PASADENA ROSE BOWL

THE MAKING OF A PANORAMIC PAINTING

Rose Bowl Acrylic on Canvas 27" x 60"

In 2004 the San Diego Padres commissioned me to create a painting commemorating their opening day at PETCO park. The fourteen foot triptych now hangs in the lobby of PETCO's Sony Dugout Club where box seat holders and press enter the stadium.

It was in this lobby where my client, a CAL Berkely alumnus, got the idea to have me create a gift painting of UCLA vs. CAL at the Rose Bowl for his UCLA alumnus twin brother's 50th birthday.

To accomplish this, he drove my wife and me up to the stadium on a clear santana day where we chose our viewpoint and took loads of action and landscape pictures. After I got home and downloaded everything, I sent ideas to my client. We decided to show the football action unfolding in the context of a panoramic landscape including the distant San Gabriel Mountains.

Here are the stages:

1. Reference Photos

2. Photos roughly stitched together for a panoramic composition

3. Rough value study with numbers (used to ask client where to place the various colors of the UCLA and CAL fans

4. Photos of players used for drawing

5. Detail of drawing

6. Detail of drawing

7. Detail of drawing

8. Entire finished drawing. 28 hrs.

9. Beginning to apply paint

10. More paint (gold area CAL fans; all the rest UCLA blue)

11. Pick, pick, pick.

12.

13. Final.

Left Video screen says UCLA vs. CALIFORNIA Bears; the other says John, Happy 50th birthday... and many more. Roll on! Jim

Rose Bowl Acrylic on Canvas 27" x 60"

SUNSET CLIFFS PARK BROCHURE

Finally done! I've been working on this commission for the last month and a half.

Sunset Cliffs Park (San Diego) Acrylic on canvas 16"x48"

The purpose of this brochure is to educate visitors about our Sunset Cliffs Park here in Point Loma. This is a Pelican's eye view. As a surfer, one of my favorite sights is watching pelicans gracefully ride the updrafts of breaking waves.

Originally, this painting had some figures on the edge of the cliff (for scale). But I was asked to remove them in order to avoid giving tourists a dangerous idea (and potentially handing the city a law suit).

The 16"x48" original acrylic will be reduced down to a 5 1/2" x 16" - standard proportions for a City Parks brochure. Here is the rough compositional drawing to give you an idea - both folded and open.

The photos I used for this project were taken by Mark Lipskey from a mini remote controlled helicopter with both a still and video camera. Here are some pictures showing the copter at work and a few of it's still shots.

Cool idea! Lucky me that the graphic designer found this guy.

PAINTING AN OIL FROM WATERCOLORS

This is my good friend Jan.

Astrologer Jan   Oil on Canvas   40 x 30

Detail

INSPIRATION

This is the watercolor I used as a basis for "Astrologer Jan".  Since it sold several years ago, I used a printout as reference for the oil painting. 

Jan's Garden    Watercolor    30 x 22

PORTRAIT #2

But Jan never liked the expression on "Jan's Garden," so I painted this second portrait which she liked better. This is the face I used for the oil painting.

Portrait of Jan     Watercolor     22 x 15

PORTRAIT #3

In this last watercolor, I tried to capture Jan's essence as a long-time dedicated astrologer. 

Astrologer Jan    Watercolor   22 x 15

TECHNIQUE

All the watercolors are begun with an exact cross hatched under-drawing (HB Graphite) to establish the forms and values. Then I used transparent watercolor to build up the likeness, and Titanium white for accents and  final touches. 

For the oil I used lots of Liquin glazes to maintain a sense of transparency and to speed up the drying time. 

 The oil is "hot off the press" - 2009; the watercolors were done in 2003 - 2004. It's interesting to note the differences between a watercolor and oil of the same subject... and how my vision has changed.

A BRUSHY INTERLUDE

Window Sill  Watercolor  22x15

Sometimes, as an interim project, its fun to quickly capture a simple kitchen moment with loose, juicy watercolors.

OPAQUE SHAPES OVER TRANSPARENT WASHES

Watercolor/Acrylic   22x30

Watercolor/Acrylic      22x30

Both of these figures were painted from life in two consecutive three hour Sunday sessions. However, in the end, the naturalistic backgrounds were boring.

Back in the studio, with opaque acrylics and tape, I invented symbols, shapes, straights, curves and diagonals to make the initial transparent areas more interesting.

STUDIO CORNERS AND INTERESTING SHELVES

Acrylic on Canvas     48x36

Sometimes when it's too expensive to hire a model yet I want to paint from life, the studio is a perfect place to find inspiration. In addition to finding great verticals and horizontals for composition, every square inch is full of possibility: interesting supplies, hanging/stacked paintings, various artist accessories, musical instruments and even some stuffed birds from my early days as an exhibits designer/muralist/taxidermist at our Natural History Museum. These are some examples (all painted from life 1-4 weeks).

Acrylic /Palette Knife   24x18

STUDIO SHELVES

Acrylic on Canvas     40x30

Acrylic on Canvas    36x24

CORRECTING A FIGURE IN WATERCOLOR

Final Stage   Watercolor on paper   22x30"

Every Sunday morning I attend an uninstructed  three hour, two session figure painting workshop.

As all artists who paint the figure longer than 20 minutes know, taped-off poses vary slightly after each break, especially hands; and that's OK... after all, its "Life" Drawing. But in this particular pose both hands were always oddly foreshortened and very difficult to do. I'm now sort of OK with the model's left hand, but was never satisfied with her right hand. There was always something wrong with it and my artist wife Stephanie finally fingered the problem (no pun :-)) - it was the thumb. I've corrected it now and the rest of this post shows how.

 MASTER DISASTER by Sue Tregay

I give credit for the following correction techniques to my friend Sue Tregay. Her book MASTER DISASTER is a definitive volume for rescuing problematic watercolors. I highly recommend it to all aspiring watercolorists. Materials: Postal tape, bristle brush, rag and pastel pencils.

1. The thumb was placed too high and was too small.

2. I lightly redraw with white pastel pencil and place the tape over it.

3. Carefully cut the tape (exacto blade) and scrub away the paint with wet bristle brush 

4. After I pulled the tape I felt the thumb was still too short.

5. After blow-drying, I re-draw a longer thumb and re-tape over it again.

6. Again, following the new pastel outline, gently cut the tape.

7. After scrubbing, pull the tape and blow-dry.

8. Now I repaint the thumb.

Sargent said "a portrait is a painting where there is a little something wrong with the mouth". I expect I'll never be completely satisfied either but at least the thumb isn't a focal point.