... and a couple more digital comps

Digital Sketch-city3
Digital Sketch-industrial1
digital, iPad Brushes app

Still comping with the old iPad. Playing with tonal values in the skyscraper and flat values in the industrial.510,511

Three digital comps

Digital Sketch-hill

Digital Sketch-city1

Digital Sketch-city2

Digital Sketch-hill
Digital Sketch-city1
Digital Sketch-city2
digital, iPad Brushes app

Here are 3 more digital value comps. I am frustrated with the resolution of the these. I am not sure if it is the Brushes app, which is the second version, or my old iPad. What has happened is the resolution just went kaput! I noticed it while doing these and became annoyed that they now have those jagged edges especially noticeable in the diagonals and smaller details. So disappointed!
It only shows up in the second Brushes version and not the first version which I still have.
Yep, I need new tools.

Other than that I enjoyed doing these three. They seemed to just fall out of me onto the digital 'canvas'.
The hill is based on a local hill here in San Pedro but done from memory and modified. The two cityscapes were done from my imagination.507,508,509

Mid-show Night at the Muck

"Scrubber"

"Steel Bundles"

"Colored Tanks"

“Scrubber”
"Steel Bundles"
"Colored Tanks"
watercolor on paper, 2016
6” x 8” (15.24cm x 20.32cm)

Here are my other 3 paintings I have in the NWS Plein Air Exhibition and sale at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center. Today, Thursday March 3rd from 7:30 - 9:00 pm the Muckenthaler is hosting a mid-show gallery tour.
Several artists including myself will be there doing demo's and/or talking about our work. It will be a perfect night to attend if you can make it.

These 3 are the most orderly of my six. Part of that reason is the view I choose and the way I presented them, straight on and compositionally horizontal. Industrial subjects often are chaotic but even when so I can usually find the view that is less chaotic.
When the subject is busy as in "Colored Tanks ", with so much going on in the painted surfaces the straight on view as well as simplification helps make a better painting.

My other 3 in the show are made up of more angles and diagonals compositionally, which I usually favor, but they are simpler to begin with so they needed the perspective views to keep them more interesting.

“Scrubber”
We see these attached to every industrial building. Seen in endless configurations these kinds of machinery are called scrubbers. They clean or scrub the air inside the warehouses, factories and industrial plants. Very similar to my power pole series there is a lot going on with them. With their boxy structures, angles, valves, pipes, wires and ducts it’s their forms that attract me. Sometimes oddly proportioned, gangly in appearance, rusted, worn and weathered they can take on an anthropomorphic character and are irresistible to me so I must paint them.

"Steel Bundles"
Bundles of steel girders, wood haphazardly stacked on top and overlooked by most. I find these kinds of repeating forms a great subject to paint, especially when the stacks are not perfectly arranged. In the simplest form they represent the industrious and hard working as well as both organization and chaos.

“Colored Tanks”

Industrial subjects have more color than most realize. The colorful palette of hues can range from the more earthy to the bright and highly saturated. Then they take on the rich patina of the time worn and sun faded. This one had the two sides of its gates painted at different times and in two different reds. The blues tanks too were faded, its paint water stained in various degrees. I waited for a full sunny day to paint these to accentuate the lively palette.434,435,436

My Work at The Muck

"Storage Yard Sun"

"Railroad Crossing"

"Powder Magazine"

"Storage Yard Sun"
For Sale at DailyPaintWorks, click here

"Railroad Crossing"

"Powder Magazine"
For Sale at DailyPaintWorks, click here
all watercolor on paper, 2016
6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)

Here's three of the six paintings I have hanging at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center.
All were painted for the NWS plein air show, an exhibition and sale. The bottom two I painted just prior to the show opening.

Most often I am already familiar with the site and at different times of day. I walk the location, choose a view and proceed to do small, quick but careful studies of complicated subjects, capturing both my perceptions and an honest depiction of any information I see as important. These studies, done in a near journalistic fashion, allow me to get familiar with the subject and later serve to inform my studio work. Through later editing I am able to present my thoughts and views on the subject.

"Storage Yard Sun"
Another of my Storage Yard Series, an all encompassing term for the many industrial sites that I paint that don’t fit any category like refineries or warehouses. This particular day the sun was bright and was bouncing reflected light into the shadows giving the scene an animated quality. I set out to capture that before the light could change and even played it up a bit to give it some life.

"Railroad Crossing"
I often paint railroad locomotives, bridges etc but I also find a certain fascination with the common everyday railroad tracks, crossings and signals. I liked this particular view for the tracks splitting in two directions and had this site in the back of my mind for some time. I knew I wanted to paint it either in the early morning or afternoon to take advantage of the shadows to provide darks for the composition, finally deciding on the afternoon.

"Powder Magazine"
Easily overlooked, what looks like an unassuming little stone and brick building is actually a Civil War era powder magazine built in 1862 for Camp Drum in Wilmington CA. It’s odd to see in the middle of a residential neighborhood down near the LA Harbor since we don’t associate the Civil War with the west coast.
I have driven past it for years and finally needed to get it down in paint. With this study, as well as some others, I plan to develop it into a larger studio painting.431,432,433

Lone 2 - Dockside Red Shed

"Dockside Red Shed"
Watercolor on paper, 2015
15" x 20" (38.1cm x 50.8cm)

Here's a recent watercolor of an old shed in a marina in the LA Harbor. It is similar to this one in it's rendering, although it is a more tightly packed composition, and this one for the lone idea behind it.
I was drawn to not just the shed, I love corrugated buildings, but also the small palm and the two backlit plastic barrels for their luminosity.
Besides adding some shape variation to the composition they countered the predominant rectangular forms with cylindrical and radial (round or circular) forms. Just enough to break up a static composition.

The palm leaves fanning out in the lower left corner and the short retaining wall lead nicely to the barrels and shed, the power lines reinforcing the diagonal compositional thrust from lower left corner. Without that everything is horizontal and square and dull.

After those initial observations that first get my attention, when I sit down to paint I always realize the other artistic decisions that must be made before I put paint to paper. That for me is the real content, the design just aids in making it work.

I have to identify what I was seeing and decide how to portray those impressions through paint.
It's not always automatic.
What I was really seeing was not just the shed itself but how it sat by itself on the large dockside slab, isolated from the rest of the buildings.

The warm bright slightly overcast sky and simplified foreground communicated that idea of the isolated shed and also helped ease its busy liveliness. A nice clear blue sky or clouds would not have done that. Pretty blue skies generally say happy or pleasant, clouds say another depending on how they are portrayed, a dark sky says something else. But a bright nearly colorless sky doesn't draw attention to itself and in this case this reinforces the lone subject.

Since all the vibrancy takes place across the center in the shed itself its shadow needed to belong to it and differ from the barrels and palm shadows. So it starts green at left and after turning the corner is warm blue.

I also decided that since the shed had such a strong red color and aged patina showing the rippled surface of the corrugated metal was not necessary this time... it was busy enough.302

Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 15

"Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 15"

watercolor on paper, 2014

5¾"  x 7¾" (14.605cm x 19.685cm)

For sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

Studying more of the shapes within the overall mass as I have done in study 13, study 12, study 11 and study 2. Of course I could say that is true on all of them since you really can't ignore shape but these four I was focusing more intently on the debris atop the main structure.

This one, 13 and 2  I was also really looking into the shadows. There are so many great jagged puzzle pieces within the shadows that even with a predominantly horizontal composition and rectangular form, and I am referring to the upright structural nature of the architecture in its blocky squareness, it is secondary to the dynamic and lively action of its torn and shattered appearance.

There is some anguish in the shredded metal of the tank as it reaches up and back upon itself. Sort of like a fist cursing its demise.

The more I do of these, the more I see.284

"Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 14"

watercolor on paper, 2014

5¾"  x 7¾" (14.605cm x 19.685cm)

For sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

Taking my cue from Study 13 I kept the sky nearly white except that here I used coastal fog just beginning to envelope the ruins, but while they are still in sunlight.

Because the primary shape and composition is essentially a rectangle within a rectangle I needed to add some element to make it interesting. Although the cast shadows do some of that work, the atmospheric condition adds more and also increases the depth.283

Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 13

"Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 13"

watercolor on paper, 2014

5¾"  x 7¾" (14.605cm x 19.685cm)

For sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

This is one of my favorites so far. I love the energetic shapes in this one, especially the shadows

It is Study #2 from a different view.

I painted the sky in the most subtle pale washes I could. Just enough to give it some substance, a breath of tone that a solid blue, darker or gradated tone would not accomplish. The hard metal and concrete against it gives the painting a cool toned stark quality that doesn't quite translate in this photo, the original is far better.282

Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 12

"Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 12"

watercolor on paper, 2014

7¾"  x 5¾" (14.605cm x 19.685cm)

For sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

This, like the previous study focuses more on the rubble but also I pushed the color, exaggerating the warms and cools.

The chunks of concrete and broken edges of concrete walls, (and the ambiguous shaped torn metal tanks in the background), are painted in that pale blue while the weathered surfaces are warm gray-greens, yellow ochres and rusty sienna's.
This is akin to painting a tree for example that has been split open, revealing its clean color on the inside against the weathered surface of its bark.281

Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 11

"Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 11"

watercolor on paper, 2014

5¾"  x 7¾" (14.605cm x 19.685cm)

For sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

This study is more of a detail than previous ones. I am figuring out the shapes within the rubble.
The even light of being in shadow makes it a challenge since I don't have the advantage of light and cast shadow to aid in revealing form. This forces me to not just see the shapes but really design them and edit a lot. It takes a clearer understanding of what is going on to make it work. I know because I have done several of these that did not pan out.280

Some Thoughts on the CPC Ruins Series (so far)

I'm working on some other projects right now so I'm reluctantly pausing on these studies.

Here are some of my thoughts and observations after the first ten. I have done more but some did not work out.

Even a simple idea or motif can have endless possibilities and I am not short of those in this series.

It does not matter what the subject is VISUALLY, these could just as well be landscape rock formations, still life's or ancient ruins, which I am basing them on. I chose the ruins of the industrial landscape.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Study 7

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Study 4

For the artist the same concerns apply the moment you sit down and begin working. You are faced with all the design issues of value, shape, composition, color etc.

But really all those are merely tools put to work to make the picture and present some idea or record some observation. You have to mold them into your vision.

The hard part is figuring out HOW to say it. And the combinations are limitless.

That is one reason for the studies. Another is to get familiar with the subject.

Some of these studies have a monumental scale to them as in 3 (below), 4 and 7 (above), while others rest within the picture frame peacefully like 6 and 8 (below).

Study 3

Study 6

Study 8

Study 9 (below) is close to that monumental scale but is pulled back ever so slightly. It makes a subtle difference. This is middle distance cropped close. It is a little less commanding.

The relationship of distance and cropping is very much like any relationship of the art elements, they can be separated but are really tied together.

Crop in close on an object, from a near, middle and far distance and you get 3 different results  relating to perspective and our perception.

Study 9

In Study 9,  in addition to the practical reasons I noted in the post, I wanted to downplay its overall block shape. To do this I needed to put the focus on some other feature in order to modify its shape.

I de-emphasized the blockish straight sides by making the value close to that of the sky, losing its edges, then concentrated on the busted up concrete in shadow, climbing from the corner to its scooped out top.

Simply by adjusting values up or down you can overcome predominant shapes to suit your end goal.

Study 2 could have that monumental sense too but is tamed somewhat through values and edges. And even though it is cropped tight like Study 3 its angles are less severe. It makes a difference.

Study 2

No one factor or element really does it on its own. It is the interplay of the various combinations.

See my Daily Paintworks page for available works from this series.

Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 10

"Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 10"

watercolor on paper, 2014

7¾"  x 5¾" (19.685cm x14.605cm)

For sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

I pushed more color in this one compared to previous ones. I am still figuring out what I want to do and say with this series so in the experimental stage I am putting down whatever comes to mind.

As in others from this series of studies this one shows the excavator, but while at rest.
The 'Ruins' sub-series focuses on the plant, during its demise, but at its periods of inactivity. Much closer to the silence of ancient ruins in their depictions.
But here the silence is only for its short periods, not years and years... here it is brief.
So the excavator lingers nearby, ready to go at it again.

I like the bright artificial color of the machine against the earthy colors of the ruins. Coming in from the corner it does seem at the ready.279

Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 9

"Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 9"

watercolor on paper, 2014

7¾"  x 5¾" (19.685cm x14.605cm)

For sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

This one is similar to study 2 in palette, a palette of earthy color favoring the gray-greens, layer upon layer, but painted harder edged and more defined.

It is the same section of building as studies 4 and 7 but different views and at different times in the demolition.

The left side is kept light in value, especially the lower left corner to avoid any uncomfortable near-tangent. This allows for the tighter cropping with the structure pushed left and off center but still opens up the picture (frame) to let the light filter in.
The real substance of the painting is the shadow. It's where all the visual action takes place, busy and energetic against the sky and smooth face of concrete collectively.278

Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 8

"Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 8"

watercolor on paper, 2014

7¾"  x 5¾" (19.685cm x14.605cm)

Again while looking at the art of ruins from history I take my cue from them so this view is presented from what I would call a middle distance.

The emphasis is on the talus in the foreground, ramping up toward the ruins so the color temperature  variation really takes place there, the background is left cool. The placement of the sun also creates a wedge-shaped shaft of light further emphasizing the talus.

The sky is slightly darker than the this photo so the painting looks almost like a moonlit night.

I might make changes/improvements in another version of this, but that is the point of studies, to explore options.277

Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 7

"Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 7"

watercolor on paper, 2014

7¾"  x 5¾" (19.685cm x14.605cm)
For sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

One thing I have noted while doing these recent studies is the absolutely great negative shapes that jut in and around the positive shapes of the ruins.

If you see this recent watercolor and this one from 2012 you can see the plant in its previous form rose into the skyline as a solid brick. It is a different animal in its battered state.

The previous 3 and 4 have those great negative shapes, that puzzle piece of sky. Some are sharp and jagged, slicing into the concrete as in study 3, others blunt and round, the middle punched open and exposed as in 4.

I love the alternating rhythm of the negative sky shape in this study. The sky punches down into the ruins then the ruins punch back up into the sky, again the sky punches back.

I have to really pay attention to this and use it to my benefit.

This one is another (near) monochromatic in black watercolor. I first laid down a wash of pale yellow to give it an underlying warmth.

Again, as in study 4, the forward most column of concrete and its base separate from the rest.
In this one warmer and lighter in value but raked in a half light instead of a reflected light, the shadows streaking diagonally.276

Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 6

"Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 6"

watercolor on paper, 2014

7¾"  x 5¾" (19.685cm x14.605cm)
For sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

I have always had a love for images of ancient ruins. I can't believe it has taken so long to do my own.
This study is the one most rooted in art history that I've done so far.

It has that romantic vision so often seen in the art from the past, it's airy with soft dreamy light and plenty of sky.

But again a hint of the excavator, modern machinery, to anchor it to the present.275

Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 5

"Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 5"

watercolor on paper, 2014

5¾"  x 7¾" (14.605cm x 19.685cm)
For sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

Although this is a more tightly controlled study my goal was to push the color. Not only rich saturated color but especially the warms and cools.

Here I placed the warms to the left side, the direction of the sun.
But there are cools interspersed, as in the tanks and the standing concrete slab, so it ties into the right side.

On the two archways I went to extremes. Although both are in shadow I painted one warm and one cool to show their different directions in the environment.
Sometimes despite their shapes forms can flatten out, especially when they are the same value. One way to 'turn the form' or show their different directions is through warms and cools and not value.

This is all part of doing these studies, to try out as many variations and ideas as possible.274

Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 4

"Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 4"

watercolor on paper, 2014

7¾"  x 5¾" (19.685cm x14.605cm)
For sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

With each study I do I play off a previous one to improve some point, test an idea or do some kind of variation. See previous two posts to see how they relate to each other.

This study has a hint more red and yellow to it than the previous monochromatic one. A whisper of burnt sienna and naples yellow in the mix, but only in and just enough to separate the horizontal broken concrete slab and what it rests on from the standing structure. Value plays a role too. I left it slightly lighter even though it is all in shadow (the sky has yellow only).
Together they impart a warm reflected light and essentially give me a foreground (the slab), a middle ground (standing structure) and background (the sky) and increases the depth in what would otherwise be a shallow depth of field.

The subtle color variations also give it a richness; from slightly yellower sky to the darker sepia brown to the red-orange of the foreground to the very important razor thin traces of the stark white paper,  referred to as rim lighting when backlit.273

Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 3

"Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 3"

watercolor on paper, 2014

5¾"  x 7¾" (14.605cm x 19.685cm)
For sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

I decided to try out some monochromatic studies. Many ruins drawings from art history are done this way and it gives it that old world feel. Once again holding the modern against the traditional.

I like this oblique view from the shadow side with the foreground bathed in light.
The dark shadow rising in the middle ground commands attention despite not being the largest element in the picture, it's all about staging sometimes. Light foreground, dark middle ground, middle range background (sky).
All of it conveys the massive weight of tons of concrete.

This one, although very similar to study 2 in composition, is its polar opposite, commanding and weighty vs light and airy.
Color aside,  just by utilizing different value ranges and controlling edges two entirely qualities come out of each.272

Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 2

"Catalina Pacific Concrete - Ruins Study 2"

watercolor on paper, 2014

5¾"  x 7¾" (14.605cm x 19.685cm)
For sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

This study is almost not recognizable as architecture at first look. I don't mind. That in itself might be a contemporary sensibility.

The point of doing studies is searching and one reason for doing these small is to record as quickly as possible my impressions without getting hung up on one for long. My mind is ripe with ideas and I must get them down. Sometimes our initial thoughts are the best ones.

A close-in detail study like this will familiarize me with all the shapes with-in the greater picture.
My mindset here was the rough jagged torn up steel and concrete presented in a soft light. Two opposites.271