When to stop?

When to stop?  I took this picture of a watercolor painting when I felt like I was finished with the subject but without a background. My guts said "you're done..." But the average everyday painting has a foreground, subject, and background.  Animal artists I love, like Fredrick Remington, sometime paint the whole scene, sometimes they paint only the subject.  For the latter, they'll call them a "study" and for the former a "painting."  Alas, I should have stopped and called it a study. Instead I added a snowy pine tree and lost my love for the piece. Oh well. lesson learned. I am student of art and a study should be enough for now!

This picture came about from a photo I took the day after Thanksgiving. I was driving from our cabin to the nearest store to pick up some meds for my lovely wife and I passed a nice heard of Mule Deer. A two point buck and a few does grazing in the long dead grass and snow.  I should have stopped there and took the picture but I drove on.

On the way home I rubber necked looking for the herd but all I found was a lone doe, near the end of the road, watching me drive by.  These mule deer will let you stop your car without much agitation, but if you get out they'll run, hop the fence and lope up the steep slopes away into the dark forest. So I stopped my truck, rolled down the window and took three photos from three angles, trying to frame the shot without getting out of my comfy warm Pathfinder.  The shot is here:

The next step was to sketch the photo onto plain paper with a number 4B pencil, fix my proportions, tape the sketch to the window, then copy it onto a piece or Arches 140lb cotton fiber paper. I used Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, and French Ultramarine.  I was hoping for some white guache to spray on the back and head of the little deer but my palette is limited in the mountains. I practiced the paint mix on an extra piece of paper, trying not to pre-mix the color, but instead allowing the color to mix on the paper. This method worked with little success. I ended up washing a brown mixture over the initial paint to bring down the red.

I won't show you the painting with the ugly little pine tree. I like the "study" at the top.  I'll try this subject again soon and stop painting sooner rather than later.... THAT is when to stop.

Okay. I need to catch up a bit.  I got in trouble by a photographer for using his photos as a reference for my bird paintings. Most of my watercolors are from a photo of some sort, sometimes they are mine, sometimes they are someone elses. When I first started painting the birds I would send an email to the photographer asking permission. They never answered... When I painted the donkey I asked for permission and the photographer actually answered! He gave me permission... I sold that painting to a dear friend that is now fighting cancer. Anyway. I stopped asking permission and just painted the birds. One day, at the Denver airport, I got an email from a photographer that was upset that I had used his photo without permission. I immediately apologized and admitted it was wrong, that I had been lazy about asking for permission. I offered to pay him for using his photos. He refused the money but said something that I will never forget... "I can't believe, as a fellow artist, that you'd do this..." I was gut wrenched. He was right.  So this blog post is me admitting that I was wrong to use photos as reference for my bird photos without permission. I am sorry.

The above pencil is from a photo that I do not have permission to have used. It's a barrel racing horse (I removed the rider and the barrel) that I asked for permission to use but I didn't receive a response.  I donated this drawing to a charity, my friend Maribeth (I will withhold her last name!) donated and won the drawing. The frame is donated by Metro Frameworks www.metroframeworks.com.

I can honestly say, to me there is nothing more beautiful than a barrel horse rounding a tight turn at full speed. The power in the muscles is impressive, fluid, godly. I am not sure that there is a more beautiful animal. My fascination with horse paintings begins and ends with Fredrick Remington. Google him... he paints horses and riders, amazingly. I've painted a few horses now and I try to emulate Remington as best I can without his talent!

I've painted a second barrel horse without the rider:

This one hangs in our home.  This is also from a photographer that never responded with permissions.  There are few paintings I am proud of, but this is one. Its not even really interesting... sort of static even though the horse is running. But I like the musculature. I like watercolor paint textures... and I can't repeat what I did here.  It's a lucky painting. Which is why it hangs in my house.

Since you last heard from me, I've tried to paint some landscapes. They are horrible. Again, I'll state this, my goal is landscapes. Someday. Until then, animals, birds etc. Martin

Sparrow

Watercolor, 2012
12" x 16"

I have been working too many hours and haven't picked up the brushes in a very long time.  I had time this weekend, Jana and I went to the cabin, she sewed and I painted. Another sparrow.  The idea here was leaving the darks dark and trying to gain color and contrast on the stripes of the bird and getting the feet right.  I also used a larger block of paper, 140lb cold press, Arches.  I made the drawing on a smaller sketch pad and then used my large watercolor paper block, 12" x 16", making this my largest song bird painting.

Again, I used only three colors, yellow ochre, burnt umber, ultra-marine blue... and that is it. Oh, except I added a  cadmium yellow highlight on the eye brow and on the beak.  I used my wash technique on the feathers and then later added a dry brush (burnt umber) highlight.  I still feel like the strokes are not assertive enough. I do like the feather pattern on the far wing, I think that is the whole point of the painting. As always, my goal with those wing feathers is a glowing or gem like quality.  I like the hard border paint built up from dropping clear water into my washes.

The next step is doing what I have been putting off, frames.  I really want to build a nice frame for this painting and to use a subtle double mat.

 

Female House Sparrow

Female House Sparrow

Watercolor, 2012
8" x 8"

Another weekend at the cabin, another bird, this one a female house sparrow. I used another paper called Fluid, 140 pound, cold press. Its softer than Arches and the grain is a little finer.  I have used this block only once before on another bird, I like it!

I used my Windsor & Newton watercolor pan, ultramarine blue, burnt umber, burnt sienna, raw sienna, and a little ivory black for the eye. I messed up the reflection on the eye so I used a little blotch of white gouache to recover.

This bird will be matted and framed and hung at The Belle, Jenny MacLeod's shop near our house.

Burro #1

Burro #1

Watercolor, 2012

9" x 12"

This is not a bird. I painted this from a photograph by Rafa Montero. He was kind enough to let me use a great picture from Egypt. His photo had two burros on the top of a rise, I only used one burro and added some southwest cacti to make it look more like Mexico.

I took a lot of time on the drawing and transferred it using Jana's newly returned light box.

I painted this piece over two weekends, starting with the background, a wash of Yellow Ochre and Ultramarine Blue (Windsor Newton).  The cacti color is Olive Green from a da Vinchi tube, and the rocks were a combination of Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna and Ultramarine Blue (Windsor Newton from a pan) with a lot of scrubbing in the shadows.

I liked the idea that burro is in a strange place, looking back from where it came or perhaps starting on a descent into a canyon.  I stopped short on adding any more color to the head only because I didn't want to lose the quality of the expression, if donkeys have expressions, and decided not to push my luck.  I think of this painting as an illustration, which is the way I think of the birds in flight I've been doing of late. The drawing was one of  my favorites and the painting also makes me happy. I hope the owner enjoys it too.

Honeybee

Honeybee

Watercolor, 2012
10" x 18"
Gift (TB)

I wanted to try another bird that wasn't simply staring off into space so I decided to paint this Eastern Bluebird in mid-flight, turning its head to notice a honeybee.

The fun part about painting this was the bee.  I took some pictures in the garden, compared them to some online sites and came up with the idea of a bee that looked like it was barely lifting into the air. I tried several drawings and came up with this design. I had the bee flying the same direction as the bird at first but decided it would be more interesting if they were crossing paths.

I added a hint of the feet on the blue bird. I enjoy these bird paintings when they have full legs showing but it was impossible with the shape of the wings.

This bird is Cobalt and Ultramarine Blue and the reddish highlights are Magenta.  The honeybee is Raw Sienna and Burnt Umber, all from my Windsor Newton pan.

Chickadee

Chickadee

Watercolor, 2012

9" x 12"

Work has been hectic. I spent 2 weeks in Paris, no painting, landed back in Colorado with two weeks playing "catch up." No painting.  Luckily my wife carved a weekend off so that we could go to the cabin and chill out a little bit.  Rather than taking it easy and enjoying life, I decided to paint. (joking, painting is fun, frustrating, rewarding etc.)

Also, I was inspired at the Art Students League of Denver's Art Market that was on last week.  Many great Colorado artists were there.  I got to talk to Steve Griggs for awhile about watercolors!  He is a lovely man and a special artist.

I've painted chickadees a few times but not using my newly-learned "bird" techniques of the last few months.  Chickadees, they're such fat little fellows, seemingly not very aerodynamic. This painting seems a little "stiff" to me, there something not quite right about it, but considering what some of my other paintings turn out like, I'll take it.

For all my birds I start with a couple of drawings. My goal is to get the lines and proportions right.  I'm reading a book called "The Golden Ratio," by Mario Livio, and so I am trying to pay special attention to how things are naturally put together.  A good painter instinctively knows where to place objects on the page and many times The Golden Ratio comes into play where things look prettiest.  The idea that beauty, mathematics, and nature all intersect is a very compelling idea and the best art work usually has a few Golden Ratios in them.  In this case, I tried to make sure the head of the bird, the beginning of the tail and the end of the tail add up to the Golden Ratio.... not sure how close I came and who knows, maybe that actually hurt the painting.  Oh well, I have a scientific mind and like paintings, its fun to think about.

I used my Windsor Newton pan of watercolor paints and used Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umbre, Raw Sienna and ivory black (for the eye).  I switched to the Arches 140lb Cold Press on this one.  (I left my Hot Press back at home.)  I also used a new brush.  Steve Quiller Rickesen Professional 7000 (number 7) - I like it!  Very inexpensive but has a nice tip and loads well.