Kaua'i trip summer 2016

Kaua'i landscape; oil on paper, 12" x 16"

   I just got back from a 3 week long trip to the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i, where I was able to do some drawings and paintings. It's been my family's routine to leave Charleston every summer, mostly because it gets so unbearably hot here, but also to introduce our kids to different parts of the world (and my wife definitely has the travel bug!). On these long extended trips I like to bring my painting materials as a way to document a different landscape. It usually requires an entire separate suitcase to pack everything, but after a few years of doing this, I've got the routine down. It usually includes the following:
- Jullian half box French easel. I have the full box that I use at home, but the half for traveling because it is smaller and lighter.
- Best Brella umbrella, includes clamp, extension rods and one umbrella
- oil paint packed in plastic Art Bin container. I separate this out from the easel, because the half box is kinda small and doesn't hold all the tubes of paint I use (about a dozen). I'm always afraid of some leaking at 30,000 feet, so this keeps it contained. I print out the material safety data sheet from one of the paint tubes and put it into the paint box in case something comes up with the TSA bag screening. Oil paint is safe to travel with on planes, but the words 'oil' and 'paint' might raise a red flag, so that shows the flash point and other specs.
- brushes in a separate plastic Art Bin brush container. Again, all the brushes usually don't fit in the half box because of the size, and the container has these foam slots which keep the brushes from sliding around and mashing up the ends.
- box of vinyl gloves
- brush cleaner
- C clamp and bungee cord. usually needed to secure the umbrella or palette on a windy day
- back pack to hold everything
- rags
- roll of white artist tape
- can with lid
- Art Bin container with pencils, charcoal pencil, eraser, X-acto blade, and conte crayon.
- a few smaller sized sketch books; I like the Holbein multi-drawing books for watercolor and multi media.
- the solvents are the tricky part, since they are a volatile liquid and definitely wouldn't pass through bag screening. I have to get this stuff at my destination, and fortunately they had a small art supply store on the island where I was able to get turpentine, damar varnish, linseed oil and copal medium. There was also an ACE hardware in town where I got the rags, a few cans with lids, and mineral spirits for cleaning brushes. I try to research all this prior to the trip, and dispose of it before I travel home.
- for travel, the Arches oil paper works great. The paint dries quickly on it and it can be stacked flat, so it takes up less room than framed canvases. The suit case I use has hard sides, so I slip the paper between 2 pieces of cardboard, which is slightly bigger than the paper I'm bringing, then put the whole cardboard/paper sandwich in a clear bag. I usually tape the paper to a board in my studio, but because of the weight, I didn't bring that. A trip to Walmart and $12 got me a cheap 18" x 24" poster frame which was sturdy enough to use for this purpose.

Iron wood tree roots, Tunnels Beach; pencil on paper, 6.5" x 9"

    It was great to be back in Kaua'i again. The last time my wife and I were there was ten years ago, when our oldest son was almost 1 (he actually learned to walk there!) We had also been there on our honeymoon, so Kaua'i holds a special place in our heart. It's just so breathtakingly beautiful, with brilliant color and flora everywhere. I was really captivated by all the different brightly colored flowers near our rental condo and the gnarly tree roots on the beach. My wife was gracious enough to give me time to paint while our kids played on the beach. She did her own body of work too, using watercolor and collage back at our condo. Unfortunately it rained a lot while we were there, so we were stuck inside too much, but there was always a few hours each day where the weather would clear and we could be outside. There was no shortage of inspiration and we were all sad when our 3 weeks were up. Looking forward to going back and hope it doesn't take us another 10 years to do that!

Kaua'i landscape; pencil on paper, 5.5" x 7.5"

Kaua'i landscape; pencil on paper, 5.5" x7.5"

Iron wood tree roots at Ke'e beach; pencil on paper, 6.5" x 9"

Tree roots at Anini Beach; pencil on paper, 6.5" x 9"

False Kamani tree, Puu Poa beach; pencil on paper, 6.5" x 9"

False Kamani tree, hideaways Beach; pencil on paper, 6.5" x 9"

Tree and rock face; pencil on paper, 9" x6.5"

Kaua'i landscape; oil on paper, 12" x 16"

False Kamani tree; graphite/oil on paper, 15" x 22"

Kaua'i flora; oil/graphite on paper, 22" x 15"

Iron wood tree roots; oil/graphite on paper, 22" x 15"

Plumeria tree and flora; oil/graphite on paper, 22" x 15"

Iron wood tree roots; oil/graphite on paper, 22" x 15"

Red Bud tree

     My studio has a small deck that spills out into our backyard patio and garden. Ever since we planted it there 4 years ago, I watch for the bright purple flowers of the red bud tree to appear outside my window, marking the start of spring. The color of the flowers is actually so intense and bright, that I couldn't mix anything close to it with the colors on my palette. It's almost like a neon fuscia...do they make cadmium purple?
     I set out in about February, with my sketchbook to prepare a composition. I knew that I only had a small window of time to get this done, before the petals fell and the new leaves appear.

pencil on paper 9" x 12"

     After determining my spot to paint from, I glued down a sheet of 22" x 15" Arches Oil paper to a panel. I've been working on this paper lately, but wanted to try it on a larger size glued down flat (the jury's still out on whether I like this better than linen...)
     I lightly sketched everything out and waited for the buds to appear. I didn't photograph after every session, but here are a few shots in progress:

    I didn't really get to resolve the painting before all the flowers dropped, so I might continue it next year at the same time. Spring has arrived and I've been busy outside doing some plein air work, so check back soon for some new work...

Front Yard (progression)

   Recently, I have started documenting some of the larger, more sustained paintings in the studio through photographs. Each photo usually represents a single painting session (sometimes I miss one...) When I photograph the painting, it allows me to see it in another way; in this case, condensed through the photographic 'eye' verses my own eyes. By shrinking it down (and sometimes flipping it around on the computer) I'm able to see the image in a fresh way. Of course, I do this in the studio too, sometimes looking at the painting in a mirror from across the room, or painting some passages with the actual painting upside down on the wall or easel. I guess I find it interesting to see how a painting 'gets built', and I hope you do too. Here's the latest one, "Front Yard":

 

Final state: 22.5" x 27"

Front Yard

   

in progress: 22.5" x 27"

     Put some time into this one today. Between ducking back into my studio from the rain and setting up again outside in the front yard, the greens took on an intense chroma from all the rain we've been having. Everything was damp and wet today, and it will probably be a completely different scene when I return outside. I had an initial underlayer which was done in the studio from the photo which inspired the painting. I needed to move things around a bit before getting everything back into alignment outside (this usually happens when I block things in from a photograph). The distortion is subtle, but bothersome none the less.
     The light has shifted significantly since March, when I planned this whole thing out. The setting sun was occurring right about in the middle of the canvas, but has now shifted over to behind our house on the right side. I think I'll just work through it; I either put the painting on hold until the right light situation occurs again, or I just move forward with the current season.
     This scene in our front yard has captivated me recently; it's what I look out at while parked in our driveway with the baby sleeping. This sometimes lasts a few hours, and depending on the time of day, the light can be stunning. I'm looking forward to carving out the space of the trees and branches amidst all these greens, and creating a stillness with the tire swing balancing between the tree trunk and the house.

The Angel Oak series: Finished (for now)

 

25" x 37"

     I just finished my largest and most involved painting of the Angel Oak tree.  It was definitely the one I wrestled with the most...my wife called it my 'White Whale', referring to the story, Moby Dick. I spent hours staring at it, working and re-working certain areas, waiting for warmer weather so I could go out and paint on site again. I took a bunch of photos of the branches from the spot I had painted, but they could only get me so far in resolving the space of the painting. It's a difficult way to work, going back and forth from photo reference to working from life. The main reason I don't like working solely from photographs, is because space gets compressed and flattens out, and the richness of color just isn't there. It helped in mapping out the intricate branching structure of the tree, to a certain extent, but after a while of working from the photos, I just hit a wall. I needed to go back and be with the tree.
     A few things that help me out while painting in the studio: a small handheld mirror and a camera. In my studio, I stand across the room and with my back to the painting and hold the mirror in front of my left shoulder, so that I can see the painting behind me reflected in the mirror. This flips the image, and allows me to 'see' the painting in a new way...it's one of those old tricks that painters use. Somehow my mind sees what's 'wrong' with the image more easily, or at least forces me out of the conditioned way that I've been looking at the painting.  Another way to do this is to photograph the painting, and look at it on the computer. The photographed painting shrinks down, giving my eye a fresh take on what's there. I can also manipulate it by flipping it upside down or sideways. Because of this, I now have a record of the different stages the painting has gone through:

Early version with the different panels (and Persian kitten, Belle)

started over on the single canvas

Final, finished state

   Calling a painting finished is one of those things that is so hard to define. On the one hand, I know I have to keep working on a painting when I can still see problems with it, whether it's structural or some way the light just isn't working, or the color is dead in a certain area. There are also those moments in the painting that become special, either by way of the paint handling or a certain color relationship. These need to be preserved, and worked off of. I guess I conclude that it's done when all those different elements are working in harmony. Sometimes, it becomes a matter of fatigue...you just resolve it the best you can during a certain point in time, and the painting just exhausts itself. There's no need to keep working on it. You definitely have to stop before you get bored with it...if you're bored with the painting, either the idea or the paint itself, it shows.

New Angel Oak paintings

     While working on the first Angel Oak painting I started in the fall, I knew I had to do more. This one was started towards the end of October:

     My usual process is to work out the composition with a drawing first, but here, I jumped right in with the paint. I chose this angle because it shows the branches gracefully arching up and out to the left. While working, I've realized that the painting is not only about the trunk and it's branches, but also the space between me and the tree. Another thing I noticed, is that each time I would return to paint, the tree would sometimes be covered with small ferns. Somebody pointed out to me that this was the 'resurrection' fern, an air plant not actually attached to the tree. When there's moisture out, the leaves open up, and when it's dry, they curl up and remain dormant....very cool.

     As I continued, I began to see so much that I was editing out, both with the tips of the branches as they moved to my left and the canopy above. I also wanted to include this tiny patch of unobstructed sky, and this would have occurred in the upper left hand corner of the canvas (had I used a larger canvas.)

     As I continued to look at it back in my studio, I realized that the painting needed some more space. After doing some measurements on site with the painting in front of me, I figured out a plan to add on. There would be a panel attached to the left side and another on the top, and I would attach them with bolts through the frames from behind:

     I worked on it like this for awhile, but wasn't really satisfied with the way the different panels were fitting together. The seams were slightly off, with some irregularity and problems with the alignment, and I wasn't really sure how the different panels were functioning with the concept of the piece as a whole. The painting being pieced together seemed arbitrary and haphazard. What I wanted to paint was a cohesive depiction of a clearly defined space, and the new format wasn't working. It was a tough call to start over after so much had been done, but I knew it was necessary.

     After some careful measuring, I re-cropped the overall image again, dismantled what I had started, made a new frame, and stretched a new piece of linen. I stapled the three different panels to a large piece of plywood and then gridded it out using string. From this, I could transfer what I had started, reproducing the entire image on the larger canvas in my studio.

     Not wanting to ditch the original canvas I started with, I decided to re-stretch that one again and work on both simultaneously. The smaller one I work on during overcast days, which is how I originally envisioned the light, and the second, larger one, is the one I work on during clear days. The two pieces now become a tandem piece, functioning not only as the same image seen in differing light, but also as a window that zooms out of the scene:

in progress - 21" x 28"

in progress - 25" x 37"

The Angel Oak...continued

     After stumbling upon the Angel Oak tree this summer, and doing some initial charcoal drawings, I decided that I needed to do a few paintings of it. There's obviously something very magnetic about this tree, and being that I periodically have done paintings and drawings of trees in the past, it seemed like a logical next step. There doesn't seem anything less quintessentially Southern than an old Live Oak tree at the end of a dirt road, surrounded by Spanish moss and dappled with sunlight. I'm trying to investigate ways to embrace this dramatic shift in my location, to seek out scenes and spaces that contain a specificity of place. It would seem like complete denial of my circumstances to try and recreate what I had painted in Brooklyn...urban street scenes, old warehouses, or port scenes. Not that those kind of things aren't down here...I guess I want to break free of being "the industrial landscape guy". I was talking to a local artist the other day, and he was saying that I might have a certain advantage depicting the landscape here. He was relating how, having lived here his whole life, the typical Low-country scene is burned in his mind...visions of herons and pelicans silhouetted by sunsets, Spanish Moss covered trees, and marshes with rickety old boats bobbing around. For him, it's hard to 'see' how it actually is anymore; imagery becomes clouded over by cliches. I found that an interesting observation, and also a challenge.
   The Angel Oak is this massive, hulking, beast of a tree. Legend has it that it might be up to 1500 years old, and as you drive down that dirt road, you feel as if you're entering another time and place. There's usually a pack of albino squirrels scampering across the road as I approach, to further heighten the sense of other-worldliness. It's quite a far drive from my house, usually about 30 minutes, which I do after the kids are dropped off at school. The tourists have slowly tapered off as we get later into the season here, and there are sometimes long stretches of time when it's just me and the tree. I actually have gotten used to the people who visit, mostly enjoying the sense of wonder and awe that they display when seeing it for the first time.  The usual pictures are taken, with similar poses, and the people are so polite here that they actually ask to look at my painting.  Of course I don't mind, and sometimes chat it up for a little bit with people...I usually say jokingly, that I'm participating in the Angel Oak Artist in Residency Program.

charcoal on paper, 22" x 30"

   This first one I based off a drawing I did over the summer. I decided to keep the trunk of the tree right around the center point of the painting; dead on and symmetrical. I scaled the size of the painting off the drawing and transferred it at home with black paint on an earth-toned canvas. This was the progress after about 3 sessions, each for about 2.5-3 hours:

21" x 28"

     This is the state it's in now, tightened up a bit, but with the light changing quickly as we approach the winter solstice:

     This one is the clear day picture, which is really tricky to paint because of the shifting light. Dappled light is always so hard to paint from life, so I have to work in different zones of the painting at different times. I can anticipate when the light will shift from branch to branch, so I end up working in a specific order around the canvas. I usually have only a few hours before fatigue or light conditions force me to stop.  The position of the earth has shifted so much over the few months I've been working on it, it's almost a different painting. Today while I was painting, I noticed a crop of ferns had sprouted all over a large part of the tree since my last painting session. It's amazing that something so seemly static, upon further inspection, contains so much flux.

   I decided to start this one for working on overcast days, which in theory should be a little easier, because the light and shadows aren't constantly shifting. This one was done from about 20 feet to the left of the first one, because I liked how it showed the tree's canopy shifted to one side. Most of the branches splay out toward the road and are reaching in the same direction. With this overcast one, I'm thinking that I might add some other panels to the top and sides of the canvas to incorporate the full extent of the branches and the overhead canopy. As I start this one, I feel as if I'm stepping into a long commitment with the painting and the tree...it feels crazy and stupid and complex and beautiful all at the same time. After each painting session, there is always something lacking, something that keeps evading me, which brings me back. When I look from the canvas to the tree and compare the two, there is this massive gap which I'm trying to close. It's impossible and maddening, yet each time I work, it seems to just barely slip away, so that the next time, I'm sure I can pin it down. I want these paintings to have a very specific, over-all clarity; a way to describe each individual branch as it extends into space and how the light fills the gaps in between.
     Fortunately, the Live Oak doesn't drop it's leaves in winter, so it's overall appearance won't change too much. I might be forced to stop painting for awhile due to the cold, in which case I'll have to resume the work next spring.