Happy Hour – Angostura

As the saying goes, “It’s happy hour somewhere in the world”, but seeing as it’s 10am here in Austin, a post about cocktails is about all I can muster.

HH Agostura 20200108
“Happy Hour – Angostura”

This is a small piece, oil on board, 5″x7″. This is the first in a series I’m going to do over the course of this year called “Happy Hour”. I’m always trying to think of ways to make art creative and engaging, which can be done in a number of ways. Instructors and workshops will often stress composition and technical prowess, which is very important, but I consider that table stakes. What’s often missing is intrigue, of which I’m plenty guilty of excluding in my works. To get the interest piqued with the Happy Hour series, I’m not going to reveal the specific cocktail in the name of the piece or initial blog post. The intrigue is for the viewer to figure it out based on bartender savvy hints.

Take this initial piece, “Angostura”, which is very simple in terms of composition. What do you consider valid and helpful hints in the painting? When putting this together, I wanted to provide 3 hints that a savvy bartender – professional or simply someone like me with a well stocked bar at home – would be able to use to identify the drink. In this case, those hints are some, but not all of the ingredients, color of the cocktail, and glassware. Can you figure it out?

If you want some help, PUNCH is a fantastic libation focused publication that is a notch above pretty much everything else out there, at least as far as I’ve been able to find. Once you crack the mystery of “Angostura” (hint: think simplicity… I’m not being clever with this one), dive into PUNCH and see what I mean about great cocktail insights.

Maybe 2020 should be the year of artistic intrigue?

Agostura value rough in
Agostura Cocktail 2
Agostura Cocktail 3
ANGOSTURA || 5″ x 7″ Oil on Board || $50
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The $250 Eraser

I wanted to share an expensive lesson I learned today in hopes that nobody reading this post will be doomed to repeat. For the artists out there, you’ll probably just laugh at this post, as you’ve surely experienced your own “eraser gate”, but if not, read on and take caution.

I’ll cut to the point and back into the details. If you leave a vinyl eraser sitting on a wooden table, it will MELT THE LACQUER FINISH!

I had been drawing in my studio and left my eraser and pencils sitting on the table afterwards. I then got distracted, for many weeks, with other painting interests and didn’t return to the drawing for awhile. When I finally got around to finishing the drawing, I grabbed the eraser and it was stuck to the table! Upon closer inspection, it had actually melted / dissolved the lacquer finish into a gooey mess all the way down to the bare wood. See the picture below to appreciate the damage.

Eraser Burn Zoomed

I finally found a furniture repair company that does house calls and luckily they were able to do a suitable spot repair, which meant that vinyl eraser ultimately cost $250. Like I said, it was a very pricey lesson.

My understanding is that erasers (most but not all) will chemically react with their surroundings over time, so you have to be careful how they’re stored. The $250 eraser I used was vinyl, similar to this one at Jerry’s Artarama, but I believe this can happen with rubber and kneaded erasers, too. My erasers are now stored in their own canvass bag or wrapped in Saran Wrap. Hopefully I’ve seen the last of eraser meltdowns.

 

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Dog Day Trifecta!

Starting some new pieces on used (loved) dog toys. This is the remains of a well used canvass purple octopus, called a Kong Wubba. The progression photos are over the course of a number of sessions, including a preliminary sketch done separately to get a better feel of the composition.

The trick with this piece was trying to get the right textural feel for the plush toy, which is the purple octopus. For reference, here is a link to a Kong Wubba so you can see what a pristine one is supposed to look like.

Ultimately this composition conveyed what I wanted, which are the essentials of a great day for one of my dogs, namely a walk (leash), play time (toy), and a fine gourmet meal (bowl).

“Dog Trifecta”

Oil on 5″ x 7″ wood panel

 

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Danube – larger scale

Took another shot at the Danube river village. Originally did a small piece on canvass last year, which was challenging but fun. Took another go at it, but this time on a larger scale, going up to 24” x 12”, which for me is a considerable size leap. It worked out well, albeit slow going. The finished piece is ok, but I clearly leaned too heavily on the warm, red end of things, instead of capturing the fading cool light at the end of the day, which was the setting on this piece. That said, it came out pretty well and I learned a lot about details and the need to consider atmospheric perspective.

 

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“Squirrel!” Finished

What I learned is painting a black dog, especially one near and dear, is very difficult. I never got Crash's face proportions just right in the preliminary sketches, of which there were many, and I couldn't get it figured out on the canvass. But it was better and a lot was learned about painting the black coat without using pure black. I'll tackle this again and get it right, but need to take a breather with a new project first.

Technical details:
Oil on panel, 6"x8"
Brush and knife
Ivory black, titanium white, ultramarine blue – most of her fur

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1 Hour Challenge – Lough Corrib, Ireland

Another 1 hr sketch challenge. This is from a recent trip to Ireland on the grounds of Ashford Castle. John Wayne fans will remember The Quiet Man filmed here, in and around the village of Cork.

The boat on the right is the focal point. This is a good example of forcing yourself to sketch fast can hone the proportional calculation part of the brain – I made that up but it felt accurate when I did this sketch. If I had been drawing at a leisurely pace, I would have over thought the dimensions and shape of the boats.

This could be a good painting, especially with the red colors of the focal point boat.


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Squirrel!

Starting a new painting based on one of the hour  challenge sketches from last week. This is Crash looking at squirrels in the tree when she was a year old – long time ago.

Using a small wood panel and painting knife, maybe a little brushwork to finish. Not sure if I can get the right level of detail with the knife but I'll give it a go.

Pic below is first 30 minutes of block in using a burnt sienna wash, using both brush and paper towel. Wanted to make sure I got the values and proportions right. Having sketched this a few times in the past I know how easy it is to get the face dimensions out of whack.

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1 Hour Challenge – Run Sandpiper, Run

Moving these updates to the blog to motivate myself to do them more frequently. The goal is to hone my drawing skills by doing sketches in 1 hour.

This session is from a reference photo taken by my brother. Very challenging given the need to incorporate movement of the bird and the advancing waves. Oh, and drawing ocean foam is hard as hell. I think the key is to not draw it. 

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Strolling with Boomer

This was supposed to be a quick study session, but it turned into a full fledged effort. I couldn’t help but get sucked into it. It was an exciting time to be in San Francisco, especially living in the Castro – summer of 2013 – if you don’t know what I’m talking about, look it up.

Castro w Boom
Strolling with Boom – 8×10 oil on canvas board

This is my wife walking Boom around the neighborhood. Walks with him were always so easy – he was the perfect companion. They’re both looking to the right, as something has caught their attention, but it hasn’t affected the casual, enjoyable mood of their walk. Everything else in the painting is directed to the right, with the notable exception of a single white car coming down the steep road from the right. I don’t want to actively direct viewers out of the painting, but I’m trying to generate interest and perhaps discussion about what could be just out of the frame. I’m probably violating a central design tenet with this approach, but rules schmoolz.

The painting is on a canvas board with very thick texture. Made some of the detail work difficult, but it forced me to use some larger brushes and paint with more authority, which is good for me.

Getting the hang of painting cars, but had never tried painting a person or dog walking. I had to do a few sketching sessions separately, which helped, but it’s going to take a lot of practice over the coming months to get a better feel for the technique.

Artistic license taken on a few items. Most notably removed the leash from the composition. Also added cars as it suited as opposed to exactly as they appeared in the photo.

 

 

 

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Tulane Bead Tree

Turning a causal photo of a unique scene in New Orleans on Tulane’s campus into an electric color show! “Painting” using Art Set on iPad Pro. Original purpose was to simply trace the photo as an overlay to get a feel for the details before really painting on a canvass. Turned into a fun experiment smashing photos and art.

Tulane Campus

 

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