Creating an Accurate Sketch

When I want a sketch to be very accurate, I use my iPad as a sketching aid.  I almost always find inspiration out walking so use my iPhone to capture the image.  Then I use Airdrop to transfer the photo to my iPad.

The next step involves any iPad app that has at least 3 features:

1. Layers with opacity settings
2. Photo import
3. Fine line pencil tool

My go to app is ArtRage.  This last time, however, I used ProCreate since it also has the ability to overlay a grid of any size.

I import the photo and move it move it to the bottom layer.  Then I set that layer to an opacity of approximately 80% or less to make it easier to see the trace.  On a second layer above, I use the pencil tool and eraser to create the sketch with my Apple Pencil.  I keep checking to make sure I’m drawing on that layer and NOT on the image layer.

Two very helpful features at this stage are pressure sensitivity and zoom.  The apps understand how to make the line thinner or thicker with the amount of pressure I use.  Being able to zoom in and out makes it easier to get intricate areas accurate.

When I complete the sketch, I turn the imported image completely off to display only the sketch.  Usually at this point, I Airdrop it to my desktop computer and size it the way I want for a sketch to use on my light table.  In this case, however, I used the overlay grid as a guide to transfer the sketch to my hand-gridded paper.  That’s how I created Fifth Element at Cap Sante

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Local Resources for a Father’s Day Project

Fifth Element at Cap Sante

In between completing the Atmospherics Landscapes class, I decided to hand-paint a Father’s Day card.  There’s a fairly good little art store within walking distance of the marina, Good Stuff Arts.  We are even given a coupon for 10% off this local business when we check into Cap Sante marina.  They do carry my favorite Pro Art tape, but they only had the note-sized frame cards.

I checked Bayshore Office Supply across the main drag, Commercial Ave,  and they had the Strathmore photo-mount cards.  I was looking for the frame cards that have a 3.5×5 opening, but this would have to do.   

Read my next post to learn how I created this card.

Golden Mist

This painting was deceptively difficult.  The idea was to create a misty landscape and imbue it with a golden glow by a glazing it with Quinacridone Gold.  I had a tough time getting a good balance between soft and hard edges as witnessed by my first attempt.  I got the color stuck in some places again due to lack of water and the foreground branches are too regular and distracting.

Misty American River, first attempt

In my defense, I’m painting this on our boat in an even smaller space than normal because hubby’s tools are everywhere.  Just a 3×2 space on the table and I only have my travel palettes which only have at most a 4” square mixing area.  Birgit’s work involves large puddles of paint, so I’m making do fairly well.

Still, I thought I could do better. So I concentrated more on creating a focal area on the upper left bank and worked harder to get the rest of the painting to flow freely.  I like this version much better, although I still don’t like my foreground branches in the lower right.  Chalk that up to loss of patience; if I did this again, I would sketch that area a bit more specifically since the darkness of that area really makes it prominent- it needs more attention to the details to look right.

This is one of those paintings that looks better from a distance.

Golden Glow on the American River, Sacramento, 2nd attempt

Atmospheric Landscapes

I have been enjoying my second go-round in Birgit O’Connor’s online course, Atmospheric Landscapes.  I’m grateful that Birgit is one of the many successful artists and instructors who has also mastered the technology of online teaching.

If you haven’t seen her website, I encourage you to visit.  She offers many different ways for students of watercolor to study at their own pace.  You can purchase a course for a very reasonable fee and not have any fear of using it because you are guaranteed lifetime access.  If you sign up for her newsletter, you will receive periodic offers to sign up at a discount.

With my busy schedule, I originally opted for working completely on my own.  However, I found that I tended not to do it until I signed up for one of the courses where we actually all meet online every few weeks for live discussion and feedback. I found that having that deadline to submit paintings in time for the bi-weekly review finally got me painting more regularly.

I’ve even been able to finish the Landscapes class while on vacation.  I’ll post some of my paintings completed for the course so you can see what is involved.

Happy painting!
Ann

Not one of my successful lessons since I let the purple color get “stuck” with not enough water to float in the sky.  A useful exercise in the proper amount of water plus a meadow foreground where one tried not to paint every single blade of grass.

An Apple iCloud Notes Solution

I have embraced Apple notes as my go to app for capturing ideas when I’m on the road, but I ran into a problem this week. I thought I would write this up because it was a problem that even Apple Support did not understand. (I have not included an exact step-by-step of the Apple device settings, so if you want to know more information, don’t hesitate to ask in the comments.)

I’m not a big fan of the cloud because I’m often out of WIFI reach. The remote coves we enjoy on our boat have no internet service, and the advertised WIFI at marinas is usually woefully lacking. (I’m writing this in the Anacortes Starbucks.). However, I have found putting certain items in the cloud useful.

One of these is my ongoing Notes. I have several folders of notes for my art endeavors that I like to share between my desktop iMac, iPhone and iPad. These include Admired Artists, Art Materials, and Art Techniques. I recently wanted to add a scan from a magazine to one of my existing Art Techniques notes on Color Mixing.

It’s easy enough to take a scan or photo with the iPhone. You can save the scan to Photos, but you can also directly Share the scan or photo to Notes. The problem was that I could not select my iCloud based Color Mixing note after I chose Share.

I knew my iCloud notes were there because I could see them if I looked for them in the Notes app. So why couldn’t I Share to them?

I discovered there is now an app for Apple Support and downloaded it (so my WIFI was obviously strong enough), but could find no reference to sharing to iCloud Notes in the Knowledge Base. The app suggested the best way to get support was to telephone, and as usual, I am amazed at the quick response one gets when calling Apple. They do ask for your Apple ID, and I’ve paid for the extended Apple warranty for my mobile devices, so I guess I’ve paid for it, but it still amazes me how quickly you can reach a real person at Apple.

Unfortunately, it was difficult to describe my problem over the phone. Taisha did her best and rounded up all the mobile Notes support articles for me to read later, but none of them referred to this problem. She had some odd idea that you needed to do iCloud backups of your device to get to your notes. I happen to only trust iTunes for backup and didn’t think that was the problem. I’m sure I’d been able to save from my iPad to a note originally created on my iMac, so what was wrong now?

I guess it’s my engineering background, but I couldn’t rest until I solved this problem. Artists would do well to adapt the engineering approach. All it requires is asking yourself a question and testing to find the answer. So, my first question was, could I do this on my iPad? Yes, it turned out! I could select a photo from Photos and then Share that photo to a Note from the iCloud Notes folder. This was a clue! Could there be a setting on my iPad that i did not have enabled on my iPhone?

There were two places in the Settings to look- one in the iCloud section and one in the Notes Settings area. The iCloud settings are oddly located at the top of Settings under your name. Here I noticed all the iCloud settings were the same except iPhone iCloud Drive was off. Could that be it? I enabled iCloud Drive on the iPhone, but nothing changed.

Then I looked at Settings/Notes. Here I noticed that the very top option, Default Account was On My Phone. For my iPad, it said simply iCloud. I switched the option to iCloud on my iPhone as well. I wasn’t hopeful this would do anything because the description was “Choose a default account for Siri and the Notes widget in Today View.”

However, this did seem to be the solution! Now, when I went to Share to the Notes app, I could only see my iCloud notes. So I guess you only get one or the other.

It’s tempting once you fix something to leave it be or it might “break” again. However, the final engineering verification was to switch it back to Settings/Notes/Default Account=on my iPhone. Sure enough, I could now only share to notes on my iPhone. Switching it to Default Account=iCloud allowed me to share to my iCloud notes. So, Solution Found!

A tidbit of captured info, this time for my Art Materials folder

Camel Hair Brushes

I recently was given some very old brushes.  I thought it would be no problem looking up the manufacturer’s series number since they were still clearly visible on the handles.  However, I quickly found that a Google search yielded very little information

My husband pointed out that these brushes were probably made and discontinued before the internet even existed.  This is the case for the Murillo company where I found business records from New York indicating closure in 1982. 

I was especially curious about a brush marked 1” M. Grumbacher N.Y. Meissonier ® U.S.A.  After some research I determined that this is a “Camel Hair Mop”.  But even more interesting, even though you can find many “Camel Hair” brushes for sale today, very few vendors indicate the real hair used for this brush.  

Finally, I found a good description for all brush hairs at www.dickblick.com/info/brushhair/

It turns out, Camel Hair is certainly not from a camel.  As they describe:

Camel Hair does not come from camels at all. It is found in watercolor and lettering brushes and usually is made of squirrel, goat, ox, pony or a blend of several hairs, depending on the desired softness and intended cost of the brush.

Grumbacher appears to be owned by Chartpack now. (grumbacher.chartpak.com/categories/brushes/#)  The closes brush I could find on their website is the Academy Natural.  The info box says their natural hair is a combination of goat and pony hair.  It does look like it would carry a lot of water and color, so I will try it in my watercolor work.

Calistoga Paint Out

Last month I participated in the Calistoga Paint Out held by the Calistoga Art Center.  As a watercolor painter, I faced some interesting challenges that artists in other mediums may not encounter.

The essential elements of a plein air festival include a check in period, a painting period and then a public show of the resulting paintings.  During check-in, the artwork supports, typically canvas, panels or paper are stamped on the back with an identifying mark and date.  This step ensures that the painting actually takes place during the painting period.

What I did not anticipate was that the stamp needs to be visible when the final artworks are displayed.  This is usually not an issue for canvas or a panel, but display of a watercolor sandwiched between a mat and backing board then inserted in a frame is a problem.  The stamp would be covered up.  

Fortunately, a more experienced artist suggested I solve this problem by cutting a hole in the backing board.  This required that I get my paper re-stamped near the center so that the stamp would not be covered by the frame moulding.  Then I had to measure the location of the stamp carefully to make sure I cut a hole in the same place on the backing board.

For future paint outs, it would be easier to have the watercolor paper permanently mounted on the backing board ahead of time so that I could simply have the backing board stamped.  I haven’t yet found a pre-made watercolor board that I like, so I intend to glue my favorite watercolor paper to foam core board or a flat panel.  

My paintings were not my best work, but I have to remind myself I did these in about an hour each battling wind and even rain showers.  I plan to repaint them in my studio.

Downtown Calistoga

Calistoga East

Mustard Colored Daffodils

Narcissa ‘Ice Follies’ in foreground, Napa, California

Rainfall has been plentiful in the Napa Valley this year and my daffodils have been very happy.  Even the most recently planted group is starting to bloom.  

My late fall plantings are normally the last to bloom because I have to wait until the weather is cool enough to plant.  Every year since the late 1980’s I have planted daffodils.  I used to plant 500, then 350 a year.  This year I only managed 150 partly because all the easy spots are taken and partly because the heavy clay soil is too tough for me now.

I carefully select my Narcissi from all the major types including Trumpet, Large Cupped, Trianadrus, Poeticus, Small Cupped, Tazetta, Jonquilla, Double, Split Cupped and Cyclaminineus.    The latter are my favorite due to their swept back petals.  The blooming season ranges from January to April. 

Recently, I’ve decided I should focus on smaller cups and earlier bloom.  The large cups can become too heavy with rain and tend to end up face-down in the grass.  The late-blooming varieties often include beautiful salmon and pink colors, but they can get overwhelmed by the fast growing weeds.  

 

Mustard Madness

Art Gallery Napa Valley Reception

• March 21, 6 to 8pm
• 1307 First Street, Downtown Napa

Our artists in the gallery  have stepped up their marketing game.  They did some research into our Mustard theme and came up with some interesting info.

Mustard is known as a spice, a condiment (What’s a hotdog without mustard?) and was even used as a “plaster” to promote healing.  Historically, French monks who mixed the ground seeds with “must” or unfermented wine, inspired the word “mustard,” which stems from the Latin Museum ardens -roughly meaning “burning wine.”

In Napa Valley during February and March, the mustard you see is a breathtaking display of masses of delicate flowers used as a cover crop between the rows of pruned vines.

For my part, mustard brings to mind culinary pursuits. The the famous Mustards restaurant in Yountville is one of my favorites.  At the same time, this is Year of the Pig, so I couldn’t resist this whimsical addition to my display in the gallery.

Time to Mix it Up

It’s time to mix up more of that “Birgit Grey”!

#Birgit O’Connor Watercolor is starting another session of Atmospheric Landscapes online starting December 15th.  I highly recommend this class!

Ann Nunziata

(at the Napa Town & Country Fair)