Tag Archives: Cambria

Dealing with the heat!

What to do if the temperatures reach 100F (38C) or more? Is it still possible to paint in watercolor? Well, as the old saying goes: ‘they paint watercolor in England and NOT in Egypt’, I’d say forget about it. It would be like trying to go for a run in a sauna. Something like that.

I went to the coast instead and painted in oils. We had a perfect 65F or 15C as a high and I actually had to wear a jacket while painting. I loved it. The good news is, Highway 1 has re-opened last week, so it is possible to drive up to Big Sur again. It will be a relief for business owners in our area, from Cambria all the way to Big Sur. The road closures have kept many people away for the past year and a half.

As you can see we found a nice spot and painted the beautiful California coast. Just another day at the office! It was of course foggy and overcast, muted colors everywhere, just the way I like it!

I am hopefully past my painting slump. This weekend I am teaching a workshop in Northern California near Eureka. Another beautiful place!

What makes a painting beautiful?

I am thinking if people comment about a particular painting and call it beautiful, I have accomplished my mission. But what exactly is it that makes art beautiful? In the ’70s the word ‘kitsch’ was used for art that was considered…well, not beautiful, or substandard!

Wikipedia says:
‘Kitsch (/ˈkɪtʃ/; loanword from German) is a low-brow style of mass-produced art or design using
popular or cultural icons. Kitsch generally includes unsubstantial or gaudy works or decoration, or works that are calculated to have popular appeal.’

I guess that includes Thomas Kinkade! A winter scene with smoking chimney tops and lights on in *every window* of the house, yet somehow green and red trees? Yeah….kitsch! Not beautiful. In his excellent 1950s book Eye of the Painter & Elements of Beauty, Andrew Loomis listed 12 Elements of beauty. After all, it can’t just be one thing!

Here’s what Loomis wrote: Unity, Simplicity, Design, Proportion, Color, Rhythm, Form, Texture, Values, Quality of light, Choice of subject, Technique.

Definitely the bible for me when I first started long ago. Even now every teacher talks about these! They repeat themselves in traditional painting like the backdrop in a Flintstone’s cartoon. And forgood reason! The ones I struggle the most with is ‘Rhythm’ and since I am mostly watercolor painting nowadays, ‘Texture’. Texture in watercolor painting is very limited.
‘Rhythm’ is almost esoteric. You can’t put your finger on it. There’s rhythm in a landscape, the hills. There’s rhythm in a tree or a flower. Everything has rhythm, from the smallest forms to the cycles of the universe (to quote Loomis).

Choice of subject is relative, in my opinion. You can make a pretty drab subject look beautiful. That is when the artist comes in! Just look at Dean Mitchell’s work. Often far from pretty subjects, but beautiful art nonetheless. I’ll talk about some of the other elements in the next blogpost.

Paso Robles Arts Festival 2015

This weekend the Paso Arts Fest came to a close. It was well attended and I am happy to say that all my work sold (four paintings, one was auctioned off) The caliber of artists participating was quite impressive for our small town: Established painters like John Cosby, Ruo Li, Libby Tolley, Richard Robinson (from New Zealand), W. Truman Hosner, my friend Andy Evansen, Carolyn Lord and many others. Andy, Carolyn and myself were the only watercolorists, maybe that’s why we did so well!
One of the biggest surprises (almost unheard of, really) is the fact that one of my watercolors got an award of excellence. I mean, watercolors never win anything!
Here are some impressions of the festival. The signature show will run until the end of June and I have four paintings in it.