I loaded up my oil painting gear and my small pastel kit and was at the Lanai Lookout on our Eastern shore by about 4:30 PM. Folks were already assembled to watch the much-anticipated moonrise over the ocean, and so I was fortunate to grab a parking spot, and from there hiked with my gear about a quarter mile across the old basalt flows to a high point that I’d decided in advance was a good place to work from.

From previous posts, you may know that I try to define my mission in advance. By this I mean that I decide whether I’m going sketching (looking for a general effect), making a study (fact-finding), or doing a finished painting.  Since this was a sketching trip, I brought small oil primed panels along, as well as pastels, hoping to capture colors that would be of help later. Because of the brevity of the sunsets here in Hawai’i, I already realized that seizing any shapes, except the simplest ones, would be more than I should expect.

As the wind was quite strong on my location, I opted for oil, and I didn’t get anything terribly fancy, but was pleased with having caught the general color mood.  I worked as hard as I could, loving every second of it.  The sketch (9 x 12″) was done with Liquin as a medium, which I rarely use outdoors in Hawai’i, but it helped in this case.  This small piece will serve as an important reminder of the color I experienced for anything I do later in the studio.  

By the time this oil sketch was done, it was too dark for more painting, so I hiked out, loaded up my gear and backtracked in my car to another favorite piece of shoreline about a mile back.  For perhaps the next hour, I sat on the shoreline making mental notes of the rocks, the action of the ocean against them, and the effect of the light, which gradually become much cooler as the evening turned to night.  Drawing was hopeless, but I felt that I had formed a pretty strong mental picture of the values and colors.

The following evening, I returned in the very late afternoon with my pastel sketchbook to make some quick sketches, such as this one.

I didn’t have the moonlit effect in quite the same manner as the previous night, but had already fixed in my mind what the effect was, and began the following morning to produce this pastel study, 14 x 18″, in-studio from my sketches and memory/imagination.

This should serve me pretty well if I decide to work up a more involved and larger  painting from the experience.  Right now, I’m able to envision a large pastel or something along the 30 x 40″ size in oil.

untitled 12 x 16″ oil

It’s surprisingly one of the most constantly transitioning subjects I’ve ever painted, which is odd because all of the shapes are as stable as they come. One would imagine I might claim that about the ocean, which certainly doesn’t sit still, but this mountain takes the prize.  It’s the light and color that is absolutely schiz-o  from one minute to the next.

Anyway, I find it as challenging as can be to find the color notes. Because of the difficulty, I again find myself experimenting with a method of organizing my color mixing…creating a large middle tone for for an area I wish to paint (say the mountain) and bring touches of color around this base that can be dragged into it (scrambled a bit); light from above the mixture,  dark from below the mixture, warm from the right side, cool from the left.  It’s a game, but The Idea is to be systematic in adjusting the values and temperatures, which I find gets me using more paint (a good thing for me), and hopefully lends a more decisive and cleaner look to the painting.

This is the idea, if you can make any sense of it:

The painting surface is one of my beloved homemade lead-primed panels, and it’s perfect for the kind of painting I’m doing, which is tiled-on notes with straight paint over a warm wash.

Can’t wait for tomorrow A.M. to get cracking on this again.

Kohinoor manufactures the sanguine crayon I used on this, which I place in a brass holder and sharpen with a beautician’s callous remover.  It’s got a slightly waxy binder, barely noticeable, and  works fine for what I want to do.

My first step is to lay down a light tone with broad and easy strokes, which I rub loosely into the paper (a warm straw-colored Canson Mi-Teintes, the non-golfball-textured side)  with either a bit of soft, unprimed linen canvas or  paper towel, and then develop the drawing working from the outside-in, getting the big outer shape of the head established as best as possible, and gradually bringing the entire drawing along from there.

The longer I can resist adding the features of the face, just working with the underlying forms ( kind of like the look of a nylon stocking over a bandit’s head!) the better.  My own taste is for the drawing to emerge somewhat loosely and casually from the paper, not suffered over to the point of being hard on the eyes of the beholder, if possible. I’ve seen drawings that have that sense of growing out of the page effortlessly, somewhat rarely I admit, and I’d like to get that sensibility into my drawings. I’ve used the term “casual elegance” to try and describe it, but that’s not sufficient.

If I ever get it, I won’t need to explain it. We’ll both know I think.

In the darks, moistening the tip of the crayon slightly gives a richer note.  Removing highlights with a kneaded eraser is the last step. This pose was a little more than an hour, and is carried about as far as I wish to go with it as far as rendering.  I always want to get a better expression though. Any fatigue of the model should never show.

Everyone in our area knows this location from the film ” From Here to Eternity” where Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr made their big splash rolling around in the surf, as well as shipwreck scenes from “Pirates of the Carribean 4.”

For myself, the attraction has always been found in contrasts; darks and lights, colors, fluid/dynamic water played against static volcanic forms, an element of real danger on certain winter days, and a sublime beauty at certain moments, where the water is almost still and the entire cove becomes covered in shadow near dusk.

Halona Cove: The First Step, watercolor on paper, 22 x 30″,  framed size 31 x 39″

The painting is framed as of  today,  and will go on public display the first of April.

I’ve been pursuing a more seasoned and sensitive description, allowing for more construction and “thinking out loud” with line.

I’m sticking with charcoal and carbon pencils for a few months, and I’ll possibly go into a Cont’e crayon-mode or other red chalk next. They have possibilities I haven’t explored enough. I make it a habit to work with a single medium for a several month stretch, and then rotate to another so that by the end of a year I may have worked in three or four drawing media. So much of progress is showing up, being energized and diligent, but without going stale. Switching up mediums like that helps, but it doesn’t affect structural or perceptual problems.

I’m still not (often enough) seeing or taking-in the whole form at once…something I’ve been able to do on occasion in the past.  By this I mean seeing the part, an arm or whatever, and it’s place in the entire figure almost simultaneously and drawing it that way. Tricky stuff, but I know there’s a groove where I’ve managed it before, and when it happens it’s where you know you ought to be.

I’m thinking that each drawing, good or bad, is a brick in the wall of your experience.  It’s the sharpening of the eye and refining one’s shortcomings that really matters with these, a nice drawing is the by-product. Not that I don’t shoot for a nice drawing each time. I do, but I find my own criteria for that drawing has changed a bit.  I like chatter in my drawings now, and enjoy seeing bits of construction showing about, maybe even a finger print or two.

I found myself telling a student last night that one shouldn’t “speak in monotone”, that is, draw with a line that has no inflection or personality.  I was surprised that analogy came up, but I think it’s helpful.

There’s a nice season where one measures diligently, renders exactly, and goes as far as they can that way, as far as their talent, training, and knowledge can take them.  I wish it could last forever sometimes, because to get buried in a drawing for hours, for it’s own sake,  is fun. But, now I need to make use of what skills I may have obtained to make things that find their way into the marketplace, my objectives being in paint these days.

Thankfully,  I have the blessing of regular weekly classes and motivated students where I can maintain some edge to those skills, an endless process I thoroughly enjoy.

These photos are from our fifth session together, where I did a drawing demonstration.  I’ve also managed to include demonstrations in watercolor and pastel as well as oil;  the basic information is much the same for all three.   The students have risen to the challenges each day, and it’s been a pleasure for me to teach.

My usual big advice, to work from the outside shape inward, and from general to specific, is scrawled across the top of this drawing. My friend Linda Crank has a offered a great quote from Frank Benson, the great Boston painter of figures in sunlight, which beautifully elaborates the point I try to make.  His words:

‎”If you make things right in the order of their importance, you will never get into trouble. This business of fussing around with the details before you have gotten the masses in correctly is what makes for a poor picture.” – Frank W. Benson

It’s the sort of thing that takes thought, time and effort to comprehend, but once it does, a light comes on that changes everything.

The class will be expanded to eight sessions, and repeat itself over the summer months.  Let me know if you wish to reserve a spot.

Orchid 8 x10″      oil on panel

untitled study,  9 x 12″  watercolor

I’m thinking of documenting the progress on the large piece, so if I get that decided( it’s a mental leap to stop and shoot everything) I’ll have something for you to follow.

But recently I’ve been looking to improve on some of this because there is an obstacle within my approach, that of becoming overly-occupied with the purely visual (which I do love) and not allowing enough consideration to other matters.  Working with the subject constantly before me has at times led to some poor decisions in composition, color, and emphasis over the years.  The more I look at the paintings that I admire, the more I see my future progress in terms of designing more unique and thoughtfully composed paintings, if I am able to.

What’s changing

The approach I’m adapting is to create paintings by starting with an imaginary sketch of what I think is an ideal design.  From this point, I gradually gather my other resources (drawings and color sketches done at the location) to combine and develop a third and final work. This tips the see-saw in favor of a structured and inspired composition, and away from relying on finding a decent arrangement  in nature where one may not really exist. This final amalgamation may be painted in-studio over time, with the advantage of the color sketch done from nature providing actual color notes and shapes.  This is different than relying on photography, because I’ll have mixed the color combinations before when sketching and will not have to skirt the yawning trap of reliance on photographs.

In case you were wondering, this is nothing new; it’s actually an older approach than the generally  impressionist approach I’ve been cultivating for so long. As I find myself getting older, I’m looking  to make use of all of my accumulated experiences painting before nature, but also to be able to direct my energy to the larger, more carefully composed paintings that can’t be done in the wind and weather.

This small (5 x 7″) watercolor sketch, based on a scene I’ve painted before, is an arrangement that I thought I’d like to impose on the actual subject.  It’s from my mind’s eye, an arrangement of simple shapes and colors that I think are better than what I see at the location. This allows me to move shapes and emphasize what I find helps the painting. All of this is studio work done in advance, employing a little daydreaming and composing that I can’t do when I’m outdoors, primarily chasing the light effect.

Later, I went to the actual location and painted this oil sketch (9 x 12″, below)  This contains enough factual information, like color of water, shadows, rocks,  to combine with the imaginary sketch above for the composition of a final piece, which may be in watercolor, oil, or pastel, and at any size I decide.

This will be a great advancement if I can make it work.   I’m planning a full-sheet (22 x 30″)watercolor from these two resources which would be quite difficult to achieve outdoors. A small scale version of the final piece in pencil is today’s project, and I may get to the final piece later this week.  I’m enthused!

I’ll keep you posted.

We had a very nice turnout of around 16 eager students, my terrific model Tina as our first subject, and all arranged on the beautiful, tree filled acreage overlooking Diamond Head.  We got to work right away with sketches in various mediums, and a fine time was had by all.

The small (8 x 10″) sketch above was my introductory oil demonstration piece, hammered out a bit at a time over our three hours together.  Can’t wait for next week, it’s too much fun.