Paintfully Yours

Now that I've learned some fundamentals of painting, it's time for something a little more advanced.  Watercolor II is next, and it's for everyone who is above beginner.  There are quite a few returning students, some of which are working on their own paintings.  For them, it's more about having a structured time and place, which they are happy to call their "therapy".   

May I?

Week 1.  A returning student laughed when Don told us that we'd be painting a cup.  I think she was expecting something a bit more grandiose, but as it turns out, this was more difficult than any of us thought.  We completed it in one class, and the other four will be spent on a single painting.

Grrr

Week 2,3.  This one is much larger than any we've done- instead of 8x10, it's more like 18x24.  The first night was spent trying to figure out the composition.  Some had done this lesson before, but the rest of us definitely struggled.  It was hard to tell what, and how much would do.  I worked on it at home, and by the week 3 class had a mostly completed drawing, ready to slap down masking fluid.  Maybe I should have double-checked before starting that step, because there ended up being far too much space taken up.  

Grrr...

I continued with the splattering, removed the masking fluid, and ended up with this.  The vibrant colors were supposed to create a very interesting background, but that's not the case here.  Everything ended up being quite muted, and disappointing.  Too many flowers and grasses, and a lack of good color.

 Not Mine

The girl next to me did her colors quite well, and I'm glad I took a picture for reference, because...

 Fresh Start

It seemed like the best option was to start over.  This paper is pretty durable, so I just flipped it over and sketched a new scene.

 Now We're Talkin'

These were the brightest colors I could manage.  Good start.

Now We're Talkin 2

I'm feeling much better about this go-round.  I may try to sneak in a bit more purple down underneath, but otherwise it's been good.  Don demonstrated different leaf, grass, and bloom techniques, and we all gave it our best.  Since I started over, I got to see that less grass was ideal.  The other student's painting Not Mine had a ton of grass, and she was wishing otherwise.  Before I left class, I got some tips for the blooms.  Next week is the last of this session, and he told us we might not be finished.  Yikes!  I may have to finish on my own!  

  A Tree

Another of my envelope-sized paintings.  Depending on your screen, it might be actual size!  This is an Acacia tree from Africa, enjoying a little moonlight.

Also Not Mine

This guy sits on the other side of me.  He's done the flower lesson several times, so instead has been working on this picture of France. 

Be sure to check back, 'cause I'll be updating this with continued efforts.  See ya soon! 

Van Gomer

Crazy comes on a little too strong here, so Heidi suggested that I join a local painting class.  The instructor is a professional artist that has lived in Anchorage for quite a while.  You won't find any watercolors on his page, but there are some fantastic oil paintings.  Don is a rather large, jovial guy that tries to get us to lighten up in class.  He has a small bag of jokes, his favorite being a story where a woman paid him an odd compliment.  "You could teach a cow to paint!" she said.  (Pause for laughter).  "That's udderly possible!"  Ugh.  Five classes with him, and three times I've heard his cow joke.

"Blue hoo hoo"

Class 1.  We started with introductions.  Don, myself, and 10 females make our class.  The girls range from "I took some art classes in high school," to "I gave up on push-up bras long ago.  Now I wear pull-ups."  Everyone was nice, and one of the ladies brought in cookies.  Yes, our round instructor warmed up to her.  When it was time to paint,  we started with the basics.  You may see that the basics aren't always easy.  We started with a "wash" by painting the whole sheet with water, letting it dry a bit, then adding color in the same fashion.  The nice thing with that is that you may end up with a decent sky without even trying!  But that's merely background noise compared to the mountain.  Don showed us how to start at the peak, and drag the brush down.  By starting at the peak every stroke, you follow the mountain's contour, and it doesn't look too bad.  Not the case here.  As with many things, the more relaxed you can be, the better the outcome.  That's why he kept reminding us to breathe.  "But Wayne, I've been breathing on my own while falling asleep reading this exciting tale!"  Good for you.  As for me, it wasn't so simple.  Start at the peak and drag the brush out became "Start at the peak for a few strokes, then start to panic.  Now, hold your breath and wonder why you are mixing more paint partway through.  It's not that big of a mountain!  Quickly mix more up, and try to make up time before the first part dries.  Good, now abandon all other instructor guidelines.  Try not to drop any newly formed sweat on the paper.  No matter, just avoid that damn peak with your brush and fill the rest of the page with blue.  Faster!  There, nice job.  You have created the dust trails of twenty roadrunners, off to terrorize another coyote."  Alright, that wasn't so bad.  Time to make this baby really pop!  Don said, "Draw two trees, and don't try to re-invent them.  Just give me some basic triangles."  Well, the mountain is a basic triangle, and that really turned out well.  I'm about to blow his mind with these skills!  One rocket-tree and one odd blob comin' up!  Yes!  Nailed it!  Now you may breathe.  Phew!  It's a good thing he has a sense of humor, because each of these classes are three hours long.   

"Lifesavers"

Class 2.  More mountains.  Great.  Well, I gave this one a valiant attempt, and got some improvement.  The foothills came with a warning- don't make it look like a roll of Lifesavers.  At least I know what not to do next time.  Next was the meadow, which consists of ovals of color.  Pretty simple, huh?  Top that off with our ugly local black spruce trees, and slap on a price tag! 

"Homesick"

This painting was inspired by Heidi's two week stay on the North Slope.  She only had a few coworkers that she barely knew, and was feeling a little lonely.  This seemed like a great time to try out a Colorado sunset, and throw in the Denver skyline.  It turned out pretty well for my first unsupervised go-round.

"AK M Tees"

Alaska mountains, that is.  After the sunset painting, I was fired up.  It was time to see what I could do on a proper landscape.  I had some fun trying to mix colors appropriately, creating some depth, and sneaking in a little detail.  Every painting I do leads me closer to an awesome one, and this was a good step.

"Negative is a Good Thing"

Class 3.  This one was fun.  After I tried each step, it felt like I was getting it.  I was excited to try the whole thing again to see how I'd do, which you'll see in the next painting.  The basis of this class was negative space.  This comes from the smaller trees that fade in the distance.  It's certainly a different technique, and pretty fun to try.  The real joy came from splatter painting the trees.  None of us had the Don wrist flick, but they all turned out well.

"Turn that Negative into a Positive"

Alright Don, let's see what I've learned.  The leaf background turned out well, (too bad you can't really see it).  The negative space trees seem to have lost their character, and one even looks like a ghost tree.  A g g g ghost tree!  As for the forest floor, it seems to lean towards psychedelic colors (what did Heidi put in my coffee??), and I think I may have hit an artery on one poor tree.  Sorry, tree.  Hopefully the ultra-yellow leaves will soak that up for you.  The splatter-leaves were going well, but as I was mopping up the excess on my masking tape, I discovered why long sleeves are a bad idea.

"Gettin' My Feet Wet"

Class 4.  Reflections and confusions.  This class was a bit tricky, because you can't just flip the paper over and paint an exact opposite.  For example, the second layer of mountains just peeks over the front ones.  Once we got that figured out, it went pretty smooth.  It wasn't supposed to be a night scene, but I had too much pigment in my brush.  I took this as an opportunity for some knife practice, and created a few stars.  "Happy mistakes", or something like that.

        

"Don't Leaf Me"

Come on, you smiled.  This one stemmed from some youtube videos, where I landed on this. 

A cute, easy tree.  I continued looking and came across the inspiration for this painting.  I got to practice a few techniques; the wash, some blotting, and splattering.  The wash went well, I didn't get too crazy with the blotting, and the splatter business also went well.  I approve. 

"Shanner Bananner"

My inspiration came from my brother's nickname for his daughter.  I figured I should be able to do a single-fruit still life by now, so I grabbed a banana and gave it a shot.  The shadow got a bit off, but I was able to hide it with some sneakiness later.

"Treets"

Nowadays, my favorite youtube videos are about downhill mountain biking.  Many are shot from a helmet cam; others come from very high quality cameras and are expertly edited.  My inspiration for this painting came from  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPAr2cSUcFw

Subtle changes in color takes serious skill, and someday I'll try this one again.  

"Summer in Alaska"

Class 5.  Last of the Watercolor I series.  We ate some more cookies, and learned about shadows.  They consisted of general blobs in the background, proper diameter for round trees, and correct length and angle for the fence.  If one thing looks off, it can wreck the whole thing.  Can you tell where I missed the mark?

"Owensaur"

Ask a boy what picture he'd like, and he'll tell you, "A truck or a dinosaur."  Heidi's brother's oldest son Owen must have thought of his spirit animal, 'cause they both have plenty of spunk!  Jungle trees and Christmas trees better watch out!

"Eye Sea"

Owen's sister Avery is quite the artist, especially for being in kindergarten!  She's been sending us pictures since we moved up here, and I finally got to do one for her.  

"Cold Feet, Warm Tacos"

Still not sure why this penguin is eating a taco, but he seems happy.  Maybe Travis can tell us.

"Domo Arigato"

There were various art world reps at my store, and we got to try some different stuff.  This is a bit of fun with airbrushing.

"Blob the Frog"

This is my attempt at hot wax transfer.  You melt colored wax on a hotplate, and press paper or cloth onto it. 

I have since joined the Watercolor II class, which doesn't have so much structure to it.  Don told us that four of the five weeks will be focused on a single painting, so it should be awesome!

Vanity plates

It's come to our attention that there are an awful lot of vanity plates here.  Maybe this is due to a small charge of $30 for them?  So, why not add some pizazz?  Sorry if some of them are difficult to read, this is due to an irresponsible driver trying to take pictures of moving vehicles.  Enjoy!

Uh oh!  Better get GIJANE!  There's a...

V8 Killer on the loose! 

When?  Right now?  Yes!  RTMEOW!

Come on, I'm Just Jokin!

You need to LITNUP a little!

Why?  Oh, Jes cuz.

I know, maybe we could go on on Alaskan Hunt.

We could get a guide who's Skilled,

and have some Fun With Mud!

Won't we say BURRRR?

Probably, but we might end up with some Smoked Salmon!

If we don't hit the Jackpot, there's always...

Taco Bell!

Alaska Blows! (ya know, wind)

We had a major wind storm come through the other night.  I believe it was in the 60 mph range in Anchorage, and over 100 a few miles south.  Parts of town were shut down the next day, and we were without power for 24 hrs or so.  

There was plenty of damage from the storm, and the majority was from fallen trees.  I'm used to South Dakota and Colorado soil, so this was a new experience.  I looked up a description of our ground here- The forest floor is composed of a surface layer known as duff, which is composed of accumulations of leaves, twigs and other organic matter shed from the tree canopies above. Beneath this layer the soil may be very fertile for the top few inches, then it becomes more spare deeper down.  You probably thought that was my wording, I'm sure.  

The amount of damage was partly due to timing.  Usually these winds don't happen until later in the year, after the trees have dropped their leaves and aren't heavy with sap.  As far as why they have such shallow roots, I believe this is due to the amount of rain, and the permafrost.  If the roots don't have to search for water, they will grow sideways.  As far as permafrost, I don't know how deep it is here, but I'm sure roots don't want anything to do with it.  I hope you aren't reading this as part of a botany class, 'cause I have neither supporting facts nor sources.  Take it for what it's worth, and enjoy the pictures.

Heidi's morning commute just got a detour.

Another detour.  These guys were busy today!

Just a couple units down from us.

Same tree outside the fence, threatening some lines.

Can't have that!

They trimmed it, and left the parts there so it would think about what it had done.

Here are a couple shots for comparison from our first visit to Anchorage, May 20th.

 Anchorage has a very nice trail system.  Very pretty in the summer, with plenty of bike, foot and paw traffic.  In the winter, they are used for cross-country ski trails.  You can follow the fairly flat paved trails, or head off into the trees on the more adventurous ones.

Heidi, checking out our future neighborhood trail.

Ah man!  Our awesome trail is a little spooky now.  Watch out for bear, moose, and falling trees! 

Kudra is not impressed, but will pose for size reference.

My bike for size reference.  These trees are tall!

I hope everyone is ok!

All the trees and their roots look like an upside down T,  Just a very tall stick with a tiny little base.  These were growing partly in the creek.  When they tip over, their roots peel up the soil, and it looks like a piece of sod.

Same trees as the last pic, sticking together until the end.

My bike is good at balancing in them.

Just like some peeled up turf.

I tried to show the disarray of the forest, but ended up with a pretty sweet picture instead.  Pretty nuts to see a bunch of 60-80 ft trees laying down! 

Potter's marsh, on the south end of Anchorage.  They built a raised walkway so you can check out the wildlife.  You might see salmon, beavers, moose, and all kinds of birds.  This photo was also taken in late May, and the snow has been slowly melting all summer until.....

Early September, when we get a crazy wind storm and our first dusting.

Time to get out the snowboard already!

Heidi is headed to the north slope next week, and will probably bring back colder looking pictures than these.  She might also see some real Alaskan animals, like whales, snow fox, and maybe even a polar bear!  Until then, you'll have to enjoy another blog from me, probably having to do with mountain biking.  Yeah, yeah, I'm sure that doesn't sound very exciting to you, but bear with me.  Ha!  Bear with me!