Watercolors

Fishermen’s Terminal with PAWA

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I joined other Plein Air Washington Artists at Fishermen’s Terminal in Seattle today. It involved getting up early and driving to Bainbridge Island, taking the ferry to Seattle, then the bus to Fishermen’s Terminal. I got there in plenty of time to meet other painters and start painting.

F/V Admiral

There are hundreds of boats to paint, with lots of colorful compositions available. I chose the Fishing Vessel Admiral and made a watercolor. Luckily I got it done quickly, because the boat moved shortly after I finished. Then I painted two seine skiffs moored between two larger vessels, but my painting was muddy and belabored.

Several of us ate lunch together in the terminal building breezeway, then I made another painting of a seine boat. I was tired by this time. I walked back to the bus stop, caught the bus to Seattle and the ferry terminal and got home in time for dinner. It was a good day of painting with painter friends.

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Homeless in Gorst

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As I was leaving Port Orchard, I stopped at a wildlife viewing area near Gorst. It’s just a pulloff from the racetrack of Highway 16, but it provides access to the tideflats. I poked around but didn’t see any appealing subjects so I went back to the car. As I did, I caught a glimpse of a dog and a car in the trees. I figured it was a homeless camp, so I took a sketchbook and went over.

I found a woman sitting next to an old car with a big dog straining at the leash and barking menacingly. I waved to show I was harmless and she put the dog in the car. I introduced myself and said I’m an artist looking for something to draw. She said her name was Diane and she likes to draw cartoons, so we had something in common. We struck up a conversation. She was pretty cheerful considering she was homeless. I’d say she was probably about fifty, on disability and living in her car. She had her possessions hanging up and laying out in the sun to dry after days of rain. I asked if she was safe there and she shrugged.

I asked if I could draw her and she said no. But I persuaded her to sit like she was before and I sketched her in pencil from the back. I showed her the drawing and she was pleased. I asked how she was set for money, and she said she didn’t need anything, because she has her SSI check and people help her out. She gets a shower from a local church. I gave her $10 anyway.

When I got home, I made a watercolor from my pencil drawing.

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A day in Port Orchard

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Port Orchard is a small town right on Sinclair Inlet. I imagine that in times past it was a charming waterfront community, with docks, marinas, boatyards, and lots and lots of boats. In recent years, the downtown area has fallen into neglect as businesses have moved away. The marinas are all gated and locked so they’re inaccessible to the public. The old boatyards are defunct because they don’t meet environmental guidelines. So there’s not as much for the painter to paint.

On Tuesday I spent the day prowling around the waterfront searching for good subjects to paint. I made 6 or 8 pencil sketches before deciding to paint an old shack on pilings. It’s surrounded by new development, but I guess they left it as a “picturesque” part of the past. Anyway, it’s a good subject.

shack

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Clouds over Dye’s Inlet

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Today I painted this scene for the tenth time. I figure that repetition can be a good teacher.

When I make a painting over and over, I gradually improve the various elements of it. In this case, it took me about eight tries before I got the clouds the way I want them ( some hard edges and some soft edges) and it took two more tries to get the composition right.

Here’s a few of the many attempts I made on this painting.

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

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Building a website

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Yesterday and today I built this website. It’s a big pain to build a website and it takes a long time. Last night I bought a website hosting package from Hostgator, but right away I found that I couldn’t transfer my domain to this site.

So I called their support line and actually had a good conversation with Nil (from India, I presume), and got that straightened out. This morning I tried to log in, but I realized I didn’t know my username and password, so I called tech support again and was helped by a young woman named Lee.

Then I spent the better part of the day modifying the template so it looks like an artist’s website. I browsed through a number of artist’s websites to get an idea of what I wanted. It’s a big headache to learn a whole new system. Lots of trial and error, over and over, until you learn.

Once I had the basic structure of pages and posts, I added lots of my watercolors and drawings. I think I’m pretty satisfied with it now. I hope it will show my art work so that anyone who’s interested can get an idea of what I do.

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