I made more progress on this piece, and I’m putting it aside for now. I like it, but I need to mull it over more. Tomorrow on to a new subject!
Geoff Watson, “At the easel (in progress, day 3),” June daily painting #30, oil on panel, 12” x 16,” 2019.
I developed the painting more, and I started exploring different ideas for the background. I probably will add my eyeglasses, and I need to refine the facial features. A tougher issue is whether to put a paintbrush in my left hand! That’s how I see myself as I paint this in a mirror, but I’m right-handed. Back at it tomorrow!
Geoff Watson, “In progress: At the easel, day 2,” June daily painting #29, oil on panel, 12” x 16,” 2019.
I decided to embark on a larger, multi-day painting, but I’ll post each day’s progress as a new “daily painting.” This is me at the easel — facing a giant mirror, heh. I’m actually standing indoors, in a room with blue-green wallpaper, but I may end up situating myself outdoors, which is my most common painting pose. Obviously a lot to do, but I like the torso so far. Also, I like that paint (unlike photography) allows one to trim a few pounds from the subject…
Geoff Watson, “In progress: At the easel, day 1,” June daily painting #28, oil on panel, 12” x 16,” 2019.
This device is called a “telephone.” It is connected to the grid by “wires.” Back in the day, these machines were the near-exclusive means of remote communication!
Geoff Watson, “Telephone,” June daily painting #27, oil on panel, 6” x 6,” 2019.
I paid a visit to Hills Plaza, a pleasant street in Friendship Village, just north of the DC-Maryland line. I liked the way the streetlamps lined up, and I also wanted to say something about the competition between trees and buildings in the background. I was still painting away when darkness fell, so I gave up before I felt I was finished; once again I gave short shrift to the flowers in the flower pot! Not to mention the tops of the street lamps. I will touch them up tomorrow.
Geoff Watson, “Hills Plaza,” June daily painting #26, oil on panel, 8” x 10,” 2019.
I was interested in the various shades of gray on these mugs. I painted this is less than two hours, so it isn’t perfect, but it has a certain muggy charm.
Geoff Watson, “Mugs (study),” June daily painting #25, oil on panel, 6” x 6,” 2019.
I returned to Great Falls National Park to paint the old tavern there, but I didn’t like how it was going, so I wiped it out and chose a new subject — the Washington Aqueduct. More specifically, the dam for the aqueduct, just upstream of Great Falls. I like how the water is still and clear on one side of the dam and agitated on the other.
Geoff Watson, “Washington Aqueduct dam,” June daily painting #24, oil on panel, 9” x 12,” 2019.
Today’s model, Amy, was wearing a slightly surprised expression, and I seized on it as the focus of my portrait study of her. This was a single-session pose; it took less than two hours.
Geoff Watson, “Amy,” June daily painting #23, oil on panel, 11” x 14,” 2019.
I actually made three paintings today, but only one of them is worth posting — this little sketch of my iPhone. I tried to paint it in as few strokes as possible. I counted about 350, but the actual number was surely more than that, as I’m sure I forgot to count strokes in the heat of the moment. The idea is to think more about each brushstroke, to make sure the brush is loaded with the correct color, and to get the brushstroke right the first time. I did find myself mixing paint and cleaning the brush more often, which is a good thing. It’s easy to get lazy and pick up paint that’s close but not quite right, or to make too many strokes with a dirty brush.
I like the resulting image, though the composition is a bit stark. If I’d had more time, I’d have added other objects or a more elaborate background. But it was a very worthwhile exercise.
Geoff Watson, “iPhone sketch,” June daily painting #22, oil on panel, 6” x 6,” 2019.
I have a plaster cast of Voltaire, the influential Enlightenment author, and while I’ve drawn the bust several times, I’ve never painted it before. It’s plain white, but it was more fun to sneak some colors into it. I didn’t quite finish, and the photo doesn’t do it justice, but I hope you get the idea.
When Voltaire was alive, he was often depicted with a smile, which seems appropriate for the author of “Candide.” My plaster cast does the same, and I’ve tried to follow suit.
Geoff Watson, “Voltaire,” June daily painting #21, oil on panel, 6” x 6,” 2019.
Time was short today, so I did a quick sketch of a bottle of Listerine.
Geoff Watson, “Listerine,” June daily painting #20, oil on panel, 6” x 6,” 2019.
This rose is part of a larger bouquet that is sitting on our living room table. It cried out to be painted!
Geoff Watson, “Rose,” June daily painting #19, oil on panel, 6” x 6,” 2019.
My wife Anne and her twin sister Alice celebrated their birthday on Monday, and we marked the occasion by congregating at the American University track, where they often meet to jog. I sketched them in oil as they circled the track.
“Running at American University,” June daily painting #18, oil on panel, 9” x 12,” 2019.
I ate half of today’s painting before I got very far, but the other half survived the painting process.
Geoff Watson, “English muffin,” June daily painting #17, oil on panel, 8” x 8,” 2019.
At today’s life class, our model was a nice woman named Dakota. I painted her portrait in about two hours. She held her pose perfectly, which helped me get a reasonable likeness. She was concentrating hard to stay still, and I tried to capture her rather serious expression. Alas, I forgot to indicate her shoulders, heh, and by the time I realized it, the model had left. Oh well.
Geoff Watson, “Dakota,” June daily painting #16, oil on panel, 11” x 14,” 2019.
I returned to the Bethesda intersection I inhabited a few days ago, but this time I painted a different corner cafe — Bacchus of Lebanon, on Norfolk Avenue. I stupidly knocked over my easel several times, and the third time I lost my favorite brush down a storm drain — arrrrgh! It was a No. 7 Eclipse long-handle flat from Rosemary Co. That brush and I have been through a lot of paintings together. It put me in a grumpy mood. (It didn’t help when a passerby sought to reassure me that the brush would make good gnawing material for the local rats.)
I still managed a respectable painting. The idea was to showcase the umbrella and its strange jungle of plants, juxtaposed with urban features like street signs and garbage cans. But if I paint this scene again, I might try leaving out the plants for a simpler composition. Also, I forgot to put flowers in the flower pots! I thought of it after the sun was already setting, and I could no longer see anything. :) I might add them tomorrow.
Geoff Watson, “Bacchus of Lebanon,” June daily painting #15, oil on panel, 9” x 12,” 2019.
After two huge days of plein air, I spent much of the day doing errands, and I didn’t get around to painting until the evening. So that left time only for a quick study. I decided to practice painting grapes and blueberries. I learned a fair bit. (E.g.: blueberries aren’t necessarily blue.) I definitely want to try grapes and blueberries again.
Geoff Watson, “Study of grapes and blueberries,” June daily painting #14, oil on panel, 6” x 6,” 2019.
I had the great privilege to spend the entire day sketching and painting the Jefferson Memorial, in the Tidal Basin, just off the National Mall in Washington, D.C. What a joy to look at this splendid piece of architecture all day! And I think the painting turned out well! At 11” x 14,” the painting is larger than most of my plein air “dailies,” but in some ways larger is easier to paint than smaller. I may do it more often.
Geoff Watson, “The Jefferson Memorial,” June daily painting #13, oil on panel, 11” x 14,” 2019.
Here’s my setup. The weather was glorious, and I had lots of friendly visitors to my easel. Lots of people wanted photos of me with my painting, brush in hand, and I was happy to oblige. :)
Geoff Watson, Photo of my plein air setup at the Jefferson Memorial, June 12, 2019.
As it happens, the nearest restroom was in the Jefferson Memorial itself, so I enjoyed a pleasant 20-minute walk from my easel to the monument. It was great to reacquaint myself with the famous statue. I prefer Lincoln as a President, but from a purely artistic standpoint, the Jefferson Memorial is an unparalleled work of architecture.
Geoff Watson, Photo of the Statute of Thomas Jefferson, June 12, 2019.
I also enjoyed re-reading the stirring quotations on the walls. Yes, I know these omit Jefferson’s awful side; to get a complete picture of the man, one needs to read, say, his “Notes on the State of Virginia.” But that didn’t stop me from reciting the famous lines from the Declaration of Independence, out loud, in the (thankfully empty) elevator.
Geoff Watson, Photo of Excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, June 12, 2019.
Time to renew my annual visitor’s pass for Great Falls National Park! It was a gorgeous day today: sunshine, low humidity, no clouds, and a strong breeze that is unusual for Washington summers. I hiked from the Visitor’s Center to the overlook trail, then found this view of the river. It was one of the few times that I didn’t have to alter the scene to suit the composition: everything was already placed just so.
That said, the conditions were a bit challenging. I painted “contre jour,” into the sun; you can see this from the angle of the shadows. As the afternoon wore on, I had increasing difficulty seeing my canvas. Bugs were biting. And I was set up on a somewhat rocky slope, and my feet hurt after a while. So when I got back to civilization, I found a few stray marks on the canvas that I hadn’t noticed. But to maintain this piece’s status as a pure “plein air” work, I have left those marks where I put them. :)
Geoff Watson, “Great Falls,” June daily painting # 12, oil on linen, 8” x 10,” 2019.
Cityscapes are still, for me, the final frontier of plein air painting: challenging but exciting. Here I tried to get the feel of a corner cafe, on Norfolk Street in Bethesda, and its surroundings. At first I had a clean image of the sign and front window of the cafe, but I didn’t like it and wiped it out, and never got around to restating it before sunset. I still learned a fair bit from this tiny (6” x 8”) study.
Geoff Watson, “Corner cafe (unfinished study),” daily painting #42, oil on panel, 6” x 8,” 2019.