This study had potential, but I didn’t finish: the sunshine turned into clouds, the clouds became scary thunder, and I had to rush indoors to avoid being drenched by heavy rain. I still got some ideas down, and it was nice to be outdoors. I stood for the entire 90 minutes I worked, and my back felt good!
With more rain in the forecast for tomorrow, our next daily painting may be a still life.
Geoff Watson, “Unfinished wall,” May daily painting #3, oil on panel, 8” x 10,” 2019.
Here’s my second daily painting. I did this in less than two hours, with one break. I like this one a lot!
Geoff Watson, “The Color Purple” (May daily painting #2), oil on panel, 8” x 10,” 2019.
This month I’ve challenged myself to do a small oil painting every day. If you follow the online art world, you may be familiar with the “daily painting” movement. The idea is to improve by doing a little every day, rather than trying to do a lot once a week. By painting small, you can get a study done in an hour or two. In truth, I already paint or draw every day anyway, but I often use pencil, pen or other media. This month it will be all oil paintings, all the time. If my sore back holds out, that is.
That said, I may not post every daily painting here! I don’t want to inundate my readers with daily blog posts. Also, let’s face it, not every “daily painting” is a masterpiece. Today’s may be a case in point. I didn’t start until 6 pm or so, and I rushed a bit, so things are a bit sloppy. Still fun, though.
Geoff Watson, “At the window” (May daily painting #1), oil on panel, 8” x 8,” 2019.
Mallina is one of my favorite models: she holds a pose perfectly! This portrait doesn’t do her justice, but I hope it captures some of her spirit.
Geoff Watson, “Portrait study of Mallina,” oil on panel, 11” x 14,” 2019.
My sore back has kept me inside during the gorgeous spring weather here, but today I could no longer resist, and I gingerly set up my easel on my front yard and painted this truck, using mostly gouache — transparent watercolor. I haven’t touched my gouache in a while, and my blue and red tubes were caked dry, so I had to improvise to get the colors you see here. Time to buy some new paint!
The underlying drawing is better than the finished painting. I did a very careful and accurate pencil drawing, but I chose brushes that were too large. Artists always say use the largest brush possible, but I think I took that principle too far here. Still, it was great to get outside and paint again.
Geoff Watson, “Sketch of Danny’s truck,” gouache, watercolor & graphite on paper, 5” x 7,” 2019.
Christine Lashley is one of two or three artists I’ve studied with at the Yellow Barn Studio, and she’s now attracting national attention with her sparkling paintings and her thoughtful advice on how to paint. She is the featured guest on this week’s Plein Air Podcast, which I listen to every week. Christine is an easygoing conversationalist, with a knack for putting people at ease, and so this was one of the show’s better interviews. (She puts me at ease too: I find I make better paintings when I’m working with her.)
Here’s the link to the podcast: https://www.outdoorpainter.com/plein-air-podcast-christine-lashley/ Pro tip: skip the first 3 minutes of introduction/advertisement and jump right to the interview with Christine. And here’s a link to Christine’s website: https://christinelashley.com/
Christine Lashley, “City Rhythm,” oil on panel, 11” x 14".”
I’ve been slowed down by back pain the past week or so, but I managed to drag myself to life class today. Wouldn’t you know it, I wound up sitting with a view of the model’s … back. When I got back (heh) home, I watched hockey fans shout “back to back” while cheering on the Washington Capitals, who are trying to repeat as Stanley Cup champions. And I watched men twist their backs violently while playing golf at the Masters. All in all, it was a back of a day.
Geoff Watson, “Back study,” oil on panel, 11” x 14” (2019).
Broad Branch Market is a charming neighborhood general store in northwest Washington DC. Every time I visit it, neighborhood kids are buzzing around socializing, neighborhood parents are shopping for groceries, and friendly people are sitting at the tables in front of the Market, enjoying the day. Followers of this blog may recall that I painted a tiny ink-and-watercolor sketch of the market last summer, plein air, in my sketchbook.
Well, the Market is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, and I guess they were googling themselves when they ran across my blog post. They contacted me about acquiring the painting and displaying it in their store and on their website. So lo and behold, the Market now owns the original painting, now handsomely framed under glass. Their website apparently will be updated later this year to commemorate their anniversary; here’s the current link. https://www.broadbranchmarket.com/
Anyway, if you need some groceries and neighborly cheer — and if you want to see a Watson original — stop by the Broad Branch Market. :)
Geoff Watson, “Broad Branch Market,” ink wash & watercolor on paper, about 5” x 8,” 2018 (private collection).
This painting is off to a better start than the Red Sox themselves, who opened the season with a miserable 3-8 road trip out west. I’m going for a sort of empty-but-beautiful vibe with this picture, with lots of attention on the famed Green Monster, the gigantic left-field wall. So no crowd, no ballgame: I plan to add a couple groundskeepers or ballplayers walking on the outfield or infield, but not thousands of screaming fans.
There’s lots more to be done, of course. (Unfortunately, production has slowed because I threw my back out; I’m getting better, but it’ll be a week or so before I’m back to my normal painting and blogging schedule.) The outfield and left-field lines and grandstands need straightening, as do the signs over the Green Monster. The infield may need to be reduced a tad. I haven’t put in stadium lights yet. Of course I have detail to add too: the scoreboard on The Monster, writing on the signs, the foul lines, and above all the iconic Citgo sign in center field!
Geoff Watson, “Fenway Park (in progress),” oil on linen panel, 8” x 10,” 2019.
This painting was really fun. I had originally planned a light background on the left and darker background on the right, to set up contrast with the light and shadow sides of the model’s face. But I had second thoughts when I noticed the awesome earring the model was wearing, which would’ve disappeared had I painted it against a light background. So I sorta reversed course — darker on the left, lighter on the right. I wimped out a bit; I think a darker background on the left would’ve looked cool. But it worked out pretty well, and I think the earring looks pretty neat.
Geoff Watson, “Woman with a silver earring,” oil on panel, 11” x 14,” 2019.
Here’s a tiny thumbnail sketch of Fenway Park, one of several studies for an eventual oil painting. The original is 2” x 3” or so, maybe smaller than the image you see on your screen. Ordinarily I don’t post my thumbnail sketches here, but it’s Opening Day, so why not? (We will not speak of the unfortunate result of Boston’s Opening Day baseball game against the Seattle Mariners.)
The main idea here is to highlight the Green Monster by graying and darkening things around it. The Green Monster is Fenway’s huge, iconic left-field wall. I think Monster is a rather unfair name for such a beautiful piece of architecture, but there are lots of left-handed pitchers who disagree with me.
Geoff Watson, “Fenway Park (thumbnail sketch),” study, ink and wash on paper, about 2” x 3” (2019).
I set up across from Tia Queta, a charming Mexican restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland, and a family-owned business. As usual, passersby stopped by my easel to chat, and more than one emphasized how nice the owner of the restaurant is.
Sure enough, the owner, Roberto, sauntered by to see what I was up to. He was indeed a delightful guy! He offered to move his truck -- that's it in the painting -- but I liked the truck and encouraged him to leave it there. In fact, the truck was probably the most successful part of the painting! I’m out of practice with plein air, having hibernated all winter, and I’d forgotten how fast the light changes — and how challenging it is to draw complicated architecture in an hour or so. I didn't get a great photo before delivering the painting, plus I wasn’t happy with my incomplete roof, so the top and side of this image are both cropped a bit.
Roberto liked my effort, flaws and all, so I gave him the painting, and in exchange he treated me and my family to a free dinner — a very generous gesture! The food was terrific. I highly recommend the tamales. We will go back soon and pay full fare.
Geoff Watson, “Parked at Tia Queta (study),” oil on panel, 8” x 8” (detail), 2019.
The weather was borderline cold, borderline gray today, and I almost wimped out. But I rallied and took myself to ... a parking lot. And I painted ... a concrete "Jersey" barrier. As I was getting set up, a woman came up to me and asked why I didn't paint something beautiful. I replied that I'd try to make this barrier beautiful! Later she drove by and said I'd succeeded.
I'm not sure about that, but I kinda like this one. It could use some scale, though -- a figure or a car or something. Maybe I'll take another crack at it later.
Geoff Watson, "Jersey barrier," oil on panel, 8" x 8,” 2019.
This was the first time I’d painted this model, and I enjoyed it. I was aiming for a higher-key, sunnier vibe than the more serious “Gentleman” I painted last week. I also experimented with what Charles Reid calls color “tie-ins” — that is, linking color in different parts of the picture in unexpected ways. For example, I tried some flesh tones in the hair, some overlap between shirt and background, and some blues and greens in the model’s face.
It’s also a pretty good likeness, though I think I shaved off a couple years. Most models don’t object to that.
Geoff Watson, “Pete,” oil on panel, 11” x 14,” 2019.
Today I spent the afternoon painting (drum roll) an apple. I just bought some "Cadmium-free red" and “Cadmium-free yellow” from Utrecht paints. I'd heard about them from their designer, who was interviewed on Eric Rhodes' Plein Air Podcast. So I wanted to paint something with red and yellow to try them out. Thus the choices were (1) an apple, (2) a peach, or (3) the national flag of Spain or China. As I had no peaches or flags lying around, I went with an apple. I liked the paints but found them a tad dry; nothing medium won't fix.
To add to the fun, I also chose to follow Mark Carder's "color checker" method. For more info, see his website and many interesting videos: http://www.drawmixpaint.com/
I own Mr. Carder’s color-checker, so I made myself check almost all the colors I put in. He wants you to put in just one little stripe of color wherever you see it, and never to blend. Mostly I did that. For me, it's great training in judging values (i.e., lights and darks). Whenever I do his method, I'm always amazed at how poorly I judge shadow values: they're almost always darker than I expect. A LOT darker than I expect. The cast shadow here should be darker, but the only way I could figure to do that was with black, and I didn't want black.
I didn't color-check the background because I wanted to change it to suit my evil compositional design -- darker background by the lightest side of the apple, for example. Mwuhaha!
Geoff Watson, “Cadmium-free apple,” oil on panel, 6” x 6,” 2019.
This was the second session of a two-session pose. I spent a bit less than 4 hours total on the painting. At the end of the first session, the likeness wasn’t great; you can see it in my March 4 post. So I focused hard on improving the drawing at the start of today’s session, and within a half hour I had a good likeness — and it got better as the session went along. I’m quite pleased with the final result, though as always I needed more time. The shadows on the side of the face need a little smoothing and refining, and it would’ve been nice to add more detail to the outfit.
Alas, neither of the photos below does it justice; the second photo shows off the color better, I think.
Geoff Watson, “A Gentleman,” oil on panel, 11” x 14,” 2019.
Geoff Watson, “A Gentleman (detail),” oil on panel, 11” x 14,” 2019.
I’ve been painting in watercolor every day this week for a change of pace. I love working in watercolor, but I do find them more challenging than oils. Here are a few example’s of the week’s work.
First, a pair of interior sketches — the first in watercolor, the second a quick pencil study.
Geoff Watson, “Interior sketch,” watercolor on paper, about 8” x 10,” 2019.
Geoff Watson, “Quick interior sketch,” graphite on paper, about 5” x 8,” 2019.
Next, my trusty stainless-steel water bottle. I spent all of 60 seconds on this, but I like the orange.
Geoff Watson, “Sketch of a water bottle,” watercolor on paper, about 4” x 6,” 2019.
Finally, my piano bench. For the first four decades of my life, music — especially piano — was my main creative outlet. But as I grew older, my fingers and hands started to ache when I played piano. For whatever reason, painting doesn’t bother my hands much at all, so I moved from performing to visual arts. Although I have been drawing my whole life.
Geoff Watson, “Piano bench,” watercolor on paper, about 4” x 4,” 2019.
The lighting for this pose was somewhat better, and I had an easier time of it. This was the first of a two-session pose, so I didn’t get to some stuff, notably the blank area around his ear and his clothing. And I should tone down the expression I’ve given him! But it’s a decent start, I think.
Geoff Watson, “A Gentleman (in progress),” oil on panel, 11” x 14,” 2019.
The lighting at today’s life class was confusing because we had to deal with three light sources. (1) A warm spotlight; (2) slightly less warm overhead lights; and (3) behind us, a wall of bright windows (covered with ineffective curtains) casting cool light on the model -- and glare on my painting surface. I found these conditions difficult.
Anyway, I did my best. We had the model in front of us for a couple hours (minus breaks). But I confess I spent a half hour touching things up after class at home, working from memory with no photo reference — not a great way to improve the likeness. At least I had my new Revelite easel light illuminating my panel properly. "Jolene," oil on panel, 11" x 14."
Geoff Watson, “Jolene,” oil on panel, 11” x 14,” 2019.
A quick watercolor sketch of a woman lost in thought.
Geoff Watson, “Lost in thought,” watercolor and pencil on paper, about 5” x 8,” 2019.