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- Written by: Ray Oltion
- Category: Painting
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My process started by constructing outlines of the forms that overlap and intersect with each other. I wanted ambiguity in some shapes, as if they were slicing into adjacent forms, such as the circular shape in the left third vertical midpoint, and the elliptical shape of the pop top in the right third of the foreground, which modifies the value of the hue in the tin cans behind it, revealing it as a low intensity red.
Gradients in pure grey on some of the cans in the left and on the eggs add some three dimensional solidity to those forms. Other more planar forms such as the trapezoidal elements in the architectural model use flat applications of grey, but these deliberately distort the values in the still life setup to make the form appear to project and recede at the same time, giving it a dynamic instability.
The eggs suggest reflected light from their containers, and seem to glow with an inner light as well. To me they represent the potential of biological life to reproduce once liberated from a protective shell. They also exhibit primal ellipsoids characteristic of Plato's Ideal Forms, from which our perceived reality springs.
The colors remind me of Rembrandt's last self portrait, with its rich reddish browns and pale ochres. The green of the background and foreground remind me of the awakening ground during the first appearance of spring, in contrast to Rembrandt's depiction of his worn out human incarnation near the end of its life.
The intense red-orange on the Pearl's Olives can label in the upper third and horizontal center peeks out from behind the circular can lid and the architectural model. The ghostly hand shape on the label acts as a secondary focal point, due to its human element. It occupies the apex of a triangle, with the dark shapes in the foreground forming the base.
The eggs and pop tops in the lower third of the picture circulate in an elliptical path that captures the eye, almost as if in orbit around the Earth. The circular inner annulus on the intersecting disk allows the eye to escape that orbit and travel on a tangent to other parts of the image, via the pull of the intense red-orange with recognizable letters in negative space. The rings in this annulus echo the face-on rings circling the planet Saturn, and the swirling colors in the inner disk could be the yellow-gold clouds the gas giant's atmosphere.
Areas of grey contrast with the colored haze and suggest a screen on which the image has been projected, as shadows on the wall in Plato's Cave, especially with the cans on the upper left third of the picture. By contrast, the reddish-brown forms of the interior and exterior surfaces of the cans in the foreground punch through the flat plane of the picture and into the fiery center of the Earth, deeper in the cave, as if we were explorers in Jules Vern's story.
The elliptical shapes in the upright can in the middle background pierce the cylindrical form and reveal the void behind, which could be the amorphous backdrop of a rainy day sky. Indistinct blobs of color float in those voids, providing the impression of a telescope eyepiece that tunnels through the clouds and into the Galaxy, showing the luminescent gas clouds that eventually form stars and planets.
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- Written by: Ray Oltion
- Category: Painting
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Sometimes you just need a little push to get started drawing. In this case it was two books at the Story Library that got me going, both with the title How to Draw Cool Stuff, by Catherine V. Holmes. These books feature step-by-step illustrations that show how to develop drawings of various objects using simple shapes, such as ellipses. It also encourages the budding artist to experiment with line weight and shading.
The Story Library staff used my drawings to create a wall display with the goal to get people to try sketching from the books. They provided pencils and the books for sketching in the library activity room, and a signup list for those who would like to take the books home once the display is finished.
The "Climbing Tiger" is the most ambitious drawing of the bunch, and involves multiple ellipses in its construction, as well as varied line weight and shading. It looks kinda scary, which is cool.
The title piece, or "Piece of Cake", combines pencil with hard pastel. This is an easy way to experiment with color. It uses just think butcher paper as the support, but a light mist with acrylic paint using my airbrush was able to fix the pastel without buckling the paper, or changing the quality of the color.
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- Written by: Ray Oltion
- Category: Painting
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Just as my hero Vincent Van Gogh used a custom made device to help him master drawing scenes from real life, my latest aid for outdoor drawing is my home-made perspective frame. It features a 4:3 aspect ratio with grid lines that can help the artist orient angles and objects in the scene with similarly gridded paper on the easel.
Looking through the viewing aperture guarantees the same point of view each time you check the scene, which saves lots of time versus trying to find the same view with a handheld frame. This makes it easy to transfer lines from the frame to the drawing via the grid lines overlaid on the scene in the viewfinder, and drawn lightly on the paper or painting support on the easel.
The angle of view can be widened or narrowed by moving the viewfinder aperture closer or farther from the grid mask. This is easy to do by twisting the large knob on the top, which racks the grid mask in or out.
The rubber bands can hold straight line objects such as wooden dowels or even plastic zip ties. This allows you to precisely measure and transfer angles of important edges in the scene to your drawing.
Can you guess what this device served as in its previous life? Answer: the focusing standard on an old photographic enlarger.
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- Written by: Ray Oltion
- Category: Painting
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Of course my vantage point was the best, with a view of the pier with loading crane, and the dramatic rocks in the foreground, with the waves breaking on the sweeping curve of wet sand. Funny how everyone else had set up their easels looking other directions, to boring views of the ocean with the Catalina Islands in the distance and the off-shore oil platforms. What were they thinking?
Feeling on top of the game, it was easy to dive into a sketch and skip the instructor's demo. Even though it had been five years since my last watercolor painting experience, my paints were still soft, except for two, a green and a red. My last painting of the Mission and fountain in Santa Barbara had been fairly successful, even if the details were vague in my memory.
My plan was to make a quick sketch to block out the shapes and values, and maybe choose my focal point and simplify the scene. Then after transferring that sketch to my watercolor paper the actual painting could begin. By skipping the demo, my painting should be under way by the time the other students got their paints out.
The sketch turned out to be just as big a challenge as the painting. My first attempt focused on the rocks in the foreground and they wound up way too big, crowding the pier and crane out of the picture frame. The curves in the vegetation and path up the hill to the side of the rocks took on a crescent shape and seemed to grab attention away from even the rocks. What was going on?
My mind was magnifying certain elements in its own model of the scene, and my drawing reflected the distortions in that model. The goal was to draw what was out there beyond my eyes and brain, not inside my skull. It reminded me of what Professor Evans had said about my drawing of a plaster bust of a Roman senator back in drawing class in my university days: “an interesting caricature”.
Starting over on the backside of the paper, my attention fixed on the horizon line and the boundary between the water and the sand. A few lines indicated where the pier stood, and just some blocks sufficed for the rocks. A few circles and parallel lines suggested the driftwood logs. So far, so good.
Then a funny thing happened. The sketch started taking on a life of its own, with lines connecting and shapes flowing into each other. Erasing here and there, adjusting lines, thinking about light direction and shadow, using hatching to render shadow, the time gradually slipped away. Soon the other students drifted in to find their spots and start their paintings, and my sketch wasn't even finished, let alone transferred to my watercolor paper.
The sketch wouldn't let go, and after a while it became obvious that my painting would be a quick affair if it happened at all. A glance at my sister Sylvia, further up the hill and painting one of those “boring” scenes of the ocean, confirmed that she was well on the way to completing her painting. Well, that was to be expected, since she had been painting outdoors for at least thirty years.
By the time we were ready to leave, my sketch was still just a sketch, and not even a well finished drawing. There were some attempts at rendering volume and shadow, but nothing very definite and certainly not dark enough to define adequate contrast. My rendering of the clouds in the sky was weak and vague, and the actual shapes had long since disappeared. My phone camera had captured a few interesting events in the scene, though. One was a shuttle boat that carried workers to and from the offshore oil platforms docking at the pier, and another was a woman and her two children returning from a walk on the beach to retrieve their bicycles.
My plan, as explained to my sister and the instructor as we were making our parting remarks, was to refer to the photos and work on the painting at home in Sylvia's studio. Maybe the sketch could be simplified when transferred to the watercolor paper. That at least was my way of easing my chagrin over not producing a painting on the spot.
Later that evening, carefully studying some watercolors in a library book Sylvia had checked out of the Ojai public library, it dawned on me how ambitious my scene was for a beginner. It was way too complicated. Maybe the more experienced artists in the class knew that, and deliberately chose simpler subjects, painting the water or the clouds, and not attempting to pack lots of detail and compositional elements into the picture. My task was to start thinking like a painter, not a photographer.
Subcategories
Abstract Painting
These images are less representational and more non-objective.