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My very first painting was of the nearest street corner to my house in Sunnyvale, CA. This year I painted the nearest corner to my house in Roseville. The corner is what I see almost every day of my life so if there is a single painting subject that can bring back a lot of memories, the corner would be it. The reference photo for my painting was taken in October 2015 and the painting was done in June 2016. Many things have already changed in that short time. Some trees were replanted, a red umbrella in a side yard is gone, even the color of the street had changed from newer black asphalt to slightly weathered grayer asphalt. Which got me thinking this morning about a concept that revolves around the corner subject.

Cezanne for three years of his life walked in his area and painted multiple versions of the same mountain that he saw everyday, a view of Montagne Sainte-Victoire. Even though it is the same mountain no two paintings are identical. The mountain was his street corner. The mountain looks different from different angles, time of the day, season, and even the weather can make dramatic changes to the resulting painting. It really is no different for a modern city street corner. Your viewpoint or angle is most simple way to change the composition. Time of the day will change the shadows and that will constantly change around the year because the sun is in a slightly different place daily too.

In my concept, you could be at a fixed position, same time, same clear blue skies and it will still change the picture. The biggest change will anything organic, like trees and shrubs, because they continue to grow or die. Anything that people can manipulate will change. In the case of my street corner painting, I painted it on a garbage day so the garbage cans are out on the street. People can park or move cars. Those things that are positioned by people will never all be precisely in the exact same spot again. A bird can fly through or land on a limb to make a change. Inorganic changes could be the weather. In my street painting, I liked that particular day because of the arrangement of the clouds. If there no organic objects in the photo then you still have inorganic processes. Erosion, weathering, and rust come to mind. The last element is the artist, the human element. It would be impossible for every dipping of brush into paint mixes, every brush stroke, and entire composition to be identical because we are not machines.

When I first read about Cezanne painting the same mountain for three years, I thought wow, that's a serious rut. But maybe he figured out that it was more about subtle change and to seek those tiny nuances or differences to make a totally different painting each time. I should learn to be so discerning. Sometimes I think about that when I leave my house.... and turn the corner.

I had shared a painting I did on my Facebook page. One of my friends said they instantly recognized the style out of all the art postings on his page and knew it was mine. The comment just struck me because I've never thought of myself with any particular style. It also made me think, is that bad or good thiing? I mentioned this to an artist friend and she said that was a good thing and don't try to change it. So I started to ponder this question of style.

Some of the famous artists went through periods of style, like Picasso with the; blue period, rose period, cubism, neo-classicism, and surrealism. Whereas other artist have less pronounced periods and are more consistent style like Van Gogh. Which makes me wonder about myself, do I have just one period or will I change. When I was told that I have a style, it made me think I was in a rut. I do like to change things up once in awhile. At the moment I'm cranking out paintings once a week so that I have stuff to show for the November 2016 Open Studios Tour. I'm less prone to experiment, opting for the easy path of doing what comes natural. That does not mean I'm stuck forever because I've been thinking about new paths or techniques. I want to get out of my rut for 2017. Not that it is really a true rut, only a notion that exists in my mind.

Probably better to just paint and don't think about style at all. Whatever happens will happen. I believe style is just like your signature. You learned how to write in elementary school and eventually a signature evolved by the time your're an adult. It was not a contrived thought out process, it just happened. People recognize your signature, it is not good nor bad, just human. Imagine a kid learning to write and trying to create a signature. With that perspective you know that signature will be unnatural and there will be a lot of wasted effort on the kids part. Okay, I'll just accept that I have a signature or style and it really is of no consequence to me. It might change or it might not, I'll just keep painting.

Watercolor paper comes in three textures; Hot Press, Cold Press (Also known as "Not"), and Rough. Why Not? The term Not means the paper did Not go through the extra processing of additional hot pressing. Hot pressing for a final finish creates a smoother surfaced paper, cold press has a medium texture with dimpling on the surface, and rough has more significant and deeper dimples. There are a lot of factors in picking watercolor paper besides texture like weight (thickness), color, quality of material, and sizing which is somewhat variable by manufacturers. Of all the factors, texture is the most critical visibly.

Contrary to what you might think, a smooth surface doesn't mean an easier control surface to create precise lines and shapes of watercolor. Hot press paper lends itself for a more uncontrolled loose painting because the watercolor tends to flow loosely on the flat surface. Whereas a textured dimpled surface holds the paint in place better, like miniature dams, as you paint. Rough paper really controls the flow and on the flip side it might give unintended texture to some strokes and shape. I read somewhere that 90% of watercolor paper sold is cold press, the most common watercolor paper texture. For good reason too, as it is in the middle for paint control which leads to predictable results.

So which paper do I use? For most paintings I use cold press. However when I want to mix things up I will also use hot press or rough. Rough to me is not much different than cold press. I will seek rough if I think for some reason that particular painting subject will lend itself to more textured techniques. Rough would be a poor choice if I was using an ink pen or pencil because the pen or pencil tip will snag, dip, or skip along the rough dimpled surface. Hot press is very distinctive too and for me it is the most challenging surface. The paint doesn't want to stay in place on a smooth surface, it comes runny and blending and mixing can end being something you didn't plan. After painting with hot press I'm happy to get back to my cold press but I do appreciate a break from a rut and the forced challenge of a different surface. For the blog title, Not is the answer.

I was complaining to Kira, my daughter, about the cost of matting and framing. She suggested to me that I go a certain Swedish furniture store (starts with the letter 'I") and find frame bargains. So I went to the nearest store in West Sacramento and looked at their frames. I noticed that the proportions and mat opening sizes didn't work with any of the standard watercolor paper size. The most common watercolor paper size is a 22" X 30" sheet, which you can tear in half for 15" X 22", or another split down to 11" X 15". Hence the standard watercolor sizes of full, half, and quarter sheets. Nowadays I tend to use 12" X 16" blocks (glued stacks on a stiff board) so I don't have to deal with stretching the paper if I want something around a quarter sheet size.

Anyway back to the Swedish frames... I looked online and discovered that standard frames in Europe are different sizes than standard frames in the U.S. There's a myriad of sizes in both standards, but the only one with a consistent ratio as the size increased that was the "A" size system (example A4 is 297mm X 210 mm for a ratio of 1.41). All "A" sized paper big or small ran with a ratio of about 1.4. Which got me thinking about ratios. The ratio of 22 X 30 is very close to 3/4, in fact a 12 X 16 is exactly 3/4. 3 to 4 ratio is what the old television standard was for a picture shape.

Today everything is about High Definition of which there are different qualities by the number pixels when you consider 4K as the newer better quality vs 1920x1080. Regardless of pixels, the thing that remains the same is the picture shape ratio. The picture shape will still be 16 to 9 (16/9) meaning the width will 16 in relationship to the height of 9. So if we were to paint in high definition (shape not actual pixel quality) then we have to use new paper sizes and new shaped frames. I know it's a weird thought but as people get used to seeing photos, TV, and movies in this format it has become the new standard, should we change the painting size accordingly?

They don't make watercolor paper in that shape. In order to paint in HD you would have to crop or cut the paper to fit that 16/9 ratio. Unfortunately that wastes paper which isn't cheap but there's no other way. I figure the new modern HD paper sizes after cropping would be 16.85" X 30" from a full sheet. I could take a 12" X 16" block and reduce it to 9" X 16" to for a quarter sheet equivalent. Then you'll have to deal with odd frame and mat sizes. Am I seeing the possible future shape of art or just having random thoughts about ratios. Only time will tell, and that would be years before any change because traditional is hard to change. Who knows, I might on a whim someday, just try to paint in HD to see what it looks it.

Prior to the 19th century, that could be a true statement. I have used in recent paintings probably the paint pigment with the most peculiar origin. Caput Mortuum is a brownish purple red pigment. Caput mortuum (plural capita mortua) is a Latin term whose literal meaning is "dead head" or "worthless remains." Caput mortuum is also sometimes used as an alternative name for mummy brown (alternatively Egyptian brown), a pigment that was originally made in the 16th and 17th centuries from ground-up mummies, and whose use was discontinued in the 19th century when artists became aware of its ingredients. By 1915, one London colourman claimed that he could satisfy the demands of his customers for twenty years from one Egyptian mummy. Mummy Brown eventually ceased being produced in its traditional form later in the 20th century when the supply of available mummies was exhausted.

Reading about the history of the pigment I had to get a tube to try it out. They don't use mummies anymore. The modern pigment sold as "Mummy Brown" is composed of a mixture of kaolin, quartz, goethite and hematite, It works in certain reddish shadow areas, but I wouldn't say it's a color to die for... :) .

I just posted #219 Beach at Pudding Creek which is a seascape that had me thinking about the topic of painting water. If you ask a non painter what is the color of water in painting it's very common for blue to be the answer. You can almost imagine some art company coming out with a tube of paint that's blue labeled water. Painting water would be so simple, wouldn't it, just grab that tube of water color...

In reality water is quite complicated and it can be any color. Water has reflective properties like a mirror so it can be the color of anything in the background or above; sky, buildings, shrubs, trees, hillsides. How much it reflects depends how still the water is. Very still water is like a mirror, rough moving water is not. Then to complicate things even more, the water itself can have coloring agents like pollution, mud, minerals, leaves, algae, or the bottom color showing up through the water. Finally a third complicating factor, waves which can generate small ripples up to huge frothy waves. So how do you paint water. The answer is actually very simple even though water is complex. And this answer really applies to any representational art, - Paint what you see not what you think you see. Give a kid some crayons and tell them to paint water and they will grab blue to color in a shape where the water is... because they are painting what they think they see, not what is actually before their eyes. Look carefully the water your want to portray and analyse what do your eyes see in detailed reality; what is reflected, what are the waves doing, what is the color of the water and bottom. PIck apart what is before your eyes and only then will your water look like real water.

This blog is about #27 High Hand Koi 2 and how disaster can become a success.

When I quit painting in 1998, I had a full watercolor sheet stretched and mounted to a plywood board which went into storage... for 17+ years. When I started to paint again in 2015, I discovered the long forgotten paper and board in box inthen my garage storage. I pencil sketched out a drawing of Koi and was going to use watercolor to paint with. The moment I put the brush to the paper I noticed something was horribly awry, the paint and water would just disappear and it would not leave much pigment on the surface. I tried repeatedly on the same spot and it would barely leave paint and have a very dull appearance. Like trying to paint on cotton ball. Then it dawned on me, the sizing was gone, a disaster. Sizing is a starch like substance that is applied to the paper by the maker which helps control the flow of water, slow the rate of absorption, and basically makes the watercolor paper handle like it should for painting. It could be that I had over-soaked it before stretching and or the storage for a few decades caused the problem. My first thought was, oh well... this is ruined and I'll have to just toss it. But, on the other hand, I have nothing to lose by playing with the paper.

Also damaged by decades of storage were a few bottles of ink. One bottle had turned a peculiar blue-black gray and had gunk which had precipitated out of the liquid. Whatever chemical reaction occurred, it had now reached a state of equilibrium. I was planning to toss that bottle. Hmm... bad ink and bad paper, good match. So I took the ink and started to work on the background between the koi, thinking in my mind there are patterns to nature and patterns to this water. I just had to repeat the concepts of that pattern as I painted. I just doodled away in an uncharacteristic painting mode. Luckily the ink left more of a mark than the watercolor on the bad paper. In short order the background was done because you have to work quickly with ink, can't let it dry on the brush or pallette. Then I had bottles of good colored ink to paint the koi with. I was happy the color was still intense with the flawed paper. I went back into the painting with watercolor in areas that were more subtle as best as the paper would allow. When I was done, I thought wow, this ended up being a viable painting when it could have very easily ended in the garbage.

There are some lessons out of this experience.

1. Never give up. Paint till your done. Even in the worst case you still get more experience out of it.

2. Paint like no is looking. When I knew the paper was disaster, I painted more freely because I thought it was going to be thrown away. With that frame of mind, I actually painted looser than normal, unlike my usual tight analytical frame of mind (aka stiff) and achieved better results.

3. Experiment. I tried odd techniques and materials and learned new tricks to add to my art.

Disaster can be become a success but only if you keep trying.

The latest image I posted is of a theater in Roseville, CA that was first opened in 1940. Often when I wander through towns or visit museums it makes me want to know what my eyes are taking it. I see an old building, bird in a nest, or a peculiar name of a geographic feature makes me want to research those objects.. Several of the paintings I made this year often have a back story behind them. So far I posted the Borne Cottage, Donner Summit, Union Pacific Trains and the Tower Theater. I will add to the description of the painting some of that historical information points. I forgot to mention the Donner Party for the Donner Summit painting, the stranded group of pioneers that ended up eating humans. That peaceful snowy landscape at some point in history was a trap for those unprepared travelers. When I look at those paintings, I know there is more to subject than meets the eye. The paintings just jog my mind to what that place was in the past and often I know how it came to be or what species and habits of the animal I'm painting. Understanding that information adds a depth to the painting that I can appreciate. Like they say, It's not just a pretty picture. I may just be peculiar in that way, wanting to constantly learn about things. But I do hope that something I paint or write will motivate someone to learn something about that subject that they did not know before. There is so much in life to learn about and a picture is worth 1,000 words to start that journey.

I was accepted as one of the artists for the Placer Arts Organization's Open Studio Tour for 2016. The tour will be for the weekend of November 11-13th. For those who are not familiar with Open Studio Tours I'll try to describe them. The first time I went to an Open Studio tour was in Santa Clara County back in the '90s. You're provided with a free catalog and map (available at public locations). You look through the catalog to find the artists you might be interested in viewing and they are sorted in various ways like geographically or by medium. For example you may want to only see sculptures and oil paintings or you may want only see those in your local neighborhood. All artists in the catalog are fair game for your visit on that weekend during the tour hours scheduled.

I decided to try and see as many watercolor artist as I could during that weekend so I picked out about 60 artists that I found interesting regardless of location. Then charted a route on the map that will take me to their studios which could be their home, workshop, or a collective. Some artists group together in a old building or re-purposed commercial building to form a group of artists working at a single location.

When the weekend came, I started my journey visiting the various studios. It was a fascinating experience. The studios were as unique as the artists. Where they create art could be as simple as a desk in a family room or it could a building designed to be a art studio. It could neat and organized or a complete mess (my cousin said the best artists are naturally messy). Regardless of the appearance, you could see how that artist created in that environment and what tools they were using to make art. Not only can you see the working studio but best of all you can ask questions; what kind of paint do you use?, where do you get materials from?, how do you do this or that? It was a fun learning experience and on top of that, you get to meet the artist on a personal basis. All this... and it's free. If you have any interest in art, I can't imagine not taking that opportunity for an entertaining and educational weekend.

My latest post of painting #213 Train 1004 is the focus of this blog topic, painting with ink. Sometime in the late '90s I had purchased some bottles of colored ink because my daughters and I were experimenting with calligraphy. I had the Speeball points with metal nibs in different shapes and sizes that you used to dip into the ink bottle. When I quit painting in 1998, those bottles went into storage. Fast forward to the present time and my rebirth of watercolor painting, I was finding that I was using multiple layers to get the intensity of color or darkness I wanted with watercolor paint. Then I stumbled upon the box of ink bottles in storage. Hmm... wonder if I could paint with ink,

This is how this train painting experiment got started. I wasn't going to risk damage to my nice kolinsky sable watercolor brushes so I bought a relatively inexpensive synthetic brushes made with nylon bristles. I put a few drops of ink on my palette and started to paint. Two things I discovered immediately, first ink dries quickly on the painting, brush, and palette and secondly it doesn't mix or blend as well as watercolor. Meaning you can easily mix and blend tones and gradations of two or more pigments because you don't have the quantity (puddle versus a drop) nor the time (fast drying). On the flip side of the coin, the intensity of color was quite noticeable, far richer and deeper than watercolor pigment. On top of that, you could actually paint white to some degree over a colored area. Some inks were transparent meaning the underlying color would show through and other's were more opaque, blocking the color underneath. The painting went fairly quickly and for some portions of the painting where I wanted more blending and smoother transitions I used watercolor, like the sky and clouds for example,

The bottom line is in some ways painting with ink is more challenging but the reward is a more brilliant colored painting. I think I need more experimenting...