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

Rusty Haze

"Oil Plant 11 (Rusty Haze)"
oil on panel, 2014
6" x 6" (15.25cm x 15.24)

Number 11 in my series of the Oil Plant, actually an oil pumping station from the 1930's or 40's I think.
(I've done more than 11, some were not titled within the numbers) Unfortunately it is gone now but my series will continue. It is a hazy memory.
I left out quite a bit of the pipes and such in the background, more than I usually do. I reached a point and it just felt right for this one. It was more about the thick atmosphere.
But then I take another look and think it may have been better with just a whisper of them here and there.
Who knows. It's probably better to move on to the next one.292

Urban Haze

"Storage Yard Haze"    SOLD
oil on panel, 2013
5" x 7" (12.7cm x 17.78cm)

I see a lot of scenes like this living near the ocean. Bright days tucked under the marine layer.

Colors intensify but are not too glaring, not like a bright clear day. All the moisture in the atmosphere affects colors in a different way, they seem to bleed softly into the air.
Even harsh environments are gently cushioned under this canopy of moist air, not quite blocked and grayed out as on foggy days. The marine layer lets the sun through just enough to let us pause and relook at what we would normally dismiss.

That's what I see and why I choose the often maligned urban setting. It would be too obvious, and easy, to take an already pretty landscape and make it prettier.240

Corrugated 3-watercolor

"Corrugated-Sulfur"
watercolor on paper, 2012
6" x 9" (15.24cm x 22.86cm)


The challenge on this one was the street since it takes up so much of the picture plane, about as much as the sky, and has the same colors so I made sure to vary the texture.
My favorite parts are the corrugated fence caught in a half light, revealing its buckled shapes, and of course the bright yellow accent of the sulfur pile.228

Recent Value Comps

"Roadside-Barn" value comps
pencil on paper, 2012
page 11" x 8.5" (27.94cm x 21.59cm)
NSF

Since I am currently busy on a new body of work I don't have a lot of new work to post.

Here are some recent value studies.
Doing value studies is about working out the arrangement of lights and darks so the subject itself does not have to be exciting or glorious or even beautiful. It's the shapes, how they relate and interlock.

Roadside is one of these. I simply liked the dark shape of the rising bushes against the interlocking wedges of drainage pipes and the roadside.

The barn was originally in daylight but I did not like the light and dark shapes so I morphed it into a nocturne, leaving it with an unseen bright light source.185

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Aging Relic

"L.B. Plant ( Arco Oil Plant)"  SOLD

oil on panel, 2010

6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)

Back to one of my favorite subjects, the time worn industrial. This one an old oil plant from the 1930's or 40's, maybe the early 1950's I'm not sure.

The sky is actually darker than the photograph shows, and is a bit blurry here, so the painting looks better.

I always try to get the most accurate photo I can for my own archives, but sometimes I get so busy I don't have the time to spend. Always with regret once it's gone. Oh well, when I have the time I will adjust it in photoshop from memory then update it as I've done with the post 'Chilly Biting Air '.

This is the same site, different building, of the watercolor "Oil Plant Roof Detail" under the post heading ' Bleached White Sky '. An endlessly fascinating relic from a bygone era.

Painted in the fading light as the shadows slowly wick over the plant, consuming it once more in darkness. It's nearly a nocturne.

Dusk is my favorite time of day, I love the transition from day into night, so many of my paintings are at dusk. The temperature of air and color gradually cooling, forms melting together into single masses, the constant noisy clamor of day giving way to the sporadic crisper sounds of night.53

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Bleached White Sky

"Oil Plant Roof Detail"

watercolor on paper, 2010

9" x 12" (22.86cm x 30.48cm)

For Sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

Like my previous post, this subject is utility over beauty. Or at least inherent beauty.

So in this painting my concerns were about color and design.

A limited palette of mostly blue and brown with touches of grey and black.

Backlit and a bleached white sky helped give this image the contrast needed for a more abstract composition.

The cooler, darker blue and black provide a solidity for the heavy forms, but it's the accents of burnt sienna, the warmer blue in the vertical shadows and the light blue strip across the bottom that give the image some life.41

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Corrugated 2-watercolor

"San Pedro Plant"                     SOLD

watercolor on paper, 2009

9" x 12" (22.86cm x 30.48cm)

Horizon Fine Art Gallery

"Cole's Battery (w/ Oil Barrels)"    SOLD

watercolor on paper, 2009

9" x 12" (22.86cm 30.48cm)

As I said in my previous post 'Corrugated' I had done these watercolors of both of those groupings of corrugated buildings from different views.

Here, "Cole's Battery (w/ Oil Barrels)" was the actual name of the business that was formerly there and moved to another location before the site was razed. "Champion" , the title of the oil painting was named for the Champion Spark Plug logo painted on the wall. This view is of another smaller building on that site, looking east toward the LA Harbor. At the time this was painted the business had already left and a sort of reclamation was taking place with the weeds and vegetation springing up thru fractures in the asphalt. It had also apparently been serving as a home base for someone as evidenced by the hole in the chain link fence, the shopping cart and water hose dragged to the back.

"San Pedro Plant" is the same view as in "Shed Stack", but pulled back. It very much reminded me of the view of the house on the hill from the movie Psycho, so with that, I decided to paint it from this worms eye view, tilting the perspective to enhance that impression then adding the string of crows.

This was one of those paintings that about half way through was going downhill really fast. And with watercolor, painted in this more traditional method, fixing bad areas is usually out of the question. At this point I figured it was a loss anyway so I let go, threw down some unifying washes and was quite surprised it pulled together. It's true sometimes being too careful makes for bad paintings. Some of my better images are born out complete failure.37,38

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Corrugated

"Shed Stack"

oil on panel, 2008

5" x 7" (12.7cm x 17.78cm)

"Champion"    SOLD

oil on panel, 2008

5" x 7' (12.7cm x 17.78cm)

I'm not exactly sure why, but I've always loved corrugated buildings, so here's two. "Champion" is now gone, an empty lot now and "Shed Stack" is still there, although I have no idea what kind of business runs out of it. There is a tall smoke stack, the base of which is barely visible at the top left, but I don't recall ever seeing any smoke coming out of it. I have different views of these two groupings of buildings done in watercolor which I plan to post sometime soon.14,15

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