Three Ladies Sitting at the Bar

I’m coming up for air….. just for a moment….

Hat City Kitchen … Listening to the Blues

I’ve been happily lost in the world of live music, art exhibits, travel adventures and learning how to make my own online tutorials.

The Bad Hands – 4th Annual Blues Bash

To top it off, it’s getting warmer and I’ll be back to drawing in my garden within weeks!

Happy Spring!

Paintings: drawn first in ink with dip pen followed by watercolor, painted during live performances.

Video: demonstration of creating a color wheel for the color scheme game using raw sienna, cadmium red deep and ultramarine blue as my primaries.

 

Essex Water Color Club Demo Video

I just received a copy of the video shot during last week’s demo.  It’s long, and also pretty entertaining.

Chris Carter Demo 2013 from John Wolff on Vimeo.

Thank you Essex Water Color Club!

 

Gouache Travel Palette

Last day of a road trip vacati0n…. Tom is already asleep …. I was ten stories up reflecting on the last seven days on the road.

Gouache Travel Kit

I love those precious moments when I realize, and accept, that progress has been made.
I brought along gouache, but didn’t squeeze it out into the pans until last night, listening to the sound of the ocean waves breaking against the beach.  I brushed a bit of color onto the ink drawing I did of the kitchen in the motel room in the Outer Banks, NC.

Detail of ink drawing, Outer Banks Motor Lodge kitchen

This morning I awoke early to an amazing predawn light upon the ocean…

6:45 am, Ocean City, Maryland

This is my first weather journal painting in gouache.  My second was of three figures on the beach, out early to watch the sun rise. I wish they knew that their special moment was captured in my sketchbook….. but I don’t know them and they will never know….

One figure snapping a photo of the other two figures against the sunrise in Ocean City, Maryland …. gouache.

Color has taken on a new place in my vision….. I’m not sure where that place is.  In a week I leave on another journey… back to the Chesapeake Bay area to paint for six days…… Hmmmm.  Do I bring watercolors and gouache?  Oil paints? Acrylics?

I am finally mixing my pigments intuitively.  I need to stay healthy for another thirty years, at least….. the joy of color is just beginning!

 

Monochrome studies to strengthen linked together shapes

I’ve been working on monochromatic watercolor portraits from photographic references.  It is painful.  I much prefer to work from life than to work from a photograph.  However, I am focusing on creating solid head form and I need to go back to square one.  Photos are the most efficient way to begin again.

Monochromatic watercolor studies

I began working from a pile of magazine clippings I found when cleaning out my files.  I have moved on to family albums.

Chakaia Booker

Pablo Picasso

I had to work into this one with a bit of white gouache to bring back some of the form I lost on the shadow side of the face.

Marcel Duchamp

This is my favorite.  I like the simplicity of line and value shapes.

1952. My father pointing out to us where our house would be built.

I’m the little one in the snowsuit, staring at the ground.  There was a big back hoe behind my dad in the photograph.  As much as I love land moving equipment, it would have complicated the shapes if I included it.

Self-portrait as a baby

After two days of monochromatic painting using ivory black, I had to dip into color.  I look a bit cross-eyed in this painting.  I was feeling a bit cross-eyed as I painted it.

The inspiration for my focus on improving skills at portraiture came from the trouble I have painting female musicians during the blues jams.  Regardless of age, female faces are generally softer, the transitions of planes and forms are more subtle than than male faces.  Originally, I didn’t care that much about creating a likeness when I paint in the dark at pubs, I was more concerned about capturing a sense of the musicians movements and energy.  When I did capture a likeness, I felt a great sense of satisfaction.  I want more of that feeling.  So ….. it’s back to the drawing board to refresh and improve my portraiture skills.

 

Rejecting the Throw of the Die

After sifting through the photos I shot in Keyport yesterday, I forced myself to do a quick sketch from one of them.  I don’t enjoy working from photographs.  They don’t give me information regarding color, values or the energy of the places I’ve been.  Maybe I’m just a got-to-be-there snob.

Enjoying the afternoon at Keyport Harbor, NJ

What I decided is that I need to know what it is I want from my plein air paintings and why I am entering the weekend Plein Air Events in my area.  My intention was to visit the harbor prior to next weekend’s event in order to decide where I want to set up.  Driving home, I thought only of the people I met, not of the boats floating in the water or the landscape.

When I tossed the die to see what color scheme would be chosen for me, it came up Extended Analogous Color Scheme with Green as my dominant color.  That would have been fine if there hadn’t been people in the image.  The last thing I wanted to do was to have the people disappear into the shrubbery.  Sometimes rules work and sometimes they don’t.

My plan is to work from the photos all week. Hopefully, I’ll get over my aversion to them and have a better idea of where I want to be next weekend.  Only the paintings done during the weekend event may be entered in the event exhibition or competition (if there is one).

I look forward to seeing the two men on the bench, Joe, Don and Judy Pie (the tiny dog hidden under the bench) next weekend.  They told me they would save me a spot on the bench in case I want to sit down when I’m painting next weekend.  I just might take them up on their offer.

Drawing: Working from a photograph rather than life …. drawn first with fountain pen, followed by watercolor.

 

Adjacent Double Near Complements Color Scheme

Adjacent Double Near Complements may not be an official Color Scheme but it is one I find I intuitively use quite often.  I generally choose either the warm half of the color wheel (skipping the center two hues) or the cool half of the color wheel (skipping the center two hues).  It works well with the in-between colors as well.  Pick any two adjacent two colors, skip the next two colors in either direction and use the next two colors.  It’s simple and it is beautiful.

Harp Player and Sean Daly, The Grisly Pear

This painting, created during the January 30, 2012 Blues Jam at The Grisly Pear in the West Village, illustrates the ADNC color scheme.  (Violet, Red Violet, Orange Yellow and Yellow.

Drawn first with dip pen and black ink, followed by watercolor.

 

No Time To Think

When painting dancers or musicians during a performance there is no time to contemplate what I’m drawing, what colors I’m using or even why I think I can express the energy of the moment in less than a minute with a pen and a brush.  I paint whatever grabs my attention and provides me with a starting point.

Saucon Valley High School Jazz Ensemble

The Saucon Valley High School Jazz Ensemble won second place in the High School Jazz Band competition at SteelStacks in Bethlehem, PA.  As a reward, they opened for Kevin Eubanks last Friday evening.  I was given a table to paint on at the back of the room giving me front, slightly distant view of the stage.  What I saw was a mass of musicians dressed in black sitting on black chairs behind black music stands.  The only shapes that stood out were the brass instruments as the stage lights struck them and ……. the bright red neckties worn by each of the band members.

Two students, Two trombones, Two red neckties

A little bit of color can go a long way to save the day.

Drawings: drawn first with dip pen followed by watercolor

 

Near Complements – Simple warm/cool color scheme

Using a pair of near complements works well for a quick sketchbook drawing.

View of Blast Furnaces through the windows.

The blast furnaces as seen through the windows of the SteelStacks cabaret are far more impressive than I’ve shown in this sketch.  One of these days I’ll focus my attention just on these metal giants that look like an ocean liner docked on the outskirts of Bethlehem, PA.

I started with a simple line drawing using a dip pen in Noodler’s Black Swan in English Roses ink.  I added a wash of slightly toned down cadmium orange on the blast furnaces, allowing the ink to bleed into the wash.  The final touch was a pale wash of dioxazine Purple, again allowing the ink to bleed.

Because the ink has such a red tone to it, the resulting colors appear to be more an extended analogous color scheme than near complements.  The only watercolor hues I used were Cadmium Orange and Dioxazine Purple.  The purple was my cool color that was warmed by the ink bleed.

 

 

Extended Game, Game Four, Elements of Art

'Chrysalis', Texture, Movement, Edges, Dominant Elements

The suggested rules for the last of the throwing dice games has been posted, Extended Game, Game Four: Elements of Art.

In an attempt to find samples to post, it has become clear to me that I do not view myself as the director of my own paintings.  I allow the paintings to direct me.  That is not always a bad thing, in fact, I rather like it that way.

In order to push my work to the next level, I need to be able to play both parts, to act as a director and to act as a channel for the expression of my subconscious experiences of life.

My life as an artist becomes more exciting and fulfilling each day.

 

Color Scheme Game, Sample Paintings

Extended Analogous with One Complement

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Links to sample paintings using the various color schemes are now on the Color Scheme Game Page.

Playing the Color Scheme Game every morning is helping to strengthen the colors I use the rest of the day and into the night.  The painting above, painted during the weekly Blues Jam, is an excellent example of unintentional application of my morning experiments.

Painting: Portrait of V.D. King drawn first with dip pen followed by watercolor.  Painted at The Grisly Pear in New York City.