A few Fluffy Clouds
Originally uploaded by lessherger
One of my cloud studies. This one painted on my back porch in Beverly, MA. I'm working simply here, just a few colors of paint, a couple of layers, the clouds don't give me time to do much before they are gone. All my cloud studies are available on my artfire page here
As a kid I used to stare at the clouds. At my mother’s urging my brother and I used to imaging them fantastic creature- unicorns, knights and dragons. How much of it was stuff we really saw and how much of it we were making up is up for debate but even as a child I Ioved the sky. A couple of months ago I was getting our mail, the banality of bills delivered to my front door and the urban surroundings was a stark contrast to the sky as the sun set over coastal Massachusetts.
The sky was bright cad orange and magenta against deep purple clouds. I vowed I’d do some sky paintings.
What I learned was that the sky changes fast as the sun rises or sets, giving you about 15 minutes to complete a sketch, study or thumbnail before the scene completely changes. Capturing the sky is harder than it sounds. I moved to smaller sheets of paper, working fast and loose in acrylic on 5×7 inch pieces of gesso’d paper or watercolor paper. I’ve grown to love the challenge.
What I hope to do is capture a great deal of sketche3s and turn them into finished paintings like this one I’ve put up on artfire. It’s larger size of 11.75×8.5 inches is small but still larger sized than the sketches, allowing me to work loose and freely. I’m more able to capture the glow of the clouds than I can in the small size. I’m hoping to do a lot more of these in larger sizes. The sketches are the first step, the next step is bigger stuff!
I have PVD also known as Post- Vacation Depression. I’m sure most people with a DayJob know the feeling. You return from vacation on a high note only to return to the humdrum reality of the DayJob and it gets you down. Gone are the days of waking up when you want and doing what you want. Let’s face it there is a build up to vacation where you’ve been waiting and waiting for it until it’s a reality. Vacation is a brief light in the tunnel, only to be snuffed out when the scheduled time ends, leaving you back at work.
It does not help me that my first week back was not normal I was greeted by an attempt to get an exhaust leak and strange noise fixed in my ’08 car. I was also scheduled for some forced socialization with my coworkers. What I like to call “everyone nervous drinks and the next day we all gossip about who drank too much.” I have a rule about work social functions; no more than 1 drink for every 2 hours of forced socialization. That way I remain sober, I nurse a drink like I’m social and I can leave at any point and be able to drive. It’s worked for me for the last 5 years.
I woke everyday last week with the “Man, I have to go to work, again?” feeling and really wasn’t ready for it, what I really need at this point is another week off. I also try and schedule my vacation to coincide with the Machias, ME blueberry festival, but miscalculated and scheduled a week in advance, this was due to many issues but the major one being Christie heads back to school for real next week. This week was all orientation and she would not have been able to go to Maine with me had I scheduled for this week. I’m bummed because the last Blueberry Festival I attended was sparsely attended by vendors and was brutally hot.
I love Maine in August, but Maine in September and October is even better so I’m hoping to schedule myself off for a long 4 day weekend in which Christie and I can head to Maine get in some hiking and photos as well as some more relaxation.
All that being said, I think this week will see an end to my PVD.
Dark and light
Originally uploaded by lessherger
One of my cloud studies. This one painted on my back porch in Beverly, MA. I'm working simply here, just a few colors of paint, a couple of layers, the clouds don't give me time to do much before they are gone. All my cloud studies are available on my artfire page here
I’m up super early this am. I woke to use the bathroom and happened to look out the window at some of the most amazing skies so I knew I had to go to the beach and paint. Last night I had bundled everything up so I could simply pick up my bag and head to the beach. Sure was glad I did. I’m not sure I should have driven in my “I just rolled out of bed” condition. The closer I got to the beach the more glad I was that I rolled out of bed that early. I set up and realized that with the sun rising so quickly the light was changing fast. In the time I was at the beach the sky changed colors a million times. I managed to churn out 3 small sky studies and then it was full day light.
I’ll get some pics up of these later. Right now I’m going to go paint some more!
Clouds Roll In
Originally uploaded by lessherger
ONe of my cloud studies. This one painted at Dane Street Beach in Beverly, MA. I'm working simply here, just a few colors of paint, a couple of layers, the clouds don't give me time to do much before they are gone. All my cloud studies are available on my artfire page here
Stilly Sunny
Originally uploaded by lessherger
ONe of my cloud studies. This one painted at Dane Street Beach in Beverly, MA. I'm working simply here, just a few colors of paint, a couple of layers, the clouds don't give me time to do much before they are gone. All my cloud studies are available on my artfire page here
Occasionally I find a European or South American video that is very much outside American conventions on art and sketch booking, or art journaling. This is one of them, brightly colorful and raw, and very different from the style I see a lot of on Youtube.
Sky Study Early AM 3
Originally uploaded by lessherger
One of my early cloud studies. This one painted on my back porch in Beverly, MA. I'm working simply here, just a few colors of paint, a couple of layers, the clouds don't give me time to do much before they are gone. All my cloud studies are available on my artfire page here
I’ve been working on a variety of materials these last few weeks and they all respond differently to paint and thus make it handle in different manners. Here are the different materials I’ve been working with:
Gesso’d board: I prep my boards with 4 layers of rough gesso. The gesso texture responds much like primed canvas. The paint spreads smoothly and evenly over the gesso. Because the gesso I use is very rough it tends to be hard on my brushes.
Stonehenge paper, raw: This is a printmaking paper, it’s meant to be soaked and blotted before being pressed into copper plates under extreme pressure, as such it has little to no sizing. That means that it’s super absorbent. I can feel my brush sticking to the raw paper and skipping. This can be used to good effect if known in advance, but it also means that if you want to work in a wash you have to be careful.
Stonehenge paper, 1 watered coat of gesso: The thin coat of gesso leaves the texture of the paper behind and stops the super absorbent effect of the paper. This effect could be achieved with a thin watered down coating of matte medium or acrylic medium as well. I did have some texture from the gesso but not much, I would rub the medium or gesso on with a sponge next time to eliminate the texture totally. The brush moved around on the page much like on a smoothly gesso’d canvas or board.
Stonehenge paper, 2 coats of gesso: This performed like any other gesso’d surface. The brush moved around with ease, little skipping, the texture showed through in the painting and there was little paint absorbed into the gesso. Kind of a waste of paper really, in that it’s a fantastic paper and I could have gesso’d something less expensive and gotten a similar effect.
Fabriano Artistico 140lb, cold pressed, raw: I was surprised to find that this paper was fairly absorbent. I found it less so than the Stonehenge but I could feel the difference between this paper and the Stonehenge. Less skipping of the brush and less paint absorbed. I found the texture pleasing, but then this is my paper for choice for watercolors and art journaling. It’s not too rough, not too smooth. This was good paper for acrylic.
Fabriano Artistico 140lb, cold pressed 2 coats of gesso: I know there are watercolorists screaming in agony right now at the thought of me applying gesso to such a perfect paper. It was scraps left over from an art journal project… Don’t kill me. Love it, same as any gesso’d surface the paint performed as expected, little skipping, nice gesso texture. The cold pressed texture also showed through and was doubly nice. Though a blasphemy in some circles this was quite nice.
Strathmore 140lb Cold Pressed, raw: Strathmore cold pressed is my go to sketch paper for art journaling and sketching. It’s cheap, easily available and binds up nicely into a journal with no cracking. I found that this paper was less absorbent in the raw state than the other papers, which made it very nice to work with raw. It also has a very pleasing rough texture that I love. The backside is smoother and still not that absorbent. I found that the brush responded just slightly less smooth than it does on gesso’d paper. Few skips and drying of my brush. I was able to work in a wash easily and enjoyed this paper quite well.
Strathmore 140lb cold pressed, 2 coats gesso: This performed as any other gesso’d surface.
Gesso’d recycled poster: This stuff is a lot of work for little reward. Each sheet takes 4 coats of gesso and then I have to be careful of the gesso peeling off the surface. It annoys the bejesus out of me. However, I do love the lettering and colors that peek out from around the edges. If I sanded the pages (sure add ANOTHER step) the poster would work better. I love it as a gesso’d surface but get annoyed.
I’ve picked up a few other papers to mess around with today. Since it came out high on my list of good stuff so far, I snagged a new size of Strathmore Watercolor paper, at only $4.99 @ ACMoore it was a good deal. I also snagged a Canson XL Bristol sketchbook. I’ll be testing that out in the upcoming weeks. I noticed that Strathmore now has Bristol out in a little 6×6 inch pad, which I thought was super cool. Also the new size of sketchbooks/journals seems to be 6x12inches. It’s an odd but lovely size.
Anyway, I’ve added links above to everything but I don’t get anything from the companies for linking to the vendors. (But hey if any of the vendors or companies wants to throw me a bone fo doing so I’m game;)