Daffodil Sketchbook...

We're having the COLDEST DAY OF THE YEAR in New York 17°F feels like 4°F ! But I'm still thinking daffodils.

I found this 2001 hand-made sketchbook while cleaning out my closet last summer.
I'd set my mind to figuring out daffodils.
I'm still working on them.
And at last you can find daffodils in the florists shops.

So it MUST be a SIGN OF SPRING not far off.

Somehow a page of Tulip petals got into my daffodil sketchbook...

There will be plenty more of these to come.

I'm intent on ignoring this cold snap :(

My Venice 2

Gondola Dreaming, watercolor, 8 1/2" x6 1/2"

I found my "gondola period" lurking on a closet shelf.

For a while I was obsessed with painting gondeliers and spent hours searching for them on google...

Here's the thing. While you're actually on vacation, you're walking around like a human sponge trying to absorb everything in sight and generally wearing yourself out in the process. But joyously, so it's OK.

Once you're home you have the leisure and the photos to focus on your trip. Plus you're usually not that thrilled to be home, so any distraction that takes you back to your vacation is like eating chocolate- a welcome relief.
Your friends will soon be bored stiff hearing how GREAT your trip was, so it's best to keep it to yourself and your computer. Often you'll have more intense experiences gazing endlessly at Google images then you had on the spot.

                                 Three Gondoliers, watercolor, 9" x 5 1/2"

These blobby sketches are done the same way as the big blobs. First you draw doodles with just clear water on your brush. Then drop in some color.

Tilt the paper gently to move the paint around, et voilà. It helps if you use warm and a cool colors for contrast to liven things up.

 Gondolas became an obsession after my Venice trip.
I didn't even consider riding in a gondola while in Venice. It's prohibitively expensive to ride around in one of these - $100 for an hour is it? And snobbism gets the better of you, since you don't want to do what "the tourists" are doing.

You can take a gondola traghetti for small change. It's used to ferry passengers directly across the grand canal (carrying up to 15 people all standing, some reading newspapers!). I tried this and was terrified the whole 3 minutes it took to get across. I rode in a gondola on my 1st "Grand Tour" of Europe when I was 18, but who remembers any of that.

There were 7-8 countries on the agenda and God knows how many cities and musuems and churches to investigate. BTW John Singer Sargent painted many of his watercolors while sitting in a gondola. How else could he have painted the views he did of the palazzos and bridges?

These watercolors (one is after a Sargent painting) are sitting on top of the best Turner in Venice book out there - VENISE, Aquarelles de Turner. Published by the Bibliothèque de l'Image in 1995, you can still find it on Amazon or in Paris book shops.

Turner's very small watercolors are blown up to 9" x 11 1/2", so you see the detail better than viewing the originals.

I took a magnifying glass to the exhibit at the Museo Correr, but the crowds made it difficult...They even offered a class in how to paint like Turner, but I was too late to get in.

     Trio of Gondolas, watercolor, 9 1/2" x 6 1/2"

An American, Tom Price in Cannaregio, got it into his head he wanted to learn how to make the traditional gondola, a dying art. He began his apprenticeship in 1996. When he arrived, Thom knew no Italian, had no place to live and had no idea who would teach him.

But the terms of his travel fellowship, required him to build and complete a gondola within 12 months. Tom is still in Venice 10 years later producing authentic gondolas.

Gondola Dreams, watercolor, 6 1/2" x 3 1/4"
If you happen to live in Newport Beach, California you can take a gondola ride in Newport harbor. This may be carrying gondola obsession to extremes or you can just waste time hanging out at http://www.venetia.it/ or http://www.gondolavenezia.it/

They've got everything and anything you could possibly want to know about Venice and gondolas. Charley Parker has a wonderful quote on his excellent site, http://www.linesandcolors.com/

I have learned that what I have not drawn, I have never really seen. - Frederick Franck

This holds true for gondolas.

Carnets de Voyage #2 Tuscany

Tuscan Farmhouse, watercolor, 6 x 9"

Before there was the camera, there was the paintbox. And everyone did it! Painted I mean. The Victorians made sure of that. Some folks are born with a silver spoon in their mouth. I've always thought all Brits were born with a Windsor & Newton paintbrush in their mouths. How I've longed to be born British. Then I'd be a natural born watercolor painter from day 1. 

The Victorians pretty much invented the paintbox. They  decided it was a good idea to go off galavanting around the world on The Grand Tour. And you better have your paintbox along to record your travel experiences. 

Watercolor is the perfect medium for travel - lightweight, fast drying, fluid and very portable. 

The British even taught THE FRENCH how to learn to love l'aquarelle. Richard Parkes Bonnington, the greatest of them all, 

Taught Delacroix how to paint a wash.

Hilltop Town, watercolor, 6 x 9"

There's a mystique about painting in watercolor. It looks so damn easy and it's so damn hard. 

Painting in watercolor is an obsession right up there with loving macarons. And there is endless paraphernalia you can buy just to make a simple watercolor.

Adorable little porcelaine mixing dishes from England. Fancy Russian Kolinsky "travel" brushes from everywhere. Blocks of watercolor paper stuck on a board so the paper won't curl up while you're painting by the Iguazu Falls. Special containers to carry your water. Special enamel travel palettes. Lovely pleine aire/outdoors carryall bags to put all of the above into. Did I mention sponges. Believe me, I've bought every scrap of it.

On every trip, the first stop is ALWAYS the local art store to search for some new treasure to drag home. Note the big gorgeous looking brush with the red handle. I got it in Arezzo, Tuscany. Do I ever use it? No. The art supply biz understands our obsessions perfectly. In Europe, you'll see paintboxes with pans in every store you go into. 

Tubed watercolors make you feel like you're painting with oils and have an oily consistency when first squeezed out - rich and lush. But they can dry hard as rocks. While the pans are easier to wet and more portable.

There are a ton of how-to books for the beginning watercolor painter. I bought almost every one. And I've gone to many of watercolor "workshops" - Savannah, New Jersey, Maine, Tuscany, Devon, Provence. And I've dreamt of many more. SouthJerseyBoy will tell you.

Near Pienza, watercolor, 6 x 9"

But the truth is, you need to sit down with a jam jar of water, a basic watercolor set of 10-12 pans and some nice paper.

1. First drop a pool of water on your paper.
2. Next drop in some color with your brush, starting with a lighter, warmer color first (burnt sienna works fine).
3. While your puddle is still wet, add some darker, cooler color (French blue).
4. The blobs of colors will "bleed" into each other and form "blossoms", that's where the colors run together and you get "happy" (or unhappy) accidents.
5. You can help the paint along by tilting your paper back and forth.

6. Time to watch the paint dry. You'll learn more from this exercise than most books, workshops, videos out there IMO. I've filled stacks of sketchbooks doing these blobs.

  If you get some good painted blobs going, you've got the beginning of a nice atmospheric landscape painting. It's that easy and it's the best way to learn the properties of different pigments + color theory.
7. Lesson over. Now get cracking!

*TIP: for those watercolor-obsessed out there, if you're in London, stop in at Green and Stone of Chelsea on 259 Kings Road. They have antique watercolor sets in the back. You may find a set that's been on a Grand Tour.

Gillot’s Watercolor Medium

Carnet de voyage, I found these while cleaning out my closet. Before there were Moleskine notebooks in my life, I used to paint in travel sketchbooks. Like anything I tackle, I go overboard. I went to The Center For Book Arts on 28 West 27th Street to learn how to make these books myself and I made tons of them.
Google carnet de voyage and you get 38,200 images to pour over. But wait till after you read this post PULEEZE! Maybe I'll become the 38,201 image...qui sait?

I was already making my own watercolor paints so it was a natural. I work part-time at a pigment shop, but it took a while to get down to producing the first pans.
To make paint you need a binder - basically a glue that will make the dry pigment stick to your surface. The then-manager nudged me on, saying, "It's just like making pound cake - a pound of sugar, a pound of flour, a pound of butter etc and mix.."

Making oil paints is pretty straightforward, like pound cake, you add dry pigment (your flour) + Linseed oil (your wet ingredients) and mix. Watercolors are another matter. Most art technique books tell you to just go out to the art store and forgeddaboutit 

After Corot in Italy, watercolor, 4 1/2 x 6 1/2 "

BTW most of my hand-made sketchbooks are filled with Tuscan landscapes - an obsession at that time. I worked really small for years - 4 1/2" x 6 1/2" and smaller. Moving up to 6" x 8 1/2" was a BIG step. I even convinced Travel Roads to give me a 3-week artist residency in Poppi (not far from Arezzo) with these little watercolors.

Owl's Head, Maine, watercolor, 4 1/2 x 6 1/2"

Back to making paint - I took myself off to London to an instructor from the Prince Charles' Drawing School and we spent a morning testing different formulas and making test pans. 5 days later the pans were still wet = NOT GOOD.

At home I played around with glycerine + honey + Ox Gall...yes you can almost eat your paints, BUT DON'T! Ralph Mayer say's in a pinch you can use GUM DROPS if you have no glycerine around. Finally I got it right and began to "cook up" pans and pans of lovely, rich, granular paint and it's been nonstop ever since.

Et voila! 

Eurostar Window Scene, watercolor, 4 1/2 x 6 1/2"

The French (see this IS a French-related post after all) have been way ahead of us in the travel sketchbook arena, publishing piles of facsimile carnet de voyage books. I was going to do a MACARON post today, but I was not happy with my mac watercolor, so it will just have to wait. Hang in there macaron fans !