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Doing the charts - The color charts that is.

 In Richard Schmid's book, Alla Prima, he talks about the importance and his experience painting the color charts. Encouraged by his writings, I first did my color charts in watercolor several years ago. Every word Mr. Schimd wrote about doing the charts is true. I learned more about the colors on my palette painting the color charts than I did with all the paintings I had done before the charts combined. New discoveries awaited around every corner. I mean, when do you get the chance to play with every color combination on your palette? When I tried to do this while producing a painting, ultimately the painting would suffer. At the time, I was working mostly in watercolor, so my colors would get muddy or my color choices where often "settled" on because I couldn't mix the color I was seeing.  After spending the time doing all the color charts, I could immediately see the difference in my work. My color choices where easier to mix and much fresher.

 About a year ago, I wanted to work in oils again after a very long break. Before that, it had been almost 15 years since my last oil painting. It took a while for it all to come back to me, but slowly I started to remember how to work with my oils and started to make new discoveries as I painted. Then a funny thing happened. I started to notice the same issues I had with my watercolors before doing the color charts. My colors where often settled on, especially with the darks. I just couldn't mix some of the colors I was seeing in my subjects. Then it hit me; I've been using a palette of colors that I hadn't used in many, many years. It is different enough from my watercolor palette that only some of the information I learned with my watercolor charts carried over. In fact, the colors on my palette weren't even the same as the last time I worked in oils. It was time to do the charts again. I'm about half way through my palette at this time. Just like with my watercolors, each chart reveals new insights into each color and many new mixing possibilities.

Pay attention to the color mixtures and how you apply them. A lot of people will paint the color charts in oils with a palette knife, which is what I'm doing. The knife allows for very clean color mixtures since you can wipe it completely clean. Then there's the added benefit of getting a lot of practice with the knife on canvas. I can already feel the difference with my palette knife from the first chart I did to the most current one. I'm much more confident with it. With each chart, I get better and better at laying down the color. I got in the habit of mixing all the color mixtures on my palette together when my palette needed to be cleaned. I found this usually happened right around the time I was ready to start on a new color section of my palette. What I mean is I could usually mix all the yellows on my palette with whatever color chart I was working on before I needed to clean my palette. These mixtures turned out to be wonderful colors I wish I could have saved. I'm actually considering ordering some empty paint tubes to save these mixtures in for the remaining color charts I need to do.

Some simple things to keep in mind for this project:

• Be prepared to go through a lot of paint. This is not the time to be stingy with your paint.
• Make each mixture count and make each one accurate.
• The color of the chart you are doing should be the dominate color in all the mixtures. For example, if you have yellow ochre and cobalt blue on your palette, when you paint the yellow ochre chart the color should lean towards the yellow and when you do the cobalt blue chart the mixture should lean towards blue. None of the mixtures should be equal parts of each color.
• Take your time when doing these. It's not meant to be a race.

For me, taking the time to paint these color charts is the same thing as a musician practicing their scales, or an athlete taking the time to practice the fundamentals of their sport. It's what makes you better at your craft.

UPDATE: Several people have asked about my comment to have the color of the chart be the dominate color, so I'm posting this image to try to help explain things a little better.

In this image is my Yellow Ochre Pale chart and my Viridian chart. Notice how in each one there is one dominate color and how the Yellow Ochre + Viridian mixture yields different colors than the Viridian + Yellow Ochre mixtures. This is the reason for doing all of the colors on your palette, they all produce different results. I hope this helps explain things a little better, if not, let me know!

Facebook blog post intergration test - ignore

Small River Falls

 I'm testing out FASO's new blog postings to Facebook. I'm hoping this works better then network blogs, which I've never been happy with. Anyway, this is just a test post to see if it picks up. Please ignore it.

Five O'Clock Shadow

Five O'Clock Shadow

 

This is a larger watercolor that I've been working on. I've been experimenting a lot the last 2 days with different ways to photograph my artwork. I'm not totally happy with the results just yet. The first 2 methods I've tried are basically the same. Both involve using an 18% grey card for correcting the image later in photoshop. Both have the same set of problems:

 -It takes too long to set up everything that's needed (the lights, the easel for the artwork, tripod for the camera)  
 -It takes way too long to process the images and get them ready to post.
 -The results of the images are not satisfactory so far.

I can address some of these things right away. I know I can make it faster to set everything up by working on a more permanent set up in the studio. I'm going to try to mount a panel to the wall that will hold the artwork and ensure that it's flat. I'm going to work on that over the weekend. I also need to clean some of the clutter out of my studio since the lights require so much space to get them set up. I'm also thinking about getting a light meter and using that instead of the grey card, but I'm still thinking about that one. As far as the results go, I'm hoping that by making these adjustments I'll get better results.
 
 
I really enjoy watercolor like this, lots of shadows to fill in with color! I used a lot of masking fluid to retain the white of the paper. I did this so I could lay in large washes of color for all of the shadow areas and let the color run through all of them. Without the masking fluid this would not be possible.

Daily Painting - Jelly Jar

Jelly Jar

 
This painting was a challenge from my wife when she held up this jar of jelly to the light and asked "Can you paint light?!?" Isn't this what painting is all about ;)  But it did get me thinking about it and so I set up this little still life. I'm not sure I captured what she was asking, but it sure was fun to paint. The jelly, which is made by my wife's aunt and uncle, really refracts light in an amazing way. The shadows get these intense hits of red in them as the light bounces through the jar. It was very tempting to "push" this effect and while I might have a little, I tried to stay true to what was in front of me and not over do it.

Daily Painting - Solo Act

Solo Act

 
Wow, it seems like forever since I've been able to paint. My wife and I where away on vacation for a few days celebrating our anniversary. We went to Corpus Christi this year and had a blast. I took lots of reference for some paintings that I still need to sort through. When it was all said and done I used both my 8 gig card and my 2 gig card, plus I took a few photos on my camcorder. Needless to say I've got more then a few ideas for paintings. When we got back I was pretty rusty after just a few days. My first few paintings since we got back didn't make it to the finished stage, but they seem to be coming along again.

 Overall I'm pretty happy with this one. As soon as I put the light on this set up and saw that shadow go across the plate I knew this was going to be a fun painting. I really thought a lot about local color while painting this, especially on the ground.

Daily Painting - Lemon Coaster

Lemon Coaster

 
I don't know why, but the name "Lemon Coaster" came right to mind when I thought about what to call this one. I guess I still had yesterday's name on my mind (Cherry Ride).

 Overall I'm pretty happy with this one except for the surface the plate is sitting on. I think my colors got a little muddy or maybe just a little too grayed. Either way I have some ideas on how I would approach this again, so I might do another arrangement on it soon.

Daily Painting - Cherry Ride

Cherry Ride

  I painted this one free hand, no drawing first, just picked up my brush and started painting.Of course it helped I had just tried painting this set up right before hand. That one didn't turn out so well I wiped it off. You don't often hear of watercolor paintings get wiped off, it's really more of an oil painting thing. Take a little turp on a rag and presto your oil painting wipes right off the canvas. With watercolor it doesn't work out so well because the pigment stains the paper, but it still feels just as good to get rid of that bad painting. Painting like this is a real challenge. I found I had to think much more about where things were going to go and how much space they needed. Next time I do a painting without any drawing first I need to remind myself to slow down and think things through. Actually that's something good to remember for any painting.

Daily Painting - Musical Cups

Musical Cups

 
I called this one Musical Cups after the kids game musical chairs. See the apple in the front got caught without a cup when the music stopped. That's what I thought of when it came time to name this one.

 This is actually my second attempt at this arrangement. The first one didn't fair so well. Though I did learn a few things that I applied on this one. I also changed my approach from the first one. With this one I used masking fluid to mask out the lightest values., After me first wash of mid values dried I applied another coat of making fluid over the next couple of lightest values and did one more darker wash. Once that dried I took off all of the masking fluid. I thought this would force me to do 2 things that went wrong with the first painting. I thought it would force me to keep my value range in check and not have the whole painting get too dark and It would force me to have more variety in the edges in masking fluid has a really hard edge. I did end up going in with more opaque paint towards the end to correct the apples and get the highlights on them. I don't think this approach was successful, but I do like the over all painting.

Daily Painting - Orange Slice

Orange Slice

 
This is an orange I got from the farmers market. These aren't like the oranges you get in the store or at least not like the ones I get. The peals are a lot thinner and easier to peal off. They are much smaller in size and every slice has a seed in it.  I ate this one after I painted it. It got a little warm under my lighting in the studio, but it was still very good.

 I didn't really plan on the complimentary color scheme when I was setting this up. At the time I just liked the way it looked. Once I started painting it hit me and I really had a lot of fun with it. I had to be careful with my washes so they didn't bleed into each other and grey out the colors.

Daily Painting - Catch Of The Day

Catch Of The Day

 
I called this one Catch Of The Day because these pelicans would sit in the water waiting for the fisherman on shore who was cleaning fish to throw his discards to them and they would catch it.It was a lot of fun to watch. I took a few photographs of the whole thing thinking it would make a good painting. This was painted from one of those photos.

 

Daily Painting - Cross Your Tea

Cross Your Tea

 
Sometimes it's fun to paint the insides of the fruit rather then just doing the outside. Besides the inside is usually more interesting.These aren't the same lemons as yesterday. This is one of the smaller ones from the grocery store.

 Not a lot of time to blog tonight. I've got a few other thing to take care of. We've been working hard on our on-line presence and I hope to share all that my wife and I have been working on soon. In the mean time, I'm now listing on The Arts Map (http://www.theartsmap.com/index.php). It's a very cool page. If you haven't seen it, check it out!

Daily Paintings - Lean On Me

Lean On Me

 
A couple of nice lemons from our local farmers market. These are so much larger then the ones we get at the grocery store and cheaper! We don't get to the farmers market as much as we would like to, it's about 40 minutes away from us, but my wife and I sure do enjoy the produce when we are able to go.

 Painting wise, this was pretty straight forward. I started with the lightest yellows of the lemons. Once that had died I quickly laid in some color in the background trying to loosely create the pattern in paper they where laying on, Then I went in and painted the mid and dark values on the lemons and the shadows. This one came pretty close to just falling off the brush. An enjoyable change to the feeling some of my previous attempts from last week left me feeling.

Daily Paintings - Aransas Bay Dock

Aransas Bay Dock

 
Another one from Port Aransas (TX). All of the fishing boats where out when I took my reference photos of this building. I really liked the long shadows the sun was casting from the overhang on the roof and how they contrasted against the white of the building.

 If I could have just one brush stroke back with this painting it would be the one that made that front most post. I started the stroke and then realized mid way through it that I didn't know where it was going to end. I had originally thought it would be in the back ground and just sort of end in the back ground trees, but I really wanted to tie it to the building in the foreground so I carried the stroke further down the paper. That's when I realized I didn't have any good spot to end the pole. I just can't look at this and shake my head. How I wish I had thought that though before hand because other then that silly pole I really liked this one.

Daily Paintings - Port Aransas (TX)

Port Aransas (TX)

 
This might have been too much to try to get into such a small painting, but it was fun to try! Mostly I was trying to get more into the sky and clouds. It's something I've really been trying to work on this week. That's very typical of the way I work. I pick out something that I want to work on, like skies, trees, water, anything that I think I need to improve my efforts on and then I try to paint it in as many situations as I can. I've noticed over the last few years that this exercise really has helped improve my paintings. It's a constant push to improve.



 

Daily Painting - Yellow Texas Wild Flower

Yellow Texas Wild Flowers

 
One more of these yellow wild flowers we have blooming here right now.I don't know how much longer we are going to have them. The weather is starting to really warm up and it seems like summer if moving in quickly.  I've been doing a few searches for what these are called and I think they are Coreopsis.

 The flower is painted from life, in fact it's the one of the same ones I used a couple of days ago. The other flowers didn't make it to today. I made up the background, trying to keep it lighter then last time (my wife's suggestion). I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I used a little bit of white mixed into my watercolors to make a few opaque colors that I dried brushed over the transparent washes. Mostly in the lighter green bits.

Daily Painting - Docked At Seadrift (TX)

Docked At Seadrift (TX)

 
I actually combined 2 different photo references I took to create this so don't go looking for where this is! The buildings are from Port Aransas, TX and the boats are from Seadrift, TX. It was fun to try, but I really had to pay attention to which reference I was looking at because the lighting was different in each one.

 I chose this because I had a few ideas for approaching skies that I wanted to try out. I have felt that my skies where a little weak in some of my paintings and needed some work. I'm not sure that I got there with this piece, but you never do. It takes practice, lots and lots of practice. That's really one of the biggest advantages of painting daily. Everyday you get to practice!

Daily Paintings - Wild Natives

Wild Natives

 
The wild flowers are still blooming here in Texas. Right now we have a lot of the yellow ones who's name I need to learn and these indian blankets. I picked a few of them to paint back at the studio. I thought this would be a good exercise to do since I want to paint a few others from some photographs I took. I can't wait to see what blooms next!

 I used a fair amount of white with this one to make my watercolors more opaque and painted thick on thin. Where I could I used transparent colors, mostly in the dark values in the background. I wish I had captured the light a little better with this one. I feel the lights on the yellow pedals are not the correct value. Something to keep in mind with my next attempts.

 When I showed this to my wife she commented that she would like to see them on a lighter background, so I think that's something I'm going to try to work into my next study. I think my flowers will keep for a little longer.

Daily Paintings - Market Strawberries

Market Strawberries

 
Some strawberries from the farmers market. I really liked the arrangement of these but fell short on the painting of them. I really struggled with getting the look of these correct. Sometimes it happens, no matter how hard I try I produce a stinker. It's a shame because these where some of the best strawberries I've ever had and I just couldn't paint them for anything. I"m not going to post this one on ebay. It's just not good enough in my opinion. If for some reason you really have to have it, let me know and we can work something out.

Daily Painting - Onion Bunch

Onion Bunch

 
I wish I could say these came from our garden, but I can't. These came from the local farmer market. I do have a large batch of onions that we are trying to grow. They have a few weeks to go still so keep your fingers crossed. With any luck I'll have another batch to try some more paintings with.

 One important note about this image. The photo is slightly cropped compared to the original. There's a little more room on the right side so that onion that's just kissing the edge is actually about about a 1/.2 inch from the edge. I could get this one to fit on my scanner correctly for some reason. I'll try to get a better image if I can and update this, but for now this is the way it is.

Daily Painting - Brown Pelican

Brown Pelican

 
One more pelican while I'm still having fun doing them. This is from the same batch of reference that I used for yesterdays painting. I wanted to try one with the bird on the water so I'd get some reflections.
 
 This was one of the pelicans we watched a local fisherman throw his scrapes to while cleaning up the days catch. I took a lot of photos of them since I'd never seen that many pelicans in one area. This was one of the few I got of just a whole pelican that wasn't fighting for food. The whole thing was really fun to watch. The fisherman would throw what ever he didn't want from the fish he was cleaning into the air and what the seagulls didn't catch, the pelicans would get.

 

Daily Painting - Waiting For My Set

Waiting For My Set

 
When I look at this I think that bird must be looking out over the ocean just watching those waves roll in. Then I thought maybe he's a surfing bird and he's just waiting for his wave to come in. That's when I thought of the title. When I showed this to my wife she commented "How very timely". I hadn't thought about painting this because of the oil spill that's currently washing up on shore, not consciously anyway. I was just enjoying painting birds lately. This just happens to be from the Gulf Coast here in Texas. Hopefully it doesn't get hit too hard with the oil spill, it sure is a pretty place.

Daily Paintings - You Talking To Me?

You Talking To Me?

 
I don't know why but I can't help to think that if this seagull could talk he would have said "You talking to me?" when I took his picture.I know I mentioned this before, but I never really painted a lot of wild life before. I'm not sure why, it turns out it's a lot of fun to do! I really want to do some others now that I think I've got a good approach on how to do them. It's not that I've discovered some secret formula for painting birds, it's just that I'm more comfortable with doing them so I can approach them more relaxed then I use to. I noticed that if I'm tense when I paint I tend to me more timid with my colors and brush strokes. With watercolor this can be the kiss of death for your painting.

Daily Paintings - Sailor Wanter

Sailor Wanted

 
Just a lonely little sail boat sitting on Lake Michigan. It was a beautiful day when we where there but I only saw one person out sailing. All of the other boats where docked, including this one out about 200 feet from the shore all by its self. I thought the slightly wider format worked well with this one.

Daily Painting - Splish Splash

Splish Splash

 
These are the water falls in Medicine Park Oklahoma. Right above the falls is one of the deeper parts of the river where you can swim.The day we went there a few kids where swimming and slashing each other. When I was trying to think of what to call this painting the old song "Splish splash I was taking a bath..." popped into my head and I liked the splish splash part. That pretty much solved the title question.




 

Daily Paintings - Texas Sping Bloom

Texas Spring Bloom

 
My favorite time in Texas, spring! Wild flower and blue bonnet blooms are everywhere this time of the year.This is the best time to live in Texas. I have a few more spots that I want to try and paint before the wild flowers die off this year. I'm going to try and gather up some reference this weekend if I can. I'm going to have to do them from photos this time. I've got a few other things I want to paint for the next few days.

 This painting really taught me a lot. I approached the sky in a slightly different way then I normally do and it think it was a real success. I also realized ( a little too late) that I went to dark and not saturated enough with my initial washes of the foreground. I had to use a bit of white in my washes to bring back some lighter values. The problem with doing with is it also really pulls the saturation out of the color. I think I know how to correct this with the next one I want to try this type of subject. Stay tuned!

Daily Painting - Outside The Marina

Outside The Marina

  A quiet little marina I came across in Gloucester Massachusetts the last time I was there. I'm not a sailor so I've never understood how you get to your boat when it's out in the middle of the water.I guess you take another boat to it. I usually paint fishing boats and this is the first attempt at doing sail boats. I enjoyed doing it and might do some more if I have the reference for them.

 I started this painting by working on the boats first. I established all three boats first and a little of there reflection in the water. Once that dried I added a little masking fluid over the sails and the boat bodies and went in with darker washes for the back ground. The masking fluid allowed me to be free with these washes since I didn't have to cut around the boats. Once the background dried I removed the masking fluid and finished the water and boats.

Daily Painting - Slow Ride

Slow Ride

 
I was attracted to the slow moving water in this one. It was a lot of fun to try and capture it.Slower moving water has a lot more reflections in it then faster water. At least it appears that way to my eyes. It's been a while since I was able to really paint the reflections into the water. I found I have to concentrate on them a lot to not mess them up. The pattern is key to how they look.

 This is a little side stream off the main river that runs through Medicine Park, Oklahoma. There's a little water fall just up the stream from here that's maybe about 4 or 5 feet. Right above that everyone swims in the river. It's a great place to visit. My wife and I went there about 2 years ago and had a great time.

Daily Paintings - Horse Head Rock

Horse Head Rock

 
When I showed this one to my wife, her first reaction was "The rocks look like a horse head". This is where the title comes from.  I didn't really see it when she said it. It's amazing what a fresh pair of eyes will see. It wasn't until I started to get it ready to post that I saw it. Do the rocks look like a horse head to anyone else?

Daily Painting - Rolled, Not Stacked

Rolled, Not Stacked

 
Hay stacks, at some point every artist is required to paint them! Seriously, they are a lot of fun to paint.I really wanted to show depth of space with this one. I liked how the background was very simple, just a few buildings that almost disappear into the trees and sky. I also thought the rolling ground could play into the sense of distance.

 I started this one with a wash that went from the sky, through the distance trees and buildings and all the way into the for ground. I cut around a few whites and the mid and for ground hay stacks. I made sure to adjust the my color temperature as I went, cooling colors off the further back they are meant to be. Once this dried, I added a few darker values to the distance buildings and trees and painted the hay stacks. I used a bit of white paint to get the hay stacks painted. The color of them proved to be a real challenge.

Daily Paintings - Star Lights

Star Lights

  I'm really not sure if these are wild flowers or just weeds, either way I liked the look of them and wanted to paint them.I used some making fluid to hold out the flowers and few other whites while I worked on the background. In fact the dry brushed look of the background is actually done by dry brushing some masking fluid across the paper and then painting in the darker strokes of color. Once I was fairly happy with the background I removed the masking fluid and worked on the flowers. When I was all done my wife looked at it and said "What color are you going to make the flowers?". I explained to her that they where white. I do agree with her though they could have used a "color". The problem is that I had made all of my color choices knowing the flowers where going to be white. I felt that adding color to them at this point would have looked forced and caused a lot of re-work of the background.

Daily Paintings - Jump In

Jump In

 
One more of the lemons I have on hand. To me the one in the back is yelling at the one front to jump in, while the one in the front is just dipping his toe into the blue. It's late and right now that's the best I can do.

Daily Paintings - Entourage

Entourage

  When I was trying to come up with a name for this one I kept thinking that the lemons had the lime surrounded. Then I thought, why would they surround him? That's when it hit me, they are his entourage!

 This is one of the first still life painting to come from my new set up box. I'm still not happy with the lighting I'm getting in it. Everything is getting a bit washed out for my tastes so I'm still experimenting with the lights I use it. Right now I have 3 different lights that I alternate between. I'm looking for one that's more of a spot light and can focus the light a bit more. If any one has any good suggestions, I'm all ears.

Daily Paintings - Spin Cycle

Spin Cycle

 
While I was painting this I kept thinking about abstract paintings and how I really wanted to make sure I paid attention to the patterns and the movement in the water rather then the water.The movement in the water is what really attracted me to this subject. There was white water everywhere!

 With this one I started by applying some masking fluid to retain the white of the paper. Once that dried I stared by adding some cobalt and cerulean blue mixed with cobalt violet, olive green and raw sienna. I let the colors mingle as much as possible on the paper rather then in my pallet. Once that had dried I went in with darker mixtures of the same colors plus a bit of prussian blue and burnt sienna to build up the rock forms. I let this mingle and blend with the first wash. I then removed the masking fluid and went back and adjusted some of the light values and punched up some of the dark values.

 

Daily Painting - River Valley

River Valley

 
Another one from Oklahoma. This is the river we hiked along for one of our day trips while we where there. It's the only picture I took of this view. The only reason I have it is because my wife and I had stopped to take a picture of ourselves and this was the background behind us. Of course I had to crop us out of the photo for this painting.  I really wish I had taken more as this is a perspective I'd like to do more of.