Tuesday 2.20.24 - 20 years of Art, Illustrated, Part 5 of 5

In today’s newsletter I’ll share the most recent six pieces chosen for a recent grant application, and a bit about each work:

As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to reply to this email, email me at David@DavidOSmithArtist.com, or use the Contact Page of my website.

What a unique time of day, and unique atmosphere this was.  I’d been trying to paint this specific time of day and atmosphere for the previous year, but had never quite found the right colors in time, or maybe just not seen them well enough.  I had somewhere else to be when I saw this view, these colors, and I decided to forego my previous commitment and paint instead, and I am so glad that I did.  The sun had just set, but behind clouds, giving the sky a lightness, but casting deep darks into all landforms including the foreground rocks.  I worked as quickly as I could, but soon could barely see what I was painting.  When the piece had dried completely the next morning, I noticed the distant shoreline of Bainbridge was too light, so I went over it once to darken the tone.  Usually I do everything on-site, so this was an exception I made to more closely match what I had remembered seeing.

This work was made fortuitously on two snow days two months apart.  I couldn’t work fast enough on the first day to render the specificity of the scene before the snow had all melted.  In lieu of taking a reference photograph, I patiently waited for snow to fall again, and two months on, my wish was granted.  Flecks of white gouache match what I was seeing as the snow fell, albeit a bit of a silly technique, very easy to overdo or to render tastelessly.  I loved observing cars’ tracks through the snow, and the reflection of the neon red sign in the wet cleared pavement.  This plein air painting in sub-freezing temperatures was made possible because this was my view from my old apartment, so I am inside, looking down at the street below.

This is a painting I was fairly proud of when I made it.  Almost all of the challenges I wanted to meet I met fairly successfully.  The sky that day was glowing and bright, backlighting large and full cloud forms.  The sign on the billboard was for Wenatchee, a skiing resort advertisement, which was a fun contrast to the heat of August summer.  I painted until a highway off-ramp, which is visible in the upper left corner.  I’m looking south in Georgetown, and the colors grew fainter along the street, receding into the horizon.  I used a straight edge (ruler) to get some of the overpasses straight, but as usual, did no drawing or graphite outline, this is all just watercolor.  I believe that any scene or view can be beautiful when observed, just like this one.  The view doesn’t have to be spectacular to be intriguing, interesting, challenging to paint.

I enjoyed working on this piece very much, as the rain threatened to come down, but never did for more than a few minutes at a time.  I’d flip my board upside down as fast as I could, but still the sky in this piece shows the telltale white flecks from rain on my paper.  I was chatting on the phone with my friend and fellow painter and Ryder Studio graduate Max Roath, I think for the entire time I worked on this piece.  The colors in the waves, while maybe not what initial drew me to paint this scene, were by far the most intriguing and engaging aspect of the view.  I couldn’t believe the intensity of greens and blues and reds I was seeing in the medium-size breaking waves.  The Seattle skyline is visible over the west shoreline of Lake Washington, faint but clear.  The boulder in the water is not contrived but almost could have been, so perfect was its placement, like a rock in a zen garden, chosen, not accidental.  When I look at this piece I can hear the sound of the waves breaking on the gravel beach, swish, swish, swish.

This piece is a zoomed-in, more or less life-size study of the small waves breaking on the sandy beach at Golden Gardens, seaweed and shells and all.  Watching waves and trying to paint what I see is a truly engaging task, and I enjoy it so much.  There is a special part of our human brain that lights up as we observe water from close by, as we hear its sounds, and see the light of day shining through it.  I was careful to check that the tide wasn’t coming in, and that no rogue waves would wash my materials away - which happened the last time I painted waves at Golden Gardens this close!  With no such drama, this painting was a successful life-size study of small waves, all in shadow in the morning cloud cover, but lit in part my the sun shining brightly on higher, far-off clouds and sky, visible only in their reflections.  I was not in direct sunlight, painting direct sunlight reflection.  Works like this one are directly inspired by the masterful art and brilliant process of Spanish painter Joaquin Sorolla (1863-1923), works completed at a massive scale, studying the water and beaches of Valencia in oil.

I loved the way the sky was reflected purely in the outflow water, and the gulls gathered around it.  Golden Gardens is becoming a familiar place for plein air painting, yet each day is totally idiosyncratic.  On this day, the mountains and the sky were a brooding, very colorful set of grays, especially the reddish reflections near the horizon line in the wave-ruffled water.  The gull standing in the outflow in the foreground is either the same gull returned to that spot several times, or different gulls standing in similar positions.  I tried to work quickly, as the atmosphere was changing, and the tree overheard where I was set up kept dripping water onto my paper (those are the splotchy marks in the sky).  I didn’t mind it, as I don’t think those marks take away from the overall effect of the piece.  It feels like moisture on the lens of a camera.  This is one of the last plein air paintings made in 2023.

Thus concludes this sharing of information about the assemblage of 40 works to represent 20 years of making artwork.  I look forward to sharing my current projects and new directions with you soon.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to reply to this email, email me at David@DavidOSmithArtist.com, or use the Contact Page of my website.

Cheers,

David