Late Plum of Early Spring

The plums with purple leaves are supposed to bloom after those with pale green leaves, but SOMEONE didn't get the memo. 

Gold and gray

So lovely, and an upcoming challenge to paint in oil pastels…

Oil Pastel Color & Handling Studies

I am out of practice in both drawing and painting, and I've only used oil pastels a few times previously, but realize trying to learn how to use these is lots of fun!

Frustrating, but also fun.  (Thank goodness my first dusk attempt (a week ago) worked out well: it gave me the encouragement I needed to try again.)

The gray paper, the way the pastels blend, the way I touched my forehead and then was alarmed at the large purple (oil pastel) mark in the mirror - it's all an adventure.

Abstracts are the most fun, because I KNOW those are just play (serious play, but still).  So perhaps jumping straight into sunsets and trying to figure out how to use shades of orange (a color I haven't used much in any medium) was ambitious...  But I'm learning things, trying these first skies.  (I rarely even painted skies in watercolor!)

I'm happy that I am taking (making) time to TRY.

Lemony protea

If it were any more pale yellow, it would taste like lemon sorbet.
 

Friday Sunset Studies

My phone is FILLED with these, and now that I'm trying to learn to paint the reflections of the warmest colors, my phone will surely overflow... 

Color Studies with oil pastels, continued

I think that the kind of sunsets I want to draw aren't as blue as I think they are, and I need to come at them with very different colors (more beiges than blues)...  but I made one with exagerrated blues, and it was educational.  It's hard to get orange reflections to sit on top of the blues - they blend into other colors.

Also shown here: the set as I use them; studies in artificial cereal colors, blues, and greens. 

I think I need a lot more days off to get the hang of these...  But it is delightful to LEARN by trying.

Color studies with oil pastels from Japan

I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new oil pastels!

I previously posted that one of my October 2024 adventures in Tokyo was going to the home studio and shop Kawachi Art Supplies, trying the handmade oil pastels they are known for on kraft paper on the patio to confirm they truly are as buttery and lipstick-soft as I'd read (they are!), and then buying a gorgeous, balanced set of ONE HUNDRED of them, because the colors are so amazingly lovely.

Back in November, I finally started to put them onto paper, and decide how I would draw/paint with them.  They are so much softer and blend so much more easily than other oil pastels I've tried, that it really did require some play-testing to choose how to use them.  I'm trying to take up 'softer' ways of painting, unlike the precision of my architectural drafting back in the day, or even some of my watercolors with extensive under-drawings.  And these seem ideal for this softer approach.

So, here's my first representational (non-abstract) color study, using an evening dusk phone photo I took back on Election Day 2024 as the color source.  I zoomed in and made some compositional changes for the study.  All of the colors I used are over on the right.  I made the bay a little darker than it really was, as I work on how to manage reflected light on such a dark base.

One: OH MY GOSH, these are a delight to draw with.  I use my fingers to blend the colors.  I'm learning about how they do or don't blend, and how to layer them.

Two: I am very much out of practice for painting, so I am relieved this turned out well, and that I learned from it.  I'm eager to draw/paint more!

Three: I got to the colors I want from blending, but also want to return to the shop to buy more shades of purple: I have many sunsets I want to paint, some with nearly neon violets within them, and those will be brighter and cleaner if I don't over-blend them.  So yes, I'm making up excuses to buy even more colors.  Yes, I know the owner makes some rather fluorescent violets, and I hadn't thought I'd use those, but I'm inventing new use cases!

I hope this is something that I can do more often - that I will make time for - among my other pleasant creative habits.

 

Camellia time

The camellia that survived the renovation work (and somehow escaped having lumber piled onto it) is glowing radiantly right now. 

Flowers from Friends

It's taken a while since my move  into my now code-compliant home to have all of my friends over (schedule battleship is a game no one wins), but by planning an event in November (!!), I got 2 out of 3 pals from a particular group over on the same day, and they brought lovely flowers.  (And gluten-free madeleines - my first time trying those, which are dangerously good!)

Instax: At the Seawall

My expired Instax Square film is still reminding me to use it, so I took a few images of the graffiti on the newer (southern) part of the seawall, plus one of the beach from the seawall.  For expired film, it didn't do badly!  It was very sunny out, so the better photos are all in the 'darken' setting (which is the best setting for Instax for most conditions, honestly).

 

Ocean Beach: Three Views

Despite the wind, there were many people out, both on the beach and enjoying the old Great Highway (which isn't so great as a highway, but is lovely as a park). 

Ocean's Edge

...and the photos that aren't just of sand are often like this. 

Sand Patterns

I don't want to admit to my friends who are new to photography that my attention is primarily on textures like this.

Mural at Sloat and Great Highway by Jet Martinez

The pump station is still under construction (I've cropped out the fences), but it already crowned by this mural!  (Description of the project at the SFPUC site here.)  It is called "Fog Lilies," and it is scaled wonderfully and satisfying.