The Art of the Mappable

First painting in Falls Church home Studio

2012-02-14T22:11:00.001-05:00

Studio space advancing

2012-02-11T10:32:00.000-05:00

Rainy morning at LAX

2012-01-21T11:10:00.001-05:00

Mauna Kea

2012-01-19T16:52:00.000-05:00

Wash

2012-01-16T11:42:00.000-05:00

Waddington inspired

2011-12-27T11:39:00.001-05:00

Wash & scrape mtn.

2011-12-27T10:43:00.001-05:00

View across the Outaouais river from Rockland to Thurso Québec

2011-12-27T09:54:00.001-05:00

Cathedral, pen & wash

2011-12-26T07:54:00.000-05:00

Small mountain study

2011-12-26T07:40:00.001-05:00

Pickets, North Cascades. Watercolor on Terraskin paper.

2011-12-25T21:44:00.000-05:00

Picket range. North Cascades

2011-12-25T21:29:00.001-05:00

Cathedral view to NE. Pasayten Wilderness. Scurlock photo.

2011-12-25T21:03:00.001-05:00

Cathedral, South Face, Pasayten Wilderness Original Scurlock Aerial

2011-12-24T21:15:00.001-05:00

Cathedral South Face, Pasayten from J. Scurlock aerial photo

2011-12-24T21:11:00.000-05:00

Another great Wyeth: Hoffman's slough 1947

2011-12-24T20:43:00.000-05:00

Watercolor on Terraskin synthetic paper

2011-12-24T20:27:00.000-05:00

Andrew Wyeth, untitled 1939

2011-12-24T09:43:00.000-05:00

North Cascades NP from a J. Scurlock aerial

2011-12-24T08:22:00.000-05:00

Mts.

2011-11-28T07:28:00.001-05:00

Rehoboth Beach

2011-11-24T15:54:00.001-05:00

Dolomite architecture map

2011-11-20T20:26:00.001-05:00

Fitzroy Massif

2011-11-11T22:12:00.000-05:00

Mts.

2011-11-11T21:59:00.000-05:00

Sawtooth Mts. Idaho

2011-11-11T20:45:00.001-05:00

Bugaboos

2011-11-09T21:47:00.001-05:00

2 mountains from 2010 AAJ

2011-11-05T23:02:00.002-04:00

Shivling on Saunders Waterford NOT in a Fat Pad

Bhagirati III on Arches HP

Random figures and lanscape

2011-11-04T22:37:00.001-04:00

A new Anthropologie catalog came this week. Photographed in Cuzco and Puno.

Yellow Mtn. Finished

2011-10-30T22:28:00.001-04:00

Yellow Mtn WIP

2011-10-30T22:27:00.001-04:00

Yellow Mountain WIP

2011-10-29T13:32:00.002-04:00

Yellow Mountain Original Image Mosaic

2011-10-29T13:31:00.002-04:00

Yellow Mountains WIP

2011-10-29T11:08:00.002-04:00

Yellow Mtn.

2011-10-23T10:05:00.002-04:00

Work in progress from photo taken during Fall 2008 trip.

Blue mtn

2011-10-22T16:00:00.001-04:00

Fall Superior Hiking Trail

2011-10-13T18:56:00.001-04:00

Mts. Sketches

2011-10-01T21:28:00.001-04:00

Dolomites

2011-10-01T21:26:00.001-04:00

K6 W

2011-10-01T20:37:00.001-04:00

Shipton final touches

2011-10-01T20:32:00.001-04:00

Shipton progressing

2011-09-24T18:44:00.001-04:00

Shipton Spire

2011-09-24T16:04:00.002-04:00

Photo by Tim Kemple. Alpinist 23

Sacred Valley

2011-09-24T14:31:00.001-04:00

Painting these from a photo found in the April issue of NGM. I've spent some time in the Sacred Valley and I was taken by the storm clouds hovering in the top part of this image, the dark purpleish mountains in the background and the geometric patterns of the fields in the foreground, cleanly bissected by this crisp, cool road. I've painted two versions both on crappy "practice" paper. I just don't have the patience to spend time getting the fields correct in great details. I might try this one more time this weekend. But I also found a Shipton Spire image that is quite appealing, we'll see how much sleep L manages to get and energy I have left over to paint. I'm also hoping to get back to Bull Run Mtn to sketch the progression of the colors.

UPDATED: Atlas Shrugged? 'Outraged' Glaciologists Say Mappers Misrepresented Greenland Ice Melt - ScienceInsider

2011-09-19T16:20:00.000-04:00

UPDATED: Atlas Shrugged? 'Outraged' Glaciologists Say Mappers Misrepresented Greenland Ice Melt - ScienceInsider

Bugaboos V.4

2011-09-18T16:31:00.000-04:00

Plein Air

2011-09-18T16:10:00.000-04:00

Escaped to Bull Run Mountain today. Up on the ridge looking West to
the Shenandoah ridge in the distance. Gray, diffuse light and an
infinite number of greens.

Bugaboos Take 3

2011-09-17T14:12:00.001-04:00

Bugaboos take 2

2011-09-16T22:06:00.000-04:00

Sloppy. No depth. But I like this sky.

Primary Sources

2011-09-16T16:32:00.000-04:00

Mike Reyfman: Horseshoe Bend

2011-09-16T16:22:00.001-04:00

Bugaboos

2011-09-15T22:08:00.003-04:00

I must confess that I have yet to visit the Bugaboos. This climbing Mecca in the Southern Selkirks of interior BC is a climber's paradise despite its reputation for rather bad weather. The traverse from the Bugs to Roger's pass being the Canadian equivalent to the Haute Route. The Fall Patagonia catalog has an image by my old Edge climbing gym workmate Rich Wheater on its cover which I've attempted to paint tonight. rich is a great photographer whose career I've been following since the mid 90's when I met i him in Vancouver, glad to see his work in such a prominent place.

I'll give this scene it a couple more tries as its a great image with beautiful lighting lots of nice rock textures, shadows, snow, scree, glaciers, all the things I love about the mountain environment that use to motivate me to try and map it accurately.

In the same catalog are some great Fred Beckey photos and a plug for a podcast by founder Yvon Chouinard (one of my climbing heroes) on his alpine apprenticeship with Beckey. Also a great photo of the Vermilion cliffs from the Horseshoe bend on the Colorado near Page, one of my current mapping project (more on that in a forthcoming post). It's an amazing photo by Mike Reyfman that is as good as anything we'll be running in our pages. It's noticeable that Patagonia keeps putting out such great catalogs that keep inspiring me both to paint and to explore. Noticeable in that Black Diamond stopped last year to do so and that if it ain't facebook or twitter its considered useless. I guess the cynical in me thinks that the younger crowd more likely to be using the new media can't yet afford to buy too much at Patagonia, whereas the moneyed folks who can are still looking at print catalogs delivered to their doorsteps.

Limited palette

2011-09-14T21:53:00.001-04:00

Reading Bob Wade on my way home. 3 colours: light red, cobalt blue,
raw sienna. Doing some mountain studies with a size 8 Rekab squirrel
quill.

Sierras.

2011-09-11T08:53:00.001-04:00

Sierras: Mt Clarence King

2011-09-10T14:12:00.000-04:00

Lake Superior Trail

2011-09-09T22:39:00.001-04:00

My annual pre NACIS hike will be on the NW shore of Lake Superior this
year. 100 miles in 5 days from Cascade River SP to Silver Bay. Got
some 1"= 2 miles topo maps this week. Getting excited to be back in
the northern woods.

Lovely airbrush relief

2011-09-09T22:35:00.000-04:00

Direct Painting

2011-09-07T21:41:00.001-04:00

I've posted some of my experiments with direct painting and written
about how I like to paint this way. I happened upon a Charles Reid
page that discusses this approach. Glad to see this way of painting
encouraged, now to put his advice in practice when painting this way.

Grey Sunday

2011-09-05T16:38:00.002-04:00

Sierras below Palisade Creek

Olympic Peninsula, Mt. Olympus

Monte Averau section

2011-09-03T14:48:00.001-04:00

Friday's field trip.

2011-09-02T22:29:00.002-04:00

Trying to decipher the complex geography bounding the Meakambut Sepik Basin territory in PNG required a trip to map central at LOC today. Got to look at some Australian 100k topos that seemed to have the geography correct but neither the place names nor the river names I needed. Nevertheless,
a very insightful visit.

When I got back I emailed the photog and got some GPS coordinates for two additional places I needed. Now I just need to track down the Eastern European anthropologist specializing in this
region, the SIL missionaries who have learned the local languages and the eccentric local contact who got us into this story. Hopefully one of them can figure out where these two remaining places are located and the confirm the extent of the Meakambut's territory.

Friday's paintings

2011-09-02T22:22:00.001-04:00

Cathedral Peak

2011-08-30T21:03:00.001-04:00

Sierras

2011-08-28T12:04:00.001-04:00

Dolomite, detail

2011-08-28T10:39:00.001-04:00

Another try

2011-08-26T14:50:00.002-04:00

Completed

2011-08-26T14:49:00.002-04:00

Dolomites

2011-08-26T12:33:00.000-04:00

My favourite subject. Coming up on a year since I visited. A great
trip that continues to inspire.

Thursday night paintout

2011-08-25T22:30:00.001-04:00

L is asleep early for once. I pour myself a glass of lemonade and gin.
Grab some brushes, paint, water, paper and all is well. Painting
mostly with a squirrel mop, a WN synthetic 1" flat and a #4 rigger. Experimenting with new
color mixes and using my brushes differently. I know I'm out of
practice. I warm up for an hour or so until my arm, hand and brush are
friends again and ready to flex in new ways. Those paintings you won't see. But this last spread I'm happy with a few parts. Working with a $3 Utrecht #4 rigger I got today. I like painting rock details with a rigger and it's always more versatile than I remember. It also helps that I don't have to work tomorrow, otherwise this night is no different than any others, so why can't I paint every night once she is alseep?

More takes on alpinist image

2011-08-21T16:31:00.000-04:00

Sierra Lenticular

2011-08-21T16:25:00.002-04:00

The original

2011-08-16T06:53:00.000-04:00

With shadows added...

2011-08-15T21:22:00.000-04:00

Who needs those bright colors on a palette?

Adding some color...

2011-08-15T21:15:00.001-04:00

...while drinking tea and discussing a home purchase.

Mountain contours to paint

2011-08-14T22:05:00.001-04:00

Noodlers carbon ink on Holbein. Mt. Ambition from Alpinist 35.

Shadows

2011-08-12T18:04:00.000-04:00

Alpinist images

2011-08-12T16:53:00.000-04:00

Ruwenzori

2011-08-09T23:24:00.001-04:00

Mountains of the moon. 1962 Ordnance survey. Shaded relief,
hatchuring, color. A nice map I used yesterday to double check the
elevation of Bottego, the north peak of Mt. Gessi in Uganda. Would
like to see (and paint) these mountains someday.

Ink mtns.

2011-08-09T23:20:00.000-04:00

Sketching late into the night. Insomnia. Pentel Stylo on Holbein.

Trevor Chamberlain

2011-08-07T15:45:00.001-04:00

Chamberlain quotes a British art critique (unaccredited) writing that watercolor "requires the forward planning of a chess player, the concentration of a Zen master, and the dexterity of a brain surgeon."

Chamberlain is a painter I admire. In the next couple of weeks I'll be posting a quote from some of the watercolorists I look up to along with some samples of their work. I began this series of posts with a very similar quote and some samples from the website of Melbourne based Joseph Zbuvic last week. He's a great painter that holds his palette colors close to himself. I'm very curious what's on his palette....I've been watching one of his videos this week instead of painting. I'm amazed to watch the brush control these folks have. They can do so much with precision and exactitude. Not much is left to chance, whereas my best paintings are happy accidents.

Back to Chamberlain. Handprint has a great page on his approach, palette, biography and a few lovely samples that I will just link to here. He has a nice book in the Atelier Personal View series that is worth owning if like me you enjoy loose, expressive British watercolor.

Selkirks x3

2011-08-07T10:37:00.002-04:00

Last weekend I prepped a sketch from a photo (above) I took in the Neptune Range of the Northern Selkirks in 2009. I thought it was a good sketch and probably the best I have done. I've tried painting Neptune probably a half dozen times now and I was excited to work from this sketch. I also decided I would take my time unlike how I normally paint which is fast and perhaps not as considered as it could be. The first couple of times I painted this scened I used masking to save some highlights and paint the sky, the results were ok and I decided I would go back to masking which I rarely use nowadays. I carefully masked out the mountain mass so that I could paint a nice wash for the sky. The masking turned out ok. Unfortunately Ihad sketched this on the first page of one of my new Saunders Waterford fat pads and I had never worked on this paper before. I used a heavy application of WN masking fluid and after putting down my sky and letting it dry I tried to remove the fluid. It turns out the 140pd paer is a bit fragile and the WN fluid is much tackier than the fludi I used in the past. SO... I ended up with no underdrawing and a ripped surface in one spot. I was quite sad as I loved this sketch. This was earlier this week and it's taken me several days to get over it and get on with the painting. I didn't even bother re-drawing it in the end, too worried it would not match the quality of the original...so a la prima I went...

The rsults are ok. If feels very much like a field sketch or a wrm up rather than the more finised painting I was hoping to achieve. I guess thats what these sketch pads are for and I should limit my use of masking fluid to heavier grade paper taht can handle it. Either way I've definitely notice that masking fluid will remove pencil lines regardless of the paper which is quite annoying. There is probably some logic in drawing details after masking and panting sky.

While this piece was drying today I got out some other sketch books and paper. In one I alid a very loose wash of Indigo and light red and practiced lifting with a new WN white taklon brush I go this week at a sale. I was happy with the results and decided to add some details from the Neptune image onto it.

On another sheet of Canson colored pasted paper I have I dug up some white gouache to experiment with snow painting for the first time. Again using Neptune as a model. I ended with white gouache on both paintings and I have to say I'm fairly happy with the results both feel like my style of painting and very different at the same time. I'm excited to experiment with this some more so for now the gouache is staying out.

Selkirks

2011-07-30T16:37:00.000-04:00

Joseph Zbukvic

2011-07-30T10:29:00.002-04:00

An artist is a combination of the poet and the surgeon. - Joseph Zbukvic

This Yugoslavian born, Melbourne Australia based artist whose landscapes are delicate, while still remaining loose and showing off the best of the medium. He excels at capturing a wide range of values but my favourites seem to be middle valued paintings with subtle variations. Quite delicate and sublime. I've seen to of his videos and unfortunately the demonstrations mostly fell short of the mark. His one and only book "Mastering Atmosphere and Mood" has a number of good demonstrations that while staying rather vague are still good learning opportunities. Sadly the book is long out of print and only available as a download of dubious quality and legality. (I've added to this post to make it more obvious that the works below are those of Zbukvic and not mine, my apologies if in my brevity I misled anyone. 8/28/11)

Foot powered...on the Potomac Heritage Trail

2011-07-29T19:22:00.001-04:00

So this blog is suppose to be about a few other things than watercolor painting so I thought I would write a small trip report of my hike/run on the Potomac Heritage Trail between Scott's Run and Roosevelt Island last week.

Anyone in DC knows we've had multiple triple digit temps and extreme humidity. Normally things I don't tolerate at all. For some reason my body is finally getting used to the heat and this summer I've been more tolerant than any other summer since moving south of the MD line. Anyways the reason I mention it is that Sunday was suppose to be a respite from the heat. I had planned on leaving early in the morning, but somehow early with Leila meant getting to the trailhead at 8 vs. 6. And it was hot and humid...so much for cooler temps.

I knew the Potomac Heritage Trail (PHT) trail somehow linked in to Scott's run but I had failed to bring either map or guidebook or read any recent trail description....yikes, talk about bad preparation (more to come on that topic) So I probably ran about a mile in Scott's run heading east and North towards the river hoping to run into it. BTW the maps at Scott's Run make no mention of the PHT so don't count on them being any help. My instincts proved correct and I did intersect the green blazed trail down by the overlook near the river. Once I got on it I mostly backtracked uphil and south towards some private pool club and a residential area. GAIA GPS on my iphone soon came in handy and showed me both the trail and the stretch of pavementt I would need to do to get to the real trailhead at the end of Live Oak Dr. right next to 495 here.

From this point is 10 miles to Roosevelt Island! If you start at Scott's run it's more than 10 miles so plan accordingly for water and stamina. The trail is in good condition but heavily blocked by thick layers upon layers of spiderweb. Between this trailhead and Turkey run I had to wave a branch in fron tof me to clear trail most of the way. It made for a slow 4 miles (1.5 hours). I passed someone's stashed water jug near some cliffs and thought what a good idea...although I assumed my 2 litres and planned 3 hour finishing time to be sufficient and left it alone...Not my water anyways. I was to think about that water quite a bit.

I don't want to detail the trail turn by turn but lets say that it is a good variety of terrain with great views on the Potomac.The stretches along GW Parkway are annoying but at least spiderweb free. From Turkey run onwards I made much better time but I ran out of water after 3 hours. My legs started cramping shortly after that and I got to Rosslyn in 4 hours, dehydrated, probably a bit heat struck and barely standing. Every piece of clothing soaked. I ran bare chested the last hour as my nipples were so chaffed from the wet top. I lost 5 pds in 4 hours.

I suggest waiting for cooler weather to repeat, to cache water and to have at least 2 liters when starting with another 1-2 liters available along the way. Its definitely a nice trail although I could do without the sandy stretches and the cobwebs.

Friday Off

2011-07-29T18:33:00.001-04:00

So that means painting between feedings, diaper changes, laundry and getting pho with Y and L....not my best work but still I got to paint today!

Fast.

2011-07-29T15:56:00.001-04:00

Rocks

2011-07-23T13:22:00.001-04:00

Mtns. & Flowers

2011-07-23T12:16:00.001-04:00

Kenilworth Garden

2011-07-17T16:13:00.000-04:00

Blooming! WN Indigo

More Sierras.

2011-07-15T17:19:00.001-04:00

Sierras

2011-07-15T10:20:00.001-04:00

Late night work. From 2009 photos.
On strahmore with MG palette. Experimenting with WN Pyrelene as well.
A beautiful color. Trying to figure out what I can mix it with to get
nice cool greys.

Friday night

2011-07-09T09:23:00.000-04:00

I got to stay up late and (try to) paint.

Two more

2011-07-02T15:47:00.001-04:00

First.

2011-07-02T15:03:00.001-04:00

First painting since Leila arrived. A quick direct paint application
based on an image from Eric Valli's Dolpo book. MGraham palette and
cheap paper. Nothing fancy, it just feels good but selfish too to take
a few moments to try and calm down enough to put brush to paper and be
able to enjoy both the process and the results. I am a happy and lucky
man today.

Plateau take two.

2011-06-07T07:28:00.001-04:00

Chisel pen + m. Graham wash in Holbein multi drawing book. About 10
minutes of work while Y was showering. Need to perfect the stealth
painting for when bunny comes.

Small studies of mountain aerial.

2011-06-05T09:18:00.000-04:00

More Sandias.

2011-06-05T09:17:00.000-04:00

Another try, this time on 300# Kilimanjaro paper with my full WN palette + a small study done later on a 140# watercolor strathmore visual journal page. The full version was done with an under-drawing traced from a digitally generalized image. Still needs work.

Sketch of Sandia Mountains from an aerial photo

2011-06-03T08:55:00.003-04:00

I've been painting from a book of aerial images: "Over the Mountains , an aerial view of geology" by Michael Collier. The photos are beautiful but quite complex, and a challenge to paint from since the perspective (from the air) can be difficult to replicate correctly. But I keep trying.

This sketch was done without any pencil drawing. Just wet paint on dry paper. I feel more and more drawn to this approach as I like the spontaneity of it. I'm impatient and paint quickly, and first sketching out a pencil outline makes the process feel less fluid . Despite the fact that it usually leads to better painting if I have a good pencil under-drawing I'm more drawn to just painting without it as it seems more instinctive. I am sketching almost daily to improve my drawing skills and maybe getting better at this will make it more enticing to draw in some initial sketch. Obviously value sketches are beneficial and I agree with my teacher that you can't paint it well if you can't draw it, but I'm hoping to eventually be able to paint "it" well without the line work, but to perhaps have a separate drawing done beforehand as a guide.

I finally used up the last of the terrible Utrecht watercolor paper with this painting. I'm using a very limited M.Graham palette supplemented with a bright green mixed from DaVinci PY3 Hansa light and WN PG36 phtalo green to try and replicate American Journey's Skip's green.

I'll try this piece again in a more deliberate way in my Kilimanjaro 300 pd paint book. I also just received 5 Saunders Waterford Fat Pads from the UK which I can't wait to try. But first I need to finish the Kili paper.

Lubber run paintout with Steve Fleming

2011-05-27T22:17:00.001-04:00

Not so good

2011-05-26T23:11:00.001-04:00

In Capitol Reef NP

2011-05-24T22:09:00.001-04:00