How it Begins - A Creative Process Blog

Clouds Illusions

A friend was visiting my studio yesterday and asked me what I was working on currently. The trouble with an open studio is you are not always in the midst of a fantastic painting. Sometimes you are at the beginning. Or even before the beginning. Which raises the subject of where does a painting begin.

At this moment in time I am at the beginning of a new horse painting so I led him to the table where there was a rudimentary sketch of three horses walking across white space. It laid upon two sets of stretcher bars. I was trying to decide which size to stretch for the horses I had drawn. It really would not be a horse painting but a cloud  painting with horses. The painting would have to be bigger to allow more room for the clouds. Next question is should the horses be smaller.  

I am inspired by the photograph below with cattle on a rise before a huge bank of clouds. I didn't take that photograph yesterday, but it has stuck in my mind as if I did. There are photographs you cannot upload from you mind and clear the memory card.

Cloud photograph with cattle

When I was researching horses in the beginning of my of my period of horse paintings I took a lot of photographs of them. None of them were running. Especially the horses on a rise with the sky behind them and the horses in just twos or threes working their way across a field of tall grass and flowers.

Most were eating. And through all the paintings of stampeding horses I have done and sold those of horses just standing in fields have stuck in my memory card as it were.

So what has been bouncing around in my mind is three horses on a rise with grasses and wild flowers at their feet and a huge sky full of clouds behind them.

 

I take a lot of photographs of clouds.so I have a lot to choose from. I have included a few in this blog which echo in my mind. They are just inspirational starting points. Always wise to remember I break away from the traditional representation of physical objects, even the horses, and express my independence from visual references. My photography is the only realistic depiction of my world and that not necessarily so.

I will try to keep you informed of the progress of this budding painting. This blog was to try and determine just where and how it began. If you have any insights please leave a comment.

Dawn Chasing Away the Storm - A Creative Process Blog

Dawn Chasing Away the Storm

Been a while since I have done a creative process blog. First I figured it was because I had not been painting much. I have been busy doing other things. But I have also been taking progress photos with my tablet as opposed to my camera. So this morning, when I decided I need to do a process blog, I had to figure out how to get my tablet photos to my desktop photo files to use.

The first part of any process blog is to get all the key photographs of the painting's progress in one folder. This actually helps me clean up my picture files because I can delete all the multiple snaps in other files.

Sketch transferred and masked out

For this painting I used a drawing from a much earlier painting. One I had done and sold without ever actually getting a finished photograph of it. Or at least I could not find it this morning. That painting was 16 x 20 and done before I began stretching my own canvases. I have come to like the long and thin horizontal or vertical sizes best. This one is 14 x 30 and the original drawing had to be altered to fit. I added on the sides and cut on the bottom.

Sky poured

I am also in my stormy cloud period. Though I must confess I was thinking more along just a sunrise sky. But as I pour my skies they often get to dictate where the painting is going. Which is fine by me but sometimes it is just a surprise. 

I was dedicated, however, to dawn.

Sun and mountain peak highlights

I like to believe I have some control over the clouds if not the sky. And I found myself attracted to the idea of storm versus dawn. The war was going to have to be fought on the peaks of the Ortiz mountains. 

Shadows on the peaks

I confess to being stopped briefly at this point. I have driven the road through these mountains often. And it a photograph I took on a New Year's Day morning which inspired the original painting. In that photograph and the painting there was a road. Because of the colors I could introduce I changed it to a stream. And a dry winter morning to a lush August dawn.

The green valley

You may also notice changes being made in the storm clouds and the shadows on the peaks. Introduction of new colors seem to dictate changes in the ones already laid down.

Canvas covered

It is usually at this point I want to cover all the white canvas to assure myself I have a direction which will work. I confess there are a lot of steps taken from this point to the finished painting at the beginning of this blog. Changes in values and increase in shadows and a glaze of white over distant mountains to add depth. I did take progress photos all along the path. I do this at this stage more for me than the thought of a future blog. I find I get to intimately involved in the painting and it blinds me to its faults. A photograph gives me the space to look at it critically.

A midpoint on the journey

At this point in the process I was not happy with several things. Mostly shadows. I needed more shadows especially along the main mountains. I did those at the foot of the mesa first and liked where it was going. And it can be slow going. I found myself getting rather impatient. Between this stage and the finished painting above is the deep shadow at the foot of the mountains and the whitish glaze on the mountains beneath the sun. And so many little changes in the clouds I am embarrassed to even mention them. Watercolor on canvas allows for colors to be picked up and replaced. Canvas does not wear out like watercolor paper.

Dawn Chasing Away the Storm
14 x 30 on Artists Canvas
$1050

I have posted it again for you to more easily compare the finished with the step above. And of course I added the birds. It is in the process of finishing this painting I came to realize I am an abstract painter. "Abstract art uses a visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world."

Sometimes I think my independence is getting greater.

Week 35 - 2016 in Photographs

Day 243

 Definitely a hodgepodge week. I was busy with waning days of gardening and getting my deck built and staining it. Too much to do in too little time it seemed and so the camera stayed in the camera bag more than it should. In fact some of the photographs in this week's blog were actually taken the week before. But then the Icelandic poppy seeds I had planted years ago decided to reach maturity and bloom.

Day 244

And the rains brought more wild flowers out to dance in the late August breezes. The monsoonal flows continued and so every afternoon was graced with new arrangements of clouds casting their shadows on the surrounding mountains. No need to go far afield to capture a landscape or cloudscape.

Day 242

Day 240

Day 241

Or a fantastic dawn. My new deck is proving to be a wonderful platform for photographing the dawns.

Day 239

And new to the approaching fall are the morning fogs. More of these next week.

Day 245

Week 34 - 2016 in Photographs

Day 232

 Friday is the first day of my photographic week and the day I generally post the week previous. No, the photos are not necessarily taken each day of the week to post. I have bumper days out with the camera when I could manage a whole month of posts. Over the years I have done this I have developed a file system to separate off the photos I deem acceptable for my daily post and I am frequently a week ahead. But today when I went to week 35 there was only one photograph there to post.

It has been a busy time here at Twix. There are three signs for Black Lake as if someone could not decide exactly where it was. Some time ago a neighbor back up the road started calling her place Tween because it was between Angel Fire and the first Black Lake sign. I am at the first sign and ergo Twix as in between sign one and two. And then there is Beyond Black Lake. Suffice it to say rural dwellers describe their locations differently than city dwellers.

Day 233

 Day 233 was taken at Twix. It is a red tailed hawk on the sentinel tree across the road. She is either there or on the power pole on the property line in my backyard. She hunts the prairie dogs and rodents from these perches. We're old friends and my activities seldom make her fly.

Day 234

 I leave Twix to sit pets (my don't quit your day job activity) which opens different worlds to me and my camera. The seed pods of the split leaf palm above are in a green house in Angel Fire. A certain rural perspective has invaded this resort town. There is up basin and back basin. The lake and the mountain sides. I admit going through a tangle of residential roads to get to places where I know the pet's name but not the name of the road.

Day 235

 The photograph below was taken on the mountain side near the wetlands. The one above on the other side near the lake. My new camera has a GPS function. So did the one before. I have never used it because there is something about life in the mountains which screws it up. And Google maps doesn't help. The roads do not make right angle turns either left or right. Sort of look like the wind chime above.

Day 236

I think the weather vane and the raven had a spat. They do not seem to be talking.

Day 237

This velvet buck was in Tween. Just off the road to Twix. Deer are so common in this area I frequently don't even stop but I had a mission this summer to take a photograph of a buck in velvet. This ten pointer was worth pulling off the road.

Day 238

There is a day in August when the wind comes from a new direction and has a new smell to it. It means fall is really here regardless of when the calendar says it is so. Grass does not grow much after that date and here and there is a preview of the colors to come. It is a busy time when you know things must get done before winter (generally at Halloween). I swear the calendar is wrong. Winter Solstice is more the middle of winter not the beginning. By the first of March spring is creeping in.

Week 33 - 2016 in Photographs

Day 225

It has been a busy week. My day job is pet sitting. The camera always goes with me because it is when out and about I often catch a new angle on a subject. This week there were so many pet sitting jobs the camera sometimes just sat in its case on the seat beside me in the truck. Five of this week's photographs were taken in my yard. 

Day 226

The photograph above is one of two I took while running between pet homes. I actually took time out to walk down the hill a bit to get a better angle on the Sangre de Cristo mountains which are the major landmark of our valley.

Day 227

And feeding the hummingbirds has become a three time a day activity. Too bad I am not getting paid to watch after them. Going through ten pounds of sugar a week. I am told the end of August they should be taking off for southern climes but it seems they have stuck around for a lot longer than usual.

Day 228

I could argue that I have to have a garden and a flower bed for photography if nothing else. But to be honest I have not even taken the time to do much of that this year.

Day 229

Always thrilled when an animal poses for me. This chipmunk was very obliging. Actually he was waiting for the jays to leave so he could raid the birdseed. 

Day 230

Clouds are also good at posing.

Day 231

Week 32 - 2016 in Photographs

Day 218

Another great week with my new camera. And really pointing it at everything. How else am I suppose to find out what it can and cannot do.  I seriously don't know if there is anything it cannot do but some things it is really just going to do better than others. It is fantastic at closeups and love the definition even in long shots. But I find myself yearning for a new wide angle lens.

Day 219

 A raven hit a power line and died on my property. It was a great opportunity for a photographer. And I definitely could not pass it up as a test of the sharpness of the image I could capture.

Day 220

 But it also does great landscapes and I live in an area with great landscapes to capture.

Day 221

Day 222

 Dawn and dusk settings are great. 

Day 223

Day 224

Week 31 - 2016 in Photographs

Day 211

This week was about up close and personal. Oddly enough all these photographs were taken with my long lens. It really does some great macro photographs. The only problem is I have to be far enough away to be within the 55-300mm focal range. But my first exposure to SLR cameras was with just a 50mm lens which was standard equipment at the time. I frankly do not know if I still have one. Fixed lenses will give you a clearer image than a zoom I am told but It also means changing lenses more often. 

Or narrowing your subjects. I am more a photographer on the go even if go does not mean a foreign country. I want to be able to pivot from focusing on the Bristle Cone needles to the elk herd passing behind me across the meadow. But I do like picking up the details on a drive through the Valle Vidal.

Day 212

And I like zooming in on wildlife from a distance which does not spook them. Yes, I could have lured (and did) the chipmunks to within a few feet of my feet. Too close for the focal range of the long zoom lens. But they look far more natural in their choice of habitat which is not the picnic table.

I confess I snapped on a lot of ground squirrels to get the two photographs below but we are no longer paying per frame like the film days.

Day 213

Day 214

And so back to the Bristle Cone Pine. I love these slow growing trees which were once believed extinct because they grow high up and largely on the edges of alpine meadows. They do not like company. I have one in my yard which must have been planted there. For the longest time I thought it was going to die. It really did not grow. It is now almost four feet high with an offshoot just 18 inches like it was when I first met it.

The Shuree Lakes in the Valle Vidal has a nice grouping of them. And for the first time I got to see a pine cone open. And identify as to why they are called Bristle Cones.There are thorns on the end of each cone pedal.

Day 215

 And the long lens is great for butterflies. They are spookier than chipmunks and not to be wooed by a peanut or Bing Cherry. In a mountain meadow where the air is seldom still I often use the sports setting on my camera to capture flowers which wave in the breeze. It is also helpful with butterflies and bees on flowers. I am again grateful for not having to pay by the frame exposed.

Day 216

Mostly it is the 55-300mm on my camera because you never know when driving through a national forest or even into the neighboring town from my house when a photo opportunity will appear. I am considering writing a blog on using truck windows as tripods. And just recently heard about "sandbags" you can make to cushion your camera on windows or fenders or hoods. At least one with rice, lighter, would be nice to put in the camera bag.

Day 217