Sketches and Drawings from Europe

     I had an amazing adventure this summer with my family traveling around Europe at the end of July and beginning of August.  We traveled for almost 4 weeks and our trip included: Florence (with overnight trips to Rome and Venice), Paris, and Marlow, England.  We rented apartments in each city, which gave us a great 'homebase' with a kitchen and more room for everyone. The weather was drastically different in each place, so we packed for the heat (in Italy, the hottest heat wave in 130 years) to cooler, almost autumn-like weather in England. My wife and I both brought painting gear, and we managed to get some work done. I drew in my sketch book, and had a half box French easel with an umbrella. For the paintings, I worked on Arches oil paper with a small panel of gatorboard to tape the paper to. I brought brushes and palette knives, and bought the paint and solvents when I first arrived in Florence. Some of them smeared in transport, so I had to repaint some areas when I got back to my studio. Here are some of the drawings and oil sketches I did while I was there:

near the Duomo, Florence 8.5" x 11"graphite

Florence courtyard, 8.5" x 11"graphite

Ponte alle Grazie, oil and graphite on paper, 9"x12"

Along the Arno, oil on paper 9" x 12"

Florence courtyard, oil and graphite on paper 9" x 12"

Jasper on the train to Venice, graphite 8.5" x 11"

Fountain in Florence, oil and graphite on paper 9" x 12"

Rome, graphite on paper 8.5" x 11"

Paris studio, oil and graphite on paper 9" x 12"

Paris studio II, oil and graphite on paper 9" x 12"

Paris studio III, oil and graphite on paper 9" x 12"

Parisian rooftops, graphite on paper 8.5" x 11"

Marlow hedge, oil on paper 9" x 12"

Oak in Marlow, graphite on paper 8.5" x 11"

Fort Moultrie jetty

14" x 21"

15" x 23"

14" x 21"

     I started these 3 paintings in May, and worked on them most of the month, rotating through each one depending on the tide and weather. I was little more limited with the 2 paintings of the retaining wall, as the spot I was painting from was only accessible when the tide was out. It's a great spot to paint, a small cove at the tip of Sullivan's Island, with the famed Fort Moultrie a few hundred yards in. I had remembered the retaining wall, with it's large rocks and old pier stumps, as something that I wanted to paint; their muted earth tones creating interesting textures and shadow shapes.
     It was a challenge to paint these, as the tidal shift puts an extra element of pressure to capture the transient effects of nature on the scene. The sun became brutal by midday, bleaching out the colors on my palette and the surface of the painting. After each session, I had to tweak things in the studio a bit, reducing its whiteness and punching up the tones.
     These will be in a group show, "Passages" at Horton Hayes gallery this fall in Charleston. Besides referencing the way your eye takes you through different passages of paint across the canvas, this spot is also, literally, a passage for the ships that come in and out of Charleston harbor everyday. 

Porch at night

     I've had this idea for a painting of our porch for a few years now. It's a space we use a lot, mostly in the Spring and the Fall, when it's neither too hot or too cold outside. I started doing drawings for this one in March, testing out a few different angles and sizes in my sketchbook:

sketchbook 9" x 12"

sketchbook 9" x 12"

     This last drawing is larger and I experimented with having a figure in it. Painter John Hull came to my studio at the start of this painting and he told me how he makes cut outs of figures on paper and moves them around within a drawing of the space he is painting. I tried this with my daughter posing on the bench, but I felt that the space would seem too crowded with a figure.

pencil, 21" x 18"

     In my interiors, I've been investigating these near and far spaces, and the porch offered a perfect stage for this indoor/outdoor space. I was interested also in how different light is portrayed in a single image; string lights vs. fading sunset, warm interior space verses cool outdoor space. The composition ordered itself symmetrically, but I was interested in how the triangles re-iterated themselves and how your eye bounced around the patterns. The symmetry deflected at times by the thrust of the table and glow of the drawing on the easel.
      From the drawings I blocked in the darks on a toned linen canvas. I took progression shots along the way, usually after each painting session: 

   The table in the foreground was initially empty, but one night while I was set up painting, my wife walked through from outside and placed the flowers in the vase on the table. I put them in quickly that night, perfectly serving as a counterpoint to my daughters drawing on the easel across from it.

     The painting slowly built up over a long period of time, the sweet spot of the session being when I raced to set things up so I could get those 15 minutes of purple/blue light as the sun finally sunk. Trees in the distance dissolving into fuzzy silhouettes against the sky.  I worked on this one vigorously over 3 or 4 months, usually about twice a week for 2-3 hours at a time. As the painting went on, I started working more and more without the motif, in my studio, tweaking things here and there, building up the surface and marks. Here's the finished version:

oil on linen, 22" x 24"

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...

Flowers

    The Winter months usually bring a temporary halt to painting outside in the landscape, even though I love the light and muted colors I see everywhere. To keep me busy, I've been working on some paintings of flowers that are around our house (courtesy of my wife, Faith Evans-Sills) These are mostly small, quick paintings, something that I can finish in 1 sitting, usually around 3 hours. The high key colors I find exciting, with the reds, pinks and yellows something that normally doesn't sneak into my paintings. Who doesn't need more flowers in their life?...

oil on paper; 12" x 16"

oil on linen; 7.5" x 10"

oil on linen; 7.5" x 10"

oil on paper; 12" x16"

oil on paper; 12" x 16"

Winter still life

     Every Winter we pull some of our plants inside, the ones that are in containers, where we can shelter them from the colder weather. The larger ones usually make their way into my studio, because of the free space and the natural light. Over the past few years, I usually paint or draw them here, and about a month ago I started this painting. A lot of these plants we've had for a long time, where they pop up in different paintings over the years (I recently found an old drawing with the rubber plant in it from 2003) There's something about the idea of a container that I'm attracted to, or maybe it's a vessel...how something 'boundless-ness' can be 'contained'. I like tracking the growth of these plants through paint.
     I painted over this painting turned on it's side from a few years ago, which I was never able to resolve (the symmetry and the space never 'clicked', and the paint application got too 'finicky'):

25" x 22"

     Before I jumped into the painting, I started by sketching out a few different compositions:

     I settled on the symmetrical composition again, probably unconsciously leaning this way from the previous painting that I was covering over. I don't usually like working over other paintings, but it does happen from time to time. The painting underneath had probably been drying for about 2 years, so I took a razor blade to it and tried to level off as many ridges of paint as I could.
     My first layer is usually applied with a palate knife, but in this case, it felt like I was plastering over an old wall. I've been specifically trying to work more broadly in the beginning, and using large brushes, or in this case, a palette knife, forces me to focus on the big shapes and how they relate to the rectangle. (basically, the Charles Hawthore color-spot approach). From there, I can progressively hone in and articulate the spaces between the big shapes, which is what happens in this sequence:

   I've taken a break from this one over the holidays, but it's nice to have a painting to work on at all times. I've enjoyed exploring the patterns on the rug with paint and how they relate to the shapes of the leaves. The bright cobalt rectangle serves the practical function of keeping any water and dirt off the rug, but within the painting it functions as a compliment to the orange of the wood and breaks up the receding floor plane. I'll probably continue to fiddle around with it until the plants go back outside in the Spring...