also tried to mix things up a bit and go for less than more, Fewer colors and fewer details.
That is also mixed success. I have written about these paintings and that has lead me think about what went right with them and what went wrong.

Struggling with these two, I think I have the “Rocks in the Stream” improved, and I have worked on the “Park Path”.

The “River Rocks” I am considering done as well as I am able to now. While it is not a complete, stand-alone painting, it was a learning experience, and in that sense, a successful painting.

As for the “Park Path”, that too will be put aside. I am not happy with it, but I do like the overall layout. I will consider this one completed as far as I am going to go with this particular painting. I will use this small painting as a "sketch" for a larger, more complete painting, incorporating what I have learned into a better painting.

Red-Green Composition

This spring the show theme or challenge however you want to look at it is color complements. So the painting has to be predominately done in a primary color and its complement. For this paintings I chose the red-green color complements, and will use Cadmium red and sap green plus titanium white. These, I think will give me the range of colors and shades I need to do this work.

As you can see, even this limited pallet gives a full range of values. Red-green giving a really rich brown, which can be darked with more of either color or lightened by adding white.

After blocking in the major areas of the painting with paint thinned with mineral spirits, I began adding the gross details, locating and starting to shade in the background trees and vegetation and laying in some of the rough shapes of the rocks that will bracket the falls. I like to work in a impressionistic way at this point, simply laying in colors and letting them blend on the canvas itself. For this I use larger brushes, 1" flats, and 1/2" filbert. Once the basic shapes are in, and I am getting a range of values, I used a script brush to simply flick through the paint to give an impression of tree branches. With some large thin blocks of color I can give the idea that there are building beyond the park, but I don't have to give them any details, this will all be covered by the trees.

With a small painting knife I began building up some of the values that will make the rocks have depth and texture. This is one of the biggest challenges of this painting, as the sandstone of the park has a real rich range of color tones, and for this painting to work both the colors of the rocks and the warmth of the day will need to come through.

I laid in the seated man in red, but will as the painting progesses I will add more and more green to him. After the rapid waters of the falls are added, the darker values of the green will give him a sharper contrast to the foaming water and tie him into the foreground vegetation. I have added the painting as it is after the first painting session. Tomorrow I will beginning to define and finish the background and move onto perfecting the rocks and adding the spray and foam of the falls themselves.

The background is pretty much done, I like the way it looks very wild and unkempt. And I thing the rocks work. Now I just have to get the water to have both depth and foam. A real challenge. But over all I think it is coming along very well.

What is missing so far? Depth to the water, details to the foreground and shading and shadows to the man. This will show the light souce and help the painting hang together. I also think the river looks uninteresting like this. It needs to look more active, containing more life, as it truly does. Although it very rocky in this place, there is a great deal of vegetation cropping up all around.

Now I feel the falls looks more active and real.

Painting the Falls Green

Finding just the right reference photos is not always easy. Sometimes the perfect reference photo is a combination of many photos.

For the upcoming Spring Fine Arts Exhibition, I wanted to do one painting with a waterfall. Now, I have take more than one photo of a waterfall. Actually, I have boxes of photos, many of which contain waterfalls. But I wanted something with a little human interest. Something that would help put the viewer into the painting.

I printed out a selection of photos I took in Greenville, SC at Falls Park on a lovely late spring day in May.

I laid out the photos, but did not fine one that had it all. So taking a sheet of tracing paper, I selected elements from several photos to see how they would work together.

Combining what I liked from several photos gave me the composition I thought would work. So I sketched it out on a prepared canvas.

Those of you who have seen my works in progress before know that I am allergic to painting on white canvas! This canvas is toned with yellow ochre, which will give it the lighters, sunnier feeling this day deserves.

Standing back. I decided on a few adjustments in the banks and rocks, then with thinned paint blocked in the main shapes for this painting.