Recent Sketches

Necking on New York Subway

Waiting for the Flight



Landscape: The Fosters' Private Boat Ramp

I went to the Fosters again this morning. It was very cloudy but not raining. Everything in nature looked true to its local color. At first, I meant to paint the animals. There were two cows and a horse behind the fence and they were very friendly and curious. The horse liked being touched by people. While I was setting up my easel, I saw Janet Foster's daughter Dawn drive up to me and stopped her trunk next to the fence. She apologized to me by saying, "I don't mean to cause you trouble but it is their eating time and I have to feed them." I said that there was no problem and I hadn't started painting yet. However, the cows and horse simply followed her to the shack and started helping themselves to the brunch there. They didn't seemed to come back out within a short period of time. I didn't have a choice and needed to think of something else to paint. It wasn't very difficult to decide. I turned my easel a 60-degree angle to the left and faced the scene now you see in the picture. Between the Fosters and their neighbor, there was a dug-up canal. They each had a boat ramp leading into the canal. As you can see, there was an overturn flat-bottom boat nearby under the tree. I also saw a motor boat in the shack. Obviously they were not used for quite sometime because they were either overgrown with moss or covered with dust. There was also a towing carrier not far from the boat. Hope you like the painting.



Landscape: Floridian Clouds

 

 

If you drive westward on Highway 78 from the small town of Alva, after passing the winding part between a few horse farms and beyond Old Olga Road, you will notice the fields suddenly spread out and the land was kind of open and hilly. The large space reminds me of Montana which people, sometimes, call Big Sky state. However, that part of Florida happens to have a big sky, too. I am not sure if today's clouds were seasonal. Usually I saw those clouds more often in August. They were what meteorologists called cirrus or cirri (pl.) with wispy filamentous tufted streaks hanging in the air. Anyway, the view looked paintable. So today I simply stopped my car there on the road shoulder and took the kit from the trunk. Quickly I set up and started to paint. I did it really fast, not even two hourse including preparation because I noticed the dark clouds were rolling over from the east and remembered the weather person said we would have PM rain. I had good luck. Right after I packed up my stuff and hopped into the car, it began to sprinkle. By the time I was on SR 80, it was pouring. I smiled to myself and realized that the rain helped me avoid digressing from my focus. Hope you like the painting.

Landscape: Miromar Outlet

 

 

We had our last class today. Carl made comments on each student's major projects and then assigned a letter grade to him or her. Since I was one of the two auditor in classs, we were told to spread our works on the table instead of posting them on the wall. The class began earlier than usual, so we called it a day by noon. After class I drove to Miromar Outlet to make this painting. It was cloudy today. The sun peeked out intermittently and shone only for a few seconds each time. Therefore, I had to hurry and catch the light quickly. I also had to remember the difference when the sun was gone. Even before I finished it i realized the building was leaning a little. Well, just a study, I didn't bother to change. Maybe someday, I will repaint this scene. It is very colorful.

Sketch: Chatting with the Clerk.

Chatting with the Clerk

 

Feeling Bored at Mall

 

At T.G.I. Fridays

 

 

Today I went to Sanibel to submit my two entries for the "Shadows and Reflections" Show organized by Sanibel Captiva Art League. At first I was thinking of doing some plein air painting there. However, I was told that unaccepted submissions had to be picked between 2 and 4 PM. It was a time dilemma. I didn't like the waiting, either. Fortunately, I had a friend Pam working there. Pam was willing to take care of it in case my submissions were not accepted. I thought I needed to do something else for the trip. I had my sketchbook with me, so I went to the Edison Mall and did some sketches. Above are three of them.



Study: The Fosters' Farm and Cow

I called Mrs. Janet Foster this morning but she didn't answer the phone. Therefore, I left a message and simply drove there to try my luck. I didn't think she was napping at 9 AM in the morning. When I got there, she was already outside of her house, which was on the Caloosatchee River, watching her daughter planting some tropical plants in some large plastic containers. She explained to me that those large containers were actually used for growing tree saplings and her family was in the green nursery business.

In the picture I tried to express light as the major subject. I believe I had everything under control in the beginning. However, when larged blocks were laid out, I realized I kind of deviated from my original approach. One thing I felt strongly from this experience was that as an artist we could not be too miserly with paint. Sometimes, we do need to apply paint profusely to achieve the effect.



Landscape: The Cabin on the Water

 

 

This is what I did this morning. Personally, I felt good about the painting process. The morning sun made it easier to block in large space with dark value. Even though I painted the picture on a 8 x 10 panel, smaller than my usual 9 x 12 size, I didn't feel it was difficult to include the details I wanted to. I made the selection because I spent quite some time recently on Peter Fiore's website and was very much amazed by his capability to depict minute details in 8 x 10 size. So I decided to challenge myself. I liked the compostion with objects naturally laid out there. Everything is very much the way I was it except the fact that I reduced the number of boats which stood in the background. Hope you like it.