Textured Variations

textures and colors by Meera Rao

The last day of the "Variations" workshop was all about textures. We saw the possibilities with Myrna Wacknov's collection reference photos, her paintings, and use of gesso, stencils, stamps, patterns, tissue for collage, etc and  unlimited imagination :) The day's task was to bring color, texture, value and other design elements together. 

After the van Gogh like textures of my day 3 painting, I decided to tone down go for subtler texture :) and I like my final piece. 

gesso covering old painting

After watching the demo about applying stencils, tissues, and stamping, I proceeded to gesso -not too thickly or carefully- a painting I didn't care for. Applying the textures subtly with stamps and even fingers, and lifting some color with the stencils, I prepared the paper.  When the paper was dry I knew where and how I wanted my drawing to go. It did not really take much time to paint after that and I had to be especially be wary of not overworking it since it was so much fun to paint on the gesso prepped textured paper! Rest of the day I played with experimenting with preparing  paper in all different ways. 

Here is the photo with all my paintings of the week together:

variations by Meera Rao

Lines Coloring Variations

Day 3 Line and color by Meera Rao

Day 3 of Myrna Wacknov's workshop 'Variations' focused on line and texture as line.  She did a demo of texturizing paper by gesso-ing not up-to par painting : gesso alone, gesso on stencil, gesso a with  roller, smoothing out with credit card, stamping on gesso, laying wax paper, plastic wrap etc for texture.  She explained that when the gesso is dry, she makes her drawing on the textured paper with any of the various tools - droppers with ink, sticks, clay tool, wide markers, tree sticks, bamboo pens and anything else that will make a line :) 

The limitations and constraints from roll of dice on day 3 gave me split complement colors Red/yellowgreen/bluegreen and color as the second design element with line as the  dominant feature. 

An accidental discovery on my part as to how color from my old painting that I was covering up with gesso showed up when I tried to use a stencil on too thin, too wet gesso led me to use a wooden coffee stick to gouge out the still wet gesso to sketch freehand my drawing -- I am very pleased how drawing like that satisfied the requirements of line, color and texture. I used a delicate/fine stamp on the bandana area. The painting I had chosen to gesso over by chance had the colors I had rolled and I loved how they showed through.  I did minimal painting with yellow green, blue green on the background and red on the bandana. I used Blue and red also for value and that intensified the color showing thru. Gesso also enabled me to wipe off paint when I did not like my choices.  It was uncanny how colors from the old waterscape painting underneath worked for  this particular portrait variation! 

closeup of line, color and texture 

The whole process was so much fun that I had to force myself to stop :)  I continued the fun by texturing two or three more papers and can't wait to paint on them. I also loved how Myrna used red gesso in one of her demos to sketch her drawing. Sketching the variations and plotting the values numerous times definitely made me familiar with the subject and gave me easy spontaneity when it came to painting.  

The Power of Choice

Garuda Puppet  watermedia  22x30

So how long does it take me to complete a painting? - I started Garuda fifteen some years ago at the very first workshop I had signed up for.  We went to an antique shop and I sketched an Indonesian puppet in pen on a full sheet of Arches watercolor paper! Each participant then picked three colors from a basket to use as underpainting.  I ended up with Opera, Phthalo(more like acid)green and Aureolin yellow :)  Too meek to protest or cheat with tamer colors, I tried to do my best by really diluting the paints but still ended up with a very garish start. I remember very well trying to save the whites around the face of the puppet! But I never even attempted to complete the piece. Over the years, I could not discard it --the paper was too expensive, and I did not want to admit defeat! 

Yesterday I pulled out the piece. All my reference photos were lost somewhere in my studio. I decided to plunge by boldly covering the space and underpainting behind the puppet with opaque blue gouache. Things already looked better! Except for the face, the arm, and the hands, I glazed the background designs with a thin wash of ultramarine blue --that subdued the colors and pushed it back. I then defined some of the shapes with indigo violet, some with yellow ochre, remembering the  batik textile designs from the Indonesian island of Bali. Feeling a bit adventurous, I defined the eyebrow and the beak with a mix of opera and phthalo green. I finished by glazing the arm with yellow ochre and one last thin glaze of ultramarine blue on everything but the face and arms. I am pretty pleased with the rescue - mainly because I learnt so much in the process! Funny thing is that, all this took about 4 hours! And I really wish I had a 'before' photograph.

This painting session was the exact boost I needed desperately yesterday.  During the past month I had received one too many rejection notices for shows and someone from the artworld even questioned my commitment as an artist. As I thought through my experiences, I suddenly realized how far I had come in the fifteen years and how much I enjoy what I do. And talk about serendipity, I came across the wise words about 'social validation and false merit metric of prestige' at Brainpickings :What you should not do, I think, is worry about the opinion of anyone beyond your friends. You shouldn’t worry about prestige. Prestige is the opinion of the rest of the world.[…]Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like. - (Paul Graham on How to do what You Love). Tucked in the same site, TED talk by Alain de Botton about 'ideological fallacies of success.' was also just what I needed :)

So, I would like to really thank all of you who visit my blog and validate what I do here! I also  especially want to thank Aparna from Warli Soul for the 'Liebester Award' she gave me. Liebster is German for dearest, beloved or favorite. This award is bestowed on blogs with less than 200 followers but deserve more attention (-Serendipity again!) In my next post, I shall pass this along :) Meanwhile, do check out her beautiful 'Warli' art. 

Bobbing colors and Shadows

A Day in the Life - Sketchbook Project page 19 color pencils 5x7"

I see this little shed with these colorful buoys behind a high fence everyday as I drive or walk by it near the end of our street.  The arrangement and number  of buoys keeps changing - yesterday there were only a few but this past winter when I was on my walk, the sun was at just the right angle on the full display of vivid objects.  Through the seasons, I observed how the number of buoys, angle of light, the time of day changes the shadows making for exciting shapes and colors. All this helped me change the arrangement the way I felt comfortable with as I sketched. 

I had an 'ah-ha' moment when I realized that I 'draw' outlines of the objects  but I have to 'paint' shapes and values! Shapes in right color & value with lost and found edges essentially complete a painting save for a few accents! So now I know to focus my efforts in future paintings on the refinement of interlocking shapes in my composition, making highlights blend, anchoring the shadows so objects pop out.  Most of writing and painting is observing and thinking and seeing the relationships :) 

Field Experiments

Watermelon and berries  sketching with Aquaflow brush with watercolor tube paint

At the Gate sketches with Aquaflow brush, tube paint, Pilot G-2 pen

Ready to Board  sketch with Aquaflow brush, tube paint, Pilot G-2 pen

I had purchased a Aquaflow waterbrush just before my unexpected  trip to India last month. I made myself a small field box by putting a blob of paint each of cool and warm reds, blues, and greens, aurelion yellow, raw umber, burnt umber into an old small flat Celestial Seasoning Tea box measuring 3"x2"x1/2" . The brush, the box and my sketch book (5x3"), a Pilot G-2 pen were packed into a quart size ziploc bag and fit in my purse neatly. 

I really enjoyed trying out my 'field sketch box kit' at the airports mostly and found it fun. It took some practice to get a feel for the brush which has a store of water --to figure out how much to squeeze as you paint and how to blend the colors!  I also now know to add a sponge or couple of paper towels to the kit. I played around with sketching first and then adding the colors  as well as putting down the colors first and then defining with the pen. Except that by the end of the trip, some of the paints mixed with each other (airplane pressure issue?) and there was a small mess in part of the box, the kit was a successful experiment. 

Fig  Salvia  sketches with Sakura waterbrush Koi watercolor field sketch box

The sketches of the fig and the Salvia was done at home couple of days ago with the Koi Watercolor Field sketch Box and the Sakura waterbrush that came with it.  The field box has 24 mini pans of paint, 2 sponge strips, a mixing tray that fits neatly to the side when opened, and room for the dis-assembled brushpen. The lid can be used as a mini easel for the watercolor paper that I cut fit into the space between the lid and the mixing tray.  I could hold the field box in one one hand and paint with the other, making it a neat field box. The box measures 6"x4"x1" when closed. I am not too happy with the waterbrush that came with as it kept loosing hair and it took me a while to figure out that I had to twist it to the right to loosen it as opposed to turning to left as I instinctively do ! I was afraid I was going to ruin the brush even before I had a chance to paint with it!!!  I am really looking forward to using my field kits regularly and hope all the sketching will make a difference in my studio paintings :) Please let me know how you approach sketching on the go.   

the set ups :)

Want or Need?

A Day In the Life ..in Blue Jeans with Gold Embroidery  - Page 13 (Sketchbook/fiction Project )color pencils

Do I call this co-incidence? This page done months ago was next in line to be posted. And as it happens,  I just returned from a week of retreat at the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam where the teaching is all about how to deal with desires, aversions, dispassion, work with the attitude of worship and to accept everything in the spirit of blessing.  This teaching more than anything reinforces how I should put forth my best effort, enjoy the process of painting and not get hung up on the final product. Over the years I have realized that it really frees up the creative process when I do the preparatory work,  trust my instincts and let things just be. I read and hear again and again that meditation and mindfulness will take  creativity and life to a different level - hope to be able to follow that advice consistently one of these days! 

What philosophy nourishes your artistic endeavors? 

Artistic Impulse

A Day in The Life   page 12 color pencils

As an artist you are always told to develop your own style. Well, I just watched a TED talk by Shea Hembrey  -- he became 100 artists with hundred different styles for his own 'International Biennial Show!'  He made up artists from different counties, invented bios, wrote one hundred different artist statements and created different styles, forms of art in all different sizes too - paintings, sculptures, performance arts, installations, movies/documentaries. He was even his own curator, Gallery director --but of course, you know by now that he came up with names and positions and bios for them too.

There is a huge debate going on in TED site about what all this means.  I am impressed with his audacity, creativity and sense of humor. It tickled me that he has hundred different artists in him and now I feel comfortable to carry on with my varied styles and  choice of mediums without feeling compelled to choose one or the other. Does this mean I may end up not mastering any one style or medium? Probably so but I may never grow as an artist if I don't keep experimenting and pushing my limits. When it comes to creativity, I think it is a fine line between being focused and spreading yourself thin! Check out the hilarious and creative talk and a sample of his hundred of artists in the TED-video. Please leave a comment and let me know your opinion about it. 

Patience and Possibilities

Patient Pelican  Watercolors 6"x7"

I have been rereading  (or rather re-looking at the illustrations/paintings from) Jeanne Dobie's Making Color Sing. This was my very first purchase when I started painting in watercolors many years ago. Two days ago, her chapter on 'Mouse Power - achieving luminous grays' prompted me to finally paint the photograph of this pelican I had taken a while back. According to her 'mouse colors are like the bit players who support the stars.' 

I didn't quite follow her instructions or do the exercises,  but selected a transparent red, aureolin yellow, cobalt blue and viridian to make my grays, and used the grays to paint everything but the little yellow and orange patches on the bird :) A smaller brush than I normally use and waiting patiently for the paint to dry between the layers helped too.

Reading parts of the chapter while waiting for the paint to dry showed me the weakness in my  usual method of studying only the pictures in an art book rather than reading the chapters in detail!  I guess I need to change my ways a bit and not try to reinvent the wheel on my own!

I had moved away from her suggested rose madder genuine a few years ago since it had been rated poorly for color fastness in "The Wilcox Guide to the Best Watercolor Paints."   While linking her book to amazon.com, I noticed that there is a newer edition of her book- hope  she has replacements for the fugitive colors in the new version.

To Simply Paint

Blue Crab Special  watercolor 24"x18"

This painting is from about fifteen years ago when I learned to paint wet on wet and also to bring abstraction to a painting. Jan Ledbetter whose class I was attending then, in preparation for a workshop 'Watermedia Encounter' by Doug Walton, gave us her version of a set of steps of his style of painting. Doug Walton was a student of the renowned watercolor painter Ed Whitney and  he passed on some of Whitney's wisdom. The one I remember the most: Any teacher can teach how to begin a painting but you have to be the one to finish it.  Some other things that stayed with me from that time are : to let go and not be afraid of drawing and painting instinctively, having dark darks and white whites in a painting,  touch a point optimally once and no more than 3 times,  paint shapes,  have big readable nouns and most importantly you don't have to paint or fix everything!