Traditional and digital art
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Today’s second Paint the Town event was held at Gaiety Hollow which is a private house and garden on Mission Street across from Bush Pasture Park in Salem, Oregon. I did two watercolor sketches. I did this first one on a smaller piece of paper to warm up. I painted it directly with no underdrawing.
Strathmore 400 Series Watercolor paper 5.5×8.5 inches (14×21.6 cm), 1 inch flat brush, and Daniel Smith watercolors.
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Today was the season’s first Paint the Town event held in a private garden in West Salem. The garden was an explosion of flowers in full bloom. I walked around and sketched some of my favorites with brush marker pens.
Strathmore 400 Series Mixed Media 9×12 inch (23×30.5 cm) paper, Arteza Real Brush pens.
Jim
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I thought this would be easy. Just cut out the shapes and glue them down. Boy, was I wrong. The tissue paper is so thin it is difficult to cut with scissors or an exacto knife and even harder to tear by hand because it wants to tear with the paper gain. It is very hard to tear across the grain. I had to give up getting the shapes I wanted and had to just go with the shapes I got.
Then comes the gluing part. The first few pieces go down fine. After that you get glue on your fingers and the paper wants to stay on your finger and not stay down on the paper. It reminded me of Laural and Hardy trying to wallpaper a room. What a mess. It took much longer than I anticipated. I added some textures and color variation with white ink and crayons.
Will I try it again? Maybe with a simpler subject and different paper and sharper scissors and a different method of gluing the paper in place. I must say I have a deeper respect for people who do paper collage.
Strathmore 400 Series Mixed Media paper 9×12 inches (22.9×30.5 cm), Nicole Tissue Paper, UHUstic Glue Stick, Dr. Ph. Martin Pen White ink in a Molotow 2mm empty pump marker, and Neocolor II watersoluble crayons.
Jim
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Sometimes at the end of the day I’ll relax by doing a sketch. I had moved the potted geraniums out of the greenhouse to the back porch for the summer. I sat down and practiced my brush technique. The method I used is called Direct Watercolor. You draw the shapes directly without first laying out the scene with pencil or pen. I first painted the major shapes in lightly with a watery mix of colors and let that dry. Next, I added the midtones putting two colors on the brush at once so they blended on the page. Finally, I added a little very dark color to make it pop.
Strathmore Series 400 Watercolor paper 5.5×8.5 inches (14×21.6 cm), 1 inch flat brush, medium size round waterbrush, Daniel Smith watercolors.
This method is fast but difficult because you are doing everything at once on the fly and there is no going back or making corrections. It’s like walking a tightrope without a net.
Jim
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Dory boats are small, flat bottomed fishing boats designed to launch and land from the beach at Pacific City on the Oregon coast. Haystack Rock is a mile off the beach and is the tallest of several large rock monoliths along the Oregon coast.
This is the second small 8×8 inch painting I’m donating to Artists in Action to sell at the World Beat Festival at Riverfront Park in Salem, Oregon to raise funds for the group.
Jim
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The local group of artists that I belong to (Artists in Action) will be holding a sale at the end of June (at the World Beat Festival in Salem) to raise money for the group. This year members are painting 8×8 inch stretched canvases and donating them to sell unframed for $20 each. Quite a bargain for an original painting. This is the one I’m donating. I painted it today using acrylics. Let me know if you’re interested in purchasing the painting. I’ll put a sold sticker on it.
Jim
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We have small pots of flowers on our back step. One of them has a group of small pansies and when I went out to relax on the back porch after a busy day, the pansies caught my eye. So, I sketched one of the blossoms because the color combination was so striking. I had been thinking about trying a technique where you draw each color shape with its corresponding color in colored ballpoint ink which is waterproof and then fill in the shapes with watercolor, and that’s what I did. If you look closely, you can see the outlines in colored ink.
Sketching is like jazz improvisation. You invent something new each time you play and the piece evolves as you go.
Strathmore 400 Series cold press watercolor paper 5.5×8.5 inches (14×21.6 cm), Zebra Clip-on Multi pen, Daniel Smith watercolors, and Caran D’Ache round waterbrush. Image is about 5 inches square (13×14 cm).
Jim
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We went to see Schreineer’s Iris Garden on Mother’s Day. I did a sketch (the top picture) using a fountain pen with grey ink and discovered when I added watercolor that the ink was not waterproof. It bled into the yellow paint. Oops.
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May is flower month in our garden and in public gardens around the area. I did this watercolor and Listo Marking pencil sketch in our backyard a few days ago and this morning I joined the Salem Sketchers at Egan Garden north of town. It’s a beautiful garden with large greenhouses full of wonderful potted and hanging plants. I did two sketches – one with brush pens and one with ballpoint pen.
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After lunch it was such a beautiful day I went for a walk in the Oregon Garden. What a relaxing, peaceful place. I walked around taking a few pictures along the way, and after about a half hour I sat down at a picnic table near the wetlands, ate a snack and did this small sketch.
Stillmann& Birn Zeta series pocket watercolor sketchbook, pencil, Kuretake #13 brush fountain pen with Platinum Carbon Black ink, Platinum Plaisir fine nib fountain pen with Platinum Carbon Black ink, Neocolor II watersoluble crayons, and Caran-D’Ache round waterbrush. Image is about 3.5×5.5 inches (9×14 cm).
Jim