Posts made in May, 2009

"New Mexico Adobe" by Lesley Spanos. Oil on Raymar panel, 12 x 9". Copyright ©2009, all rights reserved.

I can’t seem to get enough of these art challenges. They so neatly answer the question of “what should I paint next,” while forcing me to explore subjects I wouldn’t normally choose. This painting is my answer to the Wet Canvas Southwest and Western Art forum challenge for May. The photo of an old adobe outside the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico was kindly provided by Diane Cutter. (Check out Diane’s really cool woodcut of Karin Jurick’s dog Jack! It was completed after the deadline, so it didn’t get posted on the DSFDF blog.)

Here are a few images taken along the way:

I toned the canvas with shades of yellow and red acrylic, then sketched in some rough guidelines with ink.

Here I’ve started painting in oils, keeping with the orange theme. I make a mental note to myself to keep the shadows warm and the light cool.

If you’ve been following my blog, you already know that I’m an indecisive painter. I don’t start with a plan, and I don’t know what looks “right” until I see it. I’m the artist equivalent of the woman who tries on two dozen different outfits (some several times) before choosing one, or moves the living room furniture repeatedly to see what feels right. My paintings have to try on a few looks before I know which one I can live with.

For starters, I’ve tried painting what I saw in the reference photo, a series of white clouds. I liked the sky in the photo, but my version lacks punch. Really, it’s about as interesting as a bag of cotton balls. I paint it out and try…

…a simple cloudless sky. Which is even more boring than the previous version. You’d think it would be easy  to do a sky like this, and it probably is for many artists. Not me. Mine has that awful chalky look (in spite of using zinc white), and I can’t get the color right. I wish I had a tube of cerulean blue.

So, in frustration, I paint it out again…

…and slash in the hint of a distant storm. Hey, I like that! It makes the foreground pop. Okay, it’s a keeper.

See that mesa to the right? I like how it turned out, too!

And now it’s gone. I almost wish I hadn’t painted those trees over it. Parts of the mesa where supposed to peek through the leaves, but I got a little heavy handed with the foliage.

Then again, maybe it’s better this way. The composition was a little odd before, with a mesa on either side and a house in the middle. Now it has more of a diagonal flow.

Originally I wanted to paint a couple of saddled horses under the tree to give it that old west look, but I chickened out. I think I’ll just sign it and move on before I ruin it!

"Madison Avenue" by Lesley Spanos. Oil on Gessobord panel, 6 x 6". Copyright ©2009, all rights reserved.

Here’s another painting for Karin Jurick’s Different Strokes From Different Folks painting challenge.

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The reference photo. Photograph by Karin Jurick, copyright © 2009, all rights reserved.

Karen tells us that our location is the corner of Madison Avenue and 39th Street in New York City. This is useful information, because it allows me to look it up in Google Maps using Street View.

I can’t paint from a photo unless I can imagine myself inside the scene, and Google Street View helps me do that. I can see what’s behind me, up, down, on the next block, etc. I can even see that beyond that red awning there’s a McDonald’s in case I want some virtual high octane coffee while I paint. Photos are never as good as being there, but Street View is the next best thing. (BTW, if you haven’t seen it yet, check out Bill Guffey’s Virtual Paintout challenge. They paint – with Google’s blessings – from Google Street Views.)

By looking at the Google map, I can see that we’re facing north, and the time of day is probably – as I’d guessed – morning. That will help me make my color choices. Coincidentally, the Google Street View image looks like it was taken about the same time of day that Karin took her photo.

For comparison, I’ve also included Karin’s original reference photo. It’s the same scene, the same size, yet see how different these two images are? Photos DO lie! Always. Neither of these photos is completely accurate. The Google image was taken with a series of wide angle lenses, creating all sorts of distortion and making distances appear much longer than they really are. My guess is that Karin’s was taken with a bit of a telephoto, compressing distances unnaturally. The truth can be found somewhere between these two images.

If I had time, I could try to correct the distortion by drawing the buildings using perspective. But I’m in a rush, and more attracted to the cars than the skyline (I like colorful shiny things!), so I’ll focus just on the lower right corner of the reference for my painting.

Here are a few photos I took along the way:

Hmmm… what color to tone the background? Well, the tail lights are my favorite part of this photo, so let’s try “tail light color.”

The background toning is acrylic. From here on out, I’ll be using oils.  I didn’t want to get too fussy, so I’m drawing directly on the panel with a brush and Mars Black oil color.

(Note: The next few in-progress images are were taken in the studio with a camera at night, and I didn’t take the time to color correct them well. Too much red, too little blue.)

The painting progresses, and I can’t make up my mind about the figure on the street corner…

A woman striking a “casual” pose?

A businessman on his way to work?

An indistinct cluster of people?

Yeah, I think I’ll go with that last one.

This final image was done on the scanner and color-corrected so it’s truer to the original painting.

"Just Plane Sketching" by Lesley Spanos. Gouache on paper, 5 x 4". Copyright ©2009, all rights reserved.

Nothing special here, just a little gouache sketch from recent travels to prove that I’m still alive.  This was what I saw outside the window as I ate lunch in a small airport. The plane was gleaming in the early afternoon sun, and the palm fronds were swaying in a hot breeze. It was all very exotic. I didn’t even begin to do the scene justice, but by painting it, I’ve fixed it in my memory forever.