Reminder: APRIL (this month!) is the last month before June that I can ship or arrange pickup for purchased artwork.  I will be in Flagstaff AZ for all of May for ArtX, and will not be able to ship work or arrange for pickup during that time frame.  If you would like to purchase artwork and have it shipped or picked up before June, now is the time to make those decisions.  Onto the email…

4.8.24 - Monday

Dear Art Lover,

As I was cleaning my watercolor plein air supplies Sunday, I noticed in the more dry lumps of paint on my palette just how many crumpled cherry blossoms had accumulated, stuck in the paint like geological strata, from the last two weeks of work.

Although I was sharing the work itself as I made it, I thought for this week I’d go into a bit of depth about the paintings themselves, to give a bit of context for each, and share what it was like to paint en plein air in one of the most photographed locations in the world (for the month of march / April), the Quad at the University of Washington, surrounded by massive cherry trees in bloom, and the many, many people come from all over the world to see them.

This morning’s email is part 1 of a 5-part series, Cherry Blossoms 2024 Art Notes.

I keep a running note on my phone to help me keep track of when and where (and in what weather) each of my plein air pieces was made.  Here’s what the last three weeks looked like, at a glance (with links to the pieces made).  These are the exact cut and pasted notes I keep.  After this, I’ll write about each piece and each day in more detail:

sun 3.17.24

just before / after 8am begun work with wash on S. king st and 31st ave s

mon 3.18.24

about 7:30-7:55am s. king st and 31st ave s, continued work

9-9:49am cherry blossoms 18 x 24" and 22 x 30 both begun - ran into Tyler!

3:10-4pm cherry blossoms 26 x 40" begun

tues 3.19.24

9-9:45am same two cherry paintings further work

3:20-4:40pm cherry blossoms 26 x 40" finish

thurs 3.21.24

9:45-11:45am cherry blossoms overcast 26 x 40" - saw Akane!!! - painted with Peter!

fri 3.22.24

10-11-45am cherry blossoms rain, 30 x42", met "nova" photographer

mon 3.25.24

12:15-1:15pm cherry blossom 30 x 42" begin plus photo / video sesh

tues 3.26.24

begun 10:30am to 12:30pm, overcast, 30 x 42" almost same view as yesterday, overcast

thurs 3.28.24

begun 11:20 or so, same as tues, until 1:25... more rain breaks

fri 3.29.24

10:15am - 1:15pm finished! in sunlight

sat 3.30.24

arrival 8:35, need to wait a sec until 9ish

10:30 finished 22x 30"

mon 4.1.24

6:53-7:18am sunrise

tues 4.2.24

7:45-8:30am finished s king and 31st

9:30 - 10:30am finished work on 18 x 24" blossoms

weds 4.3.24

work on cb 30 x42" original 1-2pm

thurs 4.4.24

work in 30 x42" original 10:45am- 11:50am

fri 4.5.24

11am 30 x 42"... 2pm done. yay!

To begin, “sun 3.17.24

just before / after 8am begun work with wash on S. king st and 31st ave s”

This piece was made over three total mornings of work, but there were mornings between beginning and completion where I tried to work on it, only to find that low cloud cover made the light vastly different from the initial washes.  I usually create a plein air painting in an hour or two, but for this, I wanted to paint the layering of the landforms as they receded away in the morning atmosphere, which would take allowing the paper to dry before placing successive layers, if I wanted the layers to remain distinct and not bleed into each other.

To choose this subject matter, this view, I was responding to a prospective client’s request for a view of Rainier as seen more or less from the floating bridges over Lake Washington, and this overlook from South King Street and 31st Avenue South, specifically in the glow of a bluebird morning sunrise.  Having seen such a view many times but never really painting it, I was curious.  The framing of this view crops out the I-90 bridge, which would be just below the body of water of Lake Washington.  It was enjoyable to work on this piece alongside the cherry blossom pieces in the later morning, going from total stillness, almost no one watching me paint, to crowds of thousands.

“mon 3.18.24

about 7:30-7:55am s. king st and 31st ave s, continued work

9-9:49am cherry blossoms 18 x 24" and 22 x 30 both begun - ran into Tyler!

3:10-4pm cherry blossoms 26 x 40" begun"

On Monday (an actual “work day” for me as far as getting out to paint goes) I continued to lay in washes of color on the Rainier mountain view.  I didn’t have much time (and probably should have showed up earlier) before the sun rose and the light changed definitely.  Once that piece was drying, I loaded the car up again and went straight to parking nearby UW, marching over to the cherry-blossom-loaded Quad to begin work on my first two cherry blossom paintings for this season, 18 x 24” and 22 x 30” papers of the same exact view at the same exact time.  On my way I saw a friend of mine who works for UW, which is always fun serendipity.  I think my 30 x 42” paper had not shipped to me just yet, and I was low even on the 22 x 30” paper, so I dipped into an 18 x 24” block (a stack of pages sealed with a wax edge) that I rarely use.  The morning light shining between Smith and Miller Halls (I had to look up the names) was striking, particularly because it lit up the blossoms from behind.  I cannot resist the aesthetics of backlit leaves and trees.  For that first day, both papers were worked on simultaneously (back and forth with the same colors more or less) to layer in the lightest tones of the blossoms in light, the gradient of the sky from lightest blue to slightly darker right to left, the light of the grass lawn, and on only the 18 x 24” painting, the shadow color, still very light violet, of the blossoms.  The 22 x 30” paper at this stage has only the green of the grass (unshadowed), the blue of the sky, the light of the blossoms.

That day I took a midday break to attend to other business, having already continued work on a painting and begun two others.  In the afternoon, cognizant of the brevity of the blossoms, I began a piece on 26 x 40” paper, a size I don’t usually work in anymore, but I was impatient and didn’t want to wait for my 30 x 42” paper to arrive to begin work on some larger paintings.  The beginning of this piece was semi-successful.  What I remember was how quickly the quad exploded with foot traffic between the time I began just after 3pm to 4pm when my view was so crowded in by pedestrians that I called it for the day.

“tues 3.19.24

9-9:45am same two cherry paintings further work

3:20-4:40pm cherry blossoms 26 x 40" finish”

On Tuesday, I was back for the blossoms in the morning, the light shining bright between Smith and Miller Halls.  I knew that the bluebird conditions would not last forever, so I was a bit bummed to not be able to finish both pieces before the light changed.  I was working on the shade of the buildings, so as the earth turned, the sun eventually rose on my workspace, and the light was very different.  Regardless, I was proud for these pieces of the tonal and chromatic coherence in the shadow color of the blossoms.  It was this morning, too, that I started fielding many questions about the works.  What media were they?  Out of the same question asked hundreds of times while I worked on the blossom paintings, only one or two people guessed watercolor.  99% of passersby, including artists, ask if I’m working in oil, or acrylic, or acrylic or oil.  I take this as a compliment, evidence that at the very least the cherry-blossom spectator is not used to seeing watercolor be used in this way, or at this larger scale.  They also frequently believe I’m working on canvas, when it’s typically 300 or 400-lb watercolor paper taped to a gator board, a stiff surface with a foam core, encased in thin clay.

In the afternoon, at the same time window as Monday, I finished the 26 x 40” painting.  I was fairly proud of the result, which reflected the chaotic nature of the afternoon with the innumerable people in attendance.  I wanted more, though, and knew even from these first two days that I was going to pursue the cherry blossoms more intensely than last time.  What’s more, I still had at least two unfinished paintings to complete, both requiring the specific light of a rare bluebird cloudless Seattle day, at the specific time of 9 to 9:45am.  I also had no real idea how long the blossoms would cling to the branches, and I didn’t want to frighten myself by looking it up.

Look out for part 2 of 5 coming out tomorrow.

Cheers,

David