Finished making my new sketchbook. Here are some hitherto unpublished candid sketches from the old one, done before the pandemic. I’ve previously posted other sketches, watercolors, and toned paper drawings from this book and its predecessors.

 

Goalposts

I started this little sketch this gray and misty morning. I was struck by the way the goalposts showed light against the dark trees and dark against the sky. I had just been reading about this phenomenon, called “counterchange” in James Gurney’s book “Imaginative Realism” the night before, and here was a textbook case before my eyes! 

Mini Altoids paintbox color swatches

New colors for a new, hopefully more transparent, era.

This is the mini Altoids box I carry for sketching, containing a modified complementary palette of magenta, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, violet, and warm brown. The actual pigments used for each color can vary, and their individual characteristics determine the way they mix and interact. I had been using cadmium lemon for my yellow, which is very powerful in mixes but is fairly opaque, so glazes can take on a milky translucency. I replaced it with Winsor Yellow, PY154, which is transparent, and closer to a primary yellow (cad lemon leans greenly). I also replaced my cyan with Winsor Blue (Green Shade) PB15, which is also close to the primary cyan.

I started to familiarize myself with the new palette by making an 8 x 8 grid, with the base colors going up the diagonal, and the combinations of any 2 colors defined by rows and columns. The colors obtained by mixing are above the diagonal and those created by glazing are below. Of course, there are many more possibilities depending on the proportions of the mixes, but this gives a general idea.

 

 I have 8 small pieces up at The Center Dance, 321 Main St. Amherst, MA, as part of the Amherst Arts Night Plus Windows into Art  project.

Corn Stubble, October     Watercolor 4” x 6”

Victor’s Neighbor Watercolor 4” x 6” 

East Hadley Road, November Watercolor 4” x 6”

 

Ripple Egg Tempera 5” X 7”

Shed Egg Tempera 5” X 7”

Waves Watercolor 4” x 6” 

Kayaks Watercolor 4” x 6” 

Joan’s Barrow Watercolor 6” x 4” 

 

Workshop 13 2nd annual Northeast Fine Arts Exhibition in Traditional Realism

 Abandoned Fort and Mount Norwottuck from Mount Pollux: Showers Likely are in the Workshop 13 2nd annual Northeast Fine Arts Exhibition in Traditional Realism,  13 Church St., Ware, MA 01082, September 26 - October 11, 2020.

Online show: https://www.workshop13.org/artworks-gallery/northeast-fine-arts-exhibition-2020-2/

Beaver pond

 Riding on the bike path and came across this scene, both beautiful and melancholy, with the bare ruin’d choirs of dead trees white in the late afternoon light surrounded by marsh grass and lily pads in the beaver pond. I only had one page left in my sketchbook, a failed and partially scrubbed out sketch of my trusty climbing structure, so I attempted take a page from James Gurney’s book, so to speak, and build the new picture on the ruins of the old. I managed to finagle most of the original elements into the new picture except for those lines in the sky.

Screen porch light and shadow

 A little 5” x 7” oil sketch of the back porch. I love how the light blanches the screen, leaving the true color to come through in the shadows. I used the mini pochade box I put together to use with my kayak, but realized I could mount it on a regular tripod to do a small painting in a confined space. It’s not quite where I want it to be, but I think I’ll let it ripen a bit and then either work on it more or start a larger version.