Painting demo at Westlake Village Art Guild

Last week, the Westlake Village Art Guild invited me to do a painting demo at their wonderful facility in Thousand Oaks, California. I was the guest demonstrator during their monthly meeting, and did a watercolor scene with a pond and background buildings.

It was an honor and great fun to paint for more than 75 artists! My painting came out well and was raffled off. I received a warm welcome and my art was very much appreciated! I’d like to thank Juliette, Craig and Bruce for a wonderful evening that included an excellent dinner. A very well organized group, very friendly, especially Dickie, a former student of Millard Sheets and Milford Zornes, who was very effusive with her compliments!

On top of that I sold three paintings. (You can see more of my paintings here.)

I have added a new Workshops + Demos + Lectures page where I’ll publish all upcoming classes and appearances. You will find it on the upper right hand corner on the homepage. (Comments are not enabled on that page; please contact me at eber.frank@gmail.com directly.) Please check back often for a demo near where you live!

Intriguing interior, night scenes

This one is called “The study”.

The wifey thought this painting was a bit creepy… I don’t think I agree, although I have an idea why she would think that. As you can see, I kept the colors mostly on the warm side. I was actually thinking beforehand that if I use many cool colors here, the picture could turn gloomy or “creepy’.”The only cool colors are on the figure itself, everything around him is a mix of yellow ochre, burnt sienna, burnt umber, cad yellow, cad red and one of Daniel Smith’s flagship colors, quinacridone rose. A bit like the overly popular Alizarin crimson, but better!

This is a two wash painting, believe it or not. That basically means your first wash has to have some “oomph” to it. Stay too weak and you’ll never get any strength in a piece like this. Limiting yourself to just a few washes has the added benefit of never losing the luminosity of the white paper underneath, something that happens easily when the glazes add up.

Interiors and night scenes both require a fair bit of pigment, water and confidence. It is almost “alla prima’ painting. You have to work boldly and take big risks. Not for the faint hearted, since it could easily turn into one for the garbage can…

I tried to keep it mysterious, not many shapes are “spelled out”. The eye of the viewer is in demand! I was hoping that even the figure would be sort of no descript, sexless, but there’s something guy-like about him. He could be on the phone, or just thinking about how his life is going lately.

Notice that all the lines go to him, the shadow behind, even the piano sort of points into his directions. The intention is to make the viewers eyes rest on him. The lit up paintings above him are pretty well worked out and I am afraid I may have overdone it? I hope not, because the real focal point is, of course, the person in the armchair even though he is barely there. Also, the lightest light behind the figure is the white of the paper. Thanks for looking!

Five against One on Beryl Ave., Redondo Beach

Five against One on Beryl Avenue, Redondo Beach (2012)
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How interesting would it be if traffic could be brought to a standstill by those guys? In a city like this one, where the automobile is the undisputed king? Wishful thinking… *Nothing* will bring traffic to a standstill in LA, except of course, traffic itself…the ultimate irony? There could be another blog post right there.

Today, I would like to talk a bit about composition. At first glance, this painting is a simple H composition: something on the left, something on the right, and the shape of the distance connecting both. Upon closer inspection, you will notice that I have actually tried to make this a Z composition. The shadow in the foreground is leading the viewer into the picture, going diagonally to what I think is the focal point, namely the guy in the plaid, red shirt and the car under the tree.

From there, the shadow points left via the squatting skaters and onto the left side of the picture, finishing at the top of the building. The light post and the wires are taking you back to the right side and out on the top. Better yet, the eyes will hopefully remain in the picture frame and are being taken back down to the focal point by the transformer pole. Basically, I was trying to create a bit of a path through this piece.

You can see I have thought quite a bit about this. Does it work? I don’t know, it’s for you to judge, but I think the key is to think about what’s going on in our painting *before* we start painting! Once we pick up a paintbrush, it is too late to figure all this out.

This is a street here in Redondo Beach, leading down to the ocean. About six brushstrokes signify that  there is an ocean. I also simplified the left side with the warmer buildings and all the cars except the right one. What is suppose to be the more distant part of the city is really just an abstract. The less you do, the better it is! Watercolor works that way!

Windy workshop Palm Desert!

The powers of nature are unpredictable! Palm Springs, Palm Desert or Indian Wells sound like the perfect destinations for this time of the year! Warm, balmy temperatures, plenty of sun…. Unless there’s a 60-mile an hour windstorm blowing through!! Just my luck!

The workshop went well (it was indoors), but needless to say any attempts at plein air painting were literally blown away! I made my way to Palm Springs to take pictures instead and ended up painting this piece in my hotel room!

Maybe it was sort of divine intervention that it turned out really nice! I particularly like the cars and buildings on the right, a sort of melting affair of shapes! After applying the wash, I just dropped water and strong pigment here and there, hoping for the best..

Sometimes it works…sometimes it doesn’t!

It definitely says “windy”, and that was the goal. I was planning on putting a figure on the left side, but didn’t leave room for it Overall it’s ok, I think. It doesn’t necessarily need it. I wanted to put someone crossing the street, leaning into the wind, but I was told the painting works as it is… That’s ok with me! The less you mess with it after it’s done, the better it is anyway!

Thank you Deb, Venus Art Supply, for a wonderful workshop and taking good care of me! It was very cool to learn that there are more than 200 watercolor painters in their local art association. I just have to make my way back there again soon!

Five and nine

I know this is a strange title, but it’s easy to figure out why I named it that. I am exploring my new idea with urban skate boarders some more. I have had some great comments for some of these works and even sold one in a gallery setting at this year’s Higbee 6 x 6 exhibition.

I also like the long format, I think it’s always good to try and do new things. The format isn’t really all that new, but I think it works really well with an off-beat subject matter like this. I also like that I have found a way to combine my beloved taxis and the skaters!  They do live in the same environment after all, and I am wondering now why didn’t think about this before!

As for the painting process, I started with a grey wash in  the sky, just to take away the white of the paper. After that I painted an “underwash” for all the buildings and into the foreground fairly strong. The goal is to finish the foreground in the first wash, which usually never works out. It is easy to be too light, since it is one of the first things we’re painting and we only have the white of the paper to compare it to…

Colors I used were cobalt blue, cobalt violet, yellow ochre, ultraviolet and cobalt turquoise and, believe it or not, some cad yellow and cad red. I made sure I used the most toxic colors available… Ok, bad joke…. On a serious note, I made sure most of the pigment is mixing itself on the paper and took great care not to create too many hard edges. That’s one of the more challenging  things to do as a watercolorist, in my humble opinion.

Thank you for looking, I sure will do more of these…here’s a detail shot, the guy in the middle is connecting both sides of the street with his pose, I think that works quite well!