LoCura @Yoshi's

Out for an evening with the ladies. A few of the dancers I used to perform with at La Taza de Cafe met up at local cabaret lounge, Yoshi's. We went to see LoCura, an Oakland band with a mixture of Latin/Reggae/Flamenco.

I'm on a roll with getting some drawings in my travel sketchbook. Second time I've had a chance to do so in the past year. Danced a bit, and got to do a few scribblings in between when sitting down for breaks.

Yoshi's is a neat venue. Never actually been there before, even though I live 15 minutes away. Japanese restaurant in half of it, and the other part is a cabaret theater where they feature Jazz, and occasional other live entertainment.

This was an interesting tableau: as Melissa was introduced and stepped out to do a flamenco solo sans music, the band retreated off to the side. They clustered off at the edge, as engrossed as we the audience were with the delicate/powerful performance.

For the first few songs the open dance area below the stage was empty and silent, but by the end of the set it seemed that at least half the audience was down there dancing while the flamenco dancer spun up above them(us) on the stage.

SF Zoo

It has been far too long since I have been able to do some sketches on the move. In preparation for the next Dreamscapes book I went to the San Francisco Zoo last week, armed with camera and sketchbook, to gather a lot of reference material. I brought my little travel sketchbook where I like to do on site ink drawings. It's always a relaxing pleasure to do these.

As opposed to sketches that I do with the intent for finished paintings, these are more like gesture drawings. I don't use pencil at all (though I've taken a liking lately to doing a light scribble with a pale grey brush pen, and also for shadows), just straight to the page with pen. Not being able to erase forces you to commit to the lines, and really try to make each mark matter.

Some neat flowers:

Also, a very lovely portrait drawing (from one of my photos) from Kyra Kramer, age 6. (Thank you Kyra, I'm honored!!!)

Tam Lin - The Faery Host

Tam Lin - The Faery Host
Size: 20x40 inches
Medium: Watercolors
Details: -here-
Prints: -here-

Gloomy, gloomy was the night,
And eerie was the way,
As fair Jenny in her green mantle
To Miles Cross she did gae.

At the mirk and midnight hour
She heard the bridles sing,
She was as glad at that
As any earthly thing.

-Child ballad #39A Tam Lin
The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 1882-1898 by Francis James Child

For more information on the full ballad, and other versions of it: -click here-

* * *

Phew. I can't believe how fast this painting happened. 6 days; though it was pretty much nose to the paper full time. Dana was such a sweetie to watch Claire and give me the chance to work on this. It was good to get a major painting out as I feel like I haven't had the chance to do that in a while and the itch was really building. Scanning this was no small task either. Even with my large format scanner, it took 7 passes that I had to stitch together!

I'll have full-sized limited edition giclees of this one in a month or two.

Tam Lin - The Faery Host more progress

Working into the foreground now.

Tam Lin - The Faery Host more progress

Another in-progress photo. Again, apologies for bad photo quality. Though this one at least I did during the day so there was better lighting.
Meredith asked me if I finished whole sections before moving on. Sort of. I finish tiny areas sometimes (like the little fairy figures, or the foxes), and other parts (like the background trees) I lay in base coats and go back to them as I develop those portions of the painting. I tend to jump around a lot to whatever section catches my fancy. In a painting this size I have a lot of room to jump around to!

Jumping around also helps to minimize waiting time if I have large areas that I'm waiting on to dry (i.e. the background). Instead of setting the painting aside and waiting, I can easily move onto another non-adjacent portion. Frequent technique question I get is, "How do you keep colors from all just blending together?" Easy, just don't paint next to a wet area unless you intend the colors to bleed. Although the skipping around is mostly random, I do generally move from the background up towards the foreground.

A couple reasons for that background->foreground order:

* To give distance, background elements are less crisp in detail. e.g. the spreading tree branches, wet on wet in some places to really let them fade out into the surrounding green.

* Easier to lay crisp edges of foreground elements on top of the background. Therefore I can kinda be messy about background stuff early on. Not too much since we are dealing with transparent watercolors, but some amount of leeway for messiness can be compensated for with lifting, or just by painting much more saturated foreground colors on top of.

* Speaking of saturation, since I was lazy and decided to skip doing color roughs, I really have very little idea about where I'm going with this piece for colors. I wanted green woods, so that part is a semi-gimme. And so it's been easier (brainless) to proceed with the each [choices] first. The more defined color choices have been put off so far. I'm still not sure whether I want that large foreground tree on the left to be reddish-brown, or purple-black. But by painting the colors that I'm certain of first I can narrow the possibilities for the uncertain areas gradually until the choice becomes much easier. A kind of organic process of elimination.

Closeups on some of the foxes I got to today!

Tam Lin - The Faery Host some fuzzy in-progress shots

Got more painting done than I would have thought today. I suspect not being able to get on the internet would have something to do with that productiveness.... Anyway, this is way too big to do any in-progress scans. I don't intend to tackle scanning it again (after that initial sketch scan) until it's complete. But since I had several requests for photos, here are some badly lit, fuzzy photos.

Beginnings - Learned? Self-taught?

The question is often posed whether I studied art somewhere or was self-taught (and if the former, what suggestions and recommendations I can offer). The answer to that always seems rather complicated. I took many art classes all my life, whenever the opportunity presented itself. If I had the option for an ~art class~ or ~something else~ I invariably chose the art. Electives throughout middle and high school. Summer courses. And when I was at University of California in Berkeley from 1994-1998 studying Computer Science, I did also snag an art degree as well (more on that later).

So I've always had a creative background and exercised my drawing and painting skills. I feel that all of that laid the groundwork for basic concepts that I take for granted these days - like color theory, blending, perspective, composition. If it wasn't exactly focused or intense studies of any of these, it was at the very least an understanding and integration of the vocabulary of art into the way that I think. You don't ever think about learning to speak your first language - it just happens as you develop; I feel that way about art and how the concepts of color and light are simply a part of how I think.

My painting style today was not the result of any dedicated course of study, nor reference to technique books. I never sat down and specifically took any class on watercolors or illustration. In this way I do feel that I am self-taught. But to use that term "self taught" seems to deny the wealth of disparate experiences and backdrop of artistic expression that guided me to evolve and grow as an artist.

I was at University of California in Berkeley from 1994-1998, studying Computer Science and doubling in Art. I'm frequently asked by students if they should consider going to Berkeley for Art. I didn't even go to Berkeley for art. I went there for their wonderful Computer Science program because at that time I had every intention of following a sensible career course and entering the workforce as a software programmer. I had been convinced by the time I entered college by various high school career advisers that making a living with art was a hopeless endeavor. My choice of school was purely to get myself an education with good career options (also I did grow up with a computer-geek father, and so I actually do enjoy programming). Art would be side hobby.As I mentioned earlier though, I was always picking up art classes on the side when opportunities arose. I began taking so many art electives that I eventually decided to simply double major.

What kind of art classes were these though? Certainly nothing of the sort you would expect from seeing my art these days. I spent those four years smashing bottles and gluing them back together, throwing paint and drips onto canvases, digging through junkyards to put together found-object art installations.... It amazed (and saddened) me to find how quickly freshmen learned to look at any work that was remotely representational and say with a faint sneer to their voice, "It looks illustrational." (Which was the worst possible thing imaginable!) I found it ironic that in the name of being open-minded and accepting of all forms of Art, they immediately shut out so many possibilities, and closed their thoughts to a whole arena of expression. I was disappointed, but determined to make the most of the experience, and not to close my mind to these more abstract forms of art. I threw myself (and my paints) wholeheartedly into it. (Incidentally, we were not allowed to use watercolors in any of the classes. It was deemed "an illustrator's medium").

And then in my spare time at night after my assignments were done, I did illustrations ("illustrational!!!!") for various Fanzines. I can't even remember the names of all of the fanzines any longer, except for one Moonlight Masquerade. They were distributed by snail mail. No ezines yet in those days. Labors of love!

That whole experience has shaped my opinion of art school. I believe that the most vital key to making your way into the world as an artist is not found in any class. I'll grant that there are many classes and schools out there that are vastly different from my personal experience; but courses can't put the drive to create art in your heart. And daily practice - forcing your eyes to see and your hands to understand how to make that translation from eye to mind to paper, is better than any teacher.

Even as my Berkeley graduation date approached, I still thought that I would be a software programmer, art hobbyist; but I distinctly remember when that changed in my head. I had just returned from a career fair, talking with recruiters from all kinds of tech companies. This was at the height of the dot-com BOOM! Programmers were in such high demand that some companies were offering bonuses to students to leave their studies and just come to work now. I had many promising leads.

All that evening I found I was inexplicably depressed. I couldn't understand the cause of it, for my prospects were looking fairly good. It was only when I realized that though I did enjoy programming, I did not want to do it for a living; that I wanted to draw and paint. Art was vital to my happiness and I couldn't conceive of it being secondary any longer. With that realization I took a few days to weigh my options and finally formulated a plan. I would take a software position, and the relative comfort and security of that job would allow me to have the funds to pursue art. It would afford time to put together a portfolio and seriously explore avenues. I had only begun to go to some of the local smaller conventions. I wanted to travel further afield to some of the larger shows I had heard of (GenCon! Dragoncon! Comic-Con!) The programming knowledge came in handy in that I was able to get started right away with writing my own website. Nifty programs that helped non-programmers create webpages were another thing that didn't really exist yet at the time.

.to be continued. Getting towards the midnight hour!

(Part 2 - Continuation of this thread can be found -here-)