Test sheet

(C) 2016 Dale DiMauro

Sometimes the results of working on a test sheet are better than a finished watercolor. In a previous post, back awhile, I discussed the benefits of working on a scrap sheet of watercolor paper. You can experiment with your color mixes until you find what you are looking for. In watercolor it is important to understand that the pigments dry lighter than the mixed color you have created. Also, you can play with different techniques to convey texture and there are so many ways of marking the paper other than with a paint brush.

In this image I was really excited to come upon several color mixes that were new to me. The rock-like area under the figure was created by mixing three primary colors providing this rich gray/purple/blue color. The transparent pigments used, I believe, were aureolin, ultramarine blue and winsor red. Finally, the blue right of the figure was created with winsor blue and cadmium red conveying this rich sky color.

The white, wavy patterns towards the bottom of the sheet were created by using masking fluid to preserve the white of the paper. There are infinite marks that you can make using masking fluid which I have only begun to experiment with. It is generally used to preserve white subject matter or areas where light may be projecting off a surface such as the top of a car in the sun.

This week I have been working on a watercolor with a bit of rocks in the foreground. I have been stippling with darker colors to give the rocks greater texture which I sampled at the bottom of the above image.

I have found when you mix your own colors instead of use what comes out of the tube you can arrive at a much richer and dynamic palette.

(Local) Election time

(C) Dale DiMauro

When we arrived home from our summer vacation in July we had numerous political flyers piling up at the post office. With a late summer election, we were constantly receiving these colorful flyers profiling a candidates views on issues and what kind of endorsements they were accumulating. My father-in-law joked that the faces on the flyers grew larger each day.

Well this one did not do well in the summer election. 

When I was watching the news the other evening I started drawing his face from one of these political flyers. I noticed he had a very upright posture to go with his professional attire. 

It is always a challenge to add the glasses as they obscure the face to some degree. I do not know that the facial features are accurate, but I may have captured aspects of his demeanor. This drawing did not take long, maybe half an hour or so.

Watercolor study

(C) 2016 Dale DiMauro

Last month on vacation in Maine I came upon this young woman against this backdrop of a wetland. I imagined the color of her white t-shirt against a clump of dark blue spruces, which one experiences along the Maine coast, as stunning, when done in watercolor. Part of it is the upright posture of the girl reflected in the vertical mass of the evergreens.

In the world we live in today, I constantly see people with a cell phone, water bottle or a dog all at close proximity. I want to portray these elements in some of my paintings in a natural unposed state. This is a challenge, as you can imagine. I hike in the nearby woods and fields where I live and come upon people walking their dog while talking on their cellphone with no one around nearly every day.

I did try mixing different greens to capture the evergreens and develop a greater sense of depth in the picture. For the evergreens, I mixed Winsor blue (red shade) with new gamboge yellow, which was a new combination for me. The other green in the foreground, is a variation of aureolin with Prussian blue. At this point in my practice I do not use any green straight out of the tube, unmixed. However, if I need to set a color back, distance-wise or in temperature, in a picture, I apply a wash of ultramarine blue or Paynes' gray.

The Bennington

Photograph of Eric Sloane painting

This past week my wife and I visited The Bennington, an art gallery and museum in Bennington, Vermont. It is a good-sized museum for such a rural setting. It has a covered bridge museum, national fine art exhibitions, native american fine art and a bird carving gallery. The bird carvings are outstanding with amazing details such as the tongues in open-mouthed birds. The painting on the birds truly give them a life-like quality. The bird carver is Floyd Scholz.

We learned much about the covered bridges of Windham County, in Vermont where we live. For example, in the last century, an individual in Townsend, Vermont, tried roofing the local bridge during the night, which ended up spooking a rider's horse. They had a state map depicting all the locations of covered bridges in Vermont, and, as you can imagine, there has been a major reduction in their numbers. Also, we learned that the creamery bridge in West Brattleboro got it's name because there was a creamery on the other side of the bridge.

Within the covered bridge museum exhibit is a feature on Eric Sloane, a prolific oil painter who was believed to have painted over 15,000 paintings. I have always admired his pen and ink drawings of rural scenes and tools. A few years ago, we saw his massive mural on clouds and the atmosphere at the National Air and Space Museum when we visited Washington, D.C.

Summer Greens

(C) 2016 Dale DiMauro

We have a local pond which is great for paddling. In fact, motorized boats are prohibited. This place is called South Pond in nearby Marlboro, Vt. To get away from the heat and humidity I like to glide on the clear, clean water where it is usually ten degrees cooler than in town. 

Often there are loons out on the water when I have been there. I have even seen cormorants airing out their wings on one of the docks in the fall when the pond is much quieter.  The most dramatic wildlife sighting I have ever seen on South Pond was a deer with full antlers swim across the water with a very dramatic thrashing of water which made quite a racket. This also happened in the late fall.

Recently, I started this watercolor as I have been inspired for some time both by the overwhelming amount of green foliage one encounters up on South Pond and the presence of small watercraft such as kayaks which are so popular these days. 

Up to this point the painting basically consists of the color green. This alone makes me feel the weight and presence of the humidity in the air, which to me has dominated the summer season. I have used shadow green with various amounts of paynes' gray for both the foliage and the water.

Five-minute sketches

(C) 2016 Dale DiMauro

While on our vacation in Maine we took many photographs. Some definitely have inspired me. Even on the trip I was often thinking of ways I would compose a painting. Should I go with a horizontal format or a vertical one? How big should the picture be? Should the focal point be off center or even in the lower right corner? What should I include and what should I exclude?

The evolution of these sketches originated when we visited the Maine Audubon Society, which is in Portland, with lovely mowed passages running through meadows and woodland trails, providing shoreline views amongst mature oaks. 

We came upon a young girl taking a break, wearing a white t-shirt against this mass of dark spruce trees, with a distant estuary behind her. Her upright posture against all this dark growth was quite a contrast. With all these cool shadows projecting across the ground from nearby trees it was the perfect picture in of itself.

I had evolved to thinking that the best composition is a horizontal format where the focal point, in this case, is this girl placed in the right foreground. By placing her off-center, the picture attains a more relaxed feel, yet includes the distant landscape in contrast to the dark evergreens in the foreground on the right.

Figure study

(C) 2016 Dale DiMauro

It has been very uncomfortable in our house with the heat and humidity, not to mention workers installing heat pumps, days on end, it seems. Disinclined to take on a large project in these conditions, I tried something a bit smaller. The other evening I had this scrap of Arches watercolor paper on my desk. I thought with its narrow dimensions it lent itself to a vertical composition for a figure study. 

Catching people behaving naturally doing ordinary activities seems to be an art in of itself. You have to be aware of your surroundings and tuned in to what people are doing. The scene can change abruptly; for example, if a summer thunderstorm moves in everyone suddenly disappears. I like trying to catch people who are active but unconscious of being watched. It is very different approach from posing someone for a detailed up close study. I do find that if you add a person to a picture it immediately adds a focal point. If it is a figure rather than a portrait, adding that person provides movement to the piece in more cases than not.

It has occurred to me that matting and framing this piece would be a challenge as it is quite narrow. However, at this point, I have not given it much consideration.

New pigments to experiment with

When we visited Portland, Maine recently, we learned of a new art store or at least new to us. Often when in Portland, I have visited the Art Mart in downtown, which is not far from the Portland Museum of Art. This store caters to the local art school. However, the Artist & Craftsman Supply Store, which is west of downtown Portland, serves more seasoned artists who know what they are looking for. I am aware of large art stores such as Dick Blick and Cheap Joe's which exist in large cities, but I had yet to be in an art store that big. These are some of the art supplies I bought there.

Earlier in the summer, I had been reading Jeanne Dobies' book Making Color Sing, which is a classic in watercolor. She has a section on the challenge of mixing greens that provide fresh, vibrant color in contrast to the dull color you get out of the tube. She recommends using Winsor green with various yellows and reds to arrive at a richer and more varied source of greens. 

Before I went into the Artist & Craftsman Supply Store in Portland, Maine I thought this was an opportunity to expand upon my palette and experiment with a greater range of colors. In addition, to Winsor green, I purchased perylene green, graphite gray, and iridescent sapphire. I'll let you know what color mixes evolve into color staples on my ever-changing palette.

Portrait: Walter Griffen(1881)

Since visiting the Portland Museum of Art, in Portland, Maine, a few weeks ago I have been thinking about this painting. Dennis Miller Bunker (1861-1890) painted this portrait of a fellow art student, Portland born Walter Griffin (1861-1935). They both were twenty year old students attending New York's National Academy of Design when this portrait was painted. Perhaps it was a class exercise. Both men had successful painting careers; however, as the accompanying text panel points out, Bunker's life was cut short by his death from influenza in 1890.

What I like about this picture is the attention given both to the face and hands, which seem to glow in stark contrast to the overall dark composition. In so many portraits, historically speaking, hands are not portrayed accurately or left unfinished, yet this picture seems to feature the hands. I really like the warmth of the skin tone.

This oil on panel is exhibited in the permanent collection towards the back of the Portland Museum of Art. Most of the information on this picture originated from the display panel alongside the painting in the art museum.