July 31 – It’s summertime! We swim daily and often hang at the beach, so I bring my “work” with me. It could be an oil painting, a watercolor, an ink brush, or some of each. Here’s a little bit about my approaches to these…
OIL
Oil at the beach means bringing one of several easels, depending on the canvas size. For this small 12” x 12” I chose my French easel (left). For larger canvases I’ll use my “Gloucester” easel (right, with a 24” x 24” canvas).
I’ll spend one to three hours working, sometimes to completion or sometimes I’ll do more work back in the studio. These two examples are both 12” x 12”.
WATERCOLOR
Watercolor is a completely different animal than oil. In general, one works from light to dark, vs. dark to light with oil. Watercolor is unforgiving. Everything shows. Accidents happen, and I often will set up conditions for this opportunity. Sometimes it works and frequently it doesn’t. This one could have been disastrous but I like how it turned out, with little fuss and a very watery feel (about 7” x 11”).
INK BRUSH
Yet another animal is ink brush (a pen tipped with a brush instead of a point, about 1 inch long. Like watercolor, it is also unforgiving and many of these end up in the recycle bin. For me, ink brush requires a zen state of mind, calm and intentional yet intuitive at the same time. It requires a lot of restraint, i.e., simplicity. When working with just black and white I play a lot with “negative space”. Here are two fishermen, one drawn with the pen and the other left “white”, outlined by the dark background of the water.
Happy summer! I’ll see you at the beach, or for the October tour, or contact me for a studio visit:
More about Rob, and contact info – studio visits by appointment are more than welcome year-round…
