Sketching Elements

Truck sketch

pastel pencil on 7 x 5 Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

I have wanted to do a larger painting of an old sugar mill on Kaua'i for some time now. In front of the buildings was this great old rusting hulk of a truck. I wanted to include that as my focal point. Unfortunately, it totally intimidated me. I did a colored pencil sketch a while back, but I wasn't happy with the truck. I awoke this morning with renewed ambition and confidence about the truck. Just in case, I decided to do a more detailed sketch before I start on the larger work. I have a few things I need to work on because I couldn't see details in the photo I was working from. I am sure Photoshop will help with that. The most interesting thing is how much fun I had doing this.

Katherine Tyrell posed a question this morning about artistic productivity. She wanted to know what we did to be more productive. For me, it started when I realized that I paint best in the morning when I am fresh. I don't bring all the aches and pains of the day to the easel if I come to it first thing. The problem was, I left for work by 5:00 each morning and I knew that 3:00 A.M. painting wasn't going to work. I finally determined that I could figure out a way to paint at work. I am there fully one and a half hours before my start time, and I decided to put that time to the best use for me as an artist. After working through some strange set-ups where my sets of pastels were open on several nearby surfaces, and my working surface was almost flat, my wonderful husband gave me a Heilman pastel box with easel attachment for my birthday. I love it. I come in each morning and open the box on my desk. I put the easel in, tape the pre-cut paper to the board I have, and begin the sketch. I keep a pile of photos near my desk and go through them the afternoon before to decide what I will paint the next day. If I have time, I will do a value and placement sketch. Since I started painting in the morning last summer, I have done well over 100 paintings/sketches in sizes ranging from 5 x 7 to 9 x 12. I work in an elementary school library and I leave my daily paintings up for the students to see during the day. That has been another inspiration to keep at it. I really enjoy my time in my "studio" in the quiet of the early morning. It isn't long enough, but it is better than waiting until the weekend.

Color and Perspective

Yarrow

7 x 10 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

Today I decided to play with color and perspective some. I am still working on distant values. When I think the painting is finished, I step back, and discover the hill that is further away is much darker than the closer one. I think I solved that problem here. I also wanted to get a sense of distance in the water. That one is a little tougher because this was all deep water, except right near the beach of the second hill. I know deep water is darker than shallow water, so I had to work out relative values. I don't know why this is so difficult. I try and blame it on my pastels, but I am pretty sure it is me. I think I achieved what I was going for in this painting. After looking at this, I think I need some work on details. This, however, is something I need to do when I work on pieces I can take more time with. My one hour studio time in the mornings includes set up and clean up, and I still want to do at least one painting (some people refer to them as sketches) each day. One of these days, I may retire and devote much more time to my painting.

Whimsy

My Left Foot

pastel pencils on scrap paper

Miki Willa

This morning, my outlook on the world was looking up. I wanted to paint something whimsical so I looked at the drawings I did during a recent meeting I attended. The one I liked the best was of my left foot. Since I don't have life drawing skills down pat, I thought a little abstraction/exaggeration was in order. This was great fun to do. I wonder if others would pose their left feet for me, or I could do them surreptitiously. This could be a very interesting series.

Sunrise on the water

Sunrise

7 x 10 soft pastels on Art Spectrum

Miki Willa

The sky and the ocean are blue. The grass is green. Clouds are white. But is that it? One of the best things about becoming an artist is developing a clearer vision of things. Before I started painting skies, I really didn't notice all the different blues in the sky. They depend on location, time of year, time of day, weather conditions. Clouds have so many colors sometimes, they just scream to be painted.

The ocean is another source of great colors. I grew up near the ocean in Southern California. I got used to the green blue of that water. Then I moved to the Pacific Northwest. The ocean there was often a deep steel gray/blue. The ocean surrounding Hawaii can be deep purple to light turquoise. The reefs make an amazing difference and pattern. What I have begun to notice is the color on the water at different times of day. I have also begun to notice that the "white" in the foam of a wave is rarely white at all and never a solid color.

In today's painting, I tried to represent my new way of seeing. I wanted to show all the shades of the foam. The pinks in the water, from the very deep pink in the distance to the lighter peach in the foreground are reflections of the wonderful colors at sunrise. I am pleased that the painting in my head is the same one I managed to put on the paper.

Looking back

The Craft Fair

9 x 12 soft pastels on paper

Miki Willa

I can't seem to shake this cold and it is very hard to get to the easel. I am sharing one of my first daily paintings. I didn't even get to bring it home to show my husband and it sold right off the easel. It was very fun to do, and I may try something similar from another photo of flowers at a flower market in Hilo. It will be interesting to see it turns out since I approach things a bit differently these days. I am hoping to start painting again tomorrow morning. Thanks for being patient.

Painterly Realism

Rocky Coast

7 x 10 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

A big part of my artistic journey is to discover my style. I thought I had it figured out until I started this more formal quest. Now, I am somewhat confused again. Since I started daily painting, and subsequently this blog, I have really begun to study art history, as well as artistic skills. There are some very fine blogs and websites to use as jumping off points. Most of them are listed on the right. I am, by way of earning money, a librarian so I have access to great books that supplement our meager collection. This self styled course has really been an eye opener.

I have always responded to art without thinking about it. I liked it or I didn't. My husband and I have an agreement that we won't invest in other people's art unless we both really like something. We are very different people, so that rarely happens. Anyway, I never stopped to examine why I liked one painting and didn't like another. This was really apparent at juried shows when I couldn't understand why the painting I thought was the best in the show didn't win an award and something I thought was perfectly awful did. Since I began this search for my favorite style, I have learned to look a paintings with much more than gut reaction, even though that remains vitally important to me.

I first came upon the idea of painterly realism when I discovered Mian Situ. His work is stunning. He is true to his impression of what he sees, and represents it in a very painterly style. (I will have to have a future discussion about painterly.) He almost makes me want to switch to oil painting. His brush strokes are such an important part of the painting. At least, they are to me.

The other person who I have come across, don't laugh, is JMW Turner. I may be the last artist in the world to have discovered him, but I am glad I finally have. It is so interesting to see the progression of his own style from very realistic to abstract. I discovered him while learning more about the impressionist movement. Interesting.

As a result of all this, I decided to try doing a painterly realistic painting this morning. For me, that meant small strokes, some broken color, and no - absolutely no - blending with fingers. I have a long way to go to get comfortable with this style, but I think I am going to try a few more things this way.

Painting a Day

Alone

7 x 10 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

When I started this, I made a commitment to myself to post the daily paintings I did. Sometimes, I wonder why.

More Clouds

Majesty

7 x 10 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

I am constantly inspired by the clouds here. I live on a ridge that gives me great cloud views all the time. This is another in the cloud series I started a while back. What fascinates me are all the colors in clouds. I used to see only white and grey. Then I would take a photo, and all that showed up were white and grey. Since I moved here, I have really looked at clouds and see the deep purples, yellows, peaches, and blues as well. I am not talking just about sunsets and sunrises. At first, I was afraid to use any of these colors in daytime clouds. I was sure no one would believe them. Now, I just want to share what I see when I look at them.

One of the things I have noticed lately is that when I force myself to paint because I am trying to paint every day, I don't always have a good outcome. It is when I have strong feelings about a subject that things fall together. When I am not totally centered on following the rules, even though it is not how I see it, my paintings end up looking much better to me. Maybe I should have a stack of my cloud photos set aside for those days that nothing else inspires me. Clouds will always make me happy. Clouds and mountains.

The Value of a Sketch

Value Skecth

Miki Willa

Feeling a bit under the weather today, I decided to stay in my cozy chair and read. I was reading about value and composition, as has become my habit lately. Everyone seems to have the right answer. Some say to follow the traditional rules. Some say to learn the traditional rules before you start breaking them. Since I am still finding my own visual voice, I think I will do a bit of both.

I found another very old photograph and started a rough sketch for a future painting. I moved the boat from the center of the plane, but I kept the two log rafts and the near beach. After discussing it with my husband, I took out the logs and the near beach. I already liked the composition better. Then, I took it into Photoshop to play with values. I took out a few more elements that distracted from the boat, but I can see I need to really work on the dark area on the beach. I don't want it to lead the viewer out of the painting. It will be shore rocks if I leave the area in. I have never done this in Photoshop before and it was quite a bit of fun. Look for the finished painting later this week.

Painting a Still Life

Eggplant Parmesan

7 x 10 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

I decided this morning that I haven't painted from life in a long time. In an attempt to remedy that, I pulled a few things out of the refrigerator that will become tomorrow's dinner. I have trouble setting up still lifes for myself. I have to try and think about darks and lights and how they will move the viewer through the picture. I have to remember balance in composition. I remember when I first started painting still lifes, my instructor tried not to laugh when I centered the entire set up on my paper. Far be it for me to fill the paper. I would look at the others during critique time and admire the way people had some things going off the edge. I would, however, do the same thing the next week. I just didn't get how to do it. One of the best things about practicing my art is the way my vision has improved. I see things in different ways now.

As for this painting, I tried a couple of interesting things to draw the viewers eye to the eggplant. First, I made sure I put all the detail I saw in it. It doesn't show up well in the photo, but the red of the tomato is reflected on the side of the eggplant. Another thing I did was to soften up the edges of the other elements, except the bottle which I thought would help draw the eye down. My light source was almost directly overhead, thus no shadow on the back wall from the bottle. That would have been fun, but I couldn't pull it off in this one.

Take a look at Gurney Journey for today. He has a very interesting discussion about the color of moonlight.

Another Barn

Once Upon a Time on the Plains

11 x 15 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

Several years ago, I drove across the country with my best friend. We loved so many things we saw. We stopped to take photos of silos, rolling corn fields, wild flowers, and barns. We were in South Dakota when we spotted this on at the end of a road that took us to a very small town. I am not sure why we were there, but I fell in love with this barn. The roof was nearly gone. It had been deserted for a while, but it still stood there telling its story. My friend, now my sister-in-law, used to have a large photo of it hanging in her house. I only have a small one in a photo album. I wonder if she remembers it.

Today is Cezanne's birthday. He was born to a wealthy father in 1836. He wanted to be an artist from a young age, but his father fought him on it. Eventually, he got his way. After time spent in art school in Aix en Provence, he headed to Paris. There he was introduced to Pissarro and Monet who convinced him to start painting outdoors. Before that, his paintings were dark and melancholy, often with a religious theme. Once he started painting outside, his pallet changed and he began painting with much more vivid colors. In 1872, he spent two years in Pontoise with Pissarro painting as much as he could outdoors. He entered works the annual Salon exhibit was always rejected. Twice, he entered his works in the Impressionists exhibit but they were soundly derided. He left Paris fed up with the city and the style of the Impressionists. He wanted to paint what he saw and felt. He began to develop his own strong style that did not worry about depth and dimension so much as feeling and color. It was twenty years before he exhibited his work after the last Impressionist show he entered. By the end of his life, his works were being recognized and selling well. Here is a still life of his to enjoy on his birthday.

Apples, Peaches, Pears, and Grapes

15 1/8 x 18 1/4 inches oil on canvas

Paul Cezanne

To see more of Cezanne's work, go here. To read more about him, go to this site.

Wisteria

Wisteria

10 x 7 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

This wisteria is from another photo of my former garden. I love the way wisteria looks when it is in bloom. It is one of my favorite flowers. In the winter, when the canes are bare, all the tangles also create an interesting look. I was going to do this as a square painting, leaving out the two plumes at the bottom right. Now, I am not sure what possessed me to leave them in.

Alpine Meadow 2

Alpine Meadow 2
10 x 7 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

I know I stated that I was satisfied with yesterdays painting, but after a day of looking at it and discussing the composition problems with my wonderful husband, I determined to have another go at it. I am not completely satisfied with this new version, but I do like it better, except for the wild flowers which I like better in the older version. I really want to get this one right, so I will try again, but I won't subject you all to any further tries unless I deem it wonderful.

Here is a look at both of them side by side. I took out the tall trees in the mid-ground as they completely dominated the painting, and I didn't want them to. I also worked to create some sense of depth in the background trees. I have almost done that. I have to confess that I do like the mountains in the first one better even though they are darker. They seem to have a better presence. Ever learning on the journey.

Alpine Meadow

Alpine Meadow

10 x 7 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

I missed a milepost on the journey yesterday. I have been posting to this blog for three months. By some standards, that makes me legitimate. I have been enjoying it, so I think I will keep it up.

I have been noticing lately that my subject matter appears rather random sometimes. I think part of that is I have grown disenchanted with the local sites. After all, there is only so much of it and it seems to all have been painted often and well. I long for the new vistas - rolling pasture land, salt water marshes at dusk, rushing rivers, forests of poplars or evergreen trees. It is beautiful here, however, and I still have much to learn about water and green. I was reading the Ask Mark section of the Pastel Artists of Hawaii web site this morning. Mark Norseth is a well known local pastel and oil artist. One of the questions put to him was about inspiration and how to keep it when you see the same things each day. He pointed out that some of the best known artists painted painting after painting on the same subject. Monet and his garden. Degas and is ballet dancers. Lautrec and the Moulin Rouge. The trick is to see it anew each time you approach familiar scenes, and feel it with a new heart.

Today's painting was based on a reference photo taken a few years ago during a hike near Mt. St. Helen's in Washington. It was spring and the wildflowers were in full color - lavender lupines, peach Indian Paint Brush, golden buttercups. It was quite a beautiful day.

Interesting Underpainting

The Fence Post

12 x 9 soft pastels on Wallis

Miki Willa

When I was looking for paper today, I discovered a well abused and neglected sheet of Wallis white that I didn't think was beyond saving. I looked for a reference photo that would lend itself to a very simple underpainting. I liked the reference photo from Moloka'i because of the four bands of elements. I decided to create a brilliant underpainting using deep rose at the top, black beneath that, bright red for under the green, and umber where the tall grasses went. I used turpenoid to melt the pastels and the result was quite startling. Unfortunately, I did not take a photo of this stage. As I began to develop the painting, I realized that, for the first time, I was enjoying this method. I am very pleased with the results. I have discovered that if I work out the patterns of the dark values before I begin, I am usually happier with the finished painting. I wonder why I forget that?

Resurrecting old paintings, part 2

The Salt Marsh

11 x 19 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

The primary reason I wanted to try and resurrect this painting was because I loved the place. It is along the north west shore of Whidbey Island in Washington. I am still not happy with the painting, but I think this may be the best I can do until I start over again. I did the original as one of my first pastel paintings. I didn't know a thing about composition, aerial perspective, or working with pastels. When I found the painting a couple of weeks ago, I was amazed at how completely flat it was. The water was all the same color and value, everywhere. The houses, which I think are the weakest part of this version, were all exactly the same. The distant islands appeared much closer because of poor color choice. This summer, maybe I will be able to get back up there are do this great place justice.

Inspiration

Old Barge

Photo by Miki Willa

I am always amazed at the things that inspire me to paint. Tom and I had to make a trip into town to the art store today and decided to stop for lunch at our favorite harbor side restaurant. Tied up to the pier directly in front of us was this old derelict barge. I couldn't resist the opportunity to get some reference photos. The rusts, greys, and golds were quite wonderful. I think this will work well for painting with analogous colors. Of course, the other diners, mostly tourists off the nearby docked cruise ship, were all wondering why I was taking these photos. They were all upset the normally watery tropical view was blocked. As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Non-Representational Art

Pele's Journey

9 x 12 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

As I mentioned a few days ago, I was challenged by the assignment to do something non-representational. The idea for trying different forms of art is to determine your degree of external and internal inspiration. I often express my internal world in writing, but take most of my inspiration for painting from God's world. This was a difficult exercise for me.

I actually had a photograph that got me started. It was of a tree covered hillside reflected in a very still lake. There was a bright band of bright yellow across the middle where the sun reflected off the pond scum when the photo was taken. I love the photo, but was setting it aside because the image was really cut in half by the bright yellow. As I was putting it down, I realized that there might be something I could use here for the abstract. Once decided, I elected to use my favorite complementary colors, figure a visual path through the painting, set up my darks and lights, and I jumped right in. I was not really taken by it at first. I was going to call it Journey, and be done with it. Then, one of my students came in and said she really liked it because it reminded her of the volcano. The more I looked at it, the more I felt she was right. In the end, I decided to call it Pele's Journey. I don't feel that this genre is my forte, and it is way outside my comfort level. I am, however, glad I did it. I have developed a great admiration for those who can do non-representational art well. As for me, I am going to stick to my landscapes for the near future with a small space thrown in every once in a while.

Alpine Lake

Alpine Lake

7 x 10 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

Another old reference photo. This beautiful lake is in the North Cascade Mountains in Washington. The photo was taken in late summer when the snow was gone from the visible lower mountains. It was also too late for the wild flowers, but it was still quite wonderful and peaceful. When Tom and I hit the road next summer, these are the kinds of places we will be looking for to do some pleine air painting. I think I violated some rule about reflections needing to be darker than the object being reflected, but I am pleased with this representation. I even put one of the people in it. That may be a first for me.

Painting Small Places

Concrete Weeds

7 x 10 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

I had an idea when setting goals for the year that I would like to do a series of small seemingly unimportant places. The first one was the Poppy from a couple of days ago. That was from a small corner of my old garden. This one is based on a photo I took at the bottom of a set of concrete steps a long time ago. I really like the composition, and I decided to use a complementary pallet. In this case, I used my favorite of blue/lavender and yellow/orange. This combination never fails to get my attention in a positive way.

Now that my pastels seem to be settled in their new homes, I thought I would share what I use. I started this pastel journey with a student set I purchased at the local Ben Franklin craft store. It was fine enough to get me hooked. Then my husband shared his Rembrandts. We purchased a small set of Unisons and a small set of Senneliers. Then Tom took a workshop with Terry Ludwig. It was love at first use. His was my first choice for a couple of years. Last summer, Tom and I decided to try new sets after a Pastel Artists of Hawaii meeting where we got to try different brands. As a result, I now use Terry Ludwig's, Great Americans, Unisons, a small number of Girault and Sennelier. We don't have large quantities, but we are having fun with what we have. Now, if I could only learn to like paper other than Art Spectrum. I really like that surface.

Cabin in the Woods

Cabin in the Woods

7 x 10 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

This is what I did from the sketch I posted the other day. I really wanted to show that the snow was at least a foot deep. I think that works in the path to the cabin. When I painted the cabin door the green that it was, I almost lost the entire structure. I think the red in the door and the red table cloth and blue chairs you can see through the window in the real painting really helped to strengthen it as a focal point. I tried to indicate a path to the wood shed, but it complicated the painting too much. As I recall, the little foreground tree had been planted by the owner and was that color of new trees. I really enjoyed my time in that cabin, learning to cook on a wood burning stove. That was a long time ago.

Abstract Painting versus Non-representational

Hey! Look At Me

7 x 5 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

For most of my life, I have referred to all art that is not realistic as abstract. I may have excluded the impressionists from the broad brush description. Whether it was cubist, fauvist, surreal, or that giant canvas painted red with the yellow square in the center, it was all abstract. No one has ever corrected me, so I have gone on thinking that way. Yesterday, I read the second chapter in Finding Your Visual Voice by Dakota Mitchell with Lee Haroun and discovered there is a difference, and when you are talking about abstraction, varying degrees. Dakota defines non-representational art as having no definable subject from the real world. Given that definition, only the red canvas with the yellow square would be non-representational. Dakota goes further to state that most representation art is, to some degree, abstract. Interesting notions. When I finish the book, I will do a review here.

At the end of each chapter, there are exercises to do to help you find your visual voice. This chapter suggests you try a non-representation piece. I am just not there yet. I don't understand color and composition nearly well enough to attempt it. I decided the best I could do was a loose abstract of one of my favorite flowers. These Oriental Poppies were growing in my old garden next to a group of purple flowering plants, whose name I can't remember. It was almost outside my comfort zone, but far more comfortable than it would have been two years ago. Just another step along the journey.

Resurrecting Old Paintings

La Conner Tug

Watercolor and soft pastels on Arches cold pressed paper

Miki Willa

I took some time yesterday to go through all my old drawings and paintings, all that I have kept, anyway. There were so pleasant surprises, and some embarrassments. I pulled aside four that I think have potential. One of them was this painting. It was done in watercolor before I discovered the joys of pastels. It was done a long time ago. I really liked the boat, but everything else needed resurrection. I didn't have the original photograph, so it was a bit of a challenge. I haven't lived in the Northwest for a while, but I know that the cold water does not have the blue-greens we have here.

I decided to use the watercolor piece as an under painting, leaving some of it to show through. In the original, there were no cast shadows or reflections. The spit on the viewers left was very crudely done with bright reds on the buildings. Pretty much, the only thing I liked was the layout of the boat. It is a better piece now, but one day, I would like to go back to La Conner and do it all over again.

Sketching

When I was looking through old photos yesterday, I pulled out a very old, faded photo I took at a friends mountain cabin near Mt. Rainier, Washington over 30 years ago. I really enjoyed staying in this cabin with its wood burning stove and big fireplace. I decided to work up a small sketch before putting pastels to paper. The challenge was trying to see details in the photograph. I can already see some composition changes I need to make, but I think I got the basic elements in. Snow was about a foot deep that day, which I am going to have to figure out how to convey. I don't think I will get it painted today because I am still working on the poppy field painting from yesterday. Want to get that finished before I take it off the easel. Hopefully, I will get it done tomorrow.

Color Theory - Goethe's Triangle

Desert Spring

7 x 11 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

In my ongoing quest to understand more about color, I came across Goethe's Triangle. Rather than place colors on a wheel as did Newton, Goethe placed them in a triangular matrix to better group them for emotional content. Each apex holds a primary - Goethe chose red, blue, and yellow. The secondaries are placed in the grid along with tertiaries that are a mix of the color next to and opposite their place in the grid. I like the understanding he developed for attaching emotion to color, however it is a bit different than designers have been telling us today. For instance, Goethe held that the red, orange, purple, and green colors created serenity. He believed that red evoked intelligence and creativity. Take a look at the page I have linked above and see what you think.

Today's painting is from a very old photo I took in the California poppy fields in the Antelope Valley north of Los Angeles. When I was a child, the fields went on forever. Twenty years ago, when I took the photo, the fields were much diminished in size. We had to drive much farther to find them. I haven't been back for fear they would all be gone. Since one of my goals is to use more reds and oranges in my paintings, I thought I would jump right in.

Using Color

Winter On The Farm

7 x 11 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Miki Willa

I started this painting with the diagonal blue shadow line across the snow. Then I did the rest of the snow. I saw pinks, lavenders, and blues in the snow field, so I used a lot of broken color there. I have not really used that technique very often, but it worked to get the effect I wanted. The next think I did was the distant mountains. I have to admit, I really like to paint mountains. After the mountains, I decided to approach the barn and silos. I really haven't been using much red in my paintings until recently. I really like the effect of adding that bright warm color had on the painting as a whole. The red did not photograph as true as the other colors. Interesting. The sky was also fun to do. All in all, I enjoyed doing this painting.

The reference photo for this painting is part of the January Landscape Challenge on WetCanvas! You can find the challenge here. Thanks Jane.

We Made a Book!

A Willa Pastel...

Paintings done in H...

By Miki and Tom Willa

Book Preview

I just wanted to share the book that I put together for my husband for Christmas. I put together a collection of the paintings we have done since moving to Hawaii five and a half years ago. It was great fun, and I recommend visiting the blurb.com to see what they have for you.

Happy New Year!