Artists need to do the equivalent of playing scales sometimes. I was reminded of that recently when an artist friend on Facebook posted about being frustrated by a plein air painting she had struggled with and then commented on how she wanted to get “looser”, a common wish among painters who are starting to feel trapped by detail.
I recommended a great book to her: 60 Minutes to Better Painting by Craig Nelson, who runs the Fine Art Dept. and teaches painting at my alma mater, the Academy of Art University (but who, unfortunately, didn’t arrive until a few years after I graduated).
The next day I realized that I could use some short study work myself, especially on landscapes. So that’s what I’ve been up to the past two days, doing some one-hour paintings.
I did the first couple with a big round brush, like the kind I generally use on my finished work, but it wasn’t the right brush for this kind of fast painting because I couldn’t get the type of edges I wanted. So I switched to a #6 Silver Brush Grand Prix flat and that was much better. All four are 8×10″, oil on canvasboard.
My main goal for this set was to work on value relationships and light effects.
Ocean View- near our home on the north coast of California (round brush)Ikh Bogd Uul, the Gobi, Mongolia, July 2010Stupa, Bogd Khan, near Ulaanbaatar, August 2011The steppe at sundown, near Bayanuur, camping trip, Mongolia, August 2011
We arrived at the Steppe Nomads ger camp at Gun-Galuut Nature Reserve with a broken rear spring on the Land Cruiser, not sure what this meant for the remainder of the trip. While Pokey and I settled in, Khatnaa got on his mobile phone and called the Nomadic Journeys’ office to sort things out. We got laundry done and took welcome hot showers.
That night, at dinner, Khatnaa explained the situation. He would need to take the car out to the tarmac road (13km on earth road each way to get to and from the reserve) the next afternoon to meet up with someone from UB who would bring the new spring out. Then it would have to be installed. How long? Half a day. Did we want the office to also send out a new guide and driver to finish the trip or would we wait for the repair? That decision took about two seconds….we’d wait and finish the trip together. In any case, Pokey and I weren’t sorry to have a break to simply hang around camp and relax.
Khatnaa then said that the car was drivable, with care, and we would go out the next morning at 6am, which is exactly what we did. I was impressed by what he considered staying on “easy” roads. We parked and took a good, long hike down to where he thought we might see argali, which we spotted off in the distance almost as soon as we stopped to glass the mountain.
We also got great photos of a big herd of Mongol horses and cranes, but really had to dodge the mosquitos. Back at the ger camp around 1pm, Khatnaa grabbed a quick lunch and took off. To our surprise and pleasure he was back at 5:15, after having to replace BOTH back springs because the replacement was longer than the original one. Dinner was quite festive with beers all around.
We only had one day at Gun-Galuut, but it was a full one, packed with great scenery and animals.
Steppe Nomads Tourist CampMorning coffee in front of my ger in my comfy Mongol del and felt slippersEarly morning light along the Kherlen Gol with Baits Uul ahead on the right12-13 argali grazing; look in the middle among the shrubs for the white dots which are their rumps; why good binoculars are a mustRiverside viewLocal herder's gers with a line of grey herons in frontI believe this is a Japanese quail chickThe horses we got great photos of, with the ger camp in the background; they were in the water to get away from the mosquitosEndangered white-napped cranesSmall toadFrogWetland and mountain, with cranesMore of the horses; in the afternoon a breeze had come up which kept the mosquitos away, from us at leastSometimes the action got pretty hot and heavyFirst time I ever saw a caterpiller in Mongolia
That evening Khatnaa told us that the next day’s drive wouldn’t be a long one, so we would go out into the reserve in the morning and leave after lunch. We went around the “backside” of the mountain, the side away from the river, parked in a draw, got out and almost immediately spotted four big rams running over a ridge to our right. I only was able to get a couple of butt shots before they were gone. But, within minutes, we spotted an argali ewe and lamb to our left. And then a large group moving up the draw directly in front of us, but a pretty long ways off. It’s estimated that there are less than 100 argali in Gun-Galuut, so we saw a fairly good percentage of the population in two tries.
Argali Ewe and lambGood-sized spider
We drove to the next draw over where we hoped the argali rams had gone, but saw no one. Pokey wanted to do some sketching, so she stayed with the car while Khatnaa and I hiked up onto the mountain again. Coming around a ridge, the view opened up to the entire river valley. We found a couple of rocks to sit on and simply enjoyed the scenery for a half hour. It was so quiet, except for the occasional animal. No cars, no planes, no radios, no voices. Just. Quiet. One of the things I treasure about being in the Mongolian countryside.
View of the Kherlen Gol valley, looking eastOf course I had to have my picture takenBack down on the wetland, we spotted a whooper swanA beautiful butterflyAnd on the other side of the river, a pair of demoiselle cranesOn our way out of the reserve that afternoon, we stopped by this small lake to photograph another whooper swanThis enormous coal mine at Baikhanuur is visible from the road to and from the reserve
Next week: Onward to Jalman Meadows in the Hentii Mountains
Yak Herder-Hentiii Mountains, Mongolia 18x14" oil (price on request)
And here’s the step by step process by which I created this painting:
The reference photo I used of a local man who hauled water to the Jalman Meadows ger camp where I was staying with another artist this past August.I started out with a raw sienna toned RayMar canvasboard and began with a loose brush drawing for placement and position of the head and features. I've already changed him into a del instead of western clothes.Next I established the light and shadow areas.I re-drew the features and started to add some color.I went darker with the background and launched into modeling his head.I was using two or three other photos for the del and continued to model his head, paying particular attention to the features, value relationships and the various colors in the shadows.At this point I realized that the del was opening the wrong way due to the other photos i was using and that I needed much better reference for itI'd had del made for myself and my husband in 2009. He was kind enough to model for me in his.I decided to finish the bottom to the edge of the canvas and I also lightened up the background. So, once more, "Yak Herder-Hentii Mountains, Mongolia"
(This is a re-post since for some unknown reason it was posted as a Page, not a post when I originally did it last Friday)
While I first went to Mongolia for the wildlife, after a trip or two I started to notice the domestic animals, what the Mongols call The Five Snouts: horses, sheep, goats, camels, and cattle, which include “real” cattle and also yaks.
Mongol yaks are found in the northern part of the country, up in the mountains. Like the other “snouts”, they provide a number of products and functions, including being trained for riding. There will be a painting of that at some point, which I saw in the Hangai Mountains in 2010.
Sometimes they are crossed with cattle to create a hybrid called a “khainag”, which are stronger than the pure yaks and more easily trained to pull carts. But they don’t really look the same. The heads are a somewhat different shape and the coat can be much shorter.
The pure yaks make me smile whenever I see them. The cow yak in the painting is one that I saw this past August at Gun-Galuut Nature Reserve.
Here’s a step-by step of “Checking You Out”:
The reference photo. Not great light, but I liked her head with its fuzzy topknot and white muzzle; I also wanted to work on doing a 3/4 view.I decided that a square format would work well and started on a tinted canvas with a brush drawing, both in raw siennaThe next step is to get color all over the canvas and establish the relative values of her head, going darker; I'm always correcting the drawing as needed as I paintI now have my darkest dark areas in a cool tone and will come in lighter and warmer over it. The muzzle's been moved a little and the eyes re-stated also.Everything is now set up for the final push as I will refine shapes, tweak edges and work on value contrastOnce again....Checking You Out 12x12" oil (price on request)
The next leg of the artist’s tour was from Ikh Nart to Gun-Galuut Nature Reserve. I had only been there once, in 2009, driving east from Ulaanbaatar. This time we were going to go almost straight north…we hoped.
Great bustard we spotted not long after we left the reserve. It was the first time I had ever seen one.
We got back to the main tarmac road between Ulaanbaatar and China and traveled on it for awhile. Then we passed a spot where a dirt road went off to the right at an angle. Khatnaa started to drive on, spotted a white van coming toward the tarmac, stopped, backed up, got out and walked over to them as they slowed down and then stopped. After a short conversation, he came back to the car, backed us up and off we went onto the earth road. He had been able to get enough information about weather and road conditions that he felt ok about taking the “local road”. As usual, this made me very happy.
Why you don't just pick up a rental car at the airport and head out into the countryside in Mongolia on your own. You can now get a good road atlas, but it's deceiving because this is what the roads are like all over the country except for a very few wide gravel roads and a slowly increasing amount of tarmac on main routes.We drove through a small soum center.As we headed north, there was a dark storm front to our left and fluffy white clouds and sunshine to our right. The road going north was running right along the front. We were out in steppe countryside with no one else around...not a single other car, not even a ger.After some spatters, we found ourselves traveling in pretty heavy rain for about 15-20 minutes and then came to a stream that we had to cross. Now I started to wonder what the road conditions would be up ahead of us.The light was really spectacular, though, as we went up some in elevation and started to see gers again. It had stopped raining where we were, but was still stormy to the west and north of us.Dropping down into a valley and, crossing it, we encountered something I'd seen before....really hard greyish dried mud combined with many very deep potholes. Khatnaa, with extreme care, had almost picked our way through it when we felt the rear end on the passenger side drop down hard, accompanied by a noise that didn't sound good at all. He pulled over on a level spot and crawled under the car. The verdict? The spring (new and Chinese-made) was broken. What to do? We drove on very carefully. VERY carefully.What Khatnaa knew, that I didn't, was that over the rise that you can see almost in the middle in the above photo was our destination, the Steppe Nomads ger camp at Gun-Galuut. With much creaking and care, we made it over the pass and across the valley to the camp.
Those of you who have followed this blog for awhile know that I’ve been going to Ikh Nart since my first trip in 2005. This time I had the pleasure of sharing the reserve with a fellow artist, Pokey Park.
Wildlife being what it is, one never knows what one will see on a given trip, or even if. But this visit exceeded our every reasonable expectation. For two of the four days, it seemed like we could hardly go an hour as we drove around the reserve without seeing argali, ibex, argali and ibex in the same place or cinereous vultures, a golden eagle or other birds. And we had sightings both other days, but not nearly as often.
The universe being what it is, on our way out of the reserve we drove through one of the areas where we had had multiple sightings of argali and ibex the previous morning and saw not a single animal.
We stayed at Nomadic Journey's Red Rock Ger CampIkh Nart landscapeScanning for argali and ibexBut I was the lucky one who first spotted a single ram, who then joined up with a big group making ten all together. What a sight they were!We maneuvered through the rocks, caught up and re-sighted them three timesThey've seen something, we had no idea whatGolden eagleA herder's winter shelter for his livestockOne of the pictographs on the rock cliffWe went to the valley where the research camp is located and got great sightings of a large group of ibexAnd for a bonus, a beautiful sunsetWe also were able to follow this group of ewes and lambsHow many sheep can you see?They are totally at home in these rocky uplandsBlack kiteWe drove south to see the pictographs and Tibetan inscriptions on the cliff in the backgroundPokey helped fill the troughs; it's a Mongol tradition that passersby will fill them if they are emptyIbex pictograph; researchers have just started to catalog and study the cultural resources of the reserve, of which there are manyArgali ewe and lambArgali ram
Starting next Tuesday, I’ll be teaching “Traditional Drawing” at Westhaven Center for the Arts. Here’s the information and if you live in central or northern Humboldt County, Calilfornia, I invite you to sign up.
Westhaven Center for the Arts
501 S. Westhaven Dr.
Trinidad, CA 95570
Tuesdays 7-9pm, Oct. 11-Nov. 22 (no class Nov. 1)
6 week sessions- $55
Beginner/Intermediate
Description: A traditional approach to drawing based on the methods used at the Academy of Art University, San Francisco. The emphasis will be on learning accurate observational and motor skills, fundamentals such as line, composition and values and putting all these together to develop a personal point of view. Students will be able to experiment with a variety of drawing media and papers while they draw an interesting variety of objects from Susan’s personal collection, many from her travels to countries such as Kenya and Mongolia. Painters who would like to polish their drawing skills are encouraged to sign up.
A required materials list will be provided, but students are also encouraged to bring their own favorite drawing supplies and paper. You will need a drawing board with attached, or a separate pair of large, clamps and an easel or tabletop prop to hold it in a vertical position.
Susan Fox, BFA Illustration, Academy of Art University, is a Signature Member of the Society of Animal Artists and a member of Oil Painters of America, California Art Club, Redwood Art Association and Westhaven Center for the Arts. Her paintings have been accepted into many national and regional juried shows and are included in a number of private collections. She works full-time as a oil painter, specializing in subjects from Mongolia and has loved to draw since she was a child.
Susan Fox, American Artist 