outa the park

"inspired while riding out of Prarire Park with Stephanie in the evening." This is the note on the edge of the painting.   We were on the tandem.  It was March 3rd.  The painting was  done on the 5th after it had stirred around in my head a little bit. Kinda like makin' good tapioca puddin' or so I'm told- some things need to just simmer for a time...The trees had only begun to fill out and it was nearly a month till the spring warbler migration would begin in earnest, but the weather had warmed and cleared and we were out for a short ride.  Inspirations come to the artist when they do...

Winter fence line.

This scene is presented to me every day from the kitchen window.  I should do a sketch or something from there every day. It changes from the passing of the sun (or moon) and its movement north to south over the seasons. This was done from a drawing- barely a sketch- that I cannot even find now. None of the paintings from this window have been as spontaneous as this one. Or I should say, none show the qualities of the water color medium as clearly as this painting does.

Clear & cool

This painting is dated the 26th of February. 2 days after "59 South".  Although the note on the margin says to Norman, I guess we were actually on the return trip when I sketched the thumbnail.  I thought I had some of the prelims as well as the final painting, but do not see the sketches now, so...  This painting has some qualities of spontaneity that I like, though they are not always easy to reproduce. Done on Canson 140#  WC  paper  7"x10"

East end of 11th

The note on this sketch from the east side of town is Dec 15 - the number I think indicates the year, not the day. Done on a small piece of Canson 140# paper maybe 5" x 9".  I like this one for its freshness and for me some experimental color. It took a very short time to do in the studio with sketches done from memory after driving around this corner earlier in the day.

Between Blue Mound and the tower...

Here is a scene I went looking for one weekend on the roads east of here near the construction zone. I have done drawings here in the last few years before this overpass and before you could see the farm house so easily from this spot.  You can see the notes on this painting done on location.  they tell what the conditions were.  Just about perfect... Mid afternoon, 60 degrees and clear with little breeze- not bad for the 10th of December...
This is actually E 1750 road looking south.
I was using a makeshift easel that I had put together for doing watercolor from the back of the bike, but it really does not get small enough, so back to the drawing board. I will have to post a pic of it one of these times.

the little gate

This painting was done from sketches after returning from a trip on July 19th.  The painting has the date of December 2, 2015.  We were all headed to ElDorado in Dorothy's car for Emma's baptizm at the local pool with a swim afterwards.   This road trip was one week after the trip in which we were stopped on the KTA just after torrential rains flooded the highway.  I have told myself before that it would be better to wait in Emporia than risk trying to get though.       I pieced this painting together from the thumbnail of the gate and one of the barn.  I put them together because I know of at least one such place near here- with the vintage man gate and an old farmstead in the background.  So a bit of creative cutspugh and olah...   I was dealing with a more specific grassy foreground than what I have done recently, so this was a bit experimental.  But it may be good to keep a work on the verge of failure so the mind and senses are at full attention.  As usual, the photograph leaves something to be desired...
Below are some of the preliminary things I did in the process of doing this painting. The finished painting is 11 by 15 inches on Canson 140# paper.

Here are the studies for the completed painting as well as the sketch of the gate done on the road while Stephanie was driving.  I do not always do drawings in such detail as this, but there were many questions about layout I wanted to clarify.  The gate was a new problem for me so I wanted to see how it would work with the foreground grass and the barn, before actually jumping into the painting.  I had some idea in my head before even these sketches.  There are always surprises with watercolor, but I was trying to make sure they were positive ones...  Its like babysitting grand kids-  you know they will surprise you somehow- but it is nice when they are possitive ones!

This is a very fun stage, when you begin to see how things are going together.  I did a full size sketch of the fence and barn just to get the juxtaposition of lights and darks to where it made sense, using thin white tape to delineate the wire by laying it over the top of the sketch in the dark spots. Strange approach I know, but it helped me....

Weatherhead

1/18/16 is the day I started this.   It was done from a drawing, but with a good amount of thumbnails, etc. to evaluate the layout possibilities.  If I find some of the sketches here maybe I can get them posted as well...

desk chair

This old desk chair in the office with its wooden seat and no cover makes a perfect spot for the laptop to sit when it happens to land in there.  But this day for some reason the chair was in the living room and catching the light from the big window so the lights and darks were pretty interesting.  This was a larger than the usual sketch format of about 9" x 12" -all pencil.

Hall dresser

I walk past this scene a gazillion times a day. Why then does it take so long to see the possibilities for a drawing?  One night in the reduced lighting it finally became clear to me... I like the result, although it is not as dark as the actual scene.  The notes on the drawing say only,"1/8/16    9:20 pm"   I guess I was concerned about resetting the scene on another night when I went to finish it.  I did not need to worry-  although most of it was done in greatly reduced lighting, once the main idea was on the paper, the rest did not need such careful reproduction of the scene.  Really, it did take me a few nights to finish it up, sometimes working on it only a few minutes for lack of time or motivation.

Bob's Windmill

Our neighbor, Bob, who has been a history buff much of his life, helped locate and install the windmill  on this private property.  The Civil War era Miller homestead miraculously survived Quantrill's raid in 1860's.  Lawrence was a hotbed of pre-civil war bickering.  Places like this are a great inspiration for a little bit of reflection about the days of "yester-year".             It has been a warm, wet winter. So what would usually be snow has mostly been rain. This day, near the end of the year, when it began to snow, I began to get antsy.  Soon I was in the pickup looking for a place to walk and draw.  This place has been waiting for just such a day I guess.  I could shield the small sketch pad with my body just enough to keep the extra fine sharpie working. They don't work well running in water!  Actually, I guess the snowfall was even less impressive than it appears in the painting. Some things are easy to exaggerate.  I did this watercolor directly from the ink drawing.   I think it worked ok.    Done on the 10th of January from the sketch of 12/28/15.   10" x 12" Canson 140# w/c paper.  Guess I should find the ink sketch to post as well, but as we are getting ready for a weeks trip, I do not have the time right now to look for it....

bug fence

The shadows were interesting.  So I had to do 'em.  The rest was kinda just where it went from there. It was in Warner Robins at the kids place.  There is always plenty to do when there is family around, so having time to sketch is not high on the priority list. More than once we sat out on this deck in the late evening with these things burning for protection from the few bugs, but we often were sitting out in cooler weather, when there really were no bugs.  Ink and graphite drawing in a 5" x 9" pad.

off season

This poor plant has been sitting on our cabinet all winter wishin' spring would come. It has a hole or 2 eaten in the leaves and a stub of a stem going nowhere. But the greens of the plant and the pot, and the white and black of the dish and handwork make for good contrast and subtle color variations.  Of course the stretch of the leaves to the side give the piece a sense of direction it might otherwise not have...
The plant is insignificant, but the handwork came from our parents
I think, and the octagonal bowl was given us by a neighbor.  The painting was done on the 23rd of January, or maybe finished that day.  It was done in a Canson Montval pad of a 9" x 12" format. This was the first use for me of this paper. I like the way it works, though the jury may be out on how quick it is, or how well it takes abuse.

Below are the preliminary studies which for some reason in this case I seem to have way overdone; I did some studies of the shape of the bowl, as well as of the overall layout and shading.

winter pots

Another quickie from Georgia.  These pots had been sitting all winter under a bench on the deck, waiting for the spring that had now arrived.  We did not get to stay long enough, though to see them put to use, but I am sure they were.  Now another Georgia trip is in the works. But the kids have moved from this place to one in the country with a little more room - and another kid I might add! This drawing is all ink, no pencil in a 5" x 9" pad.

Southbound

I have tagged this as "Rural Lawrence".  But what does that mean?  What was rural 30 years ago is town now.  This particular place sits surrounded by town, and waiting for development. All that still stands of the house is the fireplace. The rest went up in smoke...  I transferred the basics of the sketch to watercolor paper by hand then did this painting. That was a couple days after the sketch below.

Here is the sketch, done in a 9" x 5" pad. I did this on a Saturday I was remembering, but I see the notes say Monday.  I had been visiting the park across the road sometimes for some birding or sketching. This day I walked south near the road and got this sketch.  A good sketch has half a chance of turning into something.  You can see from the notes that I did not include them in the painting- nor use them in the name...  You can also see the paint splashes on the sketch from when I was doing the painting. When the sketch is close enough to the painting to refer to it is also close enough to get a bit of color added to it...    This was it. I did no other sketches or studies, before jumping right into the painting.

the lineup

This was the lineup inside the front door of the kids townhouse. Dad's boots and Grandpa's boots as well.  Along with some of the grand-daughter's crocks. As well as other shoes. Not usually this crowded, unless there is company in the house. It is a subject that has endless interest and possibilities.

Mack-National

A page of sketches in a 5" x 9" pad done from my pickup one lunchtime at the shop, where I work from time to time.  These sketches are fun to do and you learn a bunch about stuff when you do 'em. You learn stuff about the subject, about drawing, as well as about yourself...

Asberry Oaks

Asberry Oaks was done from the sketch.  I was stopped at the quiet corner of Dakota and Ohio  when I said, "gotta do this sketch".  So straddling the bicycle in the middle of the street that is what I did... These pin oaks are all over the town -all over the mid-west!  They are not as monstrous as they appear- the perspective puts 2 trees together, making them seem huge.   The subdivision has been there since the 1950's though, and the trees as well I suppose, so they are not young.

Done on Canson 140# paper about 9.75" x 11.5"

Here is the sketch. From a 5 x9 pad.  The notes showing beside it are from the page below it; there is only the title on this sketch. But it was done on a peddle to Checkers for their 19 cents a lb bananas on Tuesday, the 22nd of December. The painting was done that day or the next.

E 11th street

The notes on the sketch from which this came read: "E 11th  N 1550 Rd.   2/23/15   30 degrees  4:00 PM  Clear."   Yet in the sketch there are some clouds in the west and the sun shines over and through them, catching the tops of the building, but leaving this east side in the hazy shadow. So I guess it was not completely clear, at least in the west.  That was in a 9" x 12" Canson sketch pad.  The painting is more like 11" x 14".  These are definitely winter colors subdued by a  winter sun that back lights the scene.  There is another painting I have done from a sketch I did at home inspired by another place along this road in that same sun.

cropland in the Kaw bottoms

Although it was not in this part of Kansas where I grew up, still did spend a bunch of time as a kid on the bottoms of the Republican river  which comes out of Colorado, southern Nebraska, and eventually feeds into the Kaw.  So scenes such as these are not unfamiliar to me.  The cottonwood groves; the willows; rustling of leaves in the prevailing wind can suppress all other sound, leaving one numb to even the crunch of your own steps in the grass.  This painting was done from a sketch done mostly from memory this summer while the corn was still partly green.  There is no day or month recorded on the margin- only" Summer 2015".    It was done on Canson 140#  paper 9" x 12" I believe.

teenager

Guess who!!    Some high school kids have a characteristic teenage stance or posture. Some do not. This particular grandkid of mine is quintisential teenager. Even while sitting on the couch watchin' the tube.