My watercolor teacher, Eric Wiegardt, has encouraged us to “draw with the brush”, that is, to begin the painting boldly with the brush, with no pencil lines to use as a guide.
Normally I begin my painting with a pencil outline so that I know where my shapes are. Without the pencil lines to go by, the huge expanse of white paper seems overwhelming. The problem with beginning with a pencil outline is that you tend to just fill in the outline with watercolor, resulting in a stiff, paint-by-numbers feeling.
So when I painted the lovely barns of the Schmuck/Smith Dairy Farm near Sequim recently, I took a bold approach and painted the barns directly with yellow on my brush. I think it helped give a more spontaneous look to the painting. I then put some blue and some red on my brush with a dollop of water and painted the shadowed ends of the barns, leaving the sunny roofs and sides mostly white. I think the looseness of the paint strokes helped the overall effect.
(The date stamp in the upper right is a leftover from the Whidbey Plein Air Paintout. This is the back of one of the paintings from that event).
Last week I attended the Whidbey Plein Air Paint Out in Coupeville, WA. Along with 70 other painters, I spent the better part of a week painting the fields and barns of Edey’s Prairie, the bluffs and beaches of Whidbey Island, and the quaint buildings of historic Coupeville. The weather was great for painting… and for camping at Fort Ebey State Park.
I made the most of the time, painting three paintings each day for a total of nine paintings. For me, that’s a lot of painting! On Thursday afternoon, I turned in my best three paintings to be judged and displayed in the weekend show.
At the gala on Friday evening, I celebrated with my fellow artists as we showed off our paintings to each other and the many guests. I didn’t win any awards, but I was happily surprised to be told that all three of my paintings were bought by patrons of the arts! It’s a good feeling to know that my paintings have new homes. And I have to admit, the money is nice.
I woke up Thursday morning to a thick fog in the trees, so I drove the short distance to Point Partridge and made this painting. Because it was so humid, the paint took a long time to dry. After each wash, I ran up to the car and dried the paper with the car’s heater. While I was painting, a young couple merged from the trail and strolled down the beach, so I put them in the painting.Ebey’s Landing is a well-known beach on Whidbey Island, underneath one of the many bluffs along the shore. I liked the wind-blown tree and featured it in this painting.
For many years, I worked as a shipwright for a small boat repair facility in Alaska, so when I see an old fashioned boat shed like this one in Shelton, WA, it brings back good memories. This boat shed, located on the tide flat just outside of Shelton, hasn’t been used for many years, as the rusty doors and broken windows testify. It remains as a reminder of days gone by, when boat shops like this were common around Puget Sound.
I started painting this watercolor in the morning but I had to interrupt my painting for a lunch date with other clergy. When I got back in the afternoon, the sun had moved and the shadows had changed. It was hot and the watercolors were drying too quickly. When I painted the windows, they were too dark. Later, in the studio, I lifted the dark color with a wet brush and a tissue. I let it it dry, then I added the broken window panes. I think this correction worked all right.
I’ve noticed that most of my recent subjects have been trees. Yesterday I found a new subject: a huge grain ship being loaded at the grain terminal along the Seattle waterfront.
I traveled to Seattle yesterday morning to paint with other members of the Northwest Watercolor Society. It was a lot of fun to see twenty other painters at their easels along the shore of Elliott Bay Park. At noon we gathered to prop our paintings up against a driftwood log for the “throwdown”, our impromptu art show.
To get to the park, I drove to a park-and-ride, took a Bremerton bus to the ferry terminal, boarded the fast ferry to Seattle, walked up to Third and Pike, took a Seattle bus and walked to the park. For the return, I reversed the process. I was glad to get home at 3:30 pm and take a nap!
Tall grass flourishes in Center Cemetery, obscuring the old gravestones scattered among the tall fir trees. It’s a quiet place, long forgotten and abandoned to nature. I found it quite peaceful. The shadows beneath the fir trees drew my eye, so I tried to capture the feeling of light and shadow.
Painting can be lonely. Laboring away at a painting all by yourself, with no one who understands, can feel isolating. But last Thursday and Friday I painted with about 25 members of Plein Air Washington Artists (PAWA) at Dosewallips State Park on Hood Canal. Most of us camped at the campground where we met for our throwdown (daily art show) and a potluck. It was great to be with people who are excited by the same things I’m excited about.
My best painting was Friday morning. I walked out the clammers’ trail to the tide flats where I saw a lone tree with character. This tree was painted by many other painters in our group.
The lone tree
Later I walked way out onto the tide flats at low tide where probably a hundred people were scattered, digging clams. I made a value painting to get the lights and darks established, then I made a colored painting. The value sketch is good, but the watercolor is disappointing.
The value sketchClammers at low tide
On Thursday afternoon, I drove about six miles up the Dosewallips River Road, where I found the river pouring through a narrow gorge next to the road. Although it was a blazing hot afternoon, I found some shade and made my painting. I like the drama of the light and dark areas.
Dosewallips gorgePAWA members looking over the paintings at the throwdown
I was challenged to raise my level of painting last week when I attended Eric Wiegardt’s four day watercolor workshop in Long Beach, Washington. Every morning and afternoon, Eric painted a demonstration painting for the twenty-two participants, and gave us enough time to paint the same scene after he did. At 3:30 each day we gathered for a critique of of our paintings. Watching over the shoulder of a master painter is the best way to learn how to paint.
Eric teaching at Waikiki Beach, Cape Disappointment State Park
Eric is that rare combination of a great painter and a great teacher. He says there are three goals of a painting. 1. Attract the eye to the painting from a distance. 2. Carry the eye throughout the picture plane. 3. Bring the eye to the area of dominance and hold it there as long as possible.
To achieve the first goal, he uses a few connected shapes and a limited number of values (three to five values are sufficient). He often begins a painting by boldly sweeping in the middle values. Then he moves to the darker values, and last of all he puts in the light values (usually the sky and water). He brings the eye to the area of dominance by increasing the use of detail, color, lines, etc., as he gets near the area of dominance.
That constitutes the majority of his teaching. He keeps it simple and avoids confusing his students with lots of rules or guidelines. Use a big brush, keep your shapes interesting and connected, keep your values clean and limited, keep your paint fresh, and use details only as necessary. Those general guidelines will lead to a good painting.
For his first demo, Eric painted the dramatic cliffs at Cape Disappointment (below). Notice how he’s not bothered by drips and runs in the painting. They make the painting more connected and harmonious as the colors run together.
Eric’s painting of Cape Disappointment
Here’s my attempt to capture the same scene.
My painting of Cape Disappointment
On our second day, we painted an old wooden sailboat in the Ilwaco City Harbor. Eric let the colors of the sailboat run down into the water so that the boat’s reflection was connected to the boat.
Eric’s painting of the boat
In my first two attempts, I didn’t use enough water in my paintbrush, so the sailboat looked pasty and dry. On my third attempt, I finally got the paper wet and used lots of water in my brush. Success!
My painting of the boat
On the third day of the workshop, Eric brought us to the historic community of Oysterville. It was a hot, sunny day, so he chose to paint a copse of roses on a picket fence in a shady lane. It seemed like a complicated subject, but he wasn’t intimidated. He began with wet washes of red, followed by green washes that partially overlapped the red, giving a rich mix of colors for the roses which were still undefined. He cautions against defining your subject too early. He then cut in darker values to bring out the roses, and finally added detail to the roses in his area of dominance.
Eric’s painting of the roses
I gamely tried the same subject and was pleasantly surprised to see the red and green washes mix together to produce a rich color. At the critique, Eric suggested that I outline the roses in my area of dominance and add some detail to them. This helped a lot
My painting of the roses
On our last day, we visited the Port of Nahcotta, a working port for the oyster dredges in Willapa Bay. Eric painted the Tokeland, a historic oyster dredge sitting on blocks in a corner of the port. He began by wetting the paper front and back, then he painted the outlines of the boat in yellow, using the brush only (no pencil marks). Then he added the mid-tones in the boat’s hull, allowing them to run down and mix together.
Eric’s painting of the FV Tokeland
I wet the paper and i was pleased to see the washes running down like Eric’s. Pretty happy with this painting.
My painting of the FV Tokeland
Our group of painters developed a great sense of camaraderie during the workshop as we all struggled to put Eric’s teaching into practice. On Wednesday evening, we were invited to the home of Kathryn Murdock, who pampered us with a delicious dinner of appetizers, spanakopita, salad and dessert. On Thursday evening, several of us gathered at Oysterville Sea Farms for a tantalizing bowl of chowder on the deck overlooking Willipa Bay. It was a great week together.
Last Thursday morning I drove to Marrowstone Island near Port Townsend. Marrowstone Island seems like a throwback to a quieter time. The old farms still give the place a bucolic feel, the traffic is sparse, and the pace is slow.
I stopped at the Nordland Store, which faces the harbor filled with sailboats lying to their anchors. An old dock and shellfish processing shed on pilings caught my eye, and I found a shady place on the beach to paint the boats, pilings, and sheds. I spent a pleasant hour an a half making this painting.
On Friday I drove to Dabob Valley near Quilcene to make a painting. I found a good subject, made a pencil sketch, set up my easel, and got ready to paint. No palette! I had left my palette and all my paints back in the studio. Feeling a little foolish, I drove home and made the painting from memory and the photos I took. Perhaps the painting was better because of it.
My memory of the valley includes a series of ridges receding into the distance, all covered with scraggly fir trees. I set a barn in the valley to provide a pop of red color.
Dabob Valley
While I was at it, I made a second painting from memory. This is Dabob Bay looking toward the Olympic Mountains. I made up the boat in the water and the red skiff on the beach.
Thursday morning began with a fine misty rain, just right for watercolor painting. The mist drapes the hillsides and makes everything soft. But you can’t paint in the rain — it makes the watercolors run all over the paper.
My solution was to paint from the front seat of my car. A little cramped, but it’s better than nothing. I drove to Sawdust Hill Road, a side road off of Big Valley Road near Poulsbo. There’s a beautiful old barn on the edge of a sloped pasture, just below a ridge of tall trees. It looks like the property owner is making an effort to preserve this fine old structure.
Even though I parked my car as far off the road as possible, there wasn’t much room when the garbage truck came by, and when a loaded logging truck came around the corner, I held my breath until he was past.
