Paintings and process

Fieldwork for Wildlife Artists-What I Use

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I’m leaving for Mongolia on August 24, coming home on September 21st. As is the case with fieldwork in any really “interesting” place, self-sufficiency is critical. As is the ability to “get the shot”, which means the camera equipment has to be reliable and ready to go at all times.

On the road in western Mongolia, Sept. 2006; some of the “endless steppe” of Central Asia

Camp kitchen at Khar Us Nuur, last night out. Trusty Russian Furgon van in the background.

Here’s a list of the gear and art stuff that I need to do my job in the field and bring home the reference that is a large part of why I’m spending the money to go to countries like Mongolia in the first place.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Bag and The Big Lens

2 Nikon D80 camera bodies

1 AF-VR Nikkor 80-400mm lens (effective 600mm on a digital body)

1 Promaster (made by Tamron) 28-300mm lens

Two bodies, two lenses because, with wildlife, there’s never time to swap them, plus risk of dust, dirt, drops

4 2GB memory cards; two Promasters, purchased when I got the camera bodies from my local photography store and two SanDisk Extreme III’s, which are designed to perform in cold, heat, wind, etc.

1 40GB Firelight external hard drive

For the first time- my MacBook Pro. I’ve used Flashtrax and Wolverine external hard drives for storage and back-up till now. This time I’m going to download onto my MacBook and back-up to the Firelight. The MacBook has Photoshop Elements on it, so my hope and plan is to be able to view and create jpgs of some of my images during the trip and post them to my blog when I have internet access. I’ve been interested for awhile now in location-independent functioning for artists and this will be my first experiment in staying connected and sharing the trip in almost “real time”. My husband, an IT professional, will be along for most of the trip, so he’ll be my tech support.

Extra batteries; for a total of four

Battery charger

Inverter for recharging batteries using a vehicle cigarette lighter, critical on the road when there is no reliable access to electricity

I-Sun solar charger; Mongolia does have sun over 300 days a year, so having one of those available was a no-brainer

Probably the Nikon Coolpix for ultimate back-up or for around town

ART STUFF

Fieldwork supplies plus piece done at Hustai National Park ger camp, Sept. 2006

Plastic box with gel pens, carbon pencils, kneaded eraser, sharpener, travel watercolor brush

Some additional brushes

Pelikan gouache 24 pan kit; I like the gouache because it can be used opaquely or transparently

Aqua Tote water holder; folds flat

Aquabee Superdeluxe Sketch Book, 8″x9″- heavy paper that can take any media; I’ll use it for my journal, too.

Annigoni 100% cotton paper, acid free; a natural beige color which provides the same medium value as putting a toned wash on a canvas for oil painting; The inspiration here was Thomas Moran’s fabulous “sketches” from his travels to Yellowstone, done on toned paper, using white “body color”, i.e. gouache, for the lightest areas.

Rags from old clothes, napkins from various restaurants

TO HAUL IT ALL AROUND

My faithful photo vest; why should photographers have all the good stuff?

1 Domke Super Compact camera bag

1 Domke PhotTogs vest, which I’ve had since 1999; two trips to Kenya, two to Mongolia, plus Yellowstone five or six times and wherever else and it still looks embarassingly new. It’s more or less a substitute for a day pack and has the advantage that everything is more quickly available than if it was in the pack and  it also leaves the hands free. I don’t take a sketchbook bigger than will fit in one of the lower front pockets. The patches are just for fun, but have been good conversation starters over the years. I’ve heard some great stories and gotten useful tips on where to see various species.

1 REI daypack; which gets carried on the plane and holds my laptop, book, plane tickets, hotel/rental car confirmations; folder of other trip info., steel water bottle (which is refilled once I’m through security), protein bars (because I never, ever travel without some food, just in case), and my TravelSmith purse, which has a steel cable inserted into the shoulder strap and zippers which all zip forward under my arm (and that foiled a pickpocket once, as it was designed to).

PLUS, I ALWAYS HAVE

1 Platypus water system for hiking hands-free and still being able to drink water regularly without messing with the daypack. Mongolia has VERY low humidity, so staying hydrated is important. Essentially it’s a water bag that goes in the pack and has a tube that I clip to my vest, so it’s easy to take a sip as wanted.

2-3 Protein bars

1 Pair sturdy hiking boots, ankle high for support on rough ground; a twisted ankle can be serious business in a country with not much in the way of western standard medical facilities (medical air evacuation insurance is a must, also)

1 hat with a full 360 brim and a chin cord

1 Magellen GPS, so I can go off on my own and find my way back. Very liberating!

A handful of bandaids and a compact first aid kit, a bandana, Swiss Army knife, kleenex, sunglasses, lip balm, sunscreen, passport, phrasebook

Maybe most important of all, an open mind, patience, a willingness to go with the flow and find the humor in the ridiculous things that happen when one travels.

FINALLY

Had a great turnout for the Wild Visions 2 show reception last Friday night! Pretty much non-stop. The show was very well-received. Lots of compliments. Here’s a couple of photos:

The bighorns are my newest major work “Heavy Lies the Head”. Terrific custom frame by Mark at Southstream Art Services.

A few of Shawn Gould’s paintings

Fieldwork for Wildlife Artists

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When I made the decision to specialize in animal subjects, I also took a deep breath and made a personal commitment to reach the highest level of excellence that I was capable of (still chugging away). Then I researched the approach and working methods of the best current and past wildlife artists, figuring the odds were that they knew a few things that would be useful to me.

And guess what, not a single one of them, (including Bob Kuhn, Carl Rungius, Wilhelm Kuhnert, all unfortunately deceased) like Robert Bateman, Guy Coholeach, Ken Carlson, Dino Paravano, Lindsay Scott, Julie Chapman or Laney, to name some of my favorites, rely on other people’s photos except to supplement their own for specific elements, only go to zoos or game ranches or work exclusively from photos to the exclusion of anything else. They GET OFF THEIR BUTTS, pick up their sketchbooks along with their cameras and hit the road to where the animals are.

This is not a field for the lazy. Even if your passion is the songbirds and squirrels that you can see in your own backyard, you still need to do fieldwork. Believe me, it shows in the work to those who know.

(Endangered Rothschild’s Giraffe and I at the Kigio Nature Conservancy, Kenya or Why I Like Fieldwork.)

There is no substitute for seeing an animal in its own habitat. This was brought home to me when I went to Kenya and saw lions, elephants and warthogs “in context” for the first time. The warthogs in the Masai Mara were the same color as a lot of the rocks. Thirty elephants emerged from trees lining a river bank. They had been invisible. The only evidence of their presence was that the tops of the trees were moving. We were at most 50′ away. The lions are very similar in color to the dried grass.

The prey species like wildebeest and zebra had a vibe that is totally lacking in the ones I’ve seen in zoos. In the wild they have to Pay Attention and work to survive. The zoo animals don’t have to do either and it shows in their body language.

You need:

A good digital SLR: Point and shoot won’t do it. Too slow to catch movement and you can’t change out lenses if necessary

The sketchbook of your choice: you may have to try some different ones to find a combination of paper and pen/pencil that works for you

Pens/pencils: So many possibilities. I use fine point gel pens for the most part because they don’t smear and I can’t fuzt around and erase.

Patience: In ten years, I have found that, on average, a given animal will do something at least mildly interesting or worth recording within about twenty minutes, but you have to be willing to sit and watch and watch and watch and……., even in zoos

Curiosity: Which translates into a willingness to learn about your subjects, not just settle for superficial appearance

Imagination: I’ve been in the field with other artists who seemed to be trying to capture “The Pose” that they would then faithfully reproduce on canvas. I often seemed to be the only one whose shutter was firing. Why? Because I’ve learned that you can never know in advance what you will find useful and when you’ve spent hundreds or thousands of dollars to get to a place, it’s crazy to stint on reference collection, especially with digital cameras and the ever dropping price of memory cards.

The Payoff? Great, unique reference (how many cougar paintings have you seen recently that were obviously from the same captive animal shot in the same locations? Yawn.), your memories of what it was like to be there which will somehow seep into your work, stories to accompany the paintings that will interest collectors and the possibility of seeing things very few people are privileged to.

Here’s a few examples of shots taken on the off-chance they might come in handy sometime. Not necessarily interesting to anyone but me.

The Gobi Desert near my ger camp. Useful elements: cloudy sky, distant mountains, September grass, lay of the land, gravely surface, rocks with red lichen.

Grab shot from Lewa Downs Conservancy, Kenya. It’s a little blurry, but turns out to be the only tree that I’ve seen with that trunk color. It will be the perfect element for something, sometime.

Photographing the animals is a no-brainer, but don’t forget their habitat. I know what animals live in the Conservancy where I took this picture, so I know who could be found in this neat waterhole setting.

On the banks of the Ewaso Ngiro river in the Samburu, northern Kenya. We have: a little of the water for context (where did I take that picture?), grass, some kind of spiky leaved plant just coming up (needs to be identified), doum palm nuts and frond droppings and…..elephant dung. This was taken right in camp.

And, nearby, is a doum palm that has been partly rubbed smooth by elephants.

And here are some elephants. Nothing spectacular by itself (well, other than the fact that I’m seeing them in Kenya, of course!). But the preceeding photos provide context and additional elements that could be used with the photo below to create something more interesting and memorable.

I realize that these are exotic locations that many artists can’t get to or aren’t interested in, but the principle applies no matter where you are. Get out into the field and see as much as you can of everything around you. Filter that through your interests and passions as an artist and it will shine through in your work.

ART THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

“Now the light was fading fast. We had to hurry to reach the gate before 7 pm, but just as we were leaving the plains, Dave said urgently, ‘Stop! Stop!’ Thirty yards from the road, a lion and lioness stood silhouetted by the setting sun. She moved against him, rubbing her body on his great shaggy main, and twitched her tail high in the air. Then, blatantly sensual, she crouched on the ground and the big male mounted her. The coupling was brief and ended with a climax of impressive snarls before she rolled onto her back in evident satisfaction.”

Simon Combes, from Great Cats: Stories and Art from a World Traveler

Thanks, Simon. (Photo from Oct. 2004 art workshop/safari led by Simon Combes two months before he was tragically killed by a cape buffalo. More images from the safari and a memorial page to Simon on my website)

A Pot of Paint

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Anyone who has been to art workshops knows that there always seems to be someone who is almost obsessive about finding out what paint, brushes and supports the instructor uses. The idea seems to be that if they can use what the teacher uses, by some kind of magical osmosis they’ll be able to paint like the teacher paints.

Fortunately, it doesn’t work that way. After all, if creating good work was only a matter of using the right combination of materials, it would take all the fun out of painting- for a sufficiently broad definition of “fun”. Sometimes trying to gain mastery or even competence in an art media is an exercise in frustration, disappointment and self-doubt. And then there are those too short times when the painting seems to paint itself and you’re just along for the ride.

With all that in mind, I thought I’d blog a bit about what materials I’ve ended up using after my first twelve+ years of painting in oil. Use any or all of it at your own risk. This week, I’ll start with paint.

I began with a pretty standard palette, courtesy of my first teacher. White, black, warm/cool red, yellow, blue, green, plus three or four earth colors and then some “fancy” colors that would have had Rembrandt spinning in his grave and Gauguin breaking into my studio in the dead of night.

Then I went to Scott Christensen’s ten day plein air intensive. Four color palette (plus a couple of tube greys): titanium white, Rembrandt Permanent Red Medium, Winsor Newton (W/N) Ultramarine Blue and Winsor Newton Cadmium Yellow Pale. And my “color choices” exploded. I discovered a whole world of more muted, restrained color that I was barely aware of before. A limited palette solves the “color harmony” problem, too, since every color probably has at least a titch (the technical term) of all the others in it.

Here’s my first four color study from before I left so I could see how it worked a little, followed by two 20 minute exercises done at his workshop-

These are two studies I did after I got home. I think you can see that one isn’t really limited at all as far as color and what you can do with it. Value relationships and color temperature shifts become more important than having a particular tube color.

I pretty much stayed with that palette for over two years. For me, the main limit I bumped up against is that I’m an animal artist, not a landscape painter, and I really felt the need for a color I picked up at a Paco Young workshop, Rembrandt Transparent Oxide Red. It’s perfect for so many animals that I do. Then I found that the warmer Cadmium Yellow Medium worked better for me than the cooler Pale. Then I found myself gazing longingly at the dioxine purple, then my beloved sap green……

Presently, having realized that I’m really more of a colorist than a tonalist, I’ve added more punchy colors back so my paintings will have the emotional content I want. These days I use, from left to right on my 18″z24″ glass palette:  Rembrandt Transparent Oxide Red, Rembrandt Permanent Red Medium, W/N Cadmium Orange, W/N Yellow Oxide Pale, W/N Cadmium Yellow Medium, W/N Titanium White, W/N Ultramarine Blue, Rembrandt King’s Blue, (sometimes Rembrandt Turquoise Blue, for extra warm blues), W/N Dioxine Purple, W/N Sap Green, W/N Viridian. I very occasionally use W/N Raw Sienna, mostly to tint my canvas before starting, but otherwise I mix my own earth colors, greys and black (ultramarine blue, transparent oxide red).

I do small (6″x8″ to 8″x10″) studies to try out painting ideas and for those I use the four-color palette because I can come back to them months later and I know exactly what colors I used. Here’s three, two of which went on to become finished paintings, so far. Yes, those are Roosevelt Elk on the beach north of where I live in Redwood National Park. The finished painting is called, what else, The Beach Boys, and is in a private collection.

The most important thing is not how many or how few colors you use, but that you know why you are using them and that you use them well.

The “Pot of Paint” reference in the post title is part of another of my favorite artist stories, which will be part of Friday Features.

Friday Features

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BACKYARD BIRD LIST

Six or so red crossbills are still showing up most days. There was a group of fox sparrows last weekend. Our hummingbird-friendly plants are really starting to bloom. I was sitting here at my desk and look who showed up outside my french doors? I was able to grab the camera and get some shots through the glass. Sometimes lucky is better than good. Looks like a male Allen’s hummingbird to me.

Speaking of hummer plants, here’s my 50 cent, 4″ pot white verbascum that I rescued off an end-of-season sale table the year before last. Is that a happy plant or what? I’m going to have to move the poor little heather underneath it before it’s completely smothered. Or I may move the verbascum to a more spacious location. I didn’t think it would get quite this big.

ART TALK

I finished the bighorn painting and took it to the framer only a little wet in a few areas. When it was laying on the counter, I saw a spot in the sky I missed, which I’ll fix when I get it back. But it reminded me of one of my favorite artist stories:

Every year the Royal Academy in London has its Summer Exhibition. We were lucky to be in England and able to attend some years ago. The galleries looked like in old photos you see: work stacked from the floor to the very high ceilings. Those whose paintings ended up in “nosebleed” country called it “being skied”.

William Mallord Turner (b. 1755 d. 1851) was a regular participant, although his work mystified many of his comtemporaries and the general public. “Varnishing Days” were the three to five days before the exhibition opened when the artists could come in and put on a final varnish or touch up their paintings. Turner became somewhat famous for this and is said to have deliberately brought in unfinished paintings so that he could show off his technique. Imagine any of us doing that today? It would be like Robert Bateman showing up at the opening of his current retrospective, palette, brushes and paint in hand to add a few more snowflakes to his famous snow leopard painting. Turner showed up dressed for town and S.W. Parrott was inspired to create this permanent record, which is reproduced here in black and white. How do you dress when you’re in the studio?

PLANET SAVER TIP FOR THE DAY

Speaking of Robert Bateman, besides creating a lot of the best wildlife art of this or any other century, he is a tenacious advocate for the environment. You can read what he has to say at www.batemanideas.com

ART THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Thoreau

Bobcat and Bighorns

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The bobcat painting is done. I’ve called it “Stepping Lightly”. It will make it’s debut at Wild Visions2, the group show with five other Humboldt County artists next month. The opening reception will be August 9 from 6-9pm. More later about the show and the other artists.

“Stepping Lightly”                   oil                               18″x24″

Now, a cautionary tale about reference and using captive animals as models.

I’m doing a painting that is a first for me, three panels. Here’s the reference I’m using. The animals were photographed at the Denver Zoo and the landscape is from up on Logan Pass in Glacier National Park.

Is that a great pose or what? It was morning, warm and sunny, and the ram was getting sleepier and sleepier and finally his head gently dropped onto the ewe’s back. She never even twitched. Click. Gotta paint it. But where to put them? I chose this rocky outcropping in Glacier because I liked the shapes and knew that bighorns were often seen in the area. I did a preliminary drawing of the animals with the idea of showing them on a shelf of rocks. I wanted to communicate how comfortable bighorns are in an environment that we would find “challenging”. Here’s an in-progress shot that shows my setup with my iMac.

It’s great because Aperture lets me zoom in and out as needed very easily.

Another in-progress shot with the side panels propped on either side. At this point, I sent a jpeg to wildlife artist Laney, who has said nice things about my work the couple of times I have met her. She specializes in bighorns and I wanted her to eyeball the animals for drawing or any other problems. She replied very promptly and said that overall it looked good, but that the ewe’s hoof was in the wrong position compared to the rest of the leg and that the ram’s muzzle was too thin.

I went back to my reference and compared what I had with an absolutely wonderful book, Mountain Royalty, by famous Alaska artist Doug Lindstrand. As you can see from my photo, the ram in particular is shedding out, so it was a little hard to see the structure. Doug’s photos solved that problem and there was even a picture of a ram in a similiar position.

What I ultimately found was that while I had accurately drawn what was in my reference, it wasn’t “right”. The ewe’s hoof was at that funny angle, but that didn’t mean I should paint it that way, so I fixed it. When I compared my reference ram’s head with the ones in the book, I found that his head was really quite odd. Longer, thinner and with a roman nose that was much more exaggerated than the wild sheep. So I fixed his muzzle and re-proportioned his head as needed.

The other question I had for Laney was whether or not this behavior might be observed in the wild. She replied that the rams were only with the ewes in winter, so maybe I’d like to add some snow. Ah, well. In the zoo, of course, the animals are pretty much together all year around. In the wild when I shot my reference at the beginning of May, it was unlikely. Cue the snow reference. And, what I found was that it was the frosting on the cake since it brought the cool of the sky into the rock area and helped pull the whole thing together. Thanks Laney!

The moral of this story is that you can’t have too much reference, don’t assume that zoo or captive animals look the same as wild ones, do your fieldwork and learn about your subjects and finally, it is tremendously helpful to have a knowledgeable eye like Laney’s to look over what you’ve done and to it keep on track.

I finish the painting today and it goes in for framing tomorrow. I’ll post an image of it once it’s on the wall at the show.

ART THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

Franklin P. Jones

Drawings from live animals and new painting

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From the stats it looks like the post of my pet sketches was one of my most popular so far, so here’s more. These are done the way I usually work, with a fine tip gel pen. They’re done fast. Under five minutes, sometimes under two.

Niki, our tri-color rough collie

From the San Francisco Zoo. He really did hold still long enough for this head study.

These were ultra-quick, a minute or less, but I caught the gesture. Also San Francisco Zoo.

And, looking through my old sketchbooks, I came across the studies I did at Julie Chapman’s workshop in 2005. These are of Daisy, the badger, who alas, is no longer with us. Notice that I didn’t worry about eyes. I was trying to capture “badgerness”.

If you decide to try this, and I hope you do, keep in mind that every animal is an individual and look for what makes them them. If you like what I do, I think that’s a big part of it.

I’ll end with the bobcat painting, now called “Stepping Lightly”. I’m thinking of punching up the highlights on grass and maybe futzing (that’s the technical term, of course) with the logs some more, but that’s about it.

PLANET SAVER TIP OF THE DAY

This one’s easy. Start to become aware of how you use energy. You can save money and help slow down climate change by using less and using it more wisely. Just little stuff to start- turn lights off when you leave a room, don’t leave the tv on if no one is watching, turn your thermostat down a couple of degrees or up, depending on the temperature where you are.

Now, you must know that this kind of thing, while necessary and desirable, is the “low hanging fruit”. It requires simple changes of habit, not real sacrifice. If you’re already doing the above and are ready and able to take the next steps, consider updating your older appliances to new, energy-efficient models. Change your incandescent light bulbs to compact flourescents or LEDs.

For more information and actions you can take, check out www.motherearthnews.com and www.builditsolar.com

What ideas would you like to pass on to me and my readers? We’re all in this together, after all.

News Flash!

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“Autumn” has been accepted into the 16th Annual Juried Art Competition Show and Sale at the Breckenridge Fine Arts Center! It will be there from August 25 through September 28.

Paintings in Progress

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A few of you may remember that I was posting images of an elk painting in progress. I’m sure the suspense has been killing you. As it happens, it was a bust. Too many problems with the drawing of the elk that I saw after I’d let it sit awhile. Win some, lose some.

But here are two that are well on the way-

First is a bobcat I photographed at the Triple D Game Ranch and transferred to a more interesting setting that I shot on the Firehole River in Yellowstone. The trick, of course, is to make the light match when the reference is from two different locations, like Montana vs. Wyoming. However, both are morning light.

The second is Mt. Moran at Grand Tetons National Park with the famous Oxbow of the Snake River in the foreground. I’ve got three pieces of reference up for this one. One is overexposed for the mountains, but has the compositional angle I want and great reflections. The other two have rich color and show more detail of the mountain. For this subject, as I learned from a workshop I took a few years ago with Jim Wilcox, one has to introduce some atmospheric perspective in order for the painting to “read” correctly. The air is soooo clear that the Tetons look to be a few hundred yards away, but actually they are around 10-12 miles from the major vantage points along the road. So, getting the value relationships right is critical. And so is being decisive and accurate in the drawing of the mountain. It’s really a portrait in rock. Stay tuned.

ART THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

I see a flower. It gives me the sensation of the beautiful. I wish to paint it. And as soon as I wish to paint it I see the whole subject-flower-changed. It is now an art problem to resolve.

Georges Vantongerloo

To Finish Yesterday’s Post….

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I ran into serious problems posting the images of the kittens yesterday and finally gave it up and wrote to tech support. Turns out, doesn’t it figure, that it was something I had done with a setting that I shouldn’t have. But the reason I bring it up is to pass on how quick and great the tech support was! Three Cheers for WordPress!

So, since it’s the next day, here’s a new ART THOUGHT FOR THE DAY, one of my all-time favorites for truth and pithiness, from Edgar Degas, who knew a thing or two about painting:

“Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.”

NORTH COAST OPEN STUDIOS

Had a good turnout this year. Lots of nice people, many of them first time visitors. Here’s a photo of the studio ready to go, with Niki also ready to help with hosting. He appointed himself Official Escort To And From The Cars, much to the amusement of the attendees.

HOT OFF THE EASEL

Just finished this one yesterday. The reference was a print photo that I had been meaning to paint for ages. It’s important to see the warm tones in the snow leopard’s coat, which is similiar to polar bears. It’s an oil on canvas on board and is 24″x18″, so the head is life-sized or maybe a little larger. If you are interested in snow leopard conservation, check out the Snow Leopard Trust at www.snowleopard.org.