Ken's Sketch Journal

Collioure Church

2012-01-28T11:17:00.000-05:00

Port Vendres

2012-01-21T16:49:00.001-05:00

These sketches are from Port Vendres. I wanted to see this place because I love the watercolors of Charles Rennie Macintosh and he lived and painted here in his later years. There is a self-guided walking tour of the sites he painted so Valerie and I did that. You can see in the photo to the right that he painted the fort in Collioure too. It was fun to try to figure out exactly where he sat to paint. I think he took some artistic license where he needed to so it was cool to see how he handled that. The two sketches above are somewhat influenced by my walking tour.

Life is an Ink Painting

2012-01-03T12:48:00.001-05:00

“Life delineates itself on the canvas called time, and time never repeats; once gone, forever gone; and so is an act once done, it is never undone. Life is an ink-painting which must be executed once and for all time and without hesitation, without intellection, and no corrections are permissible or possible."

"Life is not like an oil painting, which can be rubbed out and done over time and again until the artist is satisfied. With an ink-painting any brush stroke painted over a second time results in a smudge; the life has left it. All corrections show when the ink dries. So is life. We can never retract what we have committed to deeds.”

D.T. Suzuki

The idea for this post comes from one of my favorite bloggers - James Gurney. He always has an interesting entry and usually every day! He's on the list on the right side of my blog.

Collioure

2012-01-02T13:18:00.000-05:00

Sketching Night

2011-12-22T09:40:00.001-05:00

In my 5x8 Handbook Journal.

Couvent des Célestins

2011-12-15T12:24:00.004-05:00

I've seen a few churches in my life and this one seems pretty unique to me. I did some research on this monastery because it seems so unusual to me (from an architectural point of view) but found relatively little information in my Google searches. Evidently it started out as a wooden chapel built around 1389 and then, in 1393, Pope Clement VII granted the Celestines the authorization to build their monastery there. In 1395 the first stone was laid and construction continued until 1424, when work was stopped due to "insufficient resources". The architect, or Master of Works, was a fellow named Pierre Morel. Anyway, by the 17th century,the "Couvent des Célestins" was one of the most sumptuous in Avignon, with one of the richest accumulations of art. Most of that bit of history comes from this website on Avignon.

But what interested me from an architectural perspective I never found. There are arches that were started but just end in space. The arched window in the upper left corner looks like something Louis Kahn would do - it's very modern. There are capitals to columns that are unlike any I have ever seen. If anyone comes across this blog entry and knows where I can learn more about the architectural treatment of this building, please do leave a comment or email me. I'd love to know more about it.

These watercolor sketches are in my 5x8 handbook.

Saint-Remy-de-Provence - Part 2

2011-12-06T13:00:00.000-05:00

In the 5x8 Handbook Journal...

Saint-Remy-de-Provence

2011-11-30T11:16:00.003-05:00

After the bike trip, we hung around in Gordes for a night and then took a taxi to St. Remy, where we stayed for 2 days. Looking back on my time there, I don't think I used it very wisely. There were lots of things we missed but maybe we just needed to chill for awhile after being on the bike for a week.

This sketch is from the Musée Estrine, Centre Interprétation présence Van Gogh. I went there after a long stretch of drawing a house just outside of the central town. The museum was pretty disappointing - there were no Van Gogh paintings or drawings and the other main exhibit was pretty awful. However, I did find this courtyard and got this sketch done just as they were closing for the day.

Gordes

2011-11-22T09:26:00.006-05:00

While biking in Provence we stayed in Gordes for a couple of nights. Gordes is a lovely old hillside village - often described as "one of the most beautiful villages in France". Before I left for France I had seen a wonderful book of sketches on the Provence region with drawings by Fabrice Moireau's that inspired my drawing above. They are pencil and watercolor sketches that are often "unfinished" in places. The effect is that eye is focused immediately on what the artist is most interested in describing and supported or framed with the added context of the uncolored pencil drawing. One afternoon, after a hard day of biking, I forced myself to take my art backpack up the hill from where we were staying and draw this. It took me a couple of hours to draw the scene and the next day I spent an hour or so painting it.

When I returned and saw Moireau's book, I was amazed to see that the sketch on the front cover was of the very same scene that I drew! You can see his drawing here. They are similar in many ways though he sketched from a slightly different location than I did. This is pencil and watercolor on 12x16 Canson watercolor block.

The Colors of Provence

2011-11-14T12:37:00.002-05:00

I loved Provence. I have always wanted to go and what better way to see it than on my bike. There is just no better way to see a region like this. The sketches above were mostly done in the small town of Gordes except for one on the top right which I did in Rousillon. Watercolor, pencil and ink in my 5x8 handbook journal.

Paris Institute of France with Riverboat

2011-11-07T10:17:00.004-05:00

When I walked by this scene, I was intrigued with the contrast of vertical and horizontal lines. The strong vertical of the dome and the strong horizontal of the long riverboat. This sketch never quite captured it - too many mistakes of color and perspective are getting in the way. Maybe I'll try again sometime. This is in my large Handbook Journal (8x10)and reworked some in Sketchbook Pro.

Paris Cafès

2011-11-01T09:29:00.001-04:00

In Paris, it is easy to just hang out at sidewalk cafès for hours drinking coffee, sketching, watching people, chatting. There are no shortages of these cafès in Paris - they're everywhere. On the day I sketched this scene, we woke late and I came down to a bakery around the corner from our hotel while Valerie did some work on the computer. The croissants were great, coffee delicious, and a nice mix of people came and went as the workers joked with the regulars. Valerie joined me as I was beginning to put color on the sketch. It was a great breakfast that managed to last until 1 o'clock in the afternoon.

Valerie enjoyed it so much that the next morning, while I was out drawing, she went there for breakfast again but found a completely different scene. The doors were closed, scaffolding was up, paint cans and tools everywhere. What a difference a day makes...

Paris

2011-10-30T22:21:00.004-04:00

I got hitched earlier this month - October 1st to be exact. One of the benefits to getting married is that you get to go on a honeymoon. And since we had a smallish wedding we decided to go big on the honeymoon and spend 3 weeks in France. We flew from Boston to Paris and arrived just before sunrise. We like to go economy when we fly - something about sitting in an upright position for 6 hours and having your head fall forward when you start dozing off just works for us. NOT.

Anyway, as we were wearily getting off the plane, it dawned on us that we couldn't check in to our room for another 8 hours. No problem. We dropped our bags off at the hotel and checked out our neighborhood. First stop was Notre Dame Cathedral where we did an audio tour. After that, we found a little cafe on Ile Saint Louis called Lutetia Cafe. We had lunch and a cafe au lait and I sketched the bookstore across the street but what I really enjoyed drawing in this sketch were the outdoor heaters.

Influential Person #1 - Daniel Quinn

2011-09-17T16:44:00.006-04:00

For awhile now, I've been thinking about doing a whole sketchbook full of portraits of people that have had an influence on my life and the way I think and act in the world. If you believe that by sketching or drawing or painting someone that you can come to understand them better (as I do), then this kind of an exercise seems like a good idea. So I started a list of all the people I could think of that have had a significant influence on me and started collecting some images from internet searches. Here is my first victim - Daniel Quinn.

Daniel Quinn wrote a book called Ishmael. At the time I read it, some 20 or so years ago now, it had a profound impact on how I thought of myself and my place in the world. From Wikipedia - "Ishmael is a 1992 philosophical novel by Daniel Quinn. It examines mythology, its effect on ethics, and how that relates to sustainability. The novel uses a style of Socratic dialogue to deconstruct the notion that humans are the end product, the pinnacle of biological evolution. It posits that human supremacy is a cultural myth, and asserts that modern civilization is enacting that myth." . The book forced me to challenge some assumptions I had grown up with and, in doing so, it changed the way I saw the world.

I'll be posting these portraits periodically and numbering them in the titles but they are in no particular order of importance in their influence.

Gazebo Sketch

2011-09-12T12:21:00.004-04:00

I woke early on this Friday morning and wandered over to the gardens, which I hadn't really seen since we drove in on Wednesday. There are over 125 gazebos on the property - most are wooden and built in the Adirondack style. This stone gazebo was sort of unique and fit onto a page I was doing with vignettes of these gazebos. I wanted to do a sketch without the black pen. It's a little different from my normal way of sketching but I actually kind of like it so look for more pencil and watercolor sketches. This little sketch is about 4 1/2" x 5 1/2".

Mohonk

2011-09-05T09:31:00.001-04:00

In my 5x8 PORTRAIT sketchbook Moleskine. It will have to do and although it's not great for watercolors, it's good enough...

The Lake House

2011-08-30T11:40:00.002-04:00

Sketched in my 5x8 Moleskine journal. I'm determined to do portraits in this landscape book!

Monhegan Island - Day 4

2011-08-25T15:53:00.000-04:00

This day we started on the Cathedral Woods Trail. I posted my first sketch of the day here. I went right from that sketch into this oil painting. The colors aren't quite right here. I need to figure out how to photograph these oil paintings better. I was pleased with this little 6x8 study. It was quick but caught the scene pretty nicely.

In the afternoon we hiked over to Squeaker Cove and I climbed over some difficult terrain to paint Blackhead. Again, the colors are agonizingly off from the actual painting. Not really any better or worse - just off.

Lunch Sketching

2011-08-24T06:32:00.000-04:00

A lunchtime sketch at Paolina's Way - a restaurant here in Camden that serves great local, organic food made with love. Valerie and I shared a Potato & Rosemary pizza. Very good...

Studying

2011-08-20T11:12:00.000-04:00

Waiting for Alex to come out of tennis, I sketched this scene quickly in my moleskine journal. 3 1/8 grip refers to the size handle Alex needs for his tennis racket...

Hubbard Hall

2011-08-16T17:00:00.001-04:00

This past weekend our painting class met at the Museum of Art on the Bowdoin campus and saw the "Edward Hopper in Maine" exhibit. All I have to say about that is if you can go, you should go.

I decided to go early and paint near the museum. I don't usually work this large but I've been enjoying working bigger lately in oils so I wanted to bump it up in watercolors. The actual size of this is 9"x15". I fussed with it a bit too much to be completely happy with the end result but I think the fussing actually goes in as part of what is learned for the next time.

Petition for Portrait Watercolor Moleskine!

2011-08-15T13:02:00.008-04:00

I've been drawing in a 5x8 Moleskine journal lately. And while I love the paper, I'm not real keen on the landscape format and it's amazing to me that Moleskine doesn't make this size journal in a portrait format with watercolor paper. I sent an email with this request to them 2 years ago and here is what they said:

"Dear Mr. Foster,Thank you very much for your mail and suggestions. We really appreciate the ideas of Moleskine's users. We will keep in mind your ideas for future updates.
Kindest regards,
Vittoria Cleva"

Not very promising is it? If you have time and you want this as much as I do, please send in a request. They just might do it if enough people ask.

Monhegan Island - Day 3

2011-08-12T15:37:00.001-04:00

Day 3 was another beautiful day on Monhegan. The top painting is 8x10 from Little Whitehead looking toward Blackhead. I was on the edge of a cliff while painting this scene. I had the idea to repeat the shapes of the tree in front of me along with the shape of the coastline. At about 2 in the afternoon the updrafts started, which threatened to pull my umbrella inside out, so I had to close it up and paint in the strong sun.

The bottom painting is 6x8 looking toward Manana (The small island adjacent to Monhegan). A storm was coming in and it got pretty exciting as the wind kicked up, the temperature dropped about 20 degrees, rain blowing in my face, lightening flashes in the distance, seagulls flocking and flying around me. Painting is cool.

Thought for the Day

2011-08-10T14:13:00.003-04:00

"The energy conveyed in a quick sketch far outweighs accuracy...in my humble opinion.
Curious how more diligence can be less productive."

John Wright

"It ain't sophisticated, but somehow it's exactly what sketching is supposed to be - fast, impressionistic and less than perfect."

Roger O'Reilly

Monhegan Island - Day 2

2011-08-09T11:01:00.002-04:00

This is "Washer Woman" near Lobster Point. Oil on 8x10 panel. I thought the horizon line turned out nicely and I had fun abstracting the rocks in the foreground. Beautiful day.

Painting Class - July 20th and 22nd

2011-08-04T09:36:00.005-04:00

This is a copy of a William Merritt Chase painting I did a couple of weeks ago. That Ron actually has a Chase painting is pretty cool and that he would bring it in to class for us to copy is beyond cool. I'm not that good at photographing these oil paintings but I think I actually like the photograph better than the painting in this case! I probably shouldn't admit this but the colors are warmer and richer in the photograph and I like that. However, in my defense, my painting is much closer to the original. Anyway, I like the thick/thin contrast of paint and feel like I'm making good progress. This is on a stretched 18x24 canvas. I didn't measure the original but it was more like 22x40.

Monhegan Island - Day 1

2011-08-02T09:18:00.005-04:00

Both of these paintings are small - 6x8 "studies" I will call them. I went to Colin Page's studio last night with a group of folks from my painting class and someone made the comment that "studies" are simply unsuccessful paintings. I thought that was funny/true.

These are my first paintings from Monhegan. We went to Fish Beach and set up our stuff and watched while Michael (Michael Vermette) did a painting demonstration with a palette knife and introduced us to Black Oil Wax medium. I did the top painting there and I was slipping and sliding all over the place using that knife. What a mess. Oh, and I should point out that we only had 20 minutes to do these "studies"!

The bottom painting was done after dinner. I went down to Lobster Cove at sunset and tried to integrate some palette knife with brush. The cool thing about that painting was the experience of doing it. The wind was intense and blowing me all over the place. I couldn't make a straight line to save my life. This is a life ring on a post. They have these at various places on the island because the currents are so strong they can sweep you out to sea. The photo to the left I found on the web - taken by TR Smith. That's what it looked like in real life.

Painting Class - June 29 - July 8

2011-07-27T12:55:00.001-04:00

I spent 3 sessions on this painting. I think it's the most "realistic" painting I've done. Really looking at color and value, shadows, highlights, etc. I worked on it for 2 sessions and was ready to move on to something else but Susan encouraged me to continue and push it a little further. I'm glad I continued to work on it.

Painting Class - June 15 and 17

2011-07-24T15:28:00.002-04:00

Same subject, different view but this time the bowl and pitcher were on a white paper towel so it lessened the colors being reflected up on to them. I like the apple here.

Painting Class - June 8 and 10

2011-07-21T16:44:00.000-04:00

It's been awhile since I posted anything from my painting class. This still life was fun to paint. Just shows how much color is in white!

Cathedral Woods

2011-07-18T11:08:00.002-04:00

Just back from a week on Monhegan Island. This is my only watercolor sketch. The rest were all oil studies on either 6x8 or 8x10 canvas panels.

This was done in the Cathedral Woods. I loved doing this sketch as I was on familiar ground here - both physically and artistically. When Alex was 4, 5, and 6 we would come to the Cathedral Woods and build Fairy Houses. He loved it and I have good memories of doing that with him. And after a week of struggling with oils, I needed to do something I felt familiar with and for me, that is watercolor with pen.

I'll post some oils soon...

Bananas Farnsworth

2011-07-06T10:29:00.004-04:00

Next week I'm heading off to Monhegan Island for a whole week of painting. A former watercolor instructor I had a few years ago is running a workshop called "The Race - Monhegan Studies". It's based on a story that Robert Henri (The Art Spirit) and a few other artist - George Bellows, Rockwell Kent, Leon Kroll, and Randell Davey - came to Monhegan in the early 1900's and made a gentleman's wager amongst themselves to see how many paintings they could do in a day in the weeks to come.They felt this was the best way to get acquainted with the island and experience as much of its uniqueness as possible in the short time they had. This became known as “THE RACE” and it created some of the most beautiful studies ever painted of Monhegan Island by these very same painters.

Now, I don't think I'm going to "race" but I hope to paint at some interesting locations and sharpen my plein air skills. See you in a couple of weeks!

New Pens

2011-06-15T09:05:00.000-04:00

I bought some new pens on the advice of another artist. I actually bought a set of 12 pens - Nexus Kohinoor. Kohinoor has a good name - I have done a lot of technical drawing with their technical pens. They have been exceptional. However, these pens are extremely inconsistent. Of the 12 that came in the set, only 4 worked. The supplier offered to send me another set free of charge and when they arrived, only 3 worked! It's too bad because I do like the ones that work until they stop working. Ah well, the search goes on for that perfect pen....

Painting Class - June 1 and 6th

2011-06-12T12:46:00.000-04:00

Ron wanted me to copy a painting of his for my next exercise. I worked on this for two classes - about 5 hours. I didn't get to some of the final details but I did OK with color, drawing, and edges. Oil on panel - 11x14.

Morrocan Gala

2011-06-07T13:12:00.001-04:00

More journaling pages from my 5x7 Handbook Journal. These Moroccan lamps hang from my canopy bed. They're cool when the candles are lit and they put out all these dots of light that move around the room - gives the room a nice romantic ambiance.

The people on the right side are there to hide a major screwup in drawing. I should major screwup more because I often like the outcome of fixing the screwup. That's where the art juice really kicks in. I love that. There are some strangers in there but there are also two of my roommates from college and the woman in front is Salvador Dali's wife, Gala.

Painting Class - May 25th and 27th

2011-06-04T18:25:00.000-04:00

I actually had 2 nights to complete this painting. That's almost 6 hours. It turned out pretty close in color and the drawing was fairly accurate too. It's no masterpiece and I don't think I want to paint that red blanket again anytime real soon but as study and exercise, I'm pleased with it and feel I'm making some progress.

Painting Class - May 20

2011-06-01T13:31:00.005-04:00

I think this is one of my best oil paintings to date. I like the way it all came together. I worked out overall values, drawing, color, and composition in a nice controlled but organic way and then started getting into the details at the right time. I didn't finish it but I think I could with the foundation I built for it.

Plein Air at the Lake

2011-05-30T13:20:00.005-04:00

This is sort of my first solo plein air effort. I went out to the lake, where I wouldn't be seen, and therefore embarassed. Not sure why I'm embarassed to be seen painting so badly but then I post it on my blog for all the world to see. Maybe I'm just certain I will improve. Oil on panel - 11x14

Painting Class - May 18

2011-05-28T13:08:00.002-04:00

This is kind of a bizzarre still life that Ron set up for a few of us. I didn't want to paint it at first but soon found myself immersed in the challenge of it. A reflective pig placed in this shell-like-something-or-other. The challenge I had with it was I kept getting into the details before I had the overall colors and values established. This is oil on panel (11x14)

Loosening Up

2011-05-26T08:49:00.001-04:00

Here is a quick sketch from my "Biggie" Sketchpad - 11x14

London Sketches

2011-05-25T15:14:00.000-04:00

Pencil and watercolor sketches for a change. I must have lost my pen...

Bali Memorial, London

2011-05-24T13:49:00.005-04:00

In 5x8 Blue Handbook Journal - digital color added in Painter 11

I didn't really know what this was until recently. I was in London over New Years and since I didn't want to visit the Churchill War Rooms with the group I was with, I found a nice place to sit and sketch - I thought. I sat on the little bench that is in the shadow of globe in the lower photo and started drawing. It was pretty empty when I started the drawing but within about 5 minutes there was a crowd of people taking pictures and I realized I was sitting in some kind of monument. I got up and left and walked across the street to a park and sketched the little scene on the right hand page. Today, going through my sketches, I googled the "peace dove globe" that I was drawing and found out what it really was. It is a memorial dedicated to the 202 people killed in Kuta, Bali in 2002, 28 of whom were Britons. There are 202 peace doves carved into this 5' round marble globe representing every person that died in that bombing.

I hate terrorism. It's the worst part of humanity. I don't understand it. It's worse than suicide, worse than murder, worse than lying, or cheating, or stealing. It is absolutely the worst thing a human can do. I also hate war. There are better ways to deal with conflict. This drawing on the left hand page means all sorts of things to me now and has all kinds of layers of feeling it didn't have before. I've been dealing with this heaviness for 2 hours now since I found the sketchbook drawing. It didn't seem finished so I worked on it digitally and in the working on it I discovered more about it and more about me. It doesn't feel right to pour it all out on this blog but I think it's one of the reasons I love drawing/sketching and painting. I learn more about the world and in that learning I discover more about who I am and what kind of person I want to be.

The Wheels on the Bus

2011-05-23T13:34:00.001-04:00

From my actual Sketch Journal! I've been posting so many paintings lately, I'll have to rename my blog. Well actually, the way I see it, they are all sketches or studies - a sort of record of my life/artistic growth. This was from a family trip way back in December. I was waiting with Alex outside of the tennis courts at Pomfret for Valerie and felt compelled to draw the school bus in the parking lot. I stood outside and finally my fingers got too cold to draw! This is in my 5x8 Handbook Journal.

Painting with Colin Page - Day 2

2011-05-21T11:23:00.010-04:00

Yellow Pepper (Oil on panel - 11"x8")

Two Oranges (Oil on panel - 11"x6")

2 Apples (Oil on panel - 8"x10")

Reflection on Green Apple (8"x10")

Day 2 was rainy so we painted in the studio at the Farnworth Art Museum in Rockland. Colin had set up some still lifes and started the class with a demo. The morning exercise wast work with a limited palette of Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow, and French Ultramarine Blue. Colin described these colors as a warmish palette versus the palette he limited us to in the afternoon when we only used Quinacradone Red, Lemon Yellow, and Prussian Blue. In addition to using a limited pallette, he also limited our brush size to a size 8 flat brush. Here is a short video of Colin introducing the afternoon exercise.

So it was kind of hard to tell at the end of the day when we stood back and looked at all of our paintings which pallette was which but kind of interesting that this limited palette pushed us toward finding the colors we needed. The top two paintings were done in the morning and the bottom 2 were done in the afternoon. It was a great class and I met some great folks and learned some great things.

Some other great things to note:

Put stroke down and leave it alone.
Paint faster in the long run by slowing down.
Clean brushes
Don’t fuss.
Stay with a big brush as long as you can.
Be intentional.
Show everyone how much fun you are having

Painting with Colin Page - Day 1

2011-05-20T10:35:00.006-04:00

Oil on panel (approx. 5"x7")

I've enjoyed Colin Page's work for a couple of years now. Colin is a plein air painter that lives in Camden (my hometown). When I saw that he was doing a plein air workshop, I signed up early. At that time (back in early March), I had never before painted with oils. The first day was overcast but not threatening to rain so we drove up to the Camden Yacht Club. He started the class with a demo and then we spent the rest of the morning on a value exercise. We painted in only black and white, dividing our 11x14 panels into 4 sections and then painting one panel in 2 values, one panel in 3 values, one panel in 5 values and the last panel in as many values as we needed to represent the scene.

In the afternoon we added ultramarine and burnt sienna to the palette to study both value and temperature. The studies above were done with this palette. The top one is a 3 value study and the bottom one was not limited in value - just color. At the end of the day we lined up all of our paintings and talked about them. You can see a short video of that here.

Painting Class - May 13

2011-05-19T10:28:00.000-04:00

A lesson in edges. They get fuzzier as the recede and sharper up close. This isn't really new information but it is amazing that I still need to remember it - and apply it! Oil on panel (12x16)

Painting Class - May 11

2011-05-18T10:21:00.003-04:00

Another exercise in getting the color right. Peppers are not easy objects - they absorb and reflect so much light and color plus they have this delicious transparency. I felt more successful with the watermelon. Oil on panel (12x16)

Greenville, Texas

2011-05-17T10:12:00.002-04:00

This painting study was done in my studio between classes and is from a photo I took a couple of months ago when I went down to Texas. As a kid, I used to wander around downtown Greenville because it is where my parents grew up and we would visit my grandparents there during the summer. I started a sketch of the Texan theater but ended up walking all over town photographing the places I used to go. This is an old grain mill and I love the composition of these elements. It was a frustrating study because it felt overwhemingly complex to deal with the detail in the foreground. I hope I come back to it. Oil on panel (11x14)

Painting Class - May 6

2011-05-16T10:10:00.001-04:00

An exercise in seeing color, mixing paint and putting it to canvas. Oil on panel (11x14)

Copy the Masters

2011-05-06T10:21:00.000-04:00

I showed the image of the old man I posted yesterday to Ron at Wednesdays class along with a reference photo I had of a John Singer Sargent painting - Old Man with Dark Turban. I told him this was the effect I was after in my painting. His suggestion was to copy the Sargent painting. I learned a lot from this painting and in the end, I was pretty happy with it. It is oil on toned canvas board (11"x14").

Painting Class - May 4, 2011

2011-05-05T08:57:00.001-04:00

The top painting is oil on toned canvas board (12"x16"). If you have been reading my blog for awhile you may recognize the image from a couple of years ago. The sketch I worked from can be found in this post. I did this the morning before the class and about 40 minutes into it I was very excited and happy with it. I proceeded to make a mess out of it but even so it was a successful study for me. I'll do this one again when I have more experience. It is definitely moving in the direction I want it to go.

The bricks, ahh - still in the brickyard but I am now using color on simple shapes. The effort here is to get the colors as I see them. This is oil on toned canvas board (11"x14").

Painting Class - April 29, 2011

2011-05-02T15:21:00.005-04:00

I'm still using just black and white paint. I haven't yet "graduated" to color. Here I'm working with more complex objects - a glass jar sitting on a yellow brick with a small dark blue vase - and painting the values I see. I painted on a wooden panel (12"x12") that already had a color painting on it so it was a bit confusing at first to find my own drawing but it began to emerge soon enough. It's just a study but I do like the way the color comes through from under the paint.

Painting Class - April 27, 2011

2011-04-29T14:36:00.011-04:00

I missed a few painting sessions because I was travelling (sketches to come) so this was my first class back since the April 13th class. This still life was a bit more complicated than the last one - with more colors, textures and complexity of shapes. Still working on the same issues though. I made the mistake of getting into the details before I got the overall values correct. One way to avoid that is to step back from the painting frequently. If it's "holding together" from a distance, move forward and find where it begins to "fall apart" and correct it until it comes together no matter how close or far away you are.

Painting Class - April 13, 2011

2011-04-28T14:32:00.001-04:00

This class I started painting in black and white - a simple still life. The challenge here is translating color into a grey scale and understanding what the values are in simple terms. Meanwhile, I'm also starting to understand how the paint feels, how much to use, and how much it takes of each "color" to get what I'm after. The video critique shows the first painting I did. Then I scraped all the paint off and did the painting below.

Bohemians

2011-04-13T09:27:00.002-04:00

A couple of months ago, a friend of mine walked into my studio with an interesting idea. She was looking for a new image to better represent the column she writes for a magazine. She was familiar with my sketches and thought I might be the "perfect artist". She even wrote an article about finding what would ultimately be the subject I drew for her - the Bohemian Waxwing. And there is even a little blurb in there about me along with a couple of other sketches from my blog. If you are interested, you can find her article here. And here are a couple of my earlier waxwing sketches that didn't quite make the cut:

Oil Paint!

2011-04-11T09:34:00.002-04:00

Friday started with Charcoal and ended with my first stab at painting with oil. The charcoal was a challenge in slowly building up the values and drawing together. I know the composition isn't that great but I was happy that I put it all where I wanted it loosely, then refined the drawing with lighter values off the neutral gound, tightened up the structure of the drawing and then got fairly close on the values. This little victory in charcoal earned me a brush and a pallette and I played with making my first grisaille. This is a monochrome underpainting - the drawing beneath the painting. I was pretty pleased with it, simple as it was. After, I completed it, I had a little extra time to mess it up so I started putting some color on it for fun and to experiment a little with this new medium.

And here is another video:

More Charcoal Drawing

2011-04-10T09:33:00.004-04:00

Wednesday, we started drawing more organic shapes - not just bricks. Here I sketched out a horse skull in charcoal. The values and their changes are more subtle than in the brick drawings we did the week before. My struggle in these drawings here was to let the drawing emerge in the right sequence. I found that I was trying to settle on values too quickly. I see a dark and I go for it, but later I discover I need to move that shape over a little to make the drawing work structurally. Watching Ron do it, he slowly (but quickly) builds the drawing and the values together at the same time. Here is a video from Wednesday's class where he describes how he does it.

Still in the Brickyard

2011-04-05T08:56:00.001-04:00

Still in the "brickyard" - the name the painters in the class have given to the part of the studio where the new people in the class begin. I am getting a lot out of this experience. Whereas most of my sketching and drawing so far has been identifying lines, edges, and planes (I have been doing architecture and building all my life) in these exercises I am focusing on values. Starting with a paper toned with charcoal, I am adding and subtracting to get the right values. Here is a video of Ron showing how he does it - check it out...

Boston to London

2011-04-01T10:45:00.000-04:00

These pages are from a trip to London at the end of last year. This is how far behind I am. I figure I'll sprinkle in some journal pages from the past. It's a major snow day today in Maine.

Back to Basics

2011-03-31T11:39:00.001-04:00

I'm pretty excited. I just started an oil painting class with Ronald Frontin last night. It doesn't start with painting though. It starts with charcoal. Over the coming months, I'm going to be writing about my experience and posting my drawings and paintings. Sort of documenting my artistic growth. Sound like fun?

This is the first step - drawing bricks - specifically, one dark brick and two white ones and a styrofoam sphere for fun. Ron says he drew these kinds of scenes for an entire year. He promises me that won't be my fate. First lesson was to work quickly and compositionally - then hone in on the details but always being aware that changing the value of one thing can affect the thing on the other side. Starting with a toned charcoal background made it easier to add and subtract values. The drawing took on a more sculptural quality for me. I think I'm going to like this.

Shane is Following

2011-03-30T08:41:00.001-04:00

I have been drawing a lot lately. Blogging not so much. I recently checked my followers list and it just hit 50. I should celebrate or something. I always check out the followers and usually follow back - because I'm just that kind of guy. Maybe that means I'm not such a great leader. Anyway, "Shane" is my number 50. I checked out his blog and it's very cool. Check it out. It's right here. Thanks Shane!

David

2011-03-27T18:13:00.003-04:00

Judgement Day

2011-03-10T10:54:00.001-05:00

Sketching the courthouse was interesting. I only had about 30 minutes until I had to pick up Alex. It was late afternoon heading for a sweet sunset but cold and raw. I parked behind a Verizon repair truck and hoped to sketch the courthouse through the haze of electrical wires, traffic lights, cell tower, and the truck with the bucket. I was 5 minutes into the sketch when the Verizon truck pulled away and that is when all hell broke loose. The wind started blowing, clouds rolled over, snow started flying, people that were out for a stroll were caught completely off guard. Kids heading home from school started running with their backpacks bouncing on their backs. I turned on the wipers and tried to see what I was drawing. It was crazy for about 20 minutes and then it was gone as quickly it came. The sun reappeared, the pace returned to normal, and I drove on to get Alex.

Sometymes Why

2011-03-09T09:53:00.001-05:00

I'm trying to kickstart an engine here...

Self Portrait

2011-03-08T17:09:00.001-05:00

Interior Sketch

2011-01-18T11:40:00.004-05:00

I don't often post work projects but since that seems to be all I've been doing lately, I thought I'd put one up. I did this sketch using a couple of softwares - Google Sketchup for modelling the space and then Autodesk's Sketchbook Pro for the sketch drawing. This one is for a client out on Vinalhaven - a small island community off the coast of Maine.

Happy New Year

2010-12-27T13:33:00.001-05:00

This is my new years resolution, in not so many words...

Graffiti

2010-12-22T09:19:00.001-05:00

I noticed last night that Facebook has this cool App called Graffiti. It's a pretty simple drawing app where you can control the width of your lines and the color and and opacity. Once you're done, you can post it to a friend and the cool thing is that it replays it for anyone to see how the drawing was done. This is my first one - mostly just messing around. Try it out - it's fun!

Biking in Kyoto

2010-11-27T15:01:00.000-05:00

On our last day in Kyoto we rented bikes. We rode to Nijo Castle and walked around/sketched, went to a sword shop. Then we rode over to the International Manga Museum. I wish I had more time there. There were thousands of books spanning the past century and hundreds of people reading Manga books. It looked more like a library than a museum. There were some amazing figurines and drawings on display there.

Anyway, I did this sketch the other day from a photo I took on the bike ride that day. The photo was of a street scene and this sketch is a little scene way up high off the street. I didn't really notice it at the time, most people probably don't - it's just more visual noise in the city. But it grabbed my attention and now it has yours!

Pemaquid Lighthouse

2010-11-12T15:21:00.001-05:00

The Tykona

2010-11-11T11:33:00.001-05:00

This is one of those sketches that didn't quite turn out the way I hoped it would but I still like it for some reason. It's kind of hard to tell what it is unless you were there. This is a cruising boat at Migis Lodge on Sebago Lake - about an hour NW of Portland. It's a 1936 wooden Chris-Craft known as Tykona.

Anyway, I had this idea to fill some waterbrush pens with Doc Martins Ink and try painting with them so this was an experimental sketch with that technique. The inks are pretty intense and saturated so I found I had to water them down which I did by brushing some water, brushing with my ink brush, then mixing it with my plain water brush. I think I need to keep working on it...

New York City

2010-11-08T12:25:00.001-05:00

I went to the US Open back in September. I got to see Roger Federer and Raphael Nadal play some amazing tennis (not against each other unfortunately, but in separate quarter final matches) I even ate breakfast at the table next to Roger Federers babies. They are very cute but wow, they can cry. I did this sketch the very first morning from Lenny's, a diner on the corner of 2nd and 77th.

Lake Megunticook Cabin

2010-09-11T12:03:00.001-04:00

Day 14 - Tokyo to Boston

2010-08-29T06:04:00.000-04:00

Day 13 - Tokyo

2010-08-28T06:01:00.000-04:00

Day 12 - Kyoto

2010-08-27T05:55:00.000-04:00

Day 11 - Kyoto

2010-08-26T05:51:00.000-04:00

Day 10 - Kyoto

2010-08-25T05:47:00.000-04:00

Day 9 - Beppu

2010-08-24T05:45:00.002-04:00

Day 8 - Beppu

2010-08-23T05:42:00.000-04:00

Day 7 - Matsuyama

2010-08-22T05:39:00.001-04:00

Day 6 - Matsuyama

2010-08-21T05:35:00.001-04:00

Day 5 - Koyasan

2010-08-20T05:32:00.001-04:00

Day 4 - Nagano

2010-08-19T05:23:00.001-04:00

Day 3 - Nagano

2010-08-18T06:23:00.002-04:00

At just about every temple we visited there was a priest or some official who would provide a calligraphic signature for that temple for a small cost - usually about 300 yen. Alex and I made a game out of seeing who could collect the most signatures (he won, of course). I like the way the sketches work with the signatures. There are more of these to come.

Day 2 - Tokyo to Matsumoto

2010-08-17T06:20:00.003-04:00

Day 1 - Arrive in Tokyo

2010-08-16T05:55:00.002-04:00

(This is Ken and Alex's Excellent Adventure in Japan - our first overseas trip together and it started in Tokyo. The next couple of weeks I plan to post my sketches from this trip.)

My son, Alex, has wanted to go to Japan for a long time - at least since he was 4 or 5. So, when the opportunity came along for us to travel it was the obvious first choice for our first overseas trip. I had been on a couple of tours with Gap Adventures - Thailand and Ecuador - so when I found a tour that was featuring Temples, Castles, and Hot Springs I signed us up for it. The trip we took follows along with this itinerary from Gap.

Tokyo

2010-08-01T18:24:00.004-04:00

First sketches from Japan. The one on the left was done by Alex at the first restaurant in Tokyo near the Shinjiku Star Hotel. It is a sketch of a tile on the wall in the room we ate in with the tour group. The sketch on the right was from outside our hotel looking across the street. Alex and I both couldn`t sleep so we wandered the streets of Tokyo from 3 to 5 in the morning exploring and started sketching when it got light.

We`re visiting the castle in Matsomoto today and then visiting Zenkoji Temple later.

Trek Across Maine Camping

2010-07-28T12:08:00.000-04:00

Last month Alex and I did the Trek Across Maine - a 180 mile, 3 day bike ride with about 2500 other riders that benefits the American Lung Association. We rode a Trek tandem and camped out along the way. This sketch shows our campsite at the University of Maine Farmington. We camped on the soccer fields. The nice thing about this spot is that it's close to the river where the swimming is fantastic after a long day in the saddle. Alex helped out with this sketch and colored in the tents in the background. It was a fun 3 days and he did awesomely.

We're headed to Japan tomorrow with sketchbooks in hand for 2 full weeks to explore mountains, cities, hotsprings and temples.

Camden Harbor Sketching

2010-07-14T21:12:00.000-04:00

A sketch from down at the harbor in Camden. The night before, Alex had some friends over for a "sleepover" but it ended up they were awake all night. Amazing... Anyway, after the last kid left on Sunday, I escaped for some solitude and sketching.

Farewell to a Boat

2010-07-07T16:33:00.001-04:00

I found a new watercolor journal a couple of weeks ago at Rockport Blueprint. It's a hand-book journal 8x10. This is my first sketch in it.

I rode my bike down to Rockland on Wednesday afternoon to sketch near the waterfront. I stopped here at the Apprenticeshop Boatyard and found a nice spot away from the wind. I loved the color of the front boat. After an hour or so, a young man and woman arrived and began working on it - evidently prepping it for being put in the water the next day. Awhile later, an older man approached and started chatting with them. I gleaned that he had just sold them the boat and I could overhear him describing the boat's peculiarities in the water. But I think mostly he had stopped by to bid farewell. To say goodbye to a boat that meant something to him.

As he was leaving, he stopped and looked over my shoulder. He asked if I was going to sell this painting. I said no, that it was going to just stay in my sketchbook. I said I'd be happy to scan it and email it to him. He gave me his card and I emailed it to him this morning.

Curtis Island

2010-07-04T16:22:00.001-04:00

An Island in Maine

2010-06-29T09:58:00.003-04:00

Well, it's a kitchen island actually.And just a quick sketch...

Schooner Sketch

2010-06-17T09:05:00.002-04:00

About Town

2010-06-11T09:48:00.002-04:00

Downtown

2010-06-08T08:50:00.003-04:00

Kaki and Poppy

2010-06-07T08:49:00.002-04:00

Poppies

2010-06-04T09:55:00.003-04:00

Camden Sketches

2010-06-03T12:59:00.009-04:00

The Half-a-House

2010-05-21T11:28:00.004-04:00

This is an interesting little project I am working on in Rockport, Maine. This house use to be a full cape but about 30 years ago (so the story goes) two brothers inherited the house and decided to split it - literally. One brother took his half of the house across town and the other one lived here. It's less than 1000 SF and either needs to be torn down or completely renovated.

The sketch on top was done on my Cintiq tablet. I designed the porch addition in Sketchup, a cool 3D modelling program from Google, then rendered it in another program named Piranesi. This program is amazing. It's like Photoshop in 3D. Each pixel in the exported epix file from Sketchup has material and distance-in-space information so you can just lock the planes or material and paint away without worrying about masking areas. Entourage such as cars, people, plants, etc comes into the drawing at the proper height depending on where in the image it is placed. It is really fast. This sketch was done in about 2 hours and I hit the undo button a lot! Once I was happy with it, I brought it into Artrage for some final tweaks.

I wish the renovation was going to be that easy!